Saturday, November 29, 2008
It's really gna be a long long post ahead. You sure you want to go ahead and read? You sure??? YOU VERY SURE?!?!?!?!
Ok then. Here goes.. [my long long grandmother story. :D]
19th Nov ‘08
The night before, I went to bed at ard 1230 am. Couldn’t sleep until about 1+? And we were supposed to be at the airport at 445am. Anyway, reached the airport at around 430. waited for everyone and collected out shirts(: then we checked in and went inside the gate. While queuing up to check in, lj 3Ged meHh. Damn funny. Can only see her face and couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t talk loudly I guess. Heh! Kkk, took a pic before entering th gate, said a prayer and… byebyeee!~ Grabbed a fruit tart because we were sitting budget airline = no food! We actually kinda ran to th gate cos we thought we were late. Yep, so got onto the plane and it took off at 7.05am. Felt really tired but couldn’t sleep. But with the help with music, anything is possible(:
Landed safely at ard 8am Cambodia time (9am sg time). Went to Lucky Supermarket where we bought water and some of us bought chocs and snacks. Headed to the Korean Guest House after that. Our accommodation for a few days. Really nice place! Roommates with the other sec 3s! Whooo! Mich, Chew, MeHh and I! :DD We then went to the Toul Slang Genocide Museum. They transformed a school to a ‘prison’ for th people. people were tortured until very jia lat. It was so bad until the prisoners used daily materials to commit suicide. Like towels, toothbrush, bedsheet…etc. They killed the children by using bricks to hit their heads against trees until they lose consciousness/are dead. Really felt disgusted by the way those people kill the prisoners. We were brought through a few blocks of the school, saw the things the prisoners committed suicide with, loads of pictures of the prisoners. Our guide experienced that period of time where her family members including her husband was involved. :/After which, we went to Village Works to see the stuff GB do to teach women skills to survive and earn money. We then headed for lunch at some chinese restaurant. There was this guy who kept on smoking in the restaurant and it really stinked a lot. >=3 After lunch we went back to the Guest House to rest and relax while Ms Foo and Mrs Tang went to get paints for the next day’s painting. The sec 4s and Vanessa were in one room and the rest were in our room. We were just chatting and stuff. When they teachers came back, we had worship/thanksgiving and praise. I kinda screwed up quite a lot playin the guitar. :/ We had a break again after that and went for dinner at a boat noodles place. Heh. Nice ambience and food! Had lychee drink! Lol. Random. Kept taking candid pics of Jaselyn while waiting for the bus. Haha. Anw, went back to our accommodation. Had reflection and another short devo time and off we went to sleep. Zzz.
20th Nov ‘08
We woke up late! Set the time on our alarm to Sg’s time. Kelly-Ann knocked on our door 10 min before we were supposed to meet. Had devo and Quiet Time then went for breakfast. Had egg and bread. The egg was really nice! (: meHh kept on saying it was pepperish. Lol. Anw, took a few pics then odd we went to the slums to paint the library. Michelle and I painted one side of the wall. Quite fun! and tiring. It kept on raining paint! Haha! Slowly, our shirts, hands, shorts, hair, shoes had spots of paint. Haha! Took a break and went for lunch at some Indian shop. We could choose whatever dishes we wanted. By then, we were all tired alr. Zz. After lunch, we went back to paint the inside of the library. After the 1st floor was almost done, some of us went to the 2nd floor to paint. (: super exhausted. Finally, when the walls look like they all have an even coat of paint, we went back to the Korean Guest House. I guess all, or most of us slept on the bus. I don’t know man, but what meHh said bout the bus having some sleepy effect is true. Haha! Kk, so we got back, some of them bathed. The sec 3s and some sec 4s didn’t. I don’t really like to perspire/feel sticky before sleeping. Soo, yeah. Went for dinner and some café. Ate Pat Thai. Introduced by Kelly-Ann. It’s like Hokkien Mee! Haha. And yep it’s nice! Had banana shake too! (: First time I ate banana there. Haha nicee. :DD went back and had a short time of praise & worship and did reflection. Then slepttt.
21st Nov ‘08
Woke up at 6 and went round knocking on everyone’s doors to wake them up. Felt really tired. Got ready and went to the same place for breakfast. This time we had noodles. Tasted kinda plain. *adds some chili sauce. :D Then we went back to the slums we visited yesterday. We went to the dumpsite and the mountains of rubbish was huge!
