Rainbow illuminates

Saturday, October 4, 2008♥

♥ RAINBOWS

My LTC - 23-26 Sep 08

It’s Saturday today, one week before I had the same wake with some remains of fatigue from the last weekdays.

As many might have already know, I went to Ipoh from 23-26 Sep (tue-fri), with other student leaders for the Leaders Of Tomorrow aka LTC, the camp going on for years with success and good feedbacks from seniors. It’s one which enable all leaders to come together to exchange ideas, the goal of synergizing more results between clubs together in school.
(forgive my use of past n present tenses. It’s hard when u feel like tt’s e present.)

Hemm.. let me recall from that early Tuesday morning…

I packed my bag till 12am last night, and woke up at 4.30am. My heart was beating faster at the thought of going away for such an adventurous journey. All of the 50 campers and about 5 staffs set off from Kitcheners road at 7.30am (We go all the back to my starting point in the west as they used the Tuas Second link. I was =_= )

Clearing the customs, we travel on the North-South highway, straight up to Ipoh! There were mostly plantations, mountains, trees and the blue sky. The sight of the window is so different from Singapore’s traffic lights and buildings and pedestrians. Finally, we made it to IpohJ

We first arrived at the ballroom of Excelsior Hotel. It should be quite a class hotel in Ipoh town, to meet with Ipoh A who set off two days before us. (I’m in Ipoh B!). The Director of SAA Mr Liew was there, and we could really tell the difference between the two batches of campers, group of mobs (they really were, compared to us) VS sane people.
They were so noisy, and my side ate our buffet lunch peacefully.

After that, we continued upwards, up to the mountain where our MyGopeng Resort is!
The bus stopped at the foot. Most girls were arranged to go on a van, while we managed to crammed together, we saw a sight of lorry beside us. Never will I forget that scene!

It’s a lorry, filled with like 30 standing humans, all closely packed upright, tight and fit!
It’s the same like Bangladesh, where they transport labours to working sites, just that the people now are in clean proper clothings, without anyone clinging on to the bars from the outside.. The cher in my van told us our van is to Thailand, and theirs’ is to the slaughter house! If that were to be in Singapore, I dunno how the fine and imposements of the driver would be..

Once we reached, the instructor Joe briefed us, like we may find reception at the entrance area, never leave the place as we will never come back..
Then, we were told that, the electricity is out.
Which means, no lights along the lanes, toilets and canteen!

A MyGopeng resort, one of the best in the region.

Haha, that let us enjoyed our first meal, a candle-lit dinner!!

Blahs, let's all start..

Zohan Zohan [Good Good!]

After the groups introduction, and ice-breaking games (lead by my group Zohan!), Mr Jacob knew that there is one representative from Astronomers, and he happened to be in my group! So he first asked him how many constellations/combinations of stars now. And when I raised my head in curiousity, I was TOTALLY SHOCKED!!!

The entire sky, and I mean the entire boundless dark sky, was filled with lots and lots of stars. Big, bright, small, twinkling. It does not look real at all for me who doesn’t have much chance to catch any when our sky has so much clouds.

After 1 mins, Dan Dan (this is the real name) said he could identify 5. So everyone sat on the grass and listen to him. He was holding onto a silver pen that’s a little thicker And he pointed to the sky and the light, which appears white, focused onto the stars! The “AWE” from everyone was so ke-ai, as it’s really in unison. Jacob told us later that that’s a Star pointer, and one shine on the eye would mean instant blindness. The rate in s’pore is S$100+, but from the Net it will be $80+. We cant use it anyhow or pilots can complain.

So, he told us one known as the Summer Triangle. It’s has 3 very bright stars and they form a triangle when connected. There is one Sagittarius, which looks like a tilted teapot, with teacap and its teaspout. And there’s Scorpio, stretched with a long tail.

Pointing at the Summer Triangle

There’s one bright star, blinking, and that’s Jupiter! The last time I saw that was on an Astronomy book. The biggest planet in our Solar system seemed so near yet so far.. And there was a big oval patch across the sky, that’s the Milky Way. They are big clusters of stars which are very far, so they look hazy and blurred.

Along his talk, there was one bright strike across the sky. I thought i was seeing, but yes, everyone caught that shooting star! Well, DanDan said, shooting stars are actually quite common, it can happen like once in half an hour, but meteor rain is different, tt’s very very rare.

(Hey this is only the first night..)

Day 2:
My group walk for about 20 mins to do our Waterfall abseiling. The first sound of the river stream thrilled us. I had done abseiling in the Sec 3 camp before, it’s a vertical wall of less than 2 storeys.

The briefing was done at the mouth of the waterfall, so all the while we had not seen the water for ourselves. When we are ready to set off, we climbed closer to see one actual demo. Then, I nearly fainted. The waterfall was constantly overwhelmed with super fast flow, and the height of it is like 5-6 storeys….
The instructor, an agile local, abseiled down in a breeze.
(Btw, abseiling means walking backward against a vertical wall, in our case, cliff with water bursting down from our face that cover your knees.)

My group was chosen and sent. The road up is..
We have to use our arm to pull the roots and legs are stretch for 3 flight of stairs. I cant don’t dare to think all the what-if, and thanks for Cheng ye who steadied mi up at some points (if not i’ll sure fall back/side ways down to the foot).

Up to steep slope

The first pair, Mr Helmi and Ning!

