Friday, September 25, 2009

the 09E xperience 2

Raleigh expedition fasa dua--kampung mapan-mapan (you will have to listen how angmohs pronounce these words)
My community phase in kampung mapan2 is to built a kindergarten! what a wonderful meaningful task.we made a difference in other ppl's life.

dang dang dang dang! proudly presented to you my kampung.....
dang! the morning sunrise at abt 5.45am. yes, i sumtimes woke up at 5.30am for the sunrise shot and have a lonely morning walk around the kampung.

kampung mapan is a small little village with most of the villages catch fishes or other seafood for a living. oh yes, there was once i even waded across the sea to a small small island to help the women to collect oysters! but then i think i "gao gao zan, mou bong chan", ruined most of their oysters. it was a nice experience though.
this is what we did in mapan-mapan. again, very similar to the job in sepilok.

situation: very hot sun. normally the angmohs will say: "i'm baked"

job description:
1.carry more woods >_<" .
2.saw wood. we even had a sawing competition. my fastest record was sawing a 2"x4" wood in 28 second.that was the fastest i can go..considered quite fast d.
3.lots of arranging and nailing. bang-ing in a 4 inch nail into a piece of hard woods can be very demoralising whenever the nail bent.
4.actually not much work to do. i got lots of time to interact with the locals.or having a nap at the bench outside klinik kesihatan. or reading a book at the tower nearby the school.

accidents
did occur.
almost everyday,we gotta do a medrep.
someone parang-ed his own finger.which is very stupid.
someone parang-ed,nail-ed,saw-ed,hammer-ed his thumb.the same thumb.which is very stupid also.
i knocked down a timber and unfortunately the 6"x3"x10' timber dropped on my unlucky left foot. was using a DIY bamboo tongkat for a day and limping like a victim who survived a bomb for a few days.

the 19-years-old boy and 17-years-old girl. see the difference if we eat rice everyday or if we eat bread,cheese,oats and milk everyday ?

after a day's work. this is a lil bit reward.
an open space washroom with kampung view+a bucket of rainwater+some mozzies bites= shower time
everyday, i cant wait for the refreshing shower! i loved this open washroom so much that i din even wanna wash in the proper washroom.

when i have got some free time(i have lots of free time actually), went down the water village and look for my frens. chit-chat with the locals, makan their kuih-muih and drink their tea(purposely did that to skip having oat porridge/crackers for lunch) or sometimes just chilled out at their house.

this guys, same age as me, he owned a red boat. it's very impressive. and he will undoubtedly win the "most helpful villager" award.

almost every evening, we played volleyball with these guys.all of them are orang asli. is either orang ubiyan,orang sulu or orang sungai. although they look like those illegal foreign workers in kl, they were actually very kind.

this is how the living hall looks like before breakfast,after breakfast,before lunch,after lunch and before dinner.

the kids! is really a bad timing to arrive in kampung mapan mapan. because of the seriousness of H1N1 cases,we were not allowed to teach english in the school. if would be great experience if i can teach them some english songs. but then, still i always lepak at the school area.had some random childish chat with the standard 1 kids, played forfiet chess with them and took lots of picture of these naive faces.
see? they are so cute.i cant remember their name,there are too many of them.i'm glad they remembered my name! but i think most probably now they have forgoten my name. working in a small village like this made me realised lots of things. if it's not kerajaan who sponsor their uniforms,school bags,textbooks and lunches, they might not have the chance to go to school. when they grow up,most probably they will get married with some guys and be a housewife. if these kids were born in city like kl, they might have a chance to make it to university and got some profession jobs.mayb a pharmacist,mayb my collegue. and i say these ppl are those who really need help, education sponsorship and not those city mxlxy with lousy results.

a photo of black,white and yellow people. and a picture of the world.raleigh expedition puts people from different parts of world together.this is what i find very interesting.

after a week's hardwork, finally this is our off day! to the island. is called pulau perkuburan. yea.is an island with graveyard. but we're like "bak mou kam gei", surprisingly, no spooky feeling, no one feel scared.hmm...this a very nice picture taken by me. that afternoon was one of the best moments in mapan-mapan too. it was a very hot afternoon and we(locals+venturers) were having a dip in the cool sea water. we menyelam-ed , found lots of baby jellyfishes, lots of starfishes, jumping into the sea water from each other's shoulder(quite hard) and competing with each other to see who can hold their breath longest in the water(of coz the sabahan won).

