Livin Da Life - Past Tense

My room at night seems so.. peaceful. I just realised it. =) it looks almost like a hotel room. But its infinitely better. Can anyone blame me from falling asleep in the afternoon with insane high temperatures?

Content =)

Tuesday, 15 April. 

The 5 of us Aaron, Camille, Jesslyn, Marie and I decided to take a trip down to Wollongong after camp ended.  Its such a funny name. lol i think aussies have really unique sounding place names. Why can't it be the common Muar or Teluk Babi or whatnot.

These is kinda like Woll's Civic area, but its much more developed, and its not deserted like in Canbo.

Woll's lovely for its beaches and huge waves. The place is more Sydney-like rather than Canberra.

Although it may not look like much, these waves are crazy high!! Anyone standing on the ridge barrier had to be careful to not fall in

The sun there was absolutely gorgeous (again, not like Canbo!) which made for great pics

This is the old lighthouse. Its waaay out in the middle of the sea!

Of course i don't just judge a place by the scenery, i judge it by the FOOD!

Woll had TONS of Thai restaurants!!! i think every street had at least two. siao. But apparantly the largest budhist temple is in Woll so that explains alot. Also, it was a change to be in a place with not so many asians and uni students. It felt more like a natural Aussie setting!

we ended up eating dinner at some Chinese place. OMGoodness! i have SOO overextimated Happy's!! This place puts Happy's to shame!!! really!!!! we ate 7 dishes and there was soo much food for everyone! there was even THREE plates leftovers!!! The price?!?! = 49.20!!!!!

Not even $10 pp!!!! siao!!!!

Memories of the best laksa with everything in it will stay with me for life...

Believe it or not the HUGE veggie cost only $3.80!!!!!!

For dessert we went to Cold Rocks! i never heard of it before but it looks like they mix ANYTHING into ANY kind of ice cream and serve it. And its a really funny method. the staff have to massage the ingredients into the ice cream! I had a Ferrero Roche Shake. Walao... it felt like eating ferrero roche that had an orgasm and then getting orgasmic myself. =P

And then it was time to go back! I think the funniest thing happened. We missed the all-important highway turning and a u-turn!! Ok the turning was our fault, but the u-turn is one dodgy looking branch of road that looks like a truck stop. And there actually WAS a truck parked ON the u-turn itself!

So we ended up going all the way to Bateman's bay....almost double our journey time. Unfortunately our faithful Shelly no petrol after the next two towns, cos apparantly aussie never heard of 24 hour petrol station lol.

So we were stranded in some haunted aussie landscape..at 12.30 am!!!! Aussies sleep soo early!!! i think they n're suffering from some genetic disease that makes them sleep before the moon is fully up. not like back home, where i miss our all nite mamak stalls....   

Luckily we called NRMA (like our AAA) and one grumpy guy came over with some petrol for $20.

So we reached Queenbeyan (another funny name town on the outskirts of Canbo) around 1.30. I tell you, i have NEVER been glad to see civilisation!!! i all the more love big huge cities now. plus i love Caltex! cos it was actually OPEN when we went there!! Shell tak guna!

So i reached Canberra, more accurately Ursies, around 2.30.

But what an adventure! I think we all agree that it was the best ever, and didn't regret it one bit, even if we got stranded and went through some scary mountainous regions, with death accident prone twists and turns. ...

Thats me in my "burglar suit" lol

Monday 14 April. This time i wasn't dumb enough to wake up so early like yesterday. i think my roomies were relieved too =P

Today everything was about the same, but in the afternoon we had a Great Banquet, courtesy of Clandy. part of the program was this auction where teams would buy food using the points we had. but afterward it was all good cos teams were allowed to share food.

that night was the grand finale! i think every team did a tremendous effort, but Three Little Pigs really deserved the win, managing to incorporate almost everything they learned in camp, dissing the other 2 teams, and imitating Shern Ren as well. And i think Marisol deserves a best actress award. =)

And night time was Starlite worship, led by Camille. It was a great time, but even more so because i felt soo blessed (remembering yesterday's lesson)

Meet Frank Kar Fai!

Since it was the final night, we didn't want to sleep early. but we dropped off one by one, finally the last of us slept at 3.30 am. Of course the drivers were the first to conk out.

On the last day, i think everyone woke up late. maybe its cos we all didn't want to go back. like some people say, we don't want to go back to reality. All good things come to an end? the only good thing that will never end is when we get to heaven. Thats what someone once told me.

Ok... i think there was only umm 15+ people for breakfast, cos everyone was still asleep. and i was the first! i went down like 15 minutes earlier than everyone, and it was a good thing , cos the staff wanted to keep our food lol.

After that it was pretty much packing and saying our goodbyes.

we did a final sharing session on what we learned from camp. and it was really encouraging to see God working through all circumstances to teach us something.

Some of us left early to Sydney. The rest of us had a last lunch. then we all piled into the cars.

And that was the end of a really really awesome camp.

This is my group, Awesome One! Quite a funny name, but we had lots of fun. From left - Hazel, Camille, David, Marie, Yen Wen, Willy, me and Jon.

Heres a group pic with some of the campers =) Miss you guys!

The guy in red is our fearless and just camp gamemaster, Andy!

The end. (or is it?)

Thats the theme of the OCF camp for this year. don't ask me why, shern ren thought of it.

after months of preparation and prayer, finally, we got our camp underway!

