Outward Bound - The Beginning

5 days of freedom.

5 days of torture.

5 days of fun.

5 days of depression.

5 days of bonding.

5 days of OBS.

As Bach's Partita in E suddenly blared out of my handphone, I woke up with a sudden jerk in my bed. In a desperate attempt to switch that off, in order to avoid waking up anyone else, my hand lunged for the floor. Then in one fluid motion, my arm reached the handphone, wrist hit the ground, my body rolled off the bed and collapsed onto the floor.

Ouch for my hip bone.

Then I fell asleep on the floor.

After around 10 minutes, my mother woke me up as I was going to be late.

Carrying a backpack and Shell slingbag from the store room, I left home. The weather was cool. After taking bus 3 and changing to 82, I reached Punggol Jetty.

I called my friend, and 8:15 we were supposed to reach, yet at 8, their school bus have not left NUS High School. Why then are we asked to come so early?

The reception centre was quite some walk away from the bus stop. Several people like jk were there already. Mosquitoes infested the area. Wearing shorts, I got bitten in no time at all.

After some 1 hour, the rest of the school finally arrived gloriously and fashionably late in excursion buses. Administration and introduction took at least another half an hour or so.

At least when it was over, our watch, Cheng Ho, went to a corner for some self introductions. We were made up of Junrui, Shao Hao, Jonathan Wee, Ananya, Hui Shi, Meifang, Sharmaine Wong, Shermaine Nah, Wen Sin, Yenyan, Semi, Kar Yee, Woan Chyi, Brandon, and finally me.

After a group photo, it was onto the boat and our journey for OBS in Pulau Ubin began!

***

Of people one knows, there are several types:

1) The face-recognizer. I have seen that face before
2) The name-knower. I know his name!
3) The hi-passers. "Hi"
4) The light-conversationists. "How was your day?" or "Leveled up already?"
5) The Friends. People whom you consider friends.
6) The true friends. People whom you dare to share with, and understand you truely.

I did not know much of the people in my watch, so it was rather lonely in the beginnning. People like Jun Rui and Shao Hao were light-conversationists to me. Meifang, Hui Shi, Semi, Karyee, in fact most of the people were merely name-knowers. Woan Chyi and Sharmaine were the ones who I have never known in the slightest way. So you could see, I did not find any friends to keep me company in the watch. To spoil the story a little, most of them got upgraded to stage 4, light-conversationists, but never made it to stage 5 yet, after the 5 day OBS journey. I hope that there would be upgrading in process, even after now that OBS has ended.

In the boat, I sat in the long seat, among a bunch of girls whom I did not particularly know. The boat took a longer time to reach ubin than I would have thought. After all, it did not look too far away on the map. Since I was sitting on the long parallel seats, it was strenuous to turn my head and look out of the window, so I gave up and rested.

***

From the jetty at Pulau Ubin, I could see the great stretch of eastern coastline of mainland singapore. It felt wonderful to have a sight sweeping across kilometers, yet seeing the structures clearly. I could see the UMC building at Pasir Ris West, the distinct cyan quarter-circle roofs of flats in Elias, the blue rectangle of White Sands shopping mall sitting neatly in the midst of residential buildings, and the flats in Pasir Ris East, 2 kilometres away from Pasir Ris west.
Changi could also be easily seen. West of Pasir Ris would be the expressway, but being a forested area, all I could see were trees. The view of Punggol was unfortunately blocked by Pulau Serangoon. Still, it was an amazing sight. Looking at the entire north-eastern coast of Singapore felt like seeing the world in a single sight, at least for me because I live there.

Moving our bags up the hill was exhausting. We gathered under a shelter, put down our bags, and did some group discussions on our aims and roles in the group. Next we moved the ponchos, tents, groundsheets and other equipment out for tidying. Lastly, we went to collect the food rations.

A lot of carry-along food were either not eggless, or were not to my liking. I liked the sunshine bread filled with cream, and the muesli bars. However, they were finished by me quickly so I was left with powdered food and biscuits, which I got quite sick of after 5 days.

Sorted into 16 equal piles, these foods would be all the packeted foods we will have for 5 days. Of course, we had bread and rice and canned food too, but those were not good for carrying out on expeditions. By the time we were done with the boring yet essential work, Cheng Ho proceeded for the first activity - the trust fall, in the afternoon.

We had to fall backfirst onto a mat where our team mates were holding onto. I have to admit, that making the first reflex to trigger the fall, was rather difficult. Even as I fell, I did not straighten my whole body, due to the hesitation and nervousness. I think I fell on my butt sitting upright instead.

After we have all done it, we signed this Cheng Ho commitment book, which up till now, I am not quite sure what it is about. Belaying practice was up next. This was quite a dreary process. There was the climber, belayer, dead weight, assistant belayer, and rope manager. The worst role would be the rope manager, which had no point in assisting in ensuring the climber's safety, and without any fun in the job at the same time. The thing we had to climb was a pole with steps, not more than 4 metres high. It was not any fun, but we had to do it still.

***

Evening crept near, which meant that we had to set up our tents and start cooking for dinner. Despite the tent being one of those kinds which was already made and all one had to do was to stick the poles in, it was hard to keep it in support. Pushing the rods through the slips of the tent proved time-consuming and irritating, especially when the rod gets stuck somewhere while we were pushing it in.

We had rice for dinner. Ananya and I, being vegetarian, had some baby corn and mixed vegetables. I have never liked baby corn with its tastelessness and rough texture. Neither were we sure how to cook them properly. Although ananya and my vegetarian cooking did not taste too bad, I did not particularly like it. However, that was before what I knew was going to happen for dinner for the next few days...

We washed up our utensils and went for a nice shower. When I entered the toilet, I heard that two girls were showering in the male toilet, and saw them talking happily with some other guys about there being nothing wrong in showering in the male toilet. That made me a little scared at first, not being sure how many more girls were in the male toilet; but like the trust fall, trusting myself that there could not be too many shameless girls around here would continue entering this place, I started bathing.

After I changed into my long-sleeved T-shirt, I realised that it looked a lot like a girl's T-shirt. I was pissed with that fact for quite a while.

First day, although smooth-sailing and plain it might be, was just a day to relax before the coming few that would prove arduous physically, mentally and emotionally. This was just the beginning...

To be continued...