Welcome back to LoveJoyPeace for another monthly post! 💓 glad to be back for a round of a LONG post here! ~ before reading on to find out what I did beginning of this month, time yourself and see how long you took to read this post! let me know in the comments section how long you took lol 🙂 lets goo:

From the 6th to the 10th of December this month, my sister and I went on a 5-day OBS (Outward Bound Singapore) Camp located on the island of Pulau Ubin. It was organised by one of the homeschool mums and all homeschoolers who were in the age group ranging from 14 to 16 years old and were also fully vaccinated were allowed to go. For my case, as I am 17 years old, my mom did appeal to them to allow me to participate and thankful it was approved! Imma be the oldest there lol 🌿

During the first week of December, my mom, sister, and I went shopping for the equipment and clothing that we need and we spent most of our time shopping at Decathlon. We had to bring lots of things, here is an example of my to-bring list of things:

1. long sleeves x1
2. long pants/trek/hiking pants x3
3. shorts x1
4. sleeping wear x1
5. dry-fit clothes x3
6. slippers and extra shoes
7. soap for bathing
8. socks x2
9. toothbrush and toothpaste
10. sunblock 50+ spf
11. mosquito repellent
12. aloe vera cream
13. torchlights x2
14. plastic bags/ziplock bags
15. scarf for sleeping (in any case its’s cold in the tent)
16. hand socks
17. comb
18. wet wipes and tissue
19. extra/spare glasses
20. extra hair band
21. pawpaw cream

ok! So that’s about the packing list I had… now for the actual journal of my 5 days at camp, I’ll write it in my journal or diary style. 😉

Day 1 – 06 December, 2021

Woke up around 6 a.m. to get ready to leave the house for Punggol Jetty and do some last minute check if we have brought everything we needed. Reached the meeting point near the Jetty area mourned 8:15 a.m. and had a quick bite of breakfast that we bought on the way. After everyone had arrived and gathered at the meeting area and said our farewells to our family, we boarded the boat/ferry to Pulau Ubin island, away from mainland, away from our home, parents, and the world.. Upon reaching the island, OBS Camp II, we are brought to an area by our instructors to have some icebreaker games to get to know one another more. Besides that, we had all our valuables taken away or confiscated by the instructors – including our mobile phones.. Isolated from the world and the internet for a week…

There are 3 watches, Amundsen, Armstrong, and Battuta. These 3 watches make up a whole mobile. My group or watch, in which we are called, is called Armstrong, which consists of the 10 of us. After having some fun together, we had to get some administrative tings done like appointing day ICs, food ICs, store ICs, time-keepers, etc.. Then we had to get out ration food for the whole week distributed to all 10 of us. Our instructors, Maya and Charis then brought us to learn and get familiar with belaying – which consisted of a belayer, an assistant belayer, a climber, and an anchor (dead weight).

Apart from all these, we had to learn to set up our own tents of the night on the designated campground. OBS Camp II will be our base camp for this whole week of camp. In the evening, we had to use the communal food (part of the ration food they gave us) to cook our own dinner as a watch. We are only given one bag of rice and can foods, so tonight we had sardines, and chicken curry for dinner. Oh, and not forgetting and apple and an orange which they provided for everyone as a part of the ration food. I helped cook the rice and heat up the canned food over solid fuel. Before going to our tents to retire for the night, our instructors met our watch for a ‘night circle’ where we were given instructions for the next day’s events. Our lights out time every night was to be at 10:30 p.m. and the latest, 11 p.m.. Every morning, we were to wake up at 5 a.m. and get ready, wash up, keep out tents, and meet our instructors at 5:55 a.m.. How early is that!?!?!?!

Day 2 – 07 December, 2021

It was really cold at night especially sleeping on a hard ground without any sleeping bags. Lol. Woke up as early as 5 a.m. and got ready everything by 5:55 a.m.. Met our 6 instructors as a whole mobile (all 3 watches together) and had P.T. – Physical Training. This physical training we did 3 sets of: 10 pushups, 10 back raises, 10 crunches, 10 calve raises, and 10 silent squats. After P.T., we had our breakfast from our own ration food bags. We then started packing our things out from our own bags into the provided OBS bag pack which is a 70 L bag. We were instructed to pack not only our own things like clothes and necessities but also the tents, ration food, mesh tins, communal food for dinners, cooking things, ponchos (provided by them), and our PFDs (personal flotation device – life jackets).

After the packing was done, we were led by our two instructors, Maya and Charis to go rock-climbing. ok! It was really fun but really tough – I only managed to reached the 3, almost 4th panel.. regrets I didn’t go any higher, but if I ever have the chance again to go rock-climbing, I’ll definitely go again! I kinda injured my wrists because of that too… then we brought our already packed OBS bags down to the boat which will transport them to our next campsite for the whole mobile. Once the bags were brought down, we started taking the kayaks and moved them out to the beach area. Our Instructors then briefed and taught us the basics of kayaking, the wet exit, kayak T-rescue in case any kayak capsizes, and water confidence. Once we were all briefed and ready to go, we paired up in twos as a kayak buddy and kayaked out to sea. At sea, we did a stimulated capsize (wet exit) and T-rescue. It was so fun!! 🤩 Everyone, after all that rescue and wet exits, kayaked all the was from OBS Camp 2 to OBS Camp 1 to spent out night there. We had our dinner provided by OBS – catered food from mainland I think?! It was really good food after kayaking almost half a day? The food was delicious. We set up out tents at the campground 🏕 and the sky filled with stars was so so beautiful! It was really dark, pitch dark and very quiet. That was one of the good 4 nights spent at OBS.

