I went to Sarawak!

6:30 AM

Sorry it took me so long to blog. This post is more than a week late, as in I wanted to post about it more than a week ago but I really had no time!! And for the past 5 days or so, my brothers and my sister have been hogging the computer non stop! I dont even have enough time to watch dramas i wanted to watch from long ago and running man!! Running man can really make me laugh till I tear. My 2 year old sister has been watching mickey mouse clubhouse on and on. She can even say misca musca mickey mouse *sophia open arms pose* Once she comes home from school she asks every one to let her watch minnie mouse. If she's not on the computer, she's on the ipad. For my brothers, it's either weird games on computer or racing games on ipad or wii. For me, it's just my lonely iphone to play with :'(


Okay! I went to Sarawak last last thursday to last Sunday! Took a plane for the first time in a really long time I dont even remember the last time I took a plane :/ We had a city tour for the rest of the journey on a bus which was great because bus rides are great rest times. We had to get down the bus once to see this statue. 
Which is kinda scary with whiskers for eyebrows. We went to Kuching, Sarawak, and kuching is cat in malay so there were loads of stray cats.
Most of the photos were stolen from my classmate's camera hehe cause I dont have pro camera, just phone. I dont know why my friend took the place in B&W but it's probably cause we both were like wha wha this whole place is so ulu and vintage!!! And snapped a lot of random building pictures. The town area kind of resembles a mix of chinatown and haji lane I guess. But shophouses were everywhere. 
 It started raining after taking photos with the cat statue (thank god for no more getting down the bus), so we went straight for dinner!
 Awesome. I guess they're kinda my group of people? Like I stick to them a lot and I feel so un myself if I'm not with them at school. Unless it's joey or jillian or charis or sumona I guess. Anyway, thats Grace, me, Ying ern, Lou, Sop. Sop's not camera shy she's just wearing her jacket the wrong way on purpose o_O
 Really fluffy class hoodies!! Dont know what we're doing but this photo really makes me laugh. Sop was trying to get us all do the same as her cra cra cra crazzzzzyyyyy
Now's she the only one doing it and we're all looking at her weirdly. After that, back to hotel! Our hotel was only 1 year old or something it was sooooo nice!!! We had a huge single bed that could fit two pillows side to side. You know it's really uncomfortable when you get a queen size bed and can roll wherever you want but in between the two pillows there's like this hole??? The pillow in our hotel was like bolster just pillow squashed and pillow fluffy. Ahhhhhh *explode into happiness*

 Day 2!!! Rise and shine early at 7 to get really good (to me, dont know why people said it sucked. maybe cause im famished every morning. ) nasi lemak, bee hoon and all that stuff you find in Singapore. Honey stars and teochew porridge and whatnot. I'm a huge breakfast person in that sense that if I choose a meal to eat forever, it'll be breakfast. Milk and cereal are just GREAT to start a day. I'll also consider myself a huge dessert person cause no matter how full I get, there's always space left for dessert. And I hardly crave stuff like macs and spaghetti and stuff but I always get so tempted whenever chocolate or ice cream or even just the buttery waffery taste you get when you pass by cold stone creamery. Ahh dessert is just bliss!!!!

Oh yes by the way, early in the morning we went for a long tour round the sarawak museum which was half interesting. After that we went to Sarawak cultural village!
We all wore our class tee on day 2!!! Sarawak cultural village sticker casually placed over the O, soo hipster;0
The cultural village is just a place where they recreate the places tribes used to lived at and it was really cool. Some people are actual tribal people as in they really rear chickens and bead all they long. Above is a girl wearing some traditional thing beading. I think she's not an actual tribal person cause we were told the real tribal women dont bother wearing shirts. And only started wearing shirts after the government told them to do so. 
 We learned how to dance a malay dance and make this ring!!!
 I know you cant really see this well but this was one of the most serene scenes I've ever seen in my life. In front was the semi big patch of grass with some patches of slightly longer leaves and they were blowing to one side all at the same time, it was such a nice thing to look at I finally get how poets and artists feel so inspired and start doing their thing. And as if the happy grass patch wasnt enough, at the back there was this lake which was pretty big and so serene looking. I wish I had a pro camera and could capture a gif. It was so peaceful it was mesmerizing.
The visiting of tribal houses seemed to go on forever but this was lunch! The thing about is that I'm not really THAT adventurous. Every camp or anything I go for, for the first half of it I will hope for everything to pass quickly, longer slack time, longer bus rides, longer hotel stay ins, but by the last part and after I come home I will miss the trip so much. 

