Church Camp: Seremban, Malaysia, Hotel Royal Adelphi, 5-8th June 2006

Now that you mention it,
those times i worried about you,
those times i looked at you and wondered,
"are you thinking of me? are you wondering too?"

Thank you for telling me, you mean too much to me too.
I wanna be there for you, always.
I'm sorry I lost you for that long,
I'm sorry for not being who I'm supposed to be.

I'm back! *Warning, This is going to be a SUPER long post*

Yeh, finally back from my short one week trip to Malaysia. Church camp was a blast. Seremban, Malaysia, Hotel Royal Adelphi, 5-8th June 2006. Was really looking forward to the camp and I have to say that time flew by too quickly and here i sit, a broken and miserable man thinking of why a week jus passed so quickly. I'll update ya guys day by day but photos will have to wait. August is in Leader's Retreat and won't be back by tml, considering how he'll unpack, take time to get the photos worked out and burn them into a CD with the sermons, i say no photos till like, next week maybe. hmmm sighz.

Day 1, 5th June 2006
We woke up a bit late and drove off to Uncle Lawrence Yeo's house coz that's where our convoy of 3 cars were meeting. Uncle Lawrence, Uncle Alfred and Ivan were the 3 cars going up. So in Uncle Lawrence's car we have Uncle Lawrence, Rachel and Auntie Dawn. In Uncle Alfred's Car we have Uncle Alfred, Auntie Charlene, Chelsea, Alicia and Shaun. In Ivan's Car we have Mum, Ivan, Sab and myself.
So that's the 3 car convoy that i was in. One, if not the best, group of cars we can be in la. The other cars were people like Pastor, Uncle Vincent, Uncle Tony... those kinds la, hardly youth so i was real glad. Anyways, we went a bit late and after testing the Walkie Talkies, we said a prayer and were on the move. It was super exciting just driving towards the causeway and all. Walkie-ing back and forth with Chelsea and Rachel. So we made it past the causeway without a bat of an eyelid, we went early so there was like NO cars/jam whatsoever, so shiok. And made our way up. Stopped at this pit stop and i saw this Wooden Sword/Katana that was like $30RM. Cheap for the look and feel of it. but it was all wooden and didn't have a sheath. Decided not to buy it, though i kinda regret now. haha... but yeh, throughout the trip, i kept thinking of whether i should have gotten it and whenever we got to shop, i'd look around to see if i could buy a sword for myself but to little avail.
Anyhow, after having missed the turning coz Uncle Leonard kinda gave us wrong instructions, we got to Royal Adelphi and it was quite splendid. The surroundings were quite "CITY" like but when you step into the hotel, it's a whole world on it's own. Like a sore thumb stickin out in the city. But it was lovely. the interior was really like a nice hotel and the beds, wow. The rooms were wonderful. Two separate beds, shared room with Ivan, a bathroom that was almost fit for a prince. Bathtub, shower area, and the paraphernalia on the sink top was like, wow! haha... TV was like awesome. Nickelodean, Cinemax, Discov, CNN... not bad la for Malaysian TV in seremban. :) Oh, the best thing about this hotel? a 24hour A&W a 5 minute walk away. WOWZ!!! A&W can! we went there everyday can. haha.
Yeh so after we got our rooms, we headed down for lunch. Food during this camp was alrite. Not as good as we expected, but surely edible. It "Waved" la... some meals good, some meals bad. So finally the coach came when i was just about to finish eating and i just jumped from my seat, left the food behind and chionged to go and say hi. Well, i kinda was only looking out for one person so it wasn't too hard to say hi to everyone while still keeping myself free to say hi when mei came. Auntie Bee Leng turned round the corner and i was just like so happy la. haha... Said a big hi to her and gave her a *beam* and then Jamie came up too. YAYZ! haha.. Finally can! Chelsea and I must have been dying of waiting can. So the rest got settled and we had our first agenda for the day... nuthing till dinner. -_-; ahha We had free time till dinner so we went around exploring the place a bit, made sure we're all acquainted to each other's location in terms of where our rooms were and all. it was a real treat, we were all on the same floor excluding Joash, Jason, Jeannette & Joella... haha all the J names. They were 1 floor above us. Anyways, we had dinner and had our first message and all. The discussion group time we had after the message was so cool la. I loved everytime we had discussion coz it was a real good time to just air our views and talk bout the issues covered during the message. My group consisted of [leaving out all the Uncle and Auntie prefixes], Lawrence, Dawn, Alfred, Charlene, Steven, Jenny, Jim, Kwai San, Tuck Seng, Amy, August and Myself. I felt this was one of the better few groups to be in as well. The Yeos and the Puas were a real treat coz i'm close to the Yeos and i wanted to really have a chance to get to know Uncle Alfred and Auntie Charlene better during this camp. August was there too and the rest were people i only see by face, at the most talk to a bit but dun really know them. So was keen on hearing them out and stuff. Great group can!
So after discussion, we cleaned up and i spent the first nite in Chelsea's Room with Jamie coz they were studying A math, Bio and i had to get myself away from the temptation of hanging out coz i had LR stuff to do and plan for.
After clearing all our individual respective stuff, we parted ways and i met up with Thambi coz he wanted to hang. Mind you, this was at 12.30. Went to his room and knocked on the door. He shares room with Yong Jie. He came out and the door shut behind him. Only then did he realize he didn't have his keycard. So i said, never mind, we go down and hang a while then later wake jie up la. Then i looked down and realized he wasn't wearing shoes!! argh! so we sat there for a while, and chicken shawn was not brave enuf to ring the doorbell and wake jie up. So finally after 2 hours, we called his room but he didn't pick up and we rang the door bell. super funny coz it was super loud la. i laughed and laughed until i was literally almost rolling on the floor tearing. LUPS [Laugh Until Peng San, my newly created word during camp] Finally, we went down and got a replacement card and got Shawn into his room. That was 1am. gosh. haha went back to my room and PENGZ on the bed. Zzzzz

