Thursday, April 10, 2008

Updates on Redang Trip Day 2

Let's try to update on Day 2 of my Redang trip, shall we? It's gonna be a looooong update, cos I'm gonna tell grandfather's story... Hehe...

Day 2... Morning 6am. The 3 of us guys wanted to wake up to watch the sunrise, and hopefully take some nice pictures. But we were a bit lazy to wake up, since we were dead tired from Day 1's activities. It was pretty cloudy anyway and looks like it's gonna rain, therefore we didn't wake up for the sunrise trip. Damn! Suay No. 1. We thought maybe we could still try our luck on our last day's morning.

Jiahao woke up much earlier to eat breakfast and went to check out the island while Peyyong and I still lazed in bed. Wahaha! When Peyyong and I finally woke up, we were informed by the girls that they had registered for the next snorkelling trip for us. And guess what? That trip was the actual Marine Park snorkelling trip! No more chance for us to take pictures of our snorkelling activities already. Damn! Suay No. 2. Peyyong and I then quickly went to take our breakfast, then rushed to the gathering point.

We set off on a boat again. This time, the boat brought us much further than the day before's snorkelling spot. It's the Marine Park. We alighted at the long jetty which led to shore. Both sides of the jetty were low depth waters in which we were free to swim around to admire the marine life. We first entered the left side, and at one point of time, one of the guides lured a moray eel from its hiding place under the coral reefs with a dead fish. I was wondering where the guide got the dead fish from. Poor fish. Anyway the eel was damn big. I'm sure he can swallow my whole arm if he felt any hungrier. The guides told us we can actually see a 45kg pomfret swimming around if we're lucky. Jiahao said he saw it, but I didn't manage to catch a glimpse of it. We saw some small swordfish though. They're silver in colour, long and slender, and about the length of a cat. We also saw plenty of colourful corals and sea cucumbers and lots of bigger than palm size striped fish, which resembled tiger barbs. We slowly swam under the jetty to the other side. Just beneath the jetty, it was like fishes ALL AROUND us. It's like you can only see fish in front of you. Awesome sight. And they really were not afraid of humans at all. Many people were feeding them with bread crumps.

We then slowly swam towards the so-called shipwreck at the other side of the jetty. It was quite a distance from shore. At one point in time, I found it quite strange that although I was swimming forward, my body was sort of drifting towards the right. I still didn't realize that the current was getting so strong that we were actually drifting further away from shore. Before we could turn back, it was a bit too late. Peiyi, Siying and Sharon were drifting along too. At that moment I was thinking "holy shit, Siying can't swim". Peiyi told me later on that she actually couldn't swim too. All 6 of us were drifting further and further away from shore and into deeper waters. We actually saw some other snorkellers holding onto the floating buoys behind the shipwreck. There were actually a line of floating buoys all around the Marine Park area, however the line ends just a short distance after the shipwreck. Therefore we had nothing to stop us from drifting out to sea. The 3 girls were holding onto Peyyong. They encouraged each other to keep paddling towards the shore. I tried to swim as much as I could, however it seemed that I only managed to inch forward even though I was swimming with all my might. Jialatz. The current was really too strong all of a sudden. I tried to shout out and wave to the people hanging onto the buoys behind the shipwreck. They seemed to see and hear me but they didn't give a hoot to our situation. They were probably just as panicked and holding onto their lives. Luckily one of the guides wearing flippers from the other resorts probably saw us and quickly swam towards us. Our own resort's guide, Mike also came along. He then led us safely towards the rocks which were quite near our location. We couldn't swim back to the sandy shore cos the current forbade us to swim closer. Therefore we could only try to get out of the water by climbing onto the rocks. The rocks were very uneven and covered with barnacles etc. I had a slight slip and landed my right arm on the rocks, gaining some cuts. The other guys also had cuts and scratches from climbing the rocks. What luck. Suay No. 3. But luckily all of us were safely back onto shore. I can't imagine what would have happened if we drifted out to deeper waters. Sharks? Piranhas? Argh!!

By then everyone from our resort had already gathered at the jetty and getting ready to board our boat back to our resort. At that time my right arm was quite a bloody scene LOL. Although they were just very minor cuts, but together with seawater, it seemed like my arm was so bloody. I cleaned up my arm a bit, and later the blood stopped flowing. Back on the boat, Mike gave us antiseptic with cotten bud to let us clean our wounds. And he told us to look for him when we get back so that he'll help us with dressing our wounds. So nice of him haha. We went back and cleaned up and went for lunch. What an adventure it turned out to be. We almost became fish food.

