15th August, Sunday
Day 1
We gathered outside our college, The One Academy ready to go on our little adventure trip to Cameron Highlands, organised by Ann Nee and Cardin. It was around 7.50a.m. when I got there feeling sleepy because I had slept at 12a.m. and woke up at 6a.m.. I had to rush by family members, don't know why they all wanted to come out this early in the morning. We loaded our bags into the bus and everyone who was there got in. We had to wait for another two of our friends before we can take off (Han and Kai). I was really sleepy so after grabbing my seat, I fell asleep.
Name list (21 people):
Cardin
Yew Wah
Yi-Vonne
Andrea
Grace
Ann Nee
Wee
Victor
Ka Wei
Ileana
Mal
Laura
Suet Ling
Jian Leng
Jackson
Wilson
Kai
Han
Ali
David
Max (Me)
I woke up when I fell off my chair and found that we were already on the move. Almost everyone on the bus was at the back of the bus either singing songs or playing cards or simply watching others having fun. Everybody had their own way of having fun.
We came to a stop at a waterfall at Cameron. Everybody went to touch the cooling water and some dipped their feet in it. Most of us couldn't because we were wearing shoes, socks and long pants. We went to the top and took more pictures and then went back to the bus and continued our journey to the apartment we rented.
We had lunch at a mamak before reaching our apartment. Some of us sat outside to enjoy the cold air breeze while others had no choice but to sit inside because there was not enough space for so many of us.
It started to rain when we reached the apartment so we quickly took out all the baggage and stuff and went into the shelter of the apartment. We have two units, one for the girls and one for the boys. Our rooms are a flight of stairs away so the girls chose the unit below the other. We boys went up to the higher unit and got really excited. There are three bedrooms, two toilets a small kitchen, living room and dinning area. I put my bag together with Kai and the others in the last room at the back. We got so excited Victor and Wee started dancing in the living room. The television had Astro but a lot of channels were not subscribed, the TV was small too. We did some silly things like scaling the walls, jumping to touch the ceiling and pulling this ceiling lamp that can stretch. After that we headed to the girl's unit and we all decided on one thing. We are gonna hang out at the girl's unit, the boy's unit is to sleep and bath.
The girl's unit had a larger television, a higher ceiling and a brighter feel to it; the boy's unit's furniture is dark colored... We took out the PS2 David brought and started playing games. After that, we went out for a walk around the apartment grounds. I left late with Mal, Laura, Ka Wei and Ileana because we were looking for the keys to the girl's unit to lock the door. We ended up getting separated because Ileana and Laura decided that they wanted to look at the shop lots near the area instead of the apartment grounds. That idea came to a stop when we realised that we were no where near any shop lots so we went back into the apartment grounds and walked around. We came across the barbecue pits and a playground. We caught up with the others when everyone was back at the apartment.
Later on, we all went out to board our bus to go to the night market but apparently the night market we wanted to go to is only open during public holidays so we had to go to a small one. We bought some food for ourselves and ingredients for our dinner. The sky turned dark and it rained. Han bought some beer and we went back after everyone gathered.
We went back to the apartment and the girls got ready to cook dinner. Ali and David bought shisha and started smoking so we pushed them out to the balcony. While some people bath, some of us continued to play PS2 games. Time flew and dinner was ready. We had steamboat~ Chicken stock soup and tomyam soup, it was an awesome meal. We all ate up and help out with cleaning. Kai was a gentleman and washed the dishes for all of us.
After we all washed up, Yew Wah, Andrea and the others wanted to watch the Saw series. We did not want to so we stayed in the boy's unit. Suet Ling and Ann Nee came and joined us talk crap. Han opened his beer and gave everyone a cup (Styrofoam cup). I did not really want to drink but I tried it anyway. I took Wee's cup and little did I know it was mixed with Coke.
What happened next, I can't really remember. I remember we were in our room talking about a lot of nonsense and I remember farting a lot. It really stunk! I remember falling off the bed to go to the toilet and blowing my nose and washing my face and also drinking a cup of coffee as ordered by Jackson. Han, Jackson and the others said that I was drunk because I laughed and giggled out of the blue and kept swaying when walking.
