Mercedes BenZ!

BenZ:

Whee! Level camp was really fun!! Probably the best school camp yet! This is because it’s my second time going to Malaysia but it’s my first time taking the bus there! It was really exciting going across the causeway, thought it was a really short bridge, but it was a nice experience.

Bus journeys were really long throughout the trip but there was actually nothing wrong with that. Because the buses had great and comfortable seats, the perfect chairs for a nice sleep for a long bus journey. The chairs are wonderful. I LOVE THOSE CHAIRS!!!

Ok, so we arrived at Yong Peng. This was the first ‘shopping area’, where we got to know how cheap and expensive some things were. Every one grabbed lots of food and snacks as they were real cheap. WHEE! And then we had lunch at a country club. The food there was acceptable and it was the first time I experience the Chinese restaurant cultures in Malaysia. It was there that I learned that we have to finish all the rice and food served and also that the more mess we make on the table signifies our enjoyment of the food. But we did not mess the table up on purpose just to show our appreciation. Then we went to Mini Malaysia, where we could explore the traditional Malaysian architecture. It was fun exploring the grounds into the different traditional houses. Some of them had 2 stories, others backyards etc.

That night, we stayed at the Grand Continental Hotel. I slept in the same room as zenn. And sadly, our room’s air-conditioning system was not functioning. So after about 1 hr of liaising with the hotel management staff and the repair man, we got a room replacement! Yeah!! Air-con!

I enjoyed the 2^nd day because we went shopping at this GIANT mall!!! It had like central, north, south, east and west atriums. So it was 5 times bigger than the average Singapore mall. We were like unleashed dogs, roaming around the grounds of the mall, hunting down good bargains and buying lots of stuff. I bought a wallet, even thought I did not even need one. But it was a good buy XD!

Day 3, we went to a bat cave. It was really beautiful inside as we can see all the amazing cave structures. We are all awed by the beauty of these stalactites and stalagmites. Even though, it was bat cave, we did not see many bats as they were all in their dormant state. However, the cave had a really strong smell of bat poop. We had to climb staircases up and down the cave so as to look at the various marvels of the cave. There was a wind tunnel which was the best part of the cave explorations as the cave was humid and hot. The wind tunnel was obviously windy and really cooling.

After that, we departed for the Cameron highlands.

The Cameron highlands to me are the peak of the entire level camp. It has the perfect cool weather, if only Singapore could have it. Sigh… we saw huge beautiful landscapes, hills and hills of tea plantations. It was just spectacular. We stayed in the Equatorial hotel. It was a great place to stay in. The rooms had great and scenic views of the surrounding. Even though there were lots of bugs lurking around outside, the hotel rooms are specially designed to keep them out.

The trip was a rather fast one. I guess it was because of all the traveling on the bus which reduced the time spent sightseeing. However, it was a very enjoyable level camp!!!!! I would want to go visit Malaysia again, especially the Cameron Highlands!!

BenZ

Uncle Zenn!

Zenn:

Day 1:

IT WAS FINALLY THE DAY!!!

Ever since months ago, I have been looking forward to t

his day, for the simple fact that it was the annual level camp. This year, however, the teachers made it much more memorable for us because we were going to MALAYSIA!!!

Everyone in the hall was eagerly anticipating the arrival of the coaches that would take us to immigrations. Truthfully, the atmosphere was contagious and there was absolutely nobody who sleepy; everybody was chock full of energy and anticipation for the three days ahead.

Immigrations was simple, yet symbolic at the same time as it signaled the start of our journey through Malaysia. We took a short bus ride over the causeway, b

rimming with liveliness and everyone chatting away, waiting for the bus to arrive at our first destination: Yong Peng. I remembered this stop from previous trips to Malaysia and it was exactly the same; rows and rows of shelves stacked to the brim with snacks and drinks, with a canteen selling delicious Malay food and various other snacks. Everyone grabbed what they could because of the low prices, then off we went to have lunch at a country club in Malacca.

Even though the food was not what I was used to, I sensed the simple truthfulness of the waiters and waitresses, and enjoyed the otherwise plain meal. Next destination was Mini Malaysia, which I thought was not very fantastic. It showcased many differen

t houses of traditional Malaysia, which gave us an insight into their culture, but to me, most of the houses looked the same.