It stinked a lot too. There was this bunch of rubbish and there were flies all over it! Eek. Anw, we were there for a short while only and went back down soon after that. Went back to the bus to take the books and walked back to the library. Which was only 15 min walk away from the dumpsite. We then started to scrap off the paint we dripped onto the floor while painting the day before. The kids were really cute! When they saw us scraping the paint off the floor, they helped! Using their fingernails and stones they got from outside. Super cute(: We then waited for th floor to dry cos some of us mopped it. And went to put the books into the new cabinet we bought for them. When the children saw the books, they were so delighted and happy and we read stories to them and taught them some stuff. Went back ‘home’, some of us bathed and went to Lucky Burger! Their local fast food restaurant. Oh, they have a KFC there but no Macs. Anw, meHh and I shared a meal. So did mich and chew. Cos they had ice cream and we didn’t want to overeat(: All 4 of us had 2 scoops each. More worth it. I took hazelnut and apple. Nice! :D went back ‘home’ and had reflection. 4 of us bathed and dunno why th sec 4s came over to our room. Think it was because KA was bathing or sth. Yeah, we played cheat, then 21 then snap. Snap was the most fun! Kept on laughing at the smallest thing! Super funny. And our room was super hot! Dunno why. Kept on perspiring. @__@ anw, we aimed to finish at 1045 Cambodia time. If not, we’ll never end! I kept on going in and out of the game. Super retarded. And I lost in the end. :(
22nd Nov ‘08
Woke up, had morning devo & QT. Ms Foo led. She sang A Common Love.
Damn nice! :D Had breakfast at the same place. Egg with something inside and 2 toasts. Love the toasts there(: We then set off for Baray! Quite a long ride. Ard 3 hours? When we reached Village Works, we settled in to our bunks. Slept according to our groups. And Eunice saw a rat at the sewing room there. ! Yikes! So everytime we passed by that room, we’d quickly run. Cos our dining place was after the room. Haha! K so we had lunch then we went off to one of the villages, Chatalog for the children’s ministry. It was my group’s turn to lead. And I was kinda scared that things would screw up, that th children wont enjoy themselves. But I guessed it proved me wrong. We did the medley first. Chicken dance, head and shoulders knees and toes, and incy wincy spider. The children were so cute! We did it twice I think. Heh. Then we played lao ying zhuo xiao ji. Could see that they enjoyed themselves. Ms Foo was high. Haha! Then we thought them some English. Like body parts, time, activities…etc. After that, we had story telling session. Jaselyn told them the story of Jonah and the big fish. Great story teller! :D Then it was crafts time! There were so many kids, they gotta share the materials. :/ Yep, helped out a lil. It’s such a joy seeing kids enjoy themselves. It then started to look like it was gna rain so we headed back to Village Works. Rested, bathed and had dinner. Had some free time cos we ate dinner at about 5? Yeah that’s early. Cos they said that after 5, loads of bugs would be attracted to th lights and it would be kinda sick eating flies and everything. Yep, so after dinner we rested for a while and it was time for reflection. It was my turn to play the guitar again. So I went outside Ms Foo and Mrs Tang’s room and asked Ms Foo where the reflection should be held. And she didn’t really reply me. Yanfen, Chireni and I saw a gigantic lizard outside their room. Kinda freaky. K anw, group 1 and 2 went to the dining area there. And group 3 came out of their room. Ms Foo came running out of her room and climbed onto a chair. Haha! Then she called out to Mrs Tang and Mrs Tang said sth like ‘cannot! I’m stuck!’ HAHAHA. Damn joke. Cos they had a rat in their room. And they climbed onto the beds to hide from it. Lolol. And Mrs Tang ran out of th room too. Very cute! Hahaha! Anw had the reflection at the landing outside group 1 and 2s bunks. (: still had flies there. But ren lor. Kinda irritating. Like playing the guitar then cannot shoo them off me. LOLS. :/ hmm, then we split into the 2 groups as we did on the 3rd day. I was in Ms Foo’s group with Jaselyn, Yanfen, Eunice, Chew Min, Joanne, Dorin and Jieying. We went into my group's bunk for the reflection. (: After a while dunno why got people join us. But it was alright! Heh. Slowly, they went back to their rooms and it was left with Group 1 + Ms Foo. Both the teachers din wna go back to their room so they stayed with their groups. So Ms Foo with our group, Mrs Tang with group 2. :D we tried to finish the snacks we had cos we were afraid the rats would come and invade our room. And we played the 4-letter word game! Lol. Quite interesting and fun(: We thought electricity would be turned