Cameron Highlands Day 1

*Whoosh*

A breeze of refreshingly cool air brushed against my face as I stepped out of my dad's car. Hotel Equatorial was in front of me. All around were apartments belonging to the hotel. My family and my grandma would be staying in one of the 2 bedroom apartments.

My dad checked in at the reception counter and then we drove to our apartment to unload our luggage.

While carrying the bags up, my brother attempted to be 'macho' and took 3 huge bags at once. However, as strong as any teenager is, it probably is very painful and thus, my brother dropped a bag. FAIL

Ahem... Moving on...

We checked out our apartment and found that it was nice, comfortable and huge. Large wardrobes, attached bathrooms and living room. I would say that my family was reasonably satisfied. A hotel brochure in our apartment said, "...We're one of the highest hotels in Cameron Highlands and therefore naturally, the coolest." Yeeeaurgh!

We decided who would sleep where, and then left for... the famous T-Cafe (in Tanah Rata)!

My Hot Cocoa

Chicken Pie, half eaten

And saving best for last...

Scone!

Alright, enough pictures! Well, to tell you the truth, I don't think any of the food was especially nice nor even reasonably priced, but we basically wanted to try the scones, and they were good, the best! (My mom even packed back a dozen to Subang Jaya.)

After tea, we went to the nearby park. It wasn't too good, very muddy. We then headed for the ... Pasar Malam!

To tell you the truth, I've never been in a pasar malam before. It was quite noisy, just as I expected. All sorts of things were for sale. Interestingly, some stalls did not have fixed prices for their goods. At one stall, I saw a Rubix cube selling for RM4, and at a nearby stall, I saw the exact same Rubix cube selling for RM1.50.

After the shopping, my family and I returned to our apartment, relaxed for a while, and then went for steamboat dinner. Wow, letting the steam flow through your hands in cool Camerons felt good. The dinner cost RM12 per person and you can ask them to top up whatever you want (except the meats) for FREE!

After the satisfying dinner, we went back to the apartment. When I got out of the car, I noticed there were a lot of stars in the sky. We were quite mesmerised.

When we entered our apartment, we headed for the balcony ...

This is the balcony in the daytime.
Even the balcony is big!

to stargaze. We brought out some chairs and blankets, made ourselves snug and looked for some constellations. The Big Dipper, Scorpio and Libra were all before me swarmed by vast numbers of unnamed stars. It felt pretty cool... ehem, no pun intended.

After about almost an hour, we went back in to wash up and sleep.

COMING SOON: CAMERON HIGHLANDS DAY 2

IY Sleepover

29th of May 2009

This sleepover in my church, PJEFC was organised by the Impact Youth (IY).

I arrived at 8.30 p.m. and proceeded to put my bags in a room for the guys. While waiting for the official programme to begin, I chatted with some of my friends until 9.00 p.m.
There were about 20 youths and 10 university students. We played a few games to 'familiarise' the youths with the university students.
When we were playing the second last game in the Concourse, there was a blackout...

One of the nearby rooms was still lighted and we all entered it. There, some team leaders said that some people were missing. Suddenly, a freaky face was projected onto a wall followed by weird mutterings that we could hardly make out. Observing that all of us didn't get it, the facilitators of the game told us that we had to 'find the warden' to save our missing friends.

For this treasure hunt to find our missing friends, we could only use torch lights/phone lights to light our path – to find the clues which would lead us to our friends. The freakiest part of the hunt was just when we entered the Main Sanctuary...

'Hehehahaha... *Sobbing Sounds*... Hehehahaha... *Sobbing Sounds*... which went on for a while throughout our search in the Sanctuary.

Gah! I was scared at first. But after a while, the sounds got kind of repetitive. Some people said that the sounds were those of a ‘witch’ in ‘Left for Dead’ (a computer game).

After we found all the clues, we were led to the hostages (ehem, I mean, we found them playing Xbox in an air-conditioned room). There was the prize giving ceremony for the winners.
Then we played... Frisbee! At 11.30 p.m. Wow, some of the university students were real pros, but everyone encouraged each other and we all had a good time.

After that, we watched a movie, Mall Cop which was a bit slapstick, but included some good family elements.

After the show, some of the guys (including me) and 2 girls adjourned to one of the rooms to play cho tai tee, talk and play phone games.

I finally slept at 5.30 a.m. and woke up at 6.30 a.m.

After some more talk followed by breakfast, we left church and headed home.

This wasn't a spiritual sleepover; it's main purpose was to help the IY people get to know the university students. I had a fun time there and phew, 1 hour of sleep... that's a new record...

It Is Finished...

Yes, my sleepover, my Camerons trip and my camp are all OVER. And instead of getting more sleep during the school holidays, I think I got less.

Posts will be coming up soon, just returned from camp yesterday evening and was using the pleasures of home rather that the average camp facilities (like the toilets). It's school again and hope ya'll have enjoyed a good holiday.

I better get a good sleep tonight, or I might be a bit drowsy when I resume my studies tomorrow.