After lunch we went to the locker counter to grab our room keys. Mike saw us approaching and immediately told Sharon to sit down and wait for him to get his first aid kit. Mike had earlier saw Sharon's deep cut on her knee and helped her clean up her wound with cotten bud and antiseptic. Sharon was quite reluctant to allow Mike to help her clean up her wound. Mike was gonna apply hydrogen peroxide to her wound area. Sharon kept saying "it's ok", "never mind" etc, but Mike insisted that she sat down and let him do the rest. LOL. Therefore the liquid was applied to the wound, and we could tell from Sharon's facial expression that it was excruciating pain. Holy shit! After Mike was done with Sharon, he was inspecting all of us. I almost didn't want to let him apply the killer liquid to my wounds, but still gave it a try since I didn't want any infections. At first touch it felt cool and soothing, but as soon as the chemicals started to react with my wound, it became like burning fire eating away on my wounds. Ouch! Jiahao also had a taste of hydrogen peroxide. It seemed like I had the most number of cuts, but they were all not very deep. Sharon's was a very deep cut though. Even now as I type, the cuts are still visible, but the dried blood are starting to peel off already.

After the ordeal, we told ourselves we'll forgo the 3rd and final snorkelling trip. Anyway even if we didn't encounter the unlucky incident, we wouldn't have gone for the 3rd trip anyway cos two trips were more than enough already. We decided to walk all the way to the extreme right end of the stretch of resorts. We first went to the famous More More Tea Inn, which was built in the exact architecture as the house used for the movie. It's actually a souvenir cum provisions shop selling all kinds of souvenirs and foodstuff and necessities. We took several pictures around the area. I also bought a small glass bottle and later filled it with Pulau Redang sand. We explored the resort at the extreme end of the shore, then went back to Laguna for desserts again. Then we went for more desserts - ice kachang - at the outdoor area of Laguna. Not as nice as we thought. It's pretty shiokz downing ice on a hot summer day. I also grabbed the chance to take a picture of me with my bowl of ice kachang relaxing on the beach chair in my Hawaiian style outfit. Aloha!


After satisfying our stomachs and itchy mouths, I suggested going back into the waters again. Only Jiahao was onz, the rest of them wanted to nua. ZZZzzz.. In the end I managed to get Peyyong along and we took the volleyball to the beach to play beach volleyball. However three people ain't enough for a game, therefore we only tried to pass the ball to each other. We quickly got sick of it, therefore Jiahao and I started shooting penalties with the volleyball-turned-soccerball. There were goalposts and volleyball nets scattered along the beach. We used one of it for our goal-scoring attempts. Peyyong then went to climb a small hill on the coastline. This hill proved to be a blessing later on. Read on... The girls actually went back to their rooms to nua. Jiahao and I took plenty of kicks and eventually got tired. When Peyyong came back from his climb, I wanted to go back into the water again. And it seemed like the waves were rushing in endlessly. Jiahao and I then went quite far into the waters. It's like 100m away from shore but I'm only waist-deep underwater. We crashed against the incoming waves everytime they came. Damn fun. It's like free massaging. After a while, the sky began to turn dark. Peyyong went back to our room first. The two of us then made our way back to our room when we found a gigantic pufferfish washed ashore, apparently dead, since there were flies swarming around the poor fish. We took plenty of shots of the pufferfish. Never in my life had I seen such a humongous pufferfish! I remember seeing one on our Singapore shores, but it's like Earth compared to Jupiter. Just look at the size of the bloated fish compared to me!

We then went back for the final dinner of our trip. Just as we started dinner, the match between Arsenal and Liverpool also just started. Peyyong, Siying and Jiahao, being crazy soccer fans, finished up their dinner quickly and zoomed off to the TV area to watch the match. After the first half was over, we decided to walk further down to other resorts to watch the match. Eventually we stumbled back into Laguna. There were already plenty of people occupying the seats in front of the large projection screen. Therefore we sat at the bar tables and ordered drinks while getting ready for the second half. The final score was 1-1 and it seems like Arsenal can kiss the championship goodbye.

Actually earlier on in the day after our snorkelling, we were quite sianz as to think of what we should do for the rest of the day. Little did we expect that the fun has just begun! We had no plans at all for the night. After the match, we walked on to the More More Tea Inn again to take the night versions of the house. The house was decorated with lights all around the borders. Always wanting to take nice shots, I told the guys to climb onto the stairs outside the house while I adjusted the camera to a stable position to use the timer feature for our picture. I must have took such a long time that a girl nearby offered to help me take the picture. However I told her that I'm taking a nightshot and thus the camera has to be stable and therefore thanked her for her offer. After finally adjusted the camera to a good position, I set the timer and dashed towards the stairs for our picture to be taken. And voila...


The girls then suggested taking a 自拍 ourselves, therefore they needed me, having the longest arms, to take it. Seeing the six of us trying to take a 自拍, the girl who offered to help me take our picture came from behind without us knowing and squeezed into our picture. LOL. Looking at the picture we took, I told them that the girl squeezed into our picture! So we decided to take the 自拍 again. This time, the girl and her two other friends squeezed into our picture too! LOL! 厉害 loh. Just look at how they managed to squeeze into our pictures.


