(before i start, i just want to say sorry but i don't have any photos of OBS, the memories are all captured in my heart :D plus i didn't want to bring my camera in case of it getting spoiled so yeah. and my instructor kidnapped my phone so sadly, no photos.)

we met our instructors and watches at punggol jetty together with our form teacher ms tsang and CLET mr ho.

my watch name: WASHINGTON

my instructor: uncle alex the lion... roarrr!

my watch mates: isabelle, diane, jessie, karen, ni qian, valerie, jodi, alisa, huifei, charisse, shao wei, ting fang, sheryl, janne, shiren and me (:

while waiting for our turn to take the boat to pulau ubin we played icebreaking games, and even ms tsang and mr ho joined in, until they had to go back to school.

fun (:

uncle alex is super funny and pretty nice. (: he made us do silly forfeits, but when it was time to be serious and sit down to discuss our OBS goals and stuff, i thought he did a good job listening to us share and challenging us as well.

after games and sharing we left for pulau ubin!

when we reached we dumped our bags down randomly and got a tour around the place from uncle alex, as well as got our food for the next few days.

after our tour we sat down as a watch and learnt how to tie knots. :D

then we played trust games.

they were fun. we had to learn to help each other, rely on each other to make things work. i'm never gonna forget the game trust fall. it's this game where everybody holds this blue-tarp-sheet-kind-of-thing, and then one member of the group stands up at this platform, and then this ritual thingy starts:

person: washington are you ready?

rest-of-us-holding-blue-sheet: washing pull!

washing ready!

person: falling!

rest-of-us-holding-blue-sheet: fall on!

and the person falls on her back on the blue sheet, and we must all catch her and make sure she doesn't break her bones or anything. (:

(by the way we said 'washing' because 'washington' sounded too long. :D)

hahaha i was the third last person to go, so you think i wouldn't be scared right?

wrong.

i was super scared. (if you know me i'm scared very easily, especially of things like these- it's so like back drop on the tramp.)

and so this was how i sounded:

me: washing are you ready?

rest-of-us-holding-blue-sheet: washing pull!

washing ready!

me: are you sure?

everybody: YES!

me: are you very very sure?

(and then people start saying stuff like, "come on mone!" or "you're a gymnast, can do lah!" and a lot of encouraging things. OH and huifei said, "can you hurry up and say 'falling'!" and uncle alex was like, "yeah, just say and fall lah.")

me (sounding very soft): okayyy... falling.

rest-of-them-holding-blue-sheet: FALL ON!

and i fell. (: yay thank you washington.

after our trust games we went to check out the equipment at our block (block 9) and then we dragged all our tenting equipment out in 3 backpacks and learnt how to pitch tents at this field outside a gate.

campsite number 1, here we come!

i feel so clumsy, i think i snapped the elastics of one of the poles while trying to pitch a tent. ):

but we got the tent up, fly sheet and all. :D

jodi and jessie, our very nice food i/cs, offered to stay behind at the block to pack our food neatly into 2 backpacks. they rationed everything very nicely, so when a few of us came back from the campsite to tell them that dinner was being served at the cookhouse, they were like, "WHAT?!"

hahaha they're so cute. (:

we were all very very very hungry and so we all ate dinner very happily. (:

my first shower after dinner!

the toilet is surprisingly clean and nice. actually the OBS camp ground seriously surprised me, i was expecting something more rugged than that. but i'm grateful that we still have some of the 'world' with us. (:

i was the last one in my watch to shower, so i took my own time- learning from esther on last sunday that she only properly bathed the first day. everybody was like asking me whether they should wash their hair and i said, "i'm definitely washing mine." (:

after washing up uncle alex came to find us and then we got to pack our backpacks so that we could 'move' to camp 2 the next day.

this is how the distribution of the 16 bags are like:

8 backpacks: personal belongings (2 people share a bag, i shared with sab :D)

2 backpacks: tents

2 backpacks: food

2 backpacks: equipment

2 backpacks: miscellaneous (diane & huifei have back problems- so we gave them the lightest load.)

i thought this distribution was quite smart. (:

yup so we packed until 10pm+ before heading to our tents.

uncle alex is such a spoiler, we were walking to our tents when he suddenly said, "hey girls, if there's a fire right, you must gather at the expedition court okay!"

and we were all like, "okay!"

we just reached our tents when he came running back at us and yelling, "GIRLS! THERE'S A FIRE DRILL! HURRY GO TO THE EXPEDITION COURT NOWWW!"

funny mannn. (:

so in the end we slept at 11pm.

i think everyone in my tent slept pretty well, myself included. (: diane and i were so sleepy we fell asleep fast, and i think jodi and sabby did too a while after us.

that's the end of day 1. (:

day 2 coming up soon!