~ Goodbye 2012 ~

We all have plans about the life we want to live. Having plans is good. Having ONLY plans doesn't get you very far. Wherever you may be, whatever you might be doing, make the best of it, keeping in mind that it'll only push you closer to your dream. A victory however small, is still a victory. Fight for that passion, fight for your future self. And as you get closer to fulfilling goals, just remember to keep your feet on the ground. 

2012 has been the year I have re-affirmed my calling. There's not been a day that I have not dreamt about it. Each success of 2012 has brought, has reminded me how strong my passion is and also the journey that lays ahead of me. Each obstacle has reminded me to be aware of untrained skills and of what I'm yet to learn. 

2013 is the year that will set a whole new momentum to many lives, including mine. Before entering the road to my future. Still have exams, presentations, projects to come and there'll be more. But a friend of mine told me that no matter how heavy the workload gets, if you feel passion for what you do, nothing will stop you from completing it. 

And it is true. I have felt it. I have whined and complained and almost given up. But something has always made me feel good about the pieces of work I do. And I have already been informed that it's a long way ahead. But I have always known that, and I'm prepared. I will see myself on the other side of my dream, when it becomes my reality. And I hope that you see yourself there too.

[Sponsored] 2D1N Awana Resort Adventurous Genting Trip

This was my 1st time going overseas alone, neither with my family nor with my friends.

I went to participate this trip organised by Nuffnang from 14 to 15 December and was fully-sponsored ~ it was free :-)

During the 7 hours of our journey, we were rested at Yong Peng for a small break and I found this cat quite cute, so I took a photo of her :)

After the 7 hours of journey (we just slept through it), we finally arrived at our destination.

After putting our bags into the counter, we proceeded our way to Rajawali Coffee House to have our lunch. It is a buffet restaurant, serving different varieties of foods and drinks.

Becos we were SG Evangelist of Nuffnang, therefore the food were free.

From where we seated, I saw this scenery.

Awana Resort Golf Course

Desserts displayed were colorful

This was the first picture that I took with a blogger in this trip - the very 1st blogger I met. Her name is Diana Raymond ~ apparently she is married 4 months ago, at the age of 25. Her occupation is to work as a full-time auditor.

Diana and I :)

We were supposed to wait for the motor car to take us up to the long house. During the buggy ride, Nic (a local angmoh blogger) challenged us to a race to see who reached the long house first.

Instagram picture taken by Nick

Here is a video recorded by me during the ride ~ watch and see who won in the end !! :-)



After everyone had arrived the long house, we were briefed by the camp instructor, Zul.





Zul briefed us about the situation of the area, safety precautions and etc. Watch the videos below and find out about the details !!

Everyone were listening attentively during the briefing

After the briefing, we followed Zul down and observing the surrounding area while listening his introduction about the area.

After everyone had came down, Zul started his briefing about the area.

Here is a short clip of what he told us:

The hut is a row of restrooms (left: female and right: male)

However, it surprisingly look clean inside

While during the tour, he informed us that we must changed into sports attire for the preparation of the 1st physical activity of the day. But, it started to rain right after he finished his briefing.

Our bedroom in the long house

While waiting for everyone to get changed, here are some pictures that the Nuffnang admin, Jayne helped to take the picture.

Yina Goh and her husband, Yong Zhuan (on the right)

Esther Xie (on the left)

Welcome to AWANA GENTING LONG HOUSE << by Yina Goh

This is the plug ~ not enough for a group of 20 over bloggers !!

We (guys) were ready for the 1st activity ...

Smile before the 1st activity began

Girls' Power :D

After distributed into 4 groups of 4 persons in each group by Zul, we were being told that our 1st activity was to come out a group name and cheering dance steps that was less than 30 seconds.

Team 1: The Wonders







Team 2: Team Duo

Team 3: The Three Musketeers

Team 4: The Fantastic Four

Next, Zul wanted us to get ourselves warm-up by dancing according to a song style..

Gabriel was shy to dance "Gangnam Style", so Zul accompanied  with him

We tried our best to follow Gabriel

Pei Shi was also "shy" to perform the "dance" !!