Day 3 – 08 December, 2021

Woke up early again just before 5 a.m. to take down the tents, get washed up, and have a quick breakfast. We got ready all our bags and brought them down to the boat again to help us transport them to our next campsite by 6 a.m.. Once we were all ready to go, we set off in our kayaks with our kayak buddies to sea at 7 a.m. after we had our “blessing circle” together as a whole mobile. Kayaking this time was as a whole mobile. This sea expedition was to kayak almost one round around the island of Pulau Ubin – roughly around 13km+. Our instructors gave us all a goal to reach our destination- our next campsite by 1 p.m. and the latest by 3p.m.. Amazingly and surprisingly, with everyone’s teamwork and resilience, we made it to our campsite 🏕 around 12:40 p.m. with all our kayaks carried to shore!! That’s about 6 hours+ nonstop kayaking at sea! We were quite surprised at our progress, and our instructors were quite surprised too! This was the most unforgettable and fun sea expedition I’ve ever went on! ✨ An amazing experience of a life time! (and this is the new sport I really enjoy!) Kayaking is so fun, ok!

After bringing our kayaks to shore, we set up our tents for the night and went for a swim and ‘shower’ in the nearby quarry. Boy!! That swim in the quarry was GOOD to wash away all the sea water and to clean us up for the night hahaha.. In the evening, we cooked instant/maggi noodles for dinner in a pot that we brought in out bags.. It was nice food that we can have for dinner rather than our personal ration food. Communal food is very much enjoyed when there’s more people to enjoy it together! Before bedtime, we had to plan our route for the next day’s expedition – a land expedition around Pulau Ubin. We all chose the longest, highest, and, furthest route across Pulau Ubin. Tomorrow will be a tough and tiring day ~~ oh,, the stars at night are so bright and pretty! :)) starry sky 🌟

Day 4 – 09 December, 2021

Everyone had sentry duties in the night to watch out for wild boars who may come to rummage the bag packs. Every tent sentry duty was 24 mins. My tent buddy and I had our sentry duties from 4 a.m. to 4:24 a.m.. And after that we had to wake up the next two people for their sentry duty.. sadly, after our sentry duty at 4:24 a.m., we couldn’t go back to sleep already so we just stayed awake until the wake up time at 5 a.m.. 😦 During this time until 7:30 p.m. we packed up our tents and everything into our OBS bags and had breakfast. By the time we set off on our land expedition it was around 7:30 a.m. to 7:45 a.m.. We trekked and hiked for almost 8-9 hours nonstop except stopping awhile for short breaks, and 1 min water breaks. We carried our 70 L OBS bag packs and walked around 20km for 8-9 hours! Imagine that weight load… oh, and during the walk, one of our teammate broke down and couldn’t carry her bag already, so everyone in our watch had to help carry some of her things in our own bag – that adds on to our weight load of our bag! *so heavy ahh* It was 3+ almost 4 p.m. when we reached back to base camp II. And after resting for awhile, we got changed to help the other watches clean the kayaks and set up our own tents again for the last night at OBS Camp II.

Once the tents we done setting up, our two instructors, Maya and Charis, brought us t jump the jetty!! Okay, this was really fun!! AHHH 😌 Honestly, it was scary at first before I jumped off the jetty but once I stepped off, the feeling was awesome! *squeals* For dinner, the instructors gave us extra special ingredients to cook our last meal in OBS campsite. I helped cook the rice, prepare and cut the ingredients, and cooked the dishes for everyone! I’m glad that everyone enjoyed my cooking for real haha ♥ Also I washed all the dishes lol……

Day 5 – 10 December, 2021

Early in the morning again at 5 a.m., we kept our tents (again) and did all our last minute packing of our things from the OBS bag packs back into our own bags. We met our instructors at 5:55 a.m. for our P.T. and played games together. Then we took some nice photos together with the sunrise hehe!

For the last event of this OBS youth navigator programme, we went for the zip line / flying fox! I screamed so loudly when I stepped off the 15m tall tower to zip all the way down! SOSO FUN ~ After that last event when everyone had zipped down that line, we went to collect our bags, valuables (my phone!!!), and our certificate!!! Yas! We did it! The 3 watches gathered together and left the OBS Camp II for the boat/ferry back to mainland. It was sad to leave the island where so many memories were made! That was around 1+ p.m. almost 2 p.m. when we reached our meeting point where we met the first day. Punggol Jetty area. We took some last group photos together and selfies, exchanged phone numbers, and finally go home!!! Home sweet home and my bedddd! 😂

These 5 days of OBS Youth Navigator Programme / Camp has been a wonderful time spent together with all the homeschoolers! What a blast! What an unforgettable experience of a life time! I had so so much fun with these peeps 💞 Mostly, thank God for a very good weather all 5 days without any rain (except a slight drizzle on the second day)! Immensely thankful! :))

here’s a gallery of some of my favourite photos 🤙🏼

internal jokes and fun – only the Armstrongs will know: tom chasing jerry, lucky apple, lucky orange, breathe no air, lizard jumping out from the rock wall, someone inspecting a spider on the top of the rock wall for a long time, free human podcasts and playlists, some penguin song, kayak crash,

some unforgettable people: Roshoshanna – my tent and kayak buddy. Ee Khai – the popular guy who lent my power bank and lost forgot to return it. Nicholas – the funny guy. Alyssa – the emo one. Hadassah – my sister and closest confider. AND Armstrong – my watch which is the most talkative and noisiest watch of all. “cAn I gEt A oOyEaH?” 💪🏼 love y’all

다음 시간까지! Here’s to more adventures ~ until next time! ♥

💖 Hannah