Looking at this picture, we were quite impressed at how they managed to squeeze into our picture. Therefore I showed them the picture that all 9 of us took. We found out that there were also fellow Singaporeans! Cool! Therefore I offered to send them the pictures through email, so I got down the girl's email address. Woo new friends found? Hahaha.

After that, we then left the house and walked along the shoreline until we reached the Redang Beach Resort. There was DJ spinning dance hits and many party people grooving on the sand. Beach Party!!! We jumped straight into the crowd and danced along. Everyone was invited to join in. The DJ was playing canto dance songs, much to the delight of Peyyong. Hahaha. Then even Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" was played. Got everyone super high with this infectious hit. It's amazing seeing Peyyong, Peiyi, Siying getting so hyper and dancing along to the music. It would never have crossed our minds as MKGians to chiong together LOL. We grooved along with the beats for quite a while. It later evolved into a "BBoys battle" where the stage area had two sides of guys trying to outdance each other LOL. These guys were happening man. And they really can break! Awesome! There was also one period whereby the DJ taught us to dance the Redang version of the Macarena. Also, near the end of the whole program, the DJ played the theme song for the island, what else but "浪花一朵朵". There was even "对面的女孩看过来" and the DJ made everyone form a train and danced along etc etc. It was so happening... Haven't had so much fun like this since days as a scout back in secondary school hahaha. It's like we're back in time as little kids.

After the exhausting dancing, we finally decided to walk back to our resort. However along the way, we were drawn to the small campfire set up by some other people near the hill along the shoreline. This hill was the one Peyyong climbed earlier in the day. We took some pictures on the hill and then made our way back to our resort. Just a short distance away from the hill, I discovered that one of Siying's slippers was leaving a trail of blue glowing substance everytime she stepped on the sand. We took the slipper up and checked out what it was. We thought it was just fluoroscent liquid from cylume sticks. I didn't really think too much after that, but now come to think of it, how can the liquid stick onto the slipper for so long and still leave a trail behind? Anyway just as we were leaving the place, there was a group of youngsters squatting on the sands apparently looking for some things. As we walked past them, they actually called out to us and asked "你们要不要看‘蓝沙’?" Huh? Blue sand? Therefore we went forward to see what they were looking for. It's glowing "sand"! Eventually we managed to discover that the glowing "sand" were actually living organisms called Bioluminescent Ostracods (also known as Firefleas/Sea firefly) . They use bioluminescence during mating where the males will attract females to them. We managed to catch two of them and placed them into a bottle cap and brought them back to our resort. However, they had stopped moving on the next morning. Sobzzz... Peyyong brought them back to Singapore and even gave them names "蓝蓝" and "星星". Now all our msn nicks have these two names, in remembrance of the joy and delight that they brought to us during our Redang trip.

This should be all for my update on my Redang trip Day 2. Day 3 is just travelling all the way back to Singapore. I managed to catch two movies on the coach "Just Follow Law" and "Ghost Rider". The rest of the time was sleeping or trying to sleep, or listening to my MP3s on my PSP. What a long journey back. If I'm going back to Redang again, we should take planes instead. 12 hours of journey from Redang to Singapore!

A Song Is Worth A Thousand Thoughts

It's 10th of April, Thursday already. Gonna introduce another song tomorrow. But then again, I just heard a super classic Chinese song on radio today. It's 张克帆's 爱错了. Wonder how old the song is. Haven't heard it since donkey years ago. Such meaningful lyrics. I'm sure the writer of the song must have experienced the same feeling as what was written in the lyrics. Here's part of the lyrics:

全怪我自己太洒脱
以为爱能够填补你心中伤口
当我给的愈来愈多
你却显得退缩仓惶失措
才发现你的泪全不是为我

但付出的是感情怎能回收
爱都爱了又当如何
怎么能让心不痛
面对着你依然故我
爱与不爱的失落放在胸口
但感情的事怎么权衡轻重
错都错了又当如何
爱个人爱到忘我
咎由自取身陷其中
男人啊也会软弱只是不说

Lots more to update

Just finished up the previous update. Wahh... lots more to go.

Anyway was back from the airport after meeting up with Wenqiang and Hongsheng. WQ is going back to Stockholm once again. Shiokz man... he gets to travel all the time. And he told us his KrisFlyer points accumulated is enough to get him 2 free return tickets to Tokyo! What the hell am I still staying in my current company for!? ZZZzzz...

I reached Terminal 2 a bit early, therefore I went to take a ride on the skytrain to Terminal 3 and back to Terminal 2 first. Then I went to Sakae Sushi to grab a table first since the two of them were still on their way there. Then they arrived and we started our feast and chatted over our lives as usual. WQ said he would treat us to the dinner since he was late. Haha getting so generous now, must be the big bucks he's earning now. So we had dinner and then walked him to the gate before we left. Damn.... feeling hungry already. Should have ordered more since I didn't have to fork out any money ahhaha.