yeehee...this is our battle crab. they caught 3 crabs, tied them up, built a sand battle stadium and put them into battle with each other.if i'm not wrong, this crab won.as you can see, it is quite big in size. and i kena sepit by one of the crabs lo,super hurtS!!!! dun play play...then, i learnt a lesson:how to catch a crab correctly before catch you.

then there was once, i followed the orang kampung go korek telur burung. the eggs is almost twice the size of a chicken egg.very weird, this kind of bird lay eggs underground, then when the egg hatches, the baby bird will crawl all the way to the surface. really "shan kei" lo,first time i see this kind of bird. in less than 1 hrs time, the orang kampung already dug out 16 eggs.they take it back,cook it and eat it.

a crab. 2 kilos of crab for dinner! soooooo good.

a fish. a humungous fish for dinner. sooooo good again. few days later , we had prawns for dinner. soooooo good again!










i'm glad that i've been to this place. to have fun. to understand the locals. to build tadika kg.mapan-mapan.

the 09E xperience

my 09E xperience at sepilok, kampung mapam-mapan, long pa'sia and mamutik is the most unforgetable summer ever.

it is impossble to tell the expedition story in just few lines. like many other ex-venturers expedition stories ,it will be "yat pat pou kan cheong.". that is the only period where i can still vividly remember what i did 10 weeks ago,where have i been, what i have seen and whom i talked to. it is so true and like what Mac like to say: YOU WILL HAVE AN AMAZING TIME.

PHASE 1:SEPILOK JUNGLE CAMP FOR BSBCC
-working closely with Borneo Sunbear Conservation Centre to build a jungle camp
-free admission to see baby orang utans which are under quarantine.
-free admission to see the smallest bear in the world,sunbear.
-lucky enough to witness a wild orang utan in sepilok jungle.

One of the very raleigh style photo on Bravo FWD! the jungle camp WE BUILT is just behind the oil palm tree. lots of laughter, rain, sweat, hardwork, sunshine, parang-ing, wood ferrying, hole digging, sawing, nailing , chiselling, mozzie bites, star gazing, singing and games...

it took us few days of hard work and trek before we can actually sit down and lay down like this. such a harsh environment but we made it.

all cleared in just a morning.my parang buddy(the one in grey shirt), has very beautiful blue eyes! maybe it is the most beautiful eyes i have ever seen. and her killing smile..i heard lots of english boys talked abt it one...

not only on parang-ing.we were hole digging buddy too.although she's also very good in digging long drop(a hole for us to pee and poo),sorry lo. i dun wanna be her long drop buddy.

living with whole bunch of angmohs,being the only malaysian in the group, i got lots of culture shock.
eg. angmohs eat kuih with fork and knife. eat rice with fork. they said,spoon is for tea and soup ONLY.
eg.angmohs like to over exaggerate when they tell stories.mayb they wanna make it more interesting.my team mate told me she saw a DINASOUR in the jungle, where it was only a camourflage lizard.

lots of culture shock! you will know if u go expedition.

one thing that i'm very proud of this this papan i made.it is carved on belian wood,one of the hardest wood in the world and it takes a very very long time to reput.i want to get the papan back 2 years later."Rasa sayang" is the name of our camp. i had fun teaching them the song and laughed at them when they cannot pronouce it correctly.

the walkway of OUR jungle camp.took us 5 days to build the whole thing from foundation to zink roof.this is definately AMAZING job with AMAZING people in an AMAZING phase. i spent the last night of my phase sleeping in this jungle camp.that was one of the best nights in jungle.in the morning, the birds woke me up.

sometimes, leng lui got dirty too..hmm..maybe i should say, most of the time,everyone gets very dirty and sweaty.

on our day off!

ps:stay tuned.more storis to come.
wanna join raleigh expedition? check out www.raleighinternational.org.my and email expedition@raleighinternational.org.my

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Letter From Sulan!

FYI I'm her sister :D
Sulan wrote us a letter and insisted me to post it here and talkaholichome.

And, if you'd like to write her a letter too, here is the address:-
Raleigh, P.O Box 14182,
88848 Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia.

*She wants to hear from you guys so badly pfft*

Click to enlarge the picture to see clearer!






Wednesday, July 1, 2009

i'm ready.

[grafitti on shiwei's leg]

yohoo!!
is finally my turn to board on a plane to sabah!! to my expedition site.
9 more hours to go for me to pijak on sabah land.
u cannot understand my feelings now.
i have been waiting this moment for more than a year.

[before packing]

some em dang sai stuff in my rucksack: for example,
[loh hon go.]

