MY PERSONAL RECOUNT

On the first day of my first Guides Learning Journey to Malacca, on 18^th March 2010, I was very excited as Meena, Lois, Huda and I would be going overseas and sleeping in a hotel room together for the first time. All of those who signed up for this learning journey waited for the Guiders, or the teachers-in-charge, and the coach bus in front of the main school gate. My father, accompanied by my mother, drove me there. I was the first to arrive at 4.45am and so, I waited in the car for awhile. I did not realize the car of Huda's father was right behind my father's car.

Finally, after I saw quite a few people there, I came out of the car. I realized that almost every one of them either brought a huge sling bag or even a haversack each. I was the only one with a suitcase at that moment! I was a little embarrassed. Huda and I waited for Lois and Meena's arrival with excitement. We intended to sit together in the coach bus. I was relieved to see Lois with a suitcase too when she arrived! After everyone had arrived and had stuck a yellow sticker on their shirts, we boarded the bus. The bus left at around 5am. The secondary one and three guides, including the four of us, looked beat. The bus headed to Queensway Secondary to pick the group of girls up. Thereafter, it headed to the checkpoint where everyone had to get off the bus to go through the immigration and etcetera.

After that, everyone boarded the same bus again which headed for the Malaysian Immigration Checkpoint. We took all of our belongings along when we alighted. It was fun going through this immigration processes by myself for the first time. We waited for the Malaysian coach for about fifteen minutes after the immigration!

The bus driver, Mr Raja, would be our driver for the next three days. There was a tour guide in the bus too. They came from the same organization. The bus took us past the Malaysian-Singapore border and to a food court in Johor which was quite deserted. Only two stalls were available. The four of us didn't eat anything there as we noticed flies hovering above and on the food! We were disgusted. We shared food that we brought from home.

Soon after, all of us got on the coach again. We were then heading for MALACCA via the extremely long highway! It took about three or more hours to reach there! We were having singing sessions but most of the time, after the sessions, we were sleeping like never before. It was so boring! I woke up all of a sudden as I was too bored; I was restless! I decided to take photos and videos of Meena, who was sitting next to me. It was so hilarious that I kept laughing till I woke Meena up! After that nonsense, I fell asleep. Fortunately, the Cedar and Queensway guides did not have motion sickness. Oh, yes, of course, the bus stopped at certain resting points along the highway.

We arrived at Malacca after long hours of deep sleep! It was 12pm then. At Malacca, we went to the Salvation Army Home to do our CIP work. Meena, Huda, Lois and I have really bonded well during those three hours of CIP! We did an AWESOME job in weeding half of an area needed to be weeded! It was tiring yet fun! It was like a 'bonding session' for the four of us. After that, we went to a room of down-syndrome people who were there to teach those who wanted to learn how to make a rug. We totally enjoyed it. It has taught me not to discriminate down-syndrome people as they can still learn something despite their disabilities. The four of us found some of them 'cute and friendly' towards us. Since we had paid 10 ringgit for the lesson, we got to keep our work and the knitting tool! It was really enjoyable!

Thereafter, we went to bus to go for a short city tour of Malacca. It was not much fun as the tour guide stated that Malacca has to be enjoyed on foot. We just visited the city on the bus. Finally, the long-awaited part of the day when all of us get into our hotel rooms had arrived! It was 6pm. The hotel was the 'Straits Meridian Hotel'. As we came here for CIP and other reasonable reasons, the hotel was not a 5-star hotel but a 3-star hotel. The room was not nice at all especially the washroom! But we still appreciated the fact that the four of us get to sleep together for the first time! All of us walked down to the Conference Room to conduct Inter-unit competitions; Cedar, Northland, Queensway, Siglap and Ngee Ann Secondary guides competed amongst each other. The games were fun and it ended off with a debrief with Mdm Zetty and Mdm Rachel Tan, the guiders of Cedar guides.

After the tiring day, all of us bathed except for Meena! She was too lazy to bathe; she just wore her pyjamas! We stayed up in our room for a few minutes, eating, drinking and watching the television before sleeping although it was 11.30pm at night! We laughed when we saw Huda's pyjamas; Meena thought it was so funny that she laughed the hardest. I think I would better not tell what pyjamas she wore! You should ask her, not me, if you want to know. Finally, we slept at 12.11am…