tree top walk

At the beginning of the walk. we were about 4km away from the tree top walk itself.

4km later, we're at the start of the tree top walk! chong yu and qing en are afraid of heights. so i walked in front. and i was nice so i didn't swing the thing we were walking on :D

this is the whole length of it.

Still near the start of the tree top walk.

Here we are, in the middle of the tree top walk. Chong Yu complained when I kept stopping to take photos cos apparantly he was scared at that height. haha.

completed the tree top walk! the tree top walk itself is abt 1 plus/2km i think. but to get to that we walked abt 4km. and then i suggested not going back the same way but walking to macritchie reservoir instead. that was another 5.1km of walking. at that time chong yu agreed, saying we should go a different way so we'll get to see different things.

but, along the way, he kept complaining. saying we should have gone the way we came, since it'll be shorter. -.- and he took this photo of my bag. he said it was to 作纪念. probably cos throughout the whole walk he kept pulling my bag and asking me to piggyback him. i don't know if it was when i refused to piggyback him or when i didn't spread the tuna on his slice of bread for him, but he said i wasn't as 善良as shi yan!! grr!!

unglam photo of qing en taken by chong yu. too bad chong yu deleted his own unglam photo taken by qing en! (can imagine how chaotic they were? they didn't stop talking at all until maybe the last 3 km when they grew tired. or rather, when chong yu grew tired. )

throughout, han xin was the cool guy.

i think this was qing en's hand. he said to post this picture -.-

on our way to macritchie, there was this 'watch tower' kind of thing. we climbed up, and this is the view. qing en didn't make it to the top cos he got jelly legs from the height. funny how he made it across the tree top walk but not to the top of this thing.

we spent abt 5mins here trying to take a photo of this beautiful blue butterfly. haha.

we finally see the macritchie reservoir!! yay! only thing is, at this point, we were still abt 3 plus - 4km form the macritchie reservoir park, where the bus stop is....

we spent yet another 5 (or more) minutes trying to take photos of this komodo dragon lookalike thing. it scared me when it first moved right beside me. then qing en and han xin were so intrigued they started chasing it around to take photos of it.

oh then along the way there were monkeys! i don't like monkeys. i really don't. chong yu had to walk with me past them. i couldn't do it alone man. and again, qing en and han xin took photos of these monkeys.

According to chong yu, the big monkey was tending a wound for the small monkey.

there, the day summarised. we went for lunch at amk afterwards, and ended the outing with a prayer - each one gave thanks for one thing that day. then, the three of them went to a LAN shop to play! i went home, did a lil surfing for R&R for ocip, then took a nap, before going to band. by the time i was headed out for church, they'd only just finished playing at the lan shop la! so much energy.

i told yu xi i'll bring her and chi yuan out for a girls' outing since she didn't get to come with us for this, as a 10-12 km walk will be too hard on her. it was tiring to bring the 3 of them out, but i really enjoyed myself. :D they're good company actually!

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the photos

out for dinner with lanfang, meihui and shi en on thurs night. and then fri morning there was the outing with my xiao zu. and after that in the evening there was band. and today morning there was a meeting for the ocip in aug, then taught piano, and then church. the past few days were packed. so here are the photos taken on thurs night. we talked a lot, laughed a lot. i think we have a unique brand of humour. we say a lot of weird stuff actually. haha.

this mirror is part of an art exhibition at the underpass to esplanade. i THINK it's called installation art. Ah too bad ting en's not back yet. she'll know..

shi en trying to look cool, pretending to look elsewhere.

the theme for this photo was to compete and see who has got the ugliest facial expression :D

alright that's all the photos for now. will post the tree top walk ones tomorrow. got to slp now in order to wake up on time tmr.

主的喜乐是我力量。把这样的生命唱出来吧！

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i've received

three very encouraging emails.
and a blog post.

when i read shehui's email and mich's blog, this came to mind:

you raise me up, so I can stand on mountains

I remember we sang this in st nicks at some thing. i can't rem what though, just that we sang it. and i rem renny writing this in a note to me.

but today was the first time i experienced it so strongly, after lunch w ling, shehui's email, and mich's post. i love you girls. :) i love dabestclique :)

to P & P (haha prick and pear), thank you very much :D its a major comfort to know i've the support of such dear sisters in ministry. thank you :)

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A long day

This post was meant to be up yesterday, but after wrestling with the internet connection for an hour, I gave up. I’m here in mac’s having breakfast and tapping on their wireless instead.