Yong Zhuan encouraged her wife to perform the dance...

However, she used jumping-jack as a replacement of the "dance"

I think we enjoyed their entertainment ... xD

Chicken Dance ~ next !!

Nic and Peishi

Here comes the 3rd activity and the upcoming Treasure Hunt ~

All the group leaders gathered to brief  by the instructor

While waiting, here comes the Girls' Power in Top shot :)

After we waited for our group leader, Melvin, we immediately discussed and doing the puzzles at the same time [too competitive, it's just a game - I think].

Melvin told us that we need to complete 3 puzzles, using the given pieces to form up the shapes. The higher the points, the more difficult it became..

Observing other groups ~ because it was Pei Shi did most of the puzzles, haha !!

The Three Musketeers

The Fantastic Four

The Wonders

Result of a completed shape

In this puzzle activity, we gained 240 points in total and able to proceed to start the next session: Treasure Hunt. We were given a small map and had to find clues along the way, till we reached our destination. For every clue found, we need to complete each mini game of the given clue / direction as a group in order to find out the next clue.

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While we were going round the area (kinda lost), I took some shots along the way :)

I was nearly out of breathe [my stamina sucks], but the first one to reach was Pei Shi 

~ LOL ~ 3 of us lost to a little girl .. =_=

Finally, we reached the 1st mini game - flying fox as a group, but we were outlasted by another group: The Three Musketeers.

We were given 2 balls per player to throw onto the selected circles on the ground, while we flew down from starting point to the ending point. The middle circle would gain 20 points while the other two circles could gain 10 points.

Melvin and Pei Shi gained 10 points each ~ if I remembered correctly.. I managed to get 20 points (threw onto the middle, while I'm still feeling scared when flying down >_< )

After completed this game, the person-in-charge gave us the next clue. 

The floor is too steep for me to go down quickly ~

We took a group photo together before we proceeded to our mini-games.

(Thanks to Jayne for the shot !!)

There are 2 mini-games to be completed: rock-climbing & archery.

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Rock-Climbing

The Three Musketeers was the first group to reach ~ I think

Lian Mei Ting

The Three Musketeer's Team Leader: Yong Zhuan

I didn't participate this mini-game as my stamina had drained out from the previous game, therefore I excused  the game :-(

I was shooting for Pei Shi on her rock-climbing, and thus didn't record her into the video

It was somehow a fun experience to watch them climbing to the highest peak every second, although I was resting down below to watch their success :-)

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Archery

Again, it was The Three Musketeers took the lead.

The instructor was nice to teach us the basic rules and safety precaution of the archery.  

I was holding the bow and too focus on the bull-eye..

After we finished our archery mini game, The Wonders then started to go in for their archery.

Valentine Low

After we completed the mini games, we then proceeded to the final mini-game. We had to guess the 5 riddles from the picture given and took a group photo for each solved riddle.

Unfortunely, when we were about to complete the last riddle, it rained ~ which hindered our progress and our way back to the long house. After a short while, we then decided to take a short-cut and took the bugging instead and went back to long house instead, without completing the last riddle. :-P

After resting for almost 1 hour in the long house, it was dinner time :-D

The dining area was arranged like the hotel we went in the afternoon.

Michelle Quek

Chefs from Awana Genting Hotel were moved to serve us with BBQ foods

We didn't get to use the stage ~

5 types of chili for U to choose from :-D

While we were taking our food, Jayne took it for us :)

My share of the Dinner ! !

Sebastian, Valentine, Diana, Zi Yun, me and Melvin (from left to right)

Nick, Lydia, Billy, Pei Shi and Gabriel (from left to right)

After we had our dinner, we headed back to the long house for the night activities. This time, it was about eating ice-cream and threw the stick into the box ~~ Can U imagine that?? Eating ice-cream within 3 minutes in a middle of the night, plus we were in Genting (cold weather) ...

Anyway, here goes . . .