Pretty lights that resemble pitcher plants. We were in the theatre watching people dance. We got on the bus again after spending close to 5 hours at sarawak cultural village. So relieved to finally rest on the bus but we had to get off soon. I was super reluctant to get off the bus every time. And we had to walk a really long way in, like pass a lot of ulu house and stuff to reach this place... 
 This was really stunning. Even my eye couldnt capture the whole place at one shot, like everything in front of me is so absolutely incredible. But not really the back cause thats where it's kind of ulu. I've always thought nature is definitely beautiful left on its own and stuff but through this trip, I've seen so many amazing sights and really and truly experienced nature at its best.
 Looking at these pictures really make me miss sarawak alot. The whole lot of us going crazy jumping around the rocks, taking pictures. Kids nearby playing with tree branches and stuff, things in sarawak is really different from Singapore. I dont mean to bring geography in but wow... I really saw the huge contrast between a physical environment and human environment.

 That is the sophia open arms pose I mentioned earlier above.


 No 1 rule whenever we see beautiful scenery, take jump shots!! My school is crazy about jump shots. In henry park, we hardly did jump shots cause they just werent our thing... but here it's like everything Oh my gosh!!! We should take jump shots!!! And I'm only posting this picture of us going to jump cause the rest of the jump shots I really look like I was struggling a lot because of my awkward backpack and jacket.

Class pic according to register order. Went back to the bus feeling contented. 
 We had dinner at this high class looking place with flowers and napkins and cutlery put properly. However the food sucked. One thing I noticed at sarawak was that they ALWAYS served us either watermelon or honeydew. Always watermelon. Honeydew maybe 3/5 of the time? (dont blame me, I keep coming up with weird fractions nowadays) So at sarawak every breakfast, lunch, dinner I ate watermelon.
Picture with some of my classmates with me going to eat my watermelon. 
Went back to the hotel shortly after. Me and my room mate, grace, sang Mighty to Save every night before we slept. The best thing about being in a christian school is that they print stuff like that out for you. 
 Day 3!!!! Went to the sarawak orang utan rehab centre early in the morning (like 9) to see the monkeys when they have their breakfast. The awesome thing about this rehab center is that all they do is try to restore these orang utan back to health and train them so that they can be released back into the wild. And most of the orang utan there have either been kept illegally as pets or attacked or injured. Im so lazy to spell orang utan!! Anyway, sorry for being a little bit bimbo here but I had no idea orang utan and monkeys were different. I thought it was just some different language thing. Ahh! so bimbo
Just before going in! 

 Baby on mother's back. Apparently it takes about 7 to 8 years for an orang utan to give birth to another child. This orang utan, they name her Hot mama. It's cause she's crazy aggressive, this park ranger or something said he was sent to hospital twice because of her. And we were this close to the Hot mama. Like just a pavement away.
Jungle trail 

 Next, we went to the Bidayuh Longhouse which was the actual place tribes live in. Apparently if you buy a piece of land to build an extension of the house that's one and half times the size of my house it only costs 4 ringgit. The reason why it's called a Long house is cause cousins and aunts and grandmas just live together. Once the house gets too cramped they build another section. The Long house is shaped like a long rectangle. Super cool! And really the whole floor of the whole place is made from bamboo. Grown and chopped and nicely arranged
 The green spikes are dangerous! They poked my arm and I still have a scar :((

Had a pretty long bus ride. Actually all the bus rides last up to 1 to 1 and half hour, so they're really good rest times and play times. Some bus pictures!!