Nevertheless, many pictures were took, both of our friends and the houses, and we found that some of the houses actually had almost-hidden third stories and yards! The Historical and Ethnographical Museum was our last destination of the day. Again, I felt overwhelmed by the huge history that Malaysia has, and frankly speaking felt the tour through the museum was rather boring. There was a reason why I chose to study geography over history =D

That night, we checked into the prestigious Grand Continental and yet again, I was disappointed. Sadly, the hotel rooms were quite old and they reminded me of a cheap

hotel I stayed in in Taiwan. Moreover, the room BenZ and I were in had a faulty air conditioner, and caused us an hour of sleep before we were finally relocated. Sigh! What a day!

Day 2:

Today, after having breakfast in the hotel, we went to visit Sunway University College, which, strangely too, was disappointing. They talked about their school and its programs, and it felt like they were enticing us to join their school rather than show us how they employed their education techniques. Plainly, sitting in a hall listening to someone

promote their own school was not my idea of interesting. I wondered to myself: when would this chain of disappointment end? It turned out that I didn’t have to wait very long.

Our next stop was the National Monument of Malaysia, which was a huge statue depicting brave soldiers displaying qualities of honour.

To me, this was much better than the tours around museums and houses yesterday; I learned much more and had a larger attention span this time. The whole class took many photos around the grounds, including one of our GREAT tour guide, MISS AISHA!

Despite this, the highlight of the day came at the Mid-Valley Mega Mall, where we were allowed to shop for a full four hours! The name certainly suited the sheer size of the mall, for it was truly MEGA. Many times bigger than any Singaporean mall, containing a much larger variety of shops and with delicious food to boot, I could say that this was the ultimate highlight of the whole trip. Almost everyone bought things there; Kiankok, BenZ and Daphne bought wallets there, I spent some money in the arcade, and everyone else had tons of fun roaming through the shops. All of us turned into bed, satisfied and exhausted.

Day 3:

I’m guessing that, to many of us, this day was the most fun-filled among the whole journey. Our first stop, Tempurong Cave, was the coolest destination we have been to so far. Tempurong Cave is a natural formation in the mountain of the same name, and it is full of stalagmites and stalactites protruding from every angle, in many shapes and sizes. When we first stepped into the cave, everyone stopped in awe. It was utterly breathtaking; a wondrous spectacle of nature’s work on the earth. Beautiful formations littered the walls, floor, and even ceiling of the cave. The serenity of the cave was also something to behold; whenever we spoke, echoes could be heard.

It was truly a magical feeling that everyone felt. We can never get something like this in Singapore, no matter how hard we look. This was truly a one-of-a-kind experience that I think many of us would never forget.

After we caught our breath from the stairs in the cave, we proceeded up to the most anticipated destination in our trip: Cameron Highlands. I must say we were not disappointed at all. The view of the vast tea-fields was spectacular even from the comforts of our coach. Expanding endlessly, the beauty of it was stunning. I bet everyone enjoyed the great atmosphere up in the mountains, cool air with barely a hint of direct sunlight. Yet again, we will rarely e

xperience something like that in Singapore, and so everyone took their share of photos of scenery, with friends and with teachers. The BOH Tea Plantation, Strawberry Farm and Honey Bee Farm were all very interesting places to visit with their fair share of history and interesting facts, but sadly, none of us managed to pick any strawberries because they were all gone from the another class’ visit.

The Equatorial Hotel that we checked into was very majestic and grand. It consisted of a main building along with bungalows littered on the vast grounds that i

t occupied. We got the news that the boys were staying in the bungalows, two to each apartment, and all of us celebrated! While looking at the map to our bungalow, we realized that the distance was so far, that we actually had to drive there! Not by ourselves of course, but the mere thought of a hotel that large made me dizzy. That night the class gathered at one of the hotel rooms and we played many games together. When we got bored we trooped down to the lobby, and slowly ferried ourselves over to BenS’s apartment where we had another round of games. I truly enjoyed myself that night, having a chance to bond with all my friends at the same time, enjoying the luxurious rooms we were provided.