off at 9pm. But it didn’t. So we decided to off the lights and go to sleep. Since Ms Foo showed by example and tried to sleep. Heh. We saw a firefly! Super cool. Haha! Oh, and suddenly the song ‘A Common Love’ got stuck in my head. And I was trying to recall the chorus. But kinda failed. Asked Ms Foo to sing and we sang along~ :DD But I still couldn’t rmb some. So I kept asking Mel.C. lol. Sorry if I made you irritated? Jaselyn even lent me her camp booklet + torchlight to refer to the lyrics. Hahaha. Damn joke. And when i was done, I placed her stuff at my head there and tried to go sleep. After a while, Jaselyn asked for her torchlight back. LOL. Cuz she feels insecure w/o it. Haha! So I slept by trying to remember the lyrics(:
In the middle of the night. At ard 2+am, Ms Foo woke me up.
MF : [in a very calm tone] Gracia, do you have a torchlight?
Me : hmm, yeah. *searches for my torchlight and ons it
MF : can you go switch on th light please? Cos I thought I heard some squeeking noises. I just want to make sure everyone is okay.
Me : Omg, don tell me there are rats in our room! Quite scary can! Mel.C and Yanfen were awake too! Jaselyn was sleep-talking. Hahaha!
Anw, we tried to go back to sleep(: 23rd Nov '08In the morning, Yanfen was super cute. She asked Ms Foo if she kicked her. And Ms Foo said she didn’t but hugged her instead! Haha! And Tan Yanfen’s reaction was super funny. Hahaha. She was very scared and like, din dare to talk/face Ms Foo. Lolol. Jaselyn another joker. Cos they kept roosters/chickens. And you know when the sun rises they will do their rooster noise. And jaselyn was like “ya la ya la, wake up alr.” HAHAHA. Had breakfast, noodles I think. Yeah than we set off to another village, Chalahong, for children’s ministry too. Did the chicken dance medley thingy again. And the macarina [sp?] dance. Then played lao ying zhuo xiao ji again! This time I was more hyper. Hhaha! The children also all so cuteee! :DD kk, then taught them English words again. Yeah.
Had story telling and crafts too!
We then headed back to have lunch, simple meal. Rice with soup and vege? Yeah sth liddat. After lunch, we went back to Chatalog.(!!!) Since it was a Sunday, there were super a lot of kids. Like ard a hundred? And group 3 had balloon sculpting and origami. Lols. The kids were all snatching th balloons away from the makers’ hands while they were still pumping them. Haha. It felt like some carnival. Like got different stations, balloons, origami, English lessons, dancing.. haha. But it felt great. Esp seeing the kids you saw the previous days and when they remember you! Chan Tha!!! T__T he’s so handsome and is a Christian!! (L) Wahhh, I do miss him a lot. Im sure Mich and meHh too yea! (: he’s super cute. You know the children there can speak very lil eng. And the first thing that came out of his mouth to me was “Are you Christian?” Awww! I could have melted right there. So touched. Like, it’s important to him that’s why he asked me that. And mich told him to rmb us and he said he would! :DD I wish I could go back there next year! Anw, we said our goodbyes and hopped on to the bus and went back to Village Works to grab our stuff and headed back to Phnom Penh. Another 3 hour bus ride and it was raining. Slept on the bus again(: Reached Phnom Penh and went back to the Korean Guest House. We were all so relieved and happy! No more rats, flies, insects, frogs and gigantic lizards! :D Since we ate quite a lot of fruits there, quite a lot of us needed to shit. But I didn’t. lol. So mich, meHh then chew shitted. And guess what, our toilet got chocked! HAHAHA. Damn joke. Could see all the tissue paper and the shit floating ard. *takes pic of it and with it! LOLS. @__@ Anw, off to dinner at the same restaurant as the first day’s lunch. But we had it upstairs. (: yummy food too! :D after dinner, went back, had reflection and tried to sleep. But guess what happened. Cos the sec 3s takes our malaria pills after dinner. So like, we took them before/after bathing. And there were 2 big beds, and we would push them together so all 4 of us could sleep tgt. But, the thing was… We were quite tired and were lazy to push the beds. But we wanted to! And mich and chew were on their beds alr. Soo, meHh and I, still lying on th bed, used our legs to push against the wall and move the bed. K, successful. Now, our bodies were like, half off the bed and pushed again. Can! And meHh was tip toeing alr. HAHAHA. Joke. Anw, we couldn’t push against the wall alr, so we got off the bed and pushed with our hands. (Lols) finally, the 2 beds were together. But, we weren’t tired anymore. We were kinda high and hyper. But I guess we just laid in our beds and tried to sleep. And you know the window in th room, yeah it cant be locked when you open it and slide the mosquito net thing over. Soo, yeah. The first night Ms Foo told us