Seeing my groupmates goingtwo by two (there’s 2 route, one at the side with less water, but slipperier, and one in the middle with water that rushes up to my waist of maybe shoulders. Obviously I took the one with less water, cos I still wanna try tmr’s activity)
I got to get closer to the start. To understand what I saw, you can try going to level 6 and look down from the window. Then think about walking backwards down the wall. I simply feel so unreal, like NOO, I’m not going to do that, how’s that possible?!!
But, it’s impossible to climb downwards from that route, the only way down is here, the cliff. That’s never the matter of height, just the part on slips and knocks.

Fortunately, the more the stayed up there, I got used to the height and sound of the ferocious water. When it’s my turn, I just keep ensuring that the ropes are very steady. With the left hand in front and right hand against my back, I start to release the rope from my back, and I leaned backwards, 70’ away from the cliff in front of me. I keep releasing and walking very slowly, as I know it will be bruises and scratches, my only fear for then (For closer ones, you would know that my fear of height is not that great. Or abnormally not really that scared. In other words not scared de la!:P)

It was a huge relief to hear the voice of the instructor below. He caught me.
YEAH, I landed safely!!

After that, my group was sittin my the rocks below, waiting for all to clear. Some were enjoying the coolness (the water is really cold btw..), other were talking spa form the pressure of the waterfall.
Then , some guys talked about going for a second round. Hey, im not the only one who thought of this!

Well, I kinda hesitated, as im a non-swimmer(this is so sad), im alive right now. What if there’s mishaps in round 2? I’ll sure get scolded for “acting too smart”.

But then the kick is there!

Dan and Andrew was preparing to climb up again. I went and asked them to wait for me. Then, I grabbed the Director’s harness and start wearing!

Once again, I saw the same sight from above. Abseiled down with more caution and less fear. YEAH! At least I’ve made full use of that $110 we have paid ^^

After lunch, we went back to MyGopeng, and played Picto-smtg game. It’s the one where you draw and let mates guess. Eventually I got sent up to the other grp, the thing I need to draw was a movie, Catch Me If You Can

Do you know the way to draw that?

This was what I’ve draw, despite never watching that, and they guessed it! Cheerios!!

Part 2: White-water Rafting

Let the photo do the talking, I mean typing.

Pre-rafting briefing

We have to carry our own raft to the river

We were let off one by one, to get to the shore where our rafts were first released before us.
What's the point?!

My raft members

(Dun ask me why i kept my smiles at those times. Maybe that's my reaction to excitment?

Most, nearly all rafts have members falling off, but there was none from my raft!

Dangerous things can happen

And our raft will always be ready to lend a helping hand for lonely people

Braving through thick and thin

Our mobile ambulance

What's waiting?

Body rafting at the end. For my raft members, we did in solo! Thank god the instructor wants to go down-stream, so he floated down with me! I nearly knock onto a big rock.
They said that they started in a straight line but end up facing in S-shape or looped

My raft members, Well Done all'of us!

Zohan!

Grp 1 & 2
(Imagine all of us up in that lorry, making a 15 mins drive.

Along the mountain roads, there were leaves from the side and from the top! And to allow the people at the back to siam tgt, we practise the command "Dart!", and the whole bunch will jert downwards! It is totally hilarious and though it isnt as comfy as sittin in our vehicle, the feeling of togetherness was great.

Dart! Chicken!!
(
Left dart or Right dart uh?)
(Got chicken uh? Where?)

At night, we were given a challenge to build a Water Tower, given a stack of newspaper, 2m rafia string, 3 m of scotch tape and one plastis bag. The base has to be higher than the pasa-malam chair.

My group did our's in a tall tripod, the three poles were thought by Cheng ye, the tripod was tied by me! (I felt so proud to put my campcraft into use..)

And to everyone's maze, it held 5.5l of water! The other 3 products were shorter than the chair, and one held abt 2 l, one 500ml, one collasped.

Hence my group was awarded with the most innovative group at the end! Pro uh! Thank you Zohan! :)

These was Day 2..

Day 3 was meant for Mountain Caving. One of the points covered in our pre-camp briefing was Challenge the Process. This line suits totally. The things we done are damn cool!

In the cave, when we switched all the torches off, there's no difference if my eyes are closed and opened. Im like, what? 伸手不见五指！！

Too bad we didnt take any photos in the entire 3 hr. But

[To be continued when i have more time.

I have to say there are more dangers as there isnt any safety ropes. All by our limbs. One guy asked jokingly: What if we fall down from here? Guide: That's your luck. The two chaps went quiet]

After caving, we moved to Excelsior Hotel again. This time, we are checking in for a night!!

It's fantastic~

The view of Ipoh town from my room, 911

After that, we had 5.30 to 11 of shopping time!

But too bad i was down with a flu and w/o my mum, i dun dare to buy things. The night market has lots of fakes that really look like real. I wouldnt be tell the diff if i see them hanging at the brand stores.
My clique when to try to Ipoh hor-fun. The price is less than half of s'pore's!

Back in the hotel, this is when the fun starts..

We did room calling (they're foc and fun), went to played around in each others room. But it's really sad for me who's getting super tired, so i didnt talked much and when to bed early..

The next day was the cert presentation and slide show.

After that, we lefted Excelsior..

LTC is the most exciting camp ever i've went. Thumbs up!
I love the activities which is like another big step taken to growing up, and empowered to handle your own life (it's your life at stake for many times)

What more, i like the 50 ppl who went, they are really great mates to be in the team with. Perhaps when a group of great people comes tgt, many nice things will happen:)

I love Ipoh B!!

Wish the best for all, may everyone achieve and succeed in what we do,

and for we're Leaders of Tomorrow.

(but i always thought we are leaders of today? We already started leading our clubs le leh!)

She puts on a Smile!^^ @ 5:24 PM