Day 2, 6th June 2006
Woke up on time and cleaned up. Breakfast was not bad, Eggs cooked for you personally and the spread was alrite. Not fab, but not that bad too. haha. We had our second and third messages after that and then had free time for about 3 hours. So we decided to go to the Shopping Centre opposite the hotel called "Parkson Grand" to shop and then head to A&W for Root Beer float. Pakson was so lousy can. didn't have anything worth buying or even looking at! gosh. we wasted the time there and i dun recall anyone coming back with anything from there save a few girls and their chocolates... The float was delicious... why Singapore has cancelled A&W is a mystery to me. seriously. So after that, we came back to the hotel and had dinner [some of us skipped it coz they ate at A&W]... after dinner, we had some ice breakers games that was quite fun. i tio sabo to do some dumb blind fold walkin thing. to re-enforce the lesson of one of the sermons on trust and obedience. Yeh, the games were fun and it was wonderful to see the church members just letting their hair down and having a good time laughing and having fun with each other. After dinner, the youths headed up to play cards and taboo and Yada. Yada is this game Nicholas intro to us. it's like a card game where you try to get the same card [each card has symbols on them] as another person and beat him to realizing it. Very fun game, but can get very noisy coz the girls would scream due to the stress or when they make a mistake. haha. super fun. but the best part of the game is that it's related to Da Vinci Code and it's manufactured by SYC, Singapore Youth for Christ. It actually can be used as an evangelistic tool to start conversations based on the controversial issue of the da vinci code. Yeh, quite an exciting game, very captivating, addictive and yet educational game. :) Taboo was a blast too. like it always is. give me a few more times and i'll prob have had so much experience with that game i'd be too cheater. haha...