 Aha shes so cute!!
 Eating seaweed on bus.
 Jia ying passing seaweed


 Puffy clouds on the way!!
Number of bottles me and grace drank on the second day. Really wanted to make sure we didnt have any sore throat or anything!
This was our tour guide Ms ana! She's 68 and she's sooooo grandmotherly. Yes really she reminds me of ahma. She can climb slopes and mountains and whatever at her age. Every time we get back from the bus from doing some activity, we'll all be so dead tired and sleep but she sometimes stands up the whole bus journey talking about some mountain or building. It's not because she's boring we dont listen, we're just sleepy :P
 We went for lunch on the way and this is the best meal EVER. Everything was so delicious and we were all famished. We finished every single dish

This was the steamed fish. The salted chicken was sooo yummy and they gave us cereal prawn. And the prawns were pealed!!!!!! Pealed prawns are so amazing to me because one of the reasons I hate eating prawns is cause im so lazy to peal them but these were pealed!!! Ahhhhhhh!! Everything was so yummy everyone was just like Best meal ever and like Why is my life so good.
 Kek lapis factory next!!! Oh man I can already smell the buttery smell.
The cake can take up to 4 months to complete and it's so pretty!!!
 Next stop! The astana! It's basically the minister's house, like the Istana in Singapore but grander. The  whole place is so majestic looking. Huge house, with your private boats, huge river, blue sky. And we were supposed to sketch it

 What did I say about taking jump shots with nice scenery???
 I remembered this jump shot I just pretended to jump because we took so many and was so tired..

Ying ern's jump is so perfect!  Mine is semi pro, no?
 Again!! they're a few more but Im lazy to post.
 All of us were trying to copy sophia's face hahah!!
^^^^^^^^^^
Went for chicken buffet after that!!! It was supposed to be a highlight or something cause it was the last meal and the meals keep getting better and better but it wasnt that great.
 Last day at the airport!!! It was so sad :(((



Polaroid with grace! Sarawak has been the funnest thing ever since the year started and like I had so much fun, learned so much, grew so much closer to my friends and all. I'm so thankful!!!! :') Yeah... I planned a lot more things to say about sarawak but I've forgotten them all... 
 Clouds from the airplane
Souvenirs from sarawak! I bought a whole lot of rubbish but this was so cute. I didnt really think of it when I was buying it but now I kinda think of these cats to represent us four siblings :)))

Immediately two days after the sarawak trip I went shopping with my group of friends!! :')) Really long since I last properly shopped and I got pretty cheap deals! Last week I watched Men in black.... Last Sunday we had a mini class party!! But only 5 people turned up. Me, carissa, josh, jun and keefe. Small group we swam as usual, talked about life, had really really nice dinner. Carissa's mum is good at cooking and rolling sushis :) Even after so long I still really miss my old class. My cousin thinks im crazy she's like huh???? so long already. Yeah but still :(( I havent seen josh for so long he's already taller than me and his voice is all cracked up. Currently for the june holidays Im having training every monday, tuesday and friday. I am supposed to have a competition on 13 June but I've almost completely given up on being able to compete cause until now I cannot remember the routine and everyone's so pro!!! I cant keep up and Im just super frustrated i'm hating on swimming. I've been trying to run every alternate day. Apparently there's a track opposite my house that I've completely forgot about. I've been trying since monday to do my quiet time and read 10 pages of Romeo and juliet every day. I dont want history to repeat itself like what happened for To kill a mockingbird. Dont want to just pass literature! Oh yes I'm going to Taiwan from 15 june onwards!!! Yay really looking forward to all the bubbletea and yes!!! Im skipping training. I know I keep wanting to improve and all but I JUST HATE IT sometimes. Last time I would miss synchro if I dont go for it for like a week but now I just really really want to wiggle out of every single training. Sigh, thanks for reading this long post! and this rant (if you did finish it)

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