Saturday 12 April, the first day of our hols we met at bruce Hall at 8.30. ok its more accurate to say we planned to meet at 8.30, cos we had to wait till about 10 am for everyone to get there and for all the cars to gather and stuff.

And there i was rushing to get things done by 8 because i thought everyone would leave without me lol.

and we were off! around 30+ of us, squeezed into 5 cars and a van. but lucky me, i got the car with only 4 people!...

This is Jesslyn and Alstrid in the back, with me and Shern Ren in the front, driving Willy's car.

..i should have known better to be in a car with shern ren as driver. we had an accident! hmm. i can't really describe it here, but we were trying to cut in just after overtaking on the fast highway lane into a side road on the other side! so after narrowly missing one car in front, we got hit in the back by another car! and thats after our car stalled and stopped in the middle of the inner lane! siao.

alstrid was in hysterics, going all mental on us. my and jess were in like, um, quiet shock? and shern ren was just stunned. but i really thank God that no one was hurt or injured. because it could hve been much worse.

so after continuing settling stuff with the driver of the other car, we continued on. and our first stop: Hungry Jacks!

lol at first i thought it was Mac D, cos it looked excatly like it! it was all red and yellow and they even had Mc Flurry! ok it wasn't, but i asked the counter for a Mc Flurry and they gave me this weird look and said "you mean a Storm?" and i was like huh?

and then i realized i wasn't in Mac D lol.

  and then we continued. after the highway was a long windy road, going through some cool scenery, and we were there! Stanwell Tops!

so the first thing we did was to get our rooms and put our bags there. lucky me again i got the room with only 4 people! others had to squeeze in about 6 or 8 people in a room. and there was intro and everything. Andy and Claire were our gamemasters and were in charge of all the icebreaking and stuff. We were divided into 3 teams, Awesome One, Team Tams, and Three Little Pigs. we were also told we had a play to do at the end of camp and were given three words to include in the play: gorilla, crawling, and cheese. =_="

So after getting to know each other, and camp intro and everything, it was time for dinner!

Dinner is umm.. a little better than hall standard. just a bit better. or maybe cos it was different. who knows?

After dinner it was our first bible study session and stuff. And Ps. Matthew came ! Needless to say, i dozed off about halfway through the bible study and the talk! but it was a good lesson overall. i liked it. or maybe cos its such a different environment than the stuffy central common room.

And that was the first day. everyone was tired from the long crazy drive and most of us fell asleep around 11.00   

Day 2, Sunday 13 April, and i was the only person stupid enough to wake up at 4 AM to watch the sun rise.

Only thing was, the sun came up at 5.30. AND from the other side. and i was like WAT THE! so i waited for almost an hour in the freezing cold aussie morning for NOTHING. oh, and my roomies were quite irritated by my techno alarm. Imagine Darude's Sandstorm at 4 am in the morning. =P. The only reason i have those kind of music is cos it gets me up, anyway.

Soon after, God was like "Why did you go there?"

"I went to watch the sunrise!"

"Why?"

"umm so i can just marvel and your amazing greatness and spend time with you?"

but even as i said this, it was like i had the wrong purpose. I realised that it doesn't take a spectacular sunrise for me to marvel at God's creation, or to worship Him. God let me know that i can just as well praise Him every single moment, when theres nothing spectacular tosee, or something awesome to gawk at. I learned to praise Him everytime, every moment.

"God, You make me wait in the half ice rain for almost 1 hour to tell me that?? Tell me la earlier!"

God has a sense of humour.

After breakfast, we had quiet time. =). i don't call it quiet time anymore, so its really nostalgic for me, reminding me of precious camps and such.

  then praise and worship. the p & w is done on a rotation, so everytime its a new team that has to do it. Then we had our bible study and teaching session. and strangely enough this time i didn't feel sleepy at all! i think its cos of all the Lipton green tea i drank. hmmm.

during free time i hanged out at the rope tower! it was soo cool! the moment i saw it i had to climb it, or i can't die peacefully. =) The kiddie playground was kinda fun too..

after lunch we watched a video called the christ files. the session was a bit like my lab sessions for psych if you ask me, with the discussions and all. it was narrated by some fat mousy guy who was like, a bit too over. but it was a very compelling documentary that actually taught us that Jesus is real, not just by faith, but by historical evidence.

That afternoon Clandy prepared for us some water games! the highlight was an all out water balloon fight trying to destroy each other's flags. lol. our flag a a double defense layer with sharp sticks around it, and a waterproof plastic bag wrapping the flag itself!

one of our games had to be cut short because Marisol got attacked by a killer leech. hmm..

and then just before dinner, it hailed! really really hailed!

i think the hail showed us a few things. one of it is just how much God is in control of events. We could see His influence in these things. i think even though we plan and plan, we can't do it alone. And now i realise that maybe that killer leech attack was also God's planning. because if we went ahead with the games, we would have been caught in the hail. instead, we were all in the buildings getting ready for dinner. poor leech. we killed it after pulling it of. Reminds me of Jesus like how he died for us =P. ok thats too far lol.

That night, i didn't feel sleepy at all during bible study and talks! i can confirm that green tea has amazing eye opening effects.. =) my new favorite drink. 

Heres a pic of me doing an ice angel. didn't quite turn out right. my jumper was soaked through the moment i touched the ice.