[chinese chess.if i got time]

[master mind]

[and my journal. if i have time to write. i think i'll have]

[and after! packed]

today,spent 6 hrs to pack my rucksack.3 hours i guess,if minus off the time i spend laying on my bed,day dreaming.

bye.KL.i'm gonna miss my family,my pillow, HOUSE latest season, CSI NY, CSI.
will be saying "hi" to oat porridge.
see you 3 months later.

after moral studies.before expedition

huh...feel like i never rest after i completed moral subject in mid of june.

-chonghwa gang gathering
-cadet gang gathering
-chonghwa 90 years anniversary
-photography competition during tree party( which i won a buff, a corezone dryfit tee, a gorilla pod)
-MyCJN talk COC
-operasi yumchar
-more raleigh yumchar(s)
-raleigh official yumchar (agm)
-pharmacy placement at alychem pharmacy in selayang baru
-reports
-pre-expedition preparation: vaccination,medical forms,shopping...
-almost every weekday nights and weekend were occupied.

(i gotta write down these as i dun wish to forget them)

phew~ two weeks just gone like tat. packed and busy and meaningful.and not enuff sleep.
[chong hwa 90 years anniversary.the violin society.club once i belonged]

[check out the crowd on that day]

[siaopoh eva and her frens.nice to meet her again]

[ladies nowdays in chong hwa.the smell hasn't changed much]

[another ladies in chonghwa. underwater world.>_<"]
[MyCJN. climate refugee camp]

[3ppl gathering]

[the offical yumchar.agm.@pd]
wanna touch a bit on my pharmacy placement. it was a great opportunity to have my placement at a pharmacy in KAMPUNG selayang baru. it has changed my perspective towards a community pharmacy.used to think that community pharmacist a tedious and monotonous job.but now i find this job quite meaningful,especially when a community pharmacy is located at a kampung area(like my pharmacy). i have learnt a lot.realised i now can recognise the brands of some drugs and dietary supplement. kinda happy. haha.a brand new experience.





















[me.mine]

Thursday, June 18, 2009

back to my nightmare

my biggest nightmare of trekking--gunung nuang. highest mt. in selangor.

back to 1.25 years ago,we conquered gunung nuang. and i swore i wont come back to this place.never ever.

[a victory pose at nuang peak.1.25years ago]

but 3 days ago...i broke my promise to myself and ended up torturing myself along the trek.mentally and physically.
it took us abt 9 hours up and down, including lunch time and waterfall break. to my surprise, 9 hrs ?! i expected to complete it in 12 hrs.

gunung nuang trek is sth like this:
when u feel you have walked a lot,drenched in sweat,muscle getting sore and asking for how long more you have to walk to reach the peak, the answer will be: "if you really feel u're tired to the max d, you will have to walk/trek 2 more hours to reach kem pacat.kem pacat only.not even the peak.

[victory pose at kem pacat.present.with lots of sweat bees]

i'm not sure whether this happens to everyone,but it happens on me:
whenever i have trekked for a long distance(and it must be a strenuous trek), i could hear "thud thud thud" sound only from my left ear. at first i thought my heart is pumping so vigorously until it bangs my rib bones and causing "thud thud" sound. till that day i finally figured out the real story. it wasn't "heart sound", what i heard was actually the pulses on my vein(neck). the blood is pumping so fast and so forcefully in the arteri/jugular vein and resulting audible pulse-even without sphygmomanometer. can imagine how strenuous the trek is?
the key point to unravel this "mystery" is--i cant hear the sound with my right ear, only the left ear.

although nuang is notorious for it's trek, it do have sth nice as attraction to make it a famous spot for camping. waterfall! nature massage! "swimming pool"! it's so nice to get back to nature.into the jungle and enjoy a moment like this. it was really really nice and very very relaxing. i quickly washed my boots, straight away i laid down letting stream water flow.
whenever u feel like s1/sth is fanning you, undoubtedly it will be the wings of sweat bees(the annoying one).

[nth better than enjoying nature music like this.laying down is one of my favourite pose@everywhere,ANYwhere.]

[surrounded by rocks and greeneries.notice the swimming pool behind?]

[we hereby provide a way to avoid the annoying little creature]

after the waterfall break, another 1 hr walk spent on never-ending road back to carpark. and we get this pose.


[here we are again at the entrance.safe and sound before night falls.]

washed up,headed for ikan bakar then hot spring to rendam kaki! reached home late night and rushed for moral studies mid term exam the next day. i'm not iron man.