Yesterday morning was terrible. Haven’t felt that upset in a long while. Someone said I was too harsh during song prac to a certain person. I don’t think its v nice to put the names out here. Normally I don’t get affected by these kinda things. But yesterday, I don’t know why, but I was really upset.

I really appreciate that the person let me know my flaw. I really do. But that doesn’t hide the fact that I was upset. upset with myself.

不知道为什么，在mrt里越想越有一种莫名的委屈。不知不觉眼泪就来了。有点灰心，伤心 – 原来自己在这方面所作出的努力根本是没用的。Unnoticed, useless effort. I’m upset with myself, with the fact that it seems like I have to be treading on eggshells when I deal with people like that. And it sucks to not be able to say what I feel like and trust that what is said in good humour will be taken as just that. Some people have sensitive souls, I guess. And at that moment the first people I thought of was dabestclique, around whom I can always say what is on my mind, and know for sure that I’ll still be accepted and loved by them, no matter what. I experienced how precious that is.

Anyway, I went for drums lesson in the afternoon after a meeting at Kinderart. And that cheered me up 50%.

And then there was the Ubin cycling trip with Pear, kai, and renjie. And that cheered me up 100%. By the time we reached Ubin, I was abt back to normal. Cycling in all that nature with great company and pear’s laughter made everything alright. And the reassurance from kaising, and the 'Ubin gang' helped too.

Now, I’m not upset already. What man doesn’t see and doesn’t know, God does. He knows my heart, and quoting Joshua laoshi, as long as my conscience is clear, and I know I have done right before God, don’t be bothered by comments. Everyone has his or her own view, and I appreciate that. But this time round, I think I was so upset because I’d already tried to be nice. And unlike other times when I know uh-oh, I said sth I shouldn’t, this time I was pretty sure I wasn’t too harsh. I remember taking special notice to not to be harsh, cos I knew the person was more sensitive than others. But I suppose it’s wasted effort. But seriously, what more could I have done? What more is expected?

Alright I shall not harp on this anymore. It’ll only bring back the gloominess. Talk abt happier stuff.

Such as the Ubin trip. The offroad biking bits were really exciting! And we chanced upon the mountain biking park too, though we didn’t have the time to explore more of it. It was so shiok to be far away from the hustle bustle of Singapore. There, everything just slows down. Its just the trees and us. Some stray dogs, a few lorries. And the very vast sky.

The photos are all with pear, i'm waiting to get them from her!

Today will be another long day. Going to work, followed by band and lesson with zhe lun and finally prayer meet. And sat, my family will be back! And then my sis in law can help to fix the internet. Or at least get someone in to fix it, since they were the ones who got the connection up.

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cab fare is ex.

My much loved DG. :D watching God work in each of their lives is just amazing. coming together and sharing our lives, our hearts, our struggles, our thanksgivings, and at the end of it, submitting all of those into God's hands through prayer. It's a beautiful relationship we have here. :)

Now, i'm alone at home. my parents n bro+wife+daughter are at church retreat in Malacca. My mother said she'll bring otah back for me. haha. apparently Malacca has good otah. but for now, it's peace and quiet at home.

Sigh today I was really stupid. maybe not today, since today is more like the consequence of my stupidity. so retarded! I had already planned for makeup lessons for piano today at 3.45-7. and I completely forgot abt it! so i arranged with zhe lun to teach him piano at church at 3.30, followed by band at 5, followed by 'choir' practice at 7.30. And at 3.45, when i was happily waiting for zhe lun in church, the school called and asked if i was on my way. and i realised i had makeup lessons at 3.45!!! so, i had to cab to pasir ris, leaving zhe lun in church alone to play piano. :( i promised I'll buy him chocolates to make up for this. sigh. and then i reached the school at 4.05pm. so i'll have to makeup 15 mins for that first student on sat. and because i forgot abt the makeup lessons, it also meant i didn't prepare the things i'd promised my students, which include scores for the ponyo song and for some 棒棒堂 song. and i haven't even written the score for the 棒棒堂 song yet. will have to do so by sat's lesson.

anyway, i had to cancel band and reschedule it. and then i had to cab back to church in order to reach on time (or as early as i could since i ended up late still). and at the junction just before reaching church I directed the driver to a wrong turn!!! argh. I can never recognise the way at that particular junction. Pear would know since we take that way after lessons every sat. and so I got down and walked down one bus stop to church, since it'd be as time consuming if we did a U turn way way after.

oh well. and that single mistake of forgetting my makeup lesson cost me over 20 bucks of cab fare. and not to mention zhe lun's time. and the band's time since we'll have to come down at a more inconvenient time on fri. :(

hopefully today will make me less likely to commit the same mistake. luckily the parent of that first student is a very nice and understanding one! i can't believe myself. I was just reminding each of them on sat that there'll be lesson on wed. and yet i forgot. ARGH