After my coffee, I got better; I could still feel dizzy. I went down to the girl's unit and found that Yew Wah, Andrea, Yi-Vonne, Victor, Ka Wei, Grace, Cardin and Jian Leng just finished Saw II and was ready to watch Saw III. I was half-hearted to give Saw a try so I asked Laura, who open her bedroom door at that moment because Suet Ling went back to their room, if the movie was nice. She said it was full of gore and that they (Mal, Ileana, Laura) did not watch the movies. I gave it a try anyway but I left after about fifteen minutes of the movie. There was this guy in the infamous toilet who crushed and broke his foot to escape a chain, then there was this guy named Troy who's got chains chained into his jaw, palms, ankles, eww and then blown into bits and there was this girl named Kerry who's ribcage got ripped out. It was really late at night so I decided not to watch it and so I went back to my room and went to sleep.
I woke up hearing someone snoring, someone with heavy breathing and mosquito bites on my thigh.
16th August, Monday
Day 2
I woke up the last among my roommates, Kai, Han, Jackson and Wilson. I quickly got up, brushed my teeth and changed into my clothes. It was really cold so I wore two layers and got my hoodie with me. I went down to the girl's unit because that's where all the food were and where breakfast was made. Turned out we boys woke up really early because some of the girl's were still asleep. Grace made French toast for us. I made toast and had coffee but I accidentally burnt my toast because I've never used the pop-up toaster before. It even gave me a shock when the toast suddenly jumped out of the toaster.
After breakfast, we all gathered outside and waited for our bus. We were going to go and visit some places in Cameron. We fooled around with cameras and talked about random things. The bus soon came and we headed to our first destination, the Strawberry Farm.
When we went into the bus, we smelled a smelly stench and found our missing bag of prawns the wast meant for your steamboat in the first night. Grace got excited when she saw it from outside the bus as the bus was making a u-turn for us.
It wasn't exactly like a farm. More like a bunch of tourist shops. There was a gift shop, a little cactus farm and another gift shop with a more village feel. We spent the most time in the cactus farm because there were so many interesting cacti all over the place. There were these furry cacti and this cactus that looked like it was wearing a beanie and a cactus that looked like it has a giant caterpillar on it. It was so cool. Mal got a bunch of nice snapshots of the cacti that can be used as a desktop background. Hahaha.
We then went to this Strawberry Shop next to the first gift shop. There we bought strawberry ice-cream. The shop was pretty much filled with tonnes of strawberry related things. After that we boarded the bus again to move on to the next place, the Rose Garden.
Outside the Rose Garden, there was this shop selling corn, strawberries and tomatoes. The lady selling her goods gave us a good price. She let us try some corn and wow! It was superb! It was not too sweet, just perfect! It was so fresh and cold! It was delicious! We decided to buy some corn after our visit in the Rose Garden for the barbecue at dinner.
We had to pay to go in but it was worth the visit despite the fact we did not see the black roses, instead, we got to see a peacock, a peahen, rabbits, roosters and turkeys and they were big! Really big! We also got to see a nice view from the top of the garden. There was a really high and curved bridge, a really steep slide, a really big toy boat on display and a really tall cactus. The garden was like some kind of place with big, long, tall things. Even the smallest things like thorns were big! There was this hibiscus flower that was bigger than Jackson's whole hand! Palm and fingers!
Before leaving, we bought two bags of corn, 12 sticks each bag. Other people bought more corn, strawberries and tomatoes to bring back home for their family. I bought a bag of corn to bring back home.
We headed to the Butterfly Farm. Not a lot of people wanted to go down. Mal and Ileana have a fear for butterflies so they stayed in the bus. Some of us got down and had some snacks at this little cafe. I had cup noodles and an ice-cream. The ice-cream was pretty worth it I guess.
We got back into the bus and headed to for lunch. This time, we split into groups instead of eating together in the same restaurant. Wilson, Kai, Wee, Ann Nee, Jian Leng and I ate at this noodle shop selling simple noodle dishes like Wan Tan Mee and Hakka Mee. After the food, we decided to go look for the others before heading to look for a shop to buy things for the barbecue. We found Han, Jackson and Suet Ling at a table outside a Chinese restaurant eating rice and the others in the same restaurant. We left the group and headed to this grocery shop nearby and looked around. Later on, everybody came and we bought the things we needed. Then we headed back into the bus. I ate one of the corn I bought in the bus while waiting for Grace and Yew Wah who went back out to buy some more things that we forgot.
