27 December 2007, 4 days before 2008 arrives, Overcast... Sounds familiar? Haha. Learnt it from the Hong Kong show Heart Of Greed.Finally got the time to blog since i've finish my term test and chionging the heart of greed show. Heart Of Greed is a nice show! But sadly that Alferd aka Raymond die and didn't manage to be with the girl Sheung tsoi sum that he loves. For those who are looking for a touching, sweet, sad show to watch, then Heart of Greed is the show for you. Haha. I Wish the producer could change the story by letting Alferd and Sheung Tsoi Sum be together.
My first day of my holiday, started on Saturday, 15 December, Sunny, got up at around 6.30 to 7am like that to go for my Church mission trip to Bintan, Indonesia. It was a 2 Days 1 Night trip. We got there by a ferry to the immigration checkpoint at Bintan. After that we sat a motored powered sampan to reach the village Senggarang.
-Bintan trip experience-
When we reach there, and unload our bags from another Sampan, We check into our rooms. My room... the door was hard to open. And when you open it, it feels like we are going to break the door. Well at least My room that I shared with my friend was slightly better compared to the last 2 times I went. The First time, the bed I slept on, the pillow got ants crawling out from it. The 2nd time, the blanket had a stain on it... A brown stain... Dunno if it's those "dirty stain"...
After putting our bags in our rooms, we met in one of the Hotel room i.e. Function room - the function room floor is wood and below is the sea. And it has got lots of ants on its floor. When I went for my first trip there there was even rat or mouse running around. We started practicing on our christmas carols in Chinese and Berhasa over there. It wasn't an easy task. During practice we were practicing not only on our voices for the carols but also our pronounciation. I hope my friend Adeline is still keeping the christmas carols sheet in chinese and berhasa. I really want to keep that song sheet as a memory of me singing christmas carols in Berhasa and Chinese for the first time.
It was really interesting learning Christmas carols in another language besides english. Although it was tough, I had fun learning it in other languages. We practiced Christmas Carols such as Joy to World, Silent Night Holy Night, Come All Ye Faithful. After practice which was my first and last practice, the youths went to help in the packing of prizes and gooddies for the graduating English classes in Kampong Bugis and those held in our hotel itself.
After preperation was Lunch at Ah Ing's house. Food was simple but nice with fruits. Ah Ing's house is the usual place we go for lunch when we're in Bintan. We will usually have lunch and chat a little with each other over there.
I was posted to help in the graduating English classes in our Hotel, Kellong Hotel. The family of the kids graduating were invited. After that we gave them a treat at the Hotel itself. Since the meal was free, the people who turn up were more than expected. Gifts were given out to only those who were at the graduating class but I don't think it went very well as those regulars for the English classes didn't get it juz because they missed that graduation ceremony. And that caused a lot of unhappiness among us and the kids and families. So we made it up by giving them free ice cream. But again since the ice cream was free, some took advantage of it and kept going back to ask for more. So we had to put a stop to it and said NO MORE ICE CREAM FOR YOU. After the dinner, there were some left over of fried rice and drinks [Surprisingly] so since we haven't had our dinner yet, we ate them. But trust me, it doesn't taste nice at all though its "hotel food".
The fried rice taste awfully burnt so we drank the drinks instead (maybe that's why there's a leftover of fried rice). But it was soon made up when we went to the Church next where we attended their Berhasa service and watch their Christmas performance. After the service, we were given mee with a piece of chicken and a small green snack like cake and Otah (the Otah was Hot so I ended up giving it to my friend instead). This was a lot more better than the fried rice we had.
Next and our final activity for that day was Caroling...!!! Yea. I was feeling quite worn out and tired by then. But then we still have to carry on with our plan as we've already arranged and promised some people there that we'll go there house for carolling. As the village there were all kindda connected to each other, there was a lot of walking to do. Through the dark alleys and narrow pathways [Not kidding].
Our last destination to carol was the Catholic church. And I'll SERIOUSLY remember that experience 'The walk to the Catholic church'. Not a wonderful one though. The walk there was Super long. It was like about a 20 mins walk like that and by then the torch light I had, the battery was running out and the light was so dim that it was as good as not having any torch light instead. To make matters worst, the paths and roads leading to the Catholic church had very few street lamps. Even if there was, it was very dim.
So we had our substitute... light sticks. Though it wasn't bright enough to see what's around us, it help us not to lose track of each other. Finally when we reach the Catholic church I was so Happy. Sadly, it didn't last long. Cos the path to get to the door of the place or home for the Catholic housekeeper or priest was flooded. The beginning wasn't bad, the water level only covered my toes (tiptoes) but as I walk further on the water could cover a 1/4 of my feet. Those in front leading the way, bad luck... I heard that further in front, there was a big difference in the ground level and that the water reach up to halfway to his knees or knee level [thank God it wasn't me as i was wearing Jeans] =x. So we made a U-turn back to dry land. But that of course didn't dampen the Christmas spirit of the leaders or rather adults. They told us to take the sideway walkway instead to reach the house. And there was only a small space of narrow concrete for us to walk on. And then on the right side of it was the muddy field and on the left was the drain. So only one of us could walk at a time.
Yar... So it was kindda like a catwalk thing to reach the small Catholic house. When we reach there, though the light was on, the people were sleeping. So we had to knock and stand outside the house for quite some time before the door was finally open to let us in. When we went in to sit, the house being small, we had to squeeze ourselves together like sadines so that everyone could enter into the house. It was very squeezed and stuffy especially with the gutar for the music. We only sang about 1 or 2 Christmas carols to them instead of our 3 Christmas Carols as it was late and we felt bad about waking them up. A prayer for their family followed after our singing. Then it's back to our catwalk to "dryland" and back to our hotel to sleep.
The 2nd day was more of a free and easy day for us. It was time for us to visit the Children in the village if you want to, or just walk around and buy something home from the village before going back Singapore. Checking out was quite bad though as I almost thought me and my friend were locked and stucked inside our room. Luckily Adeline managed to pull open the super hard to open door. If not I dunno what I would do... Thanks to God Adeline was there!!! Our Trip home wasn't as bumpy as the 1st ride I sat last time for the sampan. But the ferry back to Singapore was really bumpy. Woke me up from my sleep. Wonder how some manage to sleep despite the bumpy ride. Heard that the bumpy ride could get even worst sometimes from those regulars to Bintan.
Pictures of my trip to Bintan wil be posted in my next post.
-Cheers-
» Posted by sally - 7:18 PM