about it and we were kinda freaking out. Imagining what could happen stuff. We used books to try to prevent the window from opening but to no avail. It still could be opened. But we left it there, just to assure ourselves. (: Yep, and since it was our 2nd last night alr, there weren’t any books for us to leave there. And as I couldn’t really sleep, I started to look at the shadow and found out sth. So I said “Mel, look at the shadow there. Can you see a headless man?” HAHAHA. Totally freaked her out until she hit me. HEH. Stupid towel. XD and from there, I wasn’t really sure what happened. But I knew we were kicking and using the small towels to hit each other. LOLS. Yep, that totally didn’t help to calm us down and sleep. Soo, we started chatting. Not gossiping. Chatting. :DDD <3>
24th Nov ‘08
Woke up, had the normal routine. Morning devo + QT and breakfast. We had 2 cheese sandwiches. Yummy! Then we went to Lucky Supermart again. This time the teachers got some milk for the dumpsite kids. The library was closed. so we walked ard distributing the milk. Saw a few familiar faces! :D See the joy in the children’s faces when they received the milk. Haha. (: after that we went to have lunch!!! Guess what we had? BUFFET! Whoooo! Ate till quite full. There were fruits too! Yummy! Bananas and Longans! :DD meHh and I took 1 pyramid of bananas. Lol damn joke. Couldn’t finish it all. So passed them over to Ms Foo I think. Heh!
After lunch we went to the Russian Market. It was quite hot in there. It rained too. So it became quite humid. @__@ Was shopping with the sec 3s + Chireni! Haha. Quite fun! bought quite lil stuff. Kinda regret. :/ We then headed over to the Central Market. Lesser things to buy there. Mostly clothes? Mich, meHh and I bought sunglasses! (H) LOLS. Totally mad. We went outside again, to look at more things to buy. And this guy was following the 5 of us. We got freaked out and quickly went and find Ms Foo who was waiting for all of us to finish shopping. Gosh, super scary. But all he wanted was to ask if we wanted a ride on his motocycle. You know, sth like taxi. Heh. meHh and I went to buy sugarcane juice. Tastes kinda diff from sg’s. anw, we din finish it and threw it away. Lols. Went back ‘home’ to put down our stuff and visited Village Works again(: meHh and I bought loads of stuff there. Haha joke! After that we went to some shopping complex to shop ard for about an hour. To spend our remaining few money we have left. The 5 of us decided to explore the shopping complex first then go to Lucky Supermart last. Soo, walked ard, I bought a watch. :D and some other stuff too yea. At one of the levels, we were just walking ard and saw this neoprint machines! It was super cheap also! It was like US$2 for 9 pics. :O mad. We all got high and started choosing the backgrounds from the many files they gave us. Finally when we were done, we squeezed into th small machine and starting taking the pics. Lol. And it’s like, you have to click it manually. So the lady was helping us click. I bet she was laughing at us cos we really had to squeeze to fit all our faces in there! Hahaha. It was quite worth it too yea. But by th time we were done, it was ard 15-20 min before we were supposed to meet again. *rushes off to Lucky Supermart. Grabs all th chocs that interests us and obviously those we cant find in Singapore. (: quickly paid and ran out of the shopping complex! We din know where we were running to. while we were running, there was this bunch of guys who came up to us and freaked us out and we ran the other direction! Haha. Quite scary. Somemore it was super dark. Anw, got on to the bus safely and went off for dinner! At the same café we went on the 2nd day. I ordered sandwiches and banana shake again! :DD niceee! Kelly-Ann came up with a rather stupid yet funny joke. Lol. “What is Mozart’s favourite fruit?” haha. Happy guessing~ After dinner we headed back to the Guest House and had our last reflection. [ DD: ] Yep, a short time of devo. But the reflection part was different. All of us did it on the table. Spent quite some time reflecting and writing it down. It was the quietest reflection since the trip started. Cos usually we would side track and keep on talking bout other stuff. Then, when most of us were done, Ms Foo gave us some stickers and a paper with our names on it. We were supposed to go round writing what we think of each person and paste a sticker next to what we’ve wrote. Haha. Something like what we did in council and obs. (: After that we went back to our rooms, bathed and packed our things. Went over to the sec 4s room to play snap! HAHAHA. Funn! But I prefer the night when we were at our room. More fun. lolls. Anw, their room was also quite hot. But our room was hotter. Hahaha. Played a lil bit of thati after that. Got kinda sianed and went back to our rooms and slept.