Day 4:

It was over. As if in a blink of an eye, the trip was over, and we were all going back to a life of homework, study and hot weather. I had no regrets however, having fully enjoyed the time we were given on this trip. Interacting with all my friends, teachers and schoolmates, I truly wish for another trip just like this. This has been the best level camp I have been in, but it would not be possible without everyone in the school. Thank you Dunman High, for planning this trip, thank you 3J and Mr Teoh, for making this experience fun-filled, enjoyable and interesting, thank you Miss Aisha, for teaching us so much about Malaysia's culture, and I’m guessing the whole cohort would agree with me in saying, LEVEL CAMP ROCKS!!!

JJ Lim!

Jing Jie:

Before the trip everyone was very excited although we know that a lot of time will be wasted on the bus ride from place to place itself. But that only gave us time to rest and interact more with our class mates.

On the first day, it was a lot of fun because we only visit the Mini Malaysia which had no one except us. The place would look so empty if not for us being there. After that we went to the Historical and Ethnography Museum. The facts given by the tour guide was quite interesting. She showed us a set of utensils in the museum that was used by the Peranakans, used only when there are big events, which was valued at a very high price and our form teacher claimed his family also have a set. We had dinner at a local restaurant and I think that our class finished the food quite fast because we were one of the first to arrive at the hotel that night. I think quite a few levels of the hotel was booked by our school. We weren’t allowed to go out of the room after 11pm and being very good students, Zenn, Benjamin and I didn’t leave the room at all! We just let people come that’s all…

The next day we went to a school visit but I think that it was quite useless given the fact that this school isn’t a secondary school and we didn’t go to their classrooms or have any interaction with the students there. After that we went to see a few monuments, the parliament house, the Istana and the Putra bridge.

The best part of that day should be the shopping! The mall that we went to was very big and had a lot of shops. Everything that we needed could be found there. I wanted to buy a pair of shoes there but in the end I can’t decide on which one to buy so didn’t buy my shoes there. Benjamin bought a wallet at BodyGlove though. After that we went back to the hotel to rest. One of the first again because Mr Teoh thought there isn’t really much to shop here. We went back at 7.15pm when the shopping was suppose to end at 9pm. But I agree with him that there isn’t really a lot of things to do at the mall, would rather go back and rest.

I think that the most interesting part of our journey to Malaysia would be the limestone cave in Ipoh. It was the first time I entered such a cave and it was really interesting to see those funny shaped stones carved by nature. The most special part of the journey would be the wind tunnel. We are inside a cave but where does all this wind come from? Until today I cannot understand why but I think it doesn’t really matters. What matters will be whether we had a fun time inside the cave and whether the bats drop anything on you. We went to Cameron Highlands next. And me being who I was went to sleep the moment I went up the bus because I tend to feel not quite well every time I go uphill on buses. About a few miles from the hotel we visited the BOH Tea Plantation, Honey Bee Farm and Strawberry Park in which all the strawberries have been picked by the previous classes.

We checked into the Equitorial Hotel on the peak of Cameron Highlands. As the hotel is 1680m above sea level it is very cooling up there in the evening and at dawn. Dinner was held at a ballroom in the hotel. This hotel had apartments other then the main building which was too small to hold all of us. So boys were staying at the apartments and girls in the main hotel building. Our apartment was one of the furthest from the hotel, it was so far that we used a van provided by the hotel to bring our belongings there.

On the fourth and last day we had breakfast in the hotel’s ballroom and then all the classes down Cameron Highlands. Zenn found out that you can breathe out “smoke” or cause the air to condense because of the coldness. The trip downhill was even more uncomfortable then the one uphill. Its really called a winding road twisting left and right every few metres. Xiao Xuan and Daphne had a very fun ride for a part of the journey because it seemed like a roller coaster ride but then they got bored…We shopped at this mall at Putrajaya for about an hour or so, where I found my shoes and then we headed back to Singapore!

On the whole I think that the trip was very enjoyable and I had a lot of fun with my classmates while learning a lot about Malaysia. I also learnt that a female cow is called a dam! That was according to our tour guide.