We went back to the apartments and we all took a break. I took a nap so I have no memory of what happens in this time frame. Looking at pictures posted on Facebook, I learn that our bottle of ketchup fell on the floor and Kai cleaned it up. After I woke up, I went to the girl's unit and watched Mal and Jackson play Tekken 5. I played one game and then it was time to get cooking.
We started going out to the barbecue pits to start the fire. While Ali was working on the fire, some of us went to the playground and played around. We climbed about the monkey bars most. There we came across a pair of dogs, a male and female. The female was pregnant and really fat, well, big. The male one was chicken and did not dare to approach us. The female instead was friendly and it let us pet it. Wilson found this 20sen coin on the ground and passed it to me. I saw Kai swinging on the swing and I flipped it at him telling him to catch it but instead, the coin smacked right into his cheek. He immediately got up and chased me around the area. Hahaha. It was fun.
After that, the marinated food and stuff started to come out. I went to help out by bring out the food from the girl's apartment room to the barbecue pit. The female dog followed Laura and Kai to the barbecue pit and sit around with us. Soon, there was another pair of dogs that appeared, a black male and a skinny female. The skinny female and the earlier male did not come really near us. We decided that we shouldn't have the dogs around us and tried to chase the dogs away. The pregnant dog did not move away and the black dog kept going and coming back. It was so persistent! Turned out the black dog wanted to hump the pregnant dog which made no sense because dogs only hump another dog when it's on heat but this pregnant dog is pregnant, how can it be on heat? If you say the black male one is on heat, it also doesn't make sense because male dogs don't get on heat and if they do, why didn't it hump the skinny female one instead? Weird. We decided to protect the pregnant female which Kai and Laura named Preggie from the black one which Ann Nee named Weng-K9, a reference to Kai's name (Weng Kee). We also had to prevent the other two dogs from coming near our food so we formed The Dog Patrol consisting of Kai, Laura, Wee and I. We spent about half an hour trying to chase away the three annoying dogs. Finally they gave up coming near us when Kai got hold of a large torchlight and I had a pail of water. Kai scared them with the light while I scare them by splashing water at their feet.
It started to drizzle when I brought out the cooked food like meatballs, fishballs and fried noodles. Everyone was out already and we all worked together to prevent the rain from getting to our food. Yew Wah borrowed some umbrellas from a resident in the area and we used them to shield the barbecue pit we were using and the food we had. The rain got heavier but it wasn't really heavy like the ones back down in KL. It was mild, normal rain. Rain that I haven't seen in years. The rain these days are all heavy and pouring in KL. We took the food stuff and cutlery and plates into an apartment block when things started to get even wetter.
The sky started to turn dark and Ali started to grill our lamb chops after doing a test grill on three chicken wings. Grace helped to divide the lamb for everyone by cutting them into small pieces. Not too long after night fell, the rain stopped. Everyone cleaned up the floor of the apartment block we used to put our dirty plates on and went back out to the barbecue pit area. We hanged around waiting for the remanding grilled lamb and gave them to our friends who have not eaten any yet. It was gone soon and then Ali grilled our chicken wings. After everyone finished their chicken wings, Ali grilled his and David's, they decided to grill everyone's food first before grilling their's. The amber died down so Ali had to reheat the charcoal. It took some time for his chicken wings to cook. While we waited for Ali and David to finished their food, we ate the corn we bought for everyone. It was great. Kai, Laura and Ileana fed Preggie some food as well. We called Laksh, Celine and Chia on the phone and greeted them and tell them about our trip so far. It was really a fun night.
After everyone had their dinner, we played about at the barbecue pit area. Yew Wah, Andrea and Yi-Vonne made everyone do the 'So busy.' quote and then Yew Wah got some of us to join him to do an imitation of the Billy puppet from Saw on the tricycle.
I helped to clean up the place and took the plates back to the girl's unit to wash. Well, Kai did the washing again but he did not do all. Some of us helped out by washing some of the dishes as well. Later when everything was settled, we sat around waiting for turns to bath. Mal and Laura invited Kai, Han and I to watch Anastasia in their room and we all (Mal, Laura, Ileana, Suet Ling, Han, Kai and I) got around their bed and watched the movie on a laptop. We stopped half way during the movie but I don't remember why; the girl's had to do something. Anyway, I took a bath in the girl's toilet because it was very cold and the boy's toilets doesn't have hot water. Still, I got fooled by the water heater. The water was also cold. I should have used the toilet in the girl's master bed room, Han said the water was so hot it was like heaven in there. Anyway, after I bathed, we continued the movie. This time, Yew Wah and Grace joined us but they left because they wanted to watch Saw IV.