If you can't threw the ice-cream stick directly into the box, then it will not be counted and had to wait till you ate another one and threw again ~ Yina Goh's husband almost went crazy cos he went to eat 3 ice-creams in one row. :-P

Before we went to the campfire, we wore the light-band with us as the place was very dark and muggy. For the campfire activity (pictures not taken), we had to pass the balloon in left / right direction of a circle. Whoever had last touched the balloon when the music had stopped, he / she must bust the balloon and had to be "punished" for the given instruction written on the paper from each busted balloon.

Campfire (a bit bigger than the normal one)

In this next activity, we were supposed to guess what was the action from the person who was acting out (very much alike the Taiwan variety show: The Guessing Show !!)

After the night mini-games, as usual, after bathing and supper, I went to bed directly around 11:30 pm, despite how noisy the group who were playing / chatting outside the bedroom. 

[Some were tenting below the long house]

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The next morning . . . [Day 2]

Breakfast time :-D

After that, I went back to the long house. Only to find out that there was another very "dangerous activity" waiting for us to experience the fun =_=

The instructors were testing out the "equipment" ~

After doing some warm-ups, we tried to use the "equipment" in the first trial. It was hard to control and needed a lot of teamwork with one another in order to proceed forward successfully.

Surprisingly, none of us were absent / not feeling well after the 1st day of adventurous activities and neither do I :)

And thus, the real fun began . . .

The most difficult part to drive this activity was when you're about to U-turn and heading back to the starting point ~ because I'm the last person - I need to use much greater strength of my leg to spread -> push -> left & right and push again in order to make a turn. Luckily, we were not the last ones :-)

Next, we went on to the next activity. I forgot what was it called, but still remembered the rules. Each of us need to hug 2 balloons on our armpit (left & right) and 1 balloon in between our legs. Here are some pictures that Nuffnang admins took and I only posted some that are quite interesting. :-)

Actually, I don't know how to blow a balloon ~ so I let Diana did it for me :-P

Getting ready !!

In the end, my team reached last as I kept falling off my blue balloon !! >_<

In the next game, it was conducted indoor due to sudden raining. For the next activity, Zul told us we had to take out our possessions such as clothes, accessories or anything that can tied and pull across the floor. The team with the longest "rope" won the activity.

 

The Fantastic Four won this activity

I don't dare to take out my t-shirt as I did not have a nice body like Billy and Melvin has !!

In the next activity (2nd last), we were supposed to use a straw to pick up rubber band after spinning around the pole 5 times. However, we got 2nd place for this activity. 

I was beside Yina's husband (wearing white socks de..)

In this very very last activity, somehow it was the only one that can determine who are the top 3. Zul told us that we had to prepare a cheer song and dance steps within 3 minutes ~ the duration was a bit longer than the cheer we had created on Day 1.

We were given 10 minutes to discuss and practice the dance steps. 

Here are the result of each team's cheer and dance steps:

  

Finally, Zul made his final decisions and announced the result.

The Wonders (4th position)

Team Duo (3rd position)

The Three Musketeers (2nd position)

The Fantastic Four (1st position)

Group Photo

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For more pictures that are not in this post, please refer to Nuffnang's Facebook Page ! !

After we had packed our bags and ate our lunch at the buffet restaurant, we were strolling around the resort to kill the time while waiting for the bus to fetch us.

 

While Melvin and I were walking around, Tselyn invited us to take a picture with her.

However, I snapped into one of their group picture ~ LOL ~

I tried to take as many pictures as possible in that 1 hour.

 

Left with only 20 minutes, I entered into the bar whereby I saw Pei Shi and her friends were playing the pool. The angmoh blogger invited me and gave me a free welcome treat.

A Free Coke (he said:"cock"), haha !!

Last but not least, here are all the autographs that I collected during the trip.

As for the other people who were lazy to write ~ so I asked them to sign instead :-D

It is an enjoyable and precious memory. I hope I can meet them again in the future :-)

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If you are sick & tired of the fast paced city life that we are living in, why not spend a weekend away at Genting Highlands where you can indulge yourself in fun activities along side with fresh air & nature.

Check out Resort World Genting's website: Click here !!