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today

i'm lazing around. :D not that there's nothing to be done. in fact, there's qt some stuff to be finished. but well.. lazing around sounds good for now.

the past week has been great. was busy preparing for yesterday's church youths + young adults outing. had bbq, frisbee, treasure hunt, and have-you-ever. i missed the frisbee though! sigh. was preparing food. had a very exciting (惊险) time doing that with pear, with renjie's (and later kai's) help.

and then yest night my bro and sis in law and niece came back from a 4 day trip to msia. and they brought back durians! they went to some durian farm, and the durians were of superb quality. muahaha. made up for the lack of spore kampong durians this yr. (thanks to the foreign talents our govt has been importing and the low yield of the good durian trees.)

then, my niece came into my room to sleep at night. actually i'm very glad my parents and i stay tgt w my bro's family. cos that way i get to be way closer to my niece than i would otherwise have been. BUT she is a very messy sleeper. being that she turns and flips and takes up more space than an 8 year old should. kept getting hit by her in the night.

had ice cream w pear after piano lessons on sat. ice cream chef's the place. they're like a smaller version of island creamery. great company with delicious ice cream :D

left to right, watermelon, kaya lotti, peanut butter, mango peach. fav was mango peach and kaya lotti. :D oh and they mix in the toppings with the ice cream. so, the kaya lotti ice cream had marshmallows in it!

and that night, i had great supper. and my definition of great supper is:

(in hokkien) so da bia dipped in milo! haha.

of course there's other great supper food like roti prata and tao huay and bak chor mee. but this is one of my favourites too :D

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crossroads

i'm back! alot of thoughts, a lot of lessons learnt in the trip. the trip was fun, and living with the students gave me a good insight of cambodian life. frankly, i would really like to go back again, but this time on a holiday instead, to the waterfalls and mountain biking. hmm.

That aside, living with the students opened my eyes. It was humbling to witness their faith in our God. the first time we worshipped with them, i cried. through their worship, I felt their faith and love for Him. and it touched me that in a coutry once so broken, in circumstances so unfavorably against them, they have such great faith and love that I don't think I had.

the lessons with pastor David opened my horizons as well. though I learnt lots of different things, the one lesson that I really take away from him is that we shouldn't be hindered by man's rules and structure in fulfilling the great commission - to go back to the Bible and to stick by it, teaching the truth. I think I sound like shehui/jc in their sosci talk, but I think I learnt that I should see God and the Bible just as it is, beyond institutionalised religion. (though i think they're gg to argue on the defi of institutionalised religion.)

in these 8 days, the team spent a lot of effort trying to connect with the uni students we stayed with. it was gratifying when they were willing to open up and share their lives with us.

looking back at myself in singapore, i feel really blessed and humbled. from this trip, I learnt that I should hold the mindset and attitude of a missionary in my everyday life too. in my role as a SM, as a small group leader in church, i should be much more active. just as how i actively pursued the friendship and trust of the girls in cambodia, i should do the same here too.

there're many other thoughts as well, especially when we left cambodia today. so many things were running through my mind. i'm not gg to put them down in words one by one. but i think each thought has made an impact and changed me. it might not be immediately apparent, but i know that God has spoken to me and moulded me through this trip.

the 'deep' things aside, this trip was an eyeopener in other ways too. i handwashed my clothes, walked on filthy floor, ate a hatching duckling!, ate fried grasshoppers/cricket (i can't rem which it was), ate bbq-banana, played frisbee on soil, climbed 3 flights of stairs at least once everyday, sat on a motorbike with 3 pple (meaning 2 pple sharing the passenger seat), gone against traffic on a motorbike, ate meals of rice with just one dish and soup. Living together with the cambodian students allowed me to experience the cambodian life better than any backpacking trip could have. :D


(i ate the eye of the duckling unkowingly! gosh. but it actually tastes quite ok)

this is the only bigger group photo i have, the rest of the photos are w kaising/shiyan.

sigh. goodbye cambodia! it was hard leaving. much as i miss walking barefoot on clean floor and eating my mother's cooking, i'd built relationships, but had to leave just when the relationships were getting more solid. it's easy to say we'll keep in contact, but i'm hoping i really will be able to do that, and to keep the building the relationships built. but whatever it is, i hope they were as greatly blessed through this mission trip as I was.

now, i'm excited to see what this trip will do for the body of christ in Oikos through the mission team..

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