Nothing in Particular

OBS (Day 4) - 10/01/19

Day 4

This was the day of the land expedition. We all woke up at 6 am since everyone had sentry duty the previous night and had less sleep. We unpitched the tents and packed our bags. We washed the pots and mess tins again since it wasn't washed clean enough the previous night. 

After a long time, we were done. As always, we could never meet the planned timing. Ben was very upset because we couldn't meet the time that we had set ourselves time and time again. After we all rushed to finish last minute stuff, we learnt how to navigate. 

It was a recap of Y1 Geog because I actually forgot which one was the easting and which one was the northing. I wonder how I got a good grade on the topic of Maps in Geography.

Dexter and I became the navigator for the first round and we went all the way from Jelutong Campsite to the Ah Ma Drink Stall which is only open on weekends. That was our rest point. We drank some water and made our way to Wei Tuo Fa Gong Temple which was a temple with multiple religions in it such as Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism.

We sat in a hut and started sharing about religions. Ben was from a Taoist family but his grandmother converted to Christianity for God knows what reason (actually, he mentioned but I forgot). Then she was afraid during the Hungry Ghosts Festival, also known as the Seventh Month (in the lunar calendar), and Ben was like, "You Christian, why you still scared of ghosts?" 

The funny part was when he said when she passed away, her coffin had a cross on it but in it was a lot of paper money which was Taoist. Chinese people burn paper money or Hell currency to the dead for them to use in the underworld. I wonder why.

Anyway, when the pastor went to look at the coffin, he was shocked to see it filled with paper money. Everyone laughed upon hearing that HAHA

There was a change in navigator then and another girl (Deborah) and boy (Justin) got appointed the navigator. However, Deborah couldn't keep in front so I became the unofficial navigator. We all headed to Pipit Hut which had a very beautiful view of Ketam Quarry. The hut provided us shelter from the sun and it was really windy up there. 

That was where we had our lunch.

There were people who came up to Pipit Hut in hopes of getting to rest under the shelter but Kurt occupied the whole hut LOL

We learnt that the quarries in Pulau Ubin were used to mine for granite. Yes, they were. The quarries are now closed for mining. They're just good to look at now :3

There were railings for safety reasons and it stated: Caution: please stay behind the railings. Or something like that. I climbed and sat on the railings :P

No worries. I'm still alive.

We would've gone to Chek Jawa which was really beautiful but it was all the way at the East and our ultimate destination was at the West. We surely didn't want to pitch our tents in the woods in the event that we couldn't make it back to the camp.

There was a change in navigators and a boy (Omar) and a girl (Cherlyn) became the navigators. Unfortunately, Omar couldn't read the map. So there was Justin and I to read the map while he made the decisions. 

Of course, Ben was not pleased. When we reached the cross junction and had to choose which way to go, Ben made Omar read the map and choose the way on his own. Boom. He chose the way that Justin and I had announced previously and we did it! 

We reached Camp 2 and returned the PFD that we borrowed from the Raffles Store. We then climbed the 100 steps and made our way to Camp 1 which was 1.2 km away. The new navigators were Brandon and Iszafi. Well, we didn't really need navigators since we knew the way back via memory. After all, we hiked from Camp 1 to Camp 2 on the second day.

When we reached Camp 1, we were elated. We were finally back to base after 3 days! By then, it was 4 pm. We had a good shower and prepared for dinner. 

Night 4

We went to the EVL (it's just a wall that has 'Endure Venture Learn' written on it) for dinner. We were cooking a special dinner.

When we were given the ingredients to cook, Ben said that if we didn't say "Yay" loud enough, we wouldn't have that ingredient for dinner. So he took out rice and we said "YAY". He took out a cabbage, an onion, a carrot, a tomato, a can of mushroom, a can of chicken meatloaf and we all said "YAY". Well, we had to.

Then he said for the next one we didn't have to say so loudly and he took out a carton of eggs. We were like "Yay..." and he said, "Oh, you don't want ah? I keep." And we were like, "No! No!" So we tried it again and there was a loud "YAY".

That was hilarious.

Ben cooked the rice. And together with Selina, I cooked the egg with tomato and onions, and cabbage with carrots and mushrooms. It was delicious! Totally not self-compliment, by the way.

We then washed the pot, wok and mess tins.

All of us went back to Kurt Dormitory to have peer feedback. The boy who navigated from the temple to the hut feedback to the girl navigator, saying, "I remember she was supposed to be my navigating buddy, but she suddenly disappeared and a Calista appeared." A Calista.

It was damn funny, okay.

People feedback to me about how I had leadership potential but was quite aggressive and talked too much O.o

It was 10.30 pm when we finished with the peer feedback and we went back to our tents to sleep.

That was our last night in OBS.