Day 3, 7th June 2006
By this morning, i was already groaning that church camp is almost over and i was like URHHHH WHY SO FAST!!! haha. but yeh, woke up and the same usual thing... breakfast and then messages followed by a really enriching time of discussion. This last discussion time was really good coz the group really opened up and was encouraged to share testimony... Alfred, Lawrence, Dawn, Steven, Jenny, Amy, August and I all shared our testimonies and after that discussion, i was emotionally charged and really... moved by what they sumtimes said. i felt it was so blessed to be able to hear it from their own mouths and to know the background behind some of their lives, sumthing you dun always get to hear and get when you meet them for a few minutes every sunday. Uncle Alfred shared about his Salvation story and how he's glad his kids are in Shalom and all that jazz. it was really wonderful to hear and i was thanking God for sending this wonderful family to our church coz they've been such a joy and encouragement to me and to many others. The messages were wonderful too. They really get you thinking about how we are called to be IN the world but not OF the world.. Dr Robert Nienhaus covered topics like Pride, Arrogance, Obedience, Humility, Assertiveness, Discernment and many others. really captivated me and helped us to discuss many important issues during discussion like cheating, stealing, responses to persecution or mocking, choosing to be set apart... wowz. really enjoyed every session.
After lunch, we had an hour to kill before going to the Ostrich Farm Visit. It was really funny coz so many adults and a few youth were all trying to see if they could make the trip an optional one and didn't really see the need/want/motivation/sense in going to see dumb birds. ahaha but i was quite excited to go since it's not sumthing you do everyday. :) had a blast talking on the walkie talkie on the way there, crapping and laughing with people coz Jason now had a set since we had one more.
Finally reached there after braving a crazy rain storm and everyone got off the bus to this aromatic stench [heh wad an irony] that was and is the Ostrich Farm. Went there and sat thru a 5-10 minute talk by the guide and then had a moving tour. we saw some really big Ostriches and some small ones that were only a few months old. I made a really corny joke about how they looked like 'Emu's... and then there were some goats around there too so i pointed to the small Ostrich and said Emu and i pointed to the goats and said Eyang.... Emu Eyang... Yi(4) Mu(2) Yi(4) Yang(4)... geddit? haha quite a few people thot that was a super super lame joke, chelsea and kenneth included. haha i thot it was quite a cool fact that the joke came from my own ACS Kantang brain. haha but it was hilarious at that point of time, you gotta be there to really appreciate the lameness of it all.
Yeh, so on to the rest of the tour, i got my chance to feed the Ostriches and they eat corn... they jus peck down at your hand. so you hold your hand in a cup with the corn and they jus bulldoze their head repeatedly into your palm pecking everytime. quite a cool experience coz their beaks were harder then i thot so it wasn't painful at all. Alicia Pua was like scared of feeding them la.. aiyoh. took so much of me just to get her to feed it and in the end, she never did. tried so hard to help her not so gan jiong but can't. :S anyways, after that i went to ride the Ostrich and i got a certificate for it. haha yayz. :) for amazing bravery... nonsense. haha... got a pic of that.
After that, we watched an Ostrich race and pastor got on the 2nd time and raced the ostrich. all of them fell off the birds la. aiyoh. Uncle Lawrence Fu, Uncle Tiang and Pastor all fell off one by one and we had 3 rogue Ostriches running around. haha so funny. :) After that, we went to a hut where they served us Ostrich Satay and Ostrich burger. i knew i had to try it. come all the way here, must throw away face, disguist and anything to try everything so since i already fed and rode one, might as well eat one. HAHAHA k that doesn't sound good at all. :) It tasted ok, i preferred the burger to the satay coz the satay was hard and too chewy... the burger was better though it still wasn't like WOWZ! jus.. hmm not bad. haha... Chelsea, Alicia and mei were too grossed out to even eat it and i kept grossing them out by waving it in front of them and offering them a bite. :P hahhaa. i'm so evil. Chelsea was afraid of the Ostriches la! even when they were meat on a stick. haha... [yes, chels, i'm not deleting this part]
We proceeded on to the gift shop after that and they sold all sorts of interesting stuff. From feathers to bath soap and facial and hair products that had Ostrich essence in it... wowz. apparently, Ostrich essence is good for so many things.. the oil burnt off the fat also. pengz. like totally use the ostrich can. the skin is super ex too. i can't remember but i think they said a square foot of the skin is like $35 USD. wowz! that's ex for a small piece isn't it? haha... crazyness... yeh... then we left and headed back after that. it was an enjoyable, fun and educational [if u dun mind me saying, stomach filling too] trip... wad a change from what we do everyday. Thank God too coz the rain seemed to hold for us while we toured around... wonderful providence we easily can take for granted when focusing too much on the dumb birds. they have brains the size of peas. haha. wowz.
Went back and had this mystery night thing that pastor was super MUM about. not even August the camp master knew bout it. It wasn't much.. jus a showcase of the pics taken during camp so far and more silly games that touched upon families and couples in the church. haha it was fun watching and laughing along with them. After mystery night, it was the last nite so we all went to hang in one of the rooms playing Yada, Bridge and Taboo. it was a really fun night and i'll share some of the jokes here la.
We were playing Taboo and we're supposed to describe a word without saying some other words la. then the word we needed to guess was "BIMBO"... and i can't really remember who it was but she was like... you call Jamie this all the time... and we were all like huh? and then Jeannette said Bimbo! and she was like, right! haha then we were all laughing la and jamie was like ward!!!!!!! HAHHAA.. super funny coz it was so spontaneous. Other stuff were... Nicholas was trying to describe the word "SKY SCRAPPER" and he was like Taipei 101 and then Kenneth said "Hair Reduction!" and we were like nO! that's beijing 101.. so funny la coz kenneth tried to cover up his mistake by saying he doesn't need beijing 101 that's why he got confused and then a second later we realized. Eh! Beijing 101 also not hair REDUCTION! hahaha.. then we were like, yeh Kenneth, your hair drops off naturally.. dun need to use hair reduction. haha he was so pai seh that he got a double mistake. lolz. Yeh, so we played till about 2 then we went to bed... it was a real fun time and i laughed tons and had a great time guessing and making memories with them. :)