25th Nov ‘08
Slept for ard 1+ hour only? Lol. Cos we needed to wake up at 4++ 5 for breakfast then head to the airport! meHh had a stomach ache. I guess it was because she didn’t listen to us and went to take her malaria pill on an empty stomach. See la, don wan listen. Lols! Joke. K anw, went to the airport. Saw many Singaporeans there I guess. Lol. There were some from Millenia Institute and I guess a church was there too? Haha. Saw both groups the day before. The church one was when we were having buffet. The MI one was when we were at the Village Works shop. Yep, checked in and went inside. Spent all our Riels there. Bought a choco each. Haha. Ms Foo’s clever suggestion(: We were short of 100 riels but the kind cashier said it was okay! :DD
So we boarded the plane and it took off. (: mich and I ate the dried jackfruits! Chewmin didn’t like it. Mel was sleeping, she ate a lil tho. :D haha. After that we slept all the way to Singapore. Michelle also said something that made quite a lot of sense. That the plane ride to Sg and the bus ride to baray is about the same duration! Ard 3 hours. Haha :D ohyeah. The night before, Chireni said something like.. ‘lets wear our sunglasses out of the airport in Singapore.’ Mich and I agreed! LOLS. I guess we were kinda high at that time. But, obviously we didn’t. (: K, so we collected out bags and went out of the gate. :( kinda sad though. Like, we could really enjoy ourselves in Cambodia and everything. Spend time with the children, making them feel happy, spreading the love. No worries [maybe just the rats part], no hiding of any feelings or whatever, sharing secrets... I guess lots of us felt the same way? So yep, as what a lot of us have said. What happens in Cambodia stays in Cambodia. =)
Yep went out to meet our parents(: but meHh’s parents wasn’t there! She called them. And guess what, they said they thought she’s coming back the next day. Alright man. So she followed us to T3 to have lunch! :D her first time going to T3. lols. Both of us had Popeyes. And Kaitlyn thought that I was her! Hahah. Its cool yea. :] let my baby cousin play a lil while at the playground and went to the car to go home. Mum insisted on driving meHh back. (: hmm, yeah. Soo, we left the T1 carpark. And guess what? The most unexpected thing happened. One of the car’s tyre was punctured. Is that awesome or what. So we unloaded all our bags and the guitars, placed them by the roadside and took out the spare tyre. Started figuring out how to change the tyre. Haha! Luckily I helped my dad to change a tyre earlier this year. So could still kinda rmb how to do it. :D After around 45 min, my 2 bros, meHh and I were done changing the tyre! And nobody stopped to help. My mum called dad to come and help or sth but he was quite far or dunno what. So yea. No adult helped. My mum just stood there and took pics. Haha! But I didn’t mind. Quite cool also. (:
Yep, that’s my whole story about the Cambodia Trip. Bet I left out some parts. But that’s the best I can remember for now. So… Congrats if you read all the way! Tag me if you did yea! I wna know. :DD And it’s freaking 6.5 pages long in word. (:oh. and if you want pics, i might post some pics here. but, not all. you can go to my facebook or the gb blog. :DD
Signed off @2:58 PM.