After Anastasia, Kai, Han, Wilson and I headed back to our room and Suet Ling followed and this time Jian Leng came along. Han poured beer for each of us but Jackson insisted that I should not have a cup. I had no objections but I got a cup later on. We were talking bull halfway when Mal and Laura came into our room. They invited us to a game of Mafia. After teaching us the rules, we played Mafia until 3a.m. and I got drunk halfway through the game; I was really dizzy and I don't remember much of what happened the next day.
17th August, Tuesday
Day 3
Today's the day we go back home. Before we do so, we still have one last place to visit.
I woke up a few minutes before Wilson, Jackson and Han were ready to leave the bedroom. I quickly brushed my teeth, washed my face and got changed. It was cold again so I put on two layers of t-shirts and put on my hoodie. I went down to join the rest for breakfast. We ran out of Styrofoam cups and the girl's had used all the mugs provided so using Wee's advice, I made coffee in a bowl. It was awesome, the coffee, because the weather was so cold. I had Chipsmore for breakfast, shared with everyone, and then I started laming Kai up. I realised we stopped using the term "soul crushed". Even Grace fell victim when I pretended to predict Kai's future using poker cards; it took her a few seconds to realise it. Sorry Grace.
After breakfast, we started packing things up. I quickly packed my clothes into my haversack and took it down to the girl's unit and then proceeded to help pack up other things like food stuff into the Styrofoam boxes and then took them down to the bus that was ready waiting for us.
After everything and everyone got into the bus, we took off. First off we had breakfast. We got split into two groups and we (Wee, Ann Nee, Han, Kai, Jackson, Wilson, Ileana, Mal, Laura, Suet Ling, Jian Leng and me) headed off to our own preference of a breakfast. We came across a fail cafe, we walked up the road following the sign and then it pointed down when we came to a steep road, down at the roof of the cafe. Fail. Hahaha. We walked back down the steep road and went into the cafe. There we had a home-style wan tan mee, some bao (kaya bao, red bean bao, etc.) and other dim sum-style food. After the meal, we headed back to the bus and met up with the other group at the same time.
We headed straight to the BOH tea plantation site. Buses were not allowed to go up so we had to walk two kilometers up the hill to the BOH cafe and factory. Laura, Jackson, Kai and Han were really tired so they stayed in the bus and waited for our return. Up the hill, the weather turned from cooling to hot. So I had to take off my hoodie and the extra t-shirt. When we got to the top, it started to drizzle. After taking some pictures, we quickly got into the BOH cafe and then the rain poured.
We were really lucky because the visiting hours to the factory was available at that time. The tour was really fast, it lasted about 5 minutes. The factory and the cafe looked different from what I had remembered.
After the factory tour, we all sat down and had some tea and cake. I got this chocolate fudge cake and hot green tea. Oh... It was good~ Hot tea after chocolate, it's like wow to your senses. Jian Leng fell victim to the huge pile of chocolate and also ordered one. Really, the slice of Chocolate Melt cake was pretty big.
The rain died out and the Sun came back out. Grace told us that if we want to, we can go ahead first to the top to View Point. Wee, Wilson, Ann Nee, Suet Ling, Jian Leng, Ileana, Mal, and I went up together first. The view was breathtaking. Hill after hill after hill under the huge calm looking cumulus clouds. Mal told us to take some pictures looking out to the scenery standing on the stone benches there but I did not dare to face outward to the scenery.
Soon Grace and the others got up. We took a group photo and then Grace showed us around saying it's her secret spot. After taking a bunch of photos and doing silly childish things we went back down back to the bus. I got really tired because I ran, skipped, jogged, sprint, danced, and "tricycled" down the hill. Seriously, it was really tiring. Should have taken my time walking.
Once everyone got into the bus, we headed straight for home. We tried playing Mafia in the bus but most of us were having motion sickness. I closed my eyes the whole time resting and resisting the swaying of the bus on the zig-zag road down the hills. After we hit the highway, we started playing Mafia, Ileana joined us in the game. We played until we reached Sunway. And so this is the end for our Cameron Highlands class trip. I had a lot of fun (and a lot of farts; I guess the pressure in Cameron made my stomach contract and produced a lot of gases, that was what my sister said) with all my friends. This isn't the end for our class fun, my classmates have organised other activities. Whee~