Day 4, 8th June 2006
Woke up today feeling so miserable knowing it was already the last day of church camp la. so so so sian can. i was like dragging my feet to breakfast and back up to the room to pack my stuff. 100% of me didn't want it to end. you know a lot of times a part of you wants to continue and another part wants to just go home? i didn't wanna go home at all la. aiyoh. haha... but i had to so we packed the stuff and i made sure i brought my luggage down early and loaded it into the car so i was free. Then i went around helping people on my floor with their luggage like Chelsea, Auntie Charlene and Uncle Alfred. Jamie and Auntie Bee Leng zhao so fast can! i went back up and Auntie bee leng was the first on my mind so i called their room and rang their doorbell but they already left to the lobby can! pengz. haha... so oops. didn't manage to catch them. but it's ok since they did manage to get the stuff down on their own. After that, hung around a while and helped load the coach knowing it's prob the last we'll see of them till sunday. super sian again but must smile smile and wave... aiyoh. haha... "time to say goodbye..." then the coach left and the car convoy started packing in. we had a huge convoy this time... about 11 cars... from 3 to 11. guess they all wanted to tag along and go as a group. super stress coz so many cars. haha...
After a lot of navigating, even in and out of a hotel carpark without paying, we reached our lunch spot which is this old chinese house that's converted to a eating place. quite freaky coz they kept the interior to look antique and all. we're talking marriage sedan chairs, opium beds and portraits on the wall of old matriach-looking women whose eyes dun seem to leave you. so freaky la! just waiting for one of them to blink or change positions when not looking. AHHHHH!!! hahaha..
Lunch was good, dessert was wonderful too. had chendol and after that, we decided to walk walk around for an hour before heading to mahkota to shop. The church session and staff left for Leader's Retreat though so had to bid them farewell before we went to walk-shop. Saw my Katana swords again can! but these had no hilts. so jus a long wooden pole in the shape of a sword with the grip... then the same shop had a collection of 3 katanas of differing sizes and a stand to hold them all. These were NICE! black and all with nice grip, length and look... if you put it on the stand and displayed it, it looks super nice la... but when you take the sword and unsheathe it, you'll see the blade is some cheapo looking greyish plastic. so not too nice la.. no shine whatsoever... jus looks like a blade... was tempted to buy it but it came in a set of $90RM... so that's three differing sizes [one normal one, one medium and one short one a little longer than a dagger]... in the end i walked off saying no la. save money. haha... sighz. :) shall continue to hunt around [but now in Singapore] for Katanas.... if you guys know of a shop, please let me know. i know marina square got one, but those are a few hundred bucks and they are real except blunted for Singapore... so i just want toys but yet ones that look real. real enuf to swing and cosplay with that kind la... love swords.
ANYWAYS, went for a short chendol stop over coz uncle Alfred heard much about it and then headed to Mahkota for *does the 'White Chicks' finger action thingy* SHOPPING!!! haha so went in and basically to cut a long story short, there was nuthing much to shop for la. ended up spending only like $30RM... bought a headband, a wrist band and a belt... wearing my belt now and prob will on sunday so if ya wanna see, go look at my belt. lolz. haha...
was so tired after shopping canz... slept quite a bit on the car ride back to Singapore... woke up at bout mid journey and started walkie talkie crapping with Shawn, Chelsea and Uncle Lawrence Fu... we were also keeping ourselves entertained by asking each other riddles and jokes.
We finally stopped off just a bit before the 2nd link causeway to pump petrol and ended up eating dinner at KFC! yay my plan worked. haha wanted to dinner with them one last time... rui grabbing on to anything he can reach just to not say goodbye so fast. haha... then after that we headed to 2nd link and back across to singapore. sadded. haha... didn't see them anymore after that.

Sighz... it was a wonderfully enriching and fun time la. memories that were made can't be forgotten and can't be replicated. It's time spent with people that really build bonds. talkin bout it won't do good, you just gotta invest time in people. Like i was telling nicholas during the camp, if you choose to spend time with certain people, it just means you can't spend time with others... it's choosing the better of two evils since you can't satisfy and 'patronize' everyone.
I love shalom, it's everything to me coz it points me to God, who IS everything, everyone and everywhere to me. Shalom Church Camp 2006.

thanks to these few people who really made a difference in church camp.
Uncle Alfred, Auntie Charlene, Auntie Bee Leng, 'Ivan, Sab and Mum', Mr Camp Master, Rachel, Jamie, Chelsea, Mini, Master Pua, My shadow Tiang, Nicholas, Joella, Jeannette, Tricia, Jason, Slacker Kwek, Joash, Yong Jie. Thank you so much for bringing smiles to my face and memories to my heart. I love Shalom.