Faith is all you need.: Pure Desaru...

Let's start from the start.

Note that for the first few photos, I'd be using photos courtesy of Lamentation, reason being my camera didn't have battery when I brought it to school and had to charge it at the hotel. So here goes:

Day 1

Starts in the school. We assembled at the Parade Grounds like the rest of the school. The only reason why the student body was staring at us was because we, the people going to OEP, were mostly dressed in Coparate Tee-Shirt. And our class was wearing the Polo T-Shirt. So we did Assembly, Pledge, Devotion and announcements like normal. I think they mentioned that it was International Women's Day today, but anyway.

So once the school was sent back to their classes, the OEPers stayed back for a briefing by Mr. Dave Tay (who was apparently chosen to be in-charge of the trip). And by 8, we got on our buses, fully loaded with luggages and backpacks, and departed for Desaru! We started 'partying': take not I used inverted commas, as since we went through the Bus Portion of the trip a coule of months ago, the bus didn't really sustain the thrills as long. So we'd be partying...

And partying...

And pardee...

And puh... zzzzzz

The mere fact that I could fall asleep on board the bus is a real something. But I guess I needed the rest, for who knew what was about to come? Anyway, after a few hours, we arrived at the hotel! Went for a little briefing in what was called the Confrence Room, and classes were divided into 2-4 groups (based on roomates), each having to choose a leader. In my group, I was chosen and by the way, the people in my group were:
-Me
-ZW
-Toj
-Tim Goh
-Alex
-JKit
-Arjun
-Reuben
-Joel R.

We were then sent to our shalets and rooms to unpack and addapt before going for Lunch. In Toj's room, everyone was enjoying none other that one of the greatest shows any person should watch for some ironic entertainment.

Seasame Street.

You should have seen how focused they were to the screen! It was HILARIOUS!!! But moving back, after Lunch was a field study of Herbal Medical Plants and Pitcher Plants. If I haven't stated, here's our main Guide:

Meet Vincent. Don't tell me I'm rude to address him by name: he said he wanted so himself. This, I guess, is the begining of a (horendous) relationship. I assume he doesn't know the difference between Primary and Secondary students, and as such his tone was rather 'offencife' tomuch of the students present. I could see the irritation of fellow classmates, and I must agree that the way he treated us was of more childish being. But if God allowed this to happen, I shalln't complain and learn from him. God knows best.

Once done with plucking, eating, scrubbing, smelling, smashing and licking plants "with medical properties" and drinking the hydroacids of young pitcher plants, we headed back to the hotel for a Sand Castle Building Competition at the beach. Changing into PE Tangtop, we all chatted for a while in our rooms before meeting at a safe distance from the shore at the assigned time.

Notice that from the most recent photo onwards, I had my camera charged up and can start taking photos. So we made it to the beach, and after another briefing on the rules and safety measures on the beach and competition, construction began. By right, we were suppose to work in our groups and compete against each other. But by left, my class just wanted to stick as a class and we teamed up to build a Turtle Castle.

We were very good in dividing the work evenly. If memory serves, Toj was in-charge of overall design, Jai was was in-charge of the main 'Shell Mountain', Calvin for surrounding it with 'Buildings', Kirby for the 'Canal' and/or 'Pit' around the Castle, I for the 'Bridge' that provided road over the Canal and for the 'Castle Wall' that sudrrounded the whole structure, and Ben for Finishing Touches (even the Mighty [Net] Flag on one of the buildings next to the Head.)

Here's my class with the structure:

A bit blur as some sand went into the lense. Here's my bridge:

And here's a poor dude from another group being turned into the Sand Castle:

Once we were all done, we went to the public showers to rinse of all the sand from our bodies and buckets.

Oh, and about our Sand Castle,

Good news: We won 1st Prize!

Bad news: Due to the fact that we didn't follow instructions and did the thing as a class instead as groups, all the points gained by the sand castle would be sent to only one of the classes three groups. We all agreed, saying that as long as any group from our class wins, we'd be happy. So all the points were given to 2.10 Group 1. That would be my group! Yayz!

Rinsed up, we went back to our rooms and relaxed with the given time before dinner, and so we explored our room a little more, like with the fact that our room is one of the only two rooms that are joined together by an internal door!

This meant that my room (Me, Alex and ZW) could comunicate easily with the neighbouring room (Ben, Ting Wei and Matt Ch'ng). And like I said, we're the only rooms with this feature in the WHOLE hotel!!! Yipee!!!

Reported back to the Conference Room for a little debrief again,

then went down for the buffet Dinner. This is the 2nd time I've been bombarded with chilli today. And I hate it! My tongue responds to the 'burning' effect of chilli faster and with more pain, thus I can't see at this point how people could possibly love chilli. I mean, it just gives a burning effect on your tongue and kills the taste of the food! It kills tongue cells too, and...

Urgh! I just don't see the point of chilli. Pepermint spicy is fine, I guess. But the chilli is just... GAH! Anyway, after the meal was Insect Collecting, and so we were sent by buses to the heart of a deserted road covered with greens on both sides, and once there, the buses shut down and the only sources of light was the ones in the torches people brought. Some of my classmates were pretty scared of the dark: believe me, they have every right to feel so. If you're wearing black, you can just walk in front of another person and scare him by simply breathing. But somehow God was with me, and I could literally see the outline of everything so clearly, I could easily see Reuben trying to pounce around me. Rather funny watching him bounce here, the there, then here again, and whe he's about to attack, you jump out of the way and he ends up clinging onto a teacher.

Couldn't take pictures as everything was just black for the camera, so you wouldn't see the beautiful starry night sky we were under. When you see this sky, you'd just wonder how it's possible for Malaysia to have this sky but for Singapore to have too many clouds in the way. When we came back tot he hotel, we looked around at the insects the other people caught. We caught a stick insect, a cockroach nymph and different species of ants. But there were some groups that even caught bees and wasps the size of a thumb! Rather facinating, but once the speciments were graded by the (Guide) Judges, and after tallying the marks onto a board, we were dismissed with the reminder of lights-out at 11.30 p.m.. So My room and Ben's room decided to play around with each other for the duration.

Matt Ch'ng after a prank call from my room.

Ting Wei about to brew his First Batch of Ting Tea (More will be explained on Day 2).