Trip to the Summit

The next time someone tells you Mt. Kinabalu is a trip through Hell. Believe them. Except this hell is a freezing Hell.

So I've actually been back from my Mt. Kinabalu Trip for quite some time now. It's just that I was too tired and uninspired to blog anything about it yet.

As Sabahan's, I bet nearly everyone of you have been asked the question "Have you climbed Mt. Kinabalu before?" at least once. And from now onwards, I'm proud that I can actually say "YES!"


So what's so special about this Mt. Kinabalu, for those who HAVEN'T climbed, you might ask. Well, first of all, the peak is 4095.2 meters high; the journey to the peak and back down would take you 2 days and 1 night; it cost me a bloody RM550++ (price as of 2009); and lastly, if you ain't from some country that snows.... lemme just say you could keep your fruits and veggies perfectly fresh all the way up to the peak if you brought any.


My trip however was a 3 days 2 nights one. That very morning on the 21st before I left my house... I looked out my window, and saw

and I looked back at my 12-kg packed backpack and double checked my jackets....... and I said... "nah... It can't be that bad"... ... ... I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The first night was a stay at the renowned Kampung Mesilau!! Where we spent most of afternoon time having a foot-massage in the blisteringly cold river....

which made your toes feel like they were missing, and your feet feel like... cold penguin feet....

But of course... us little children couldn't care less about having our feet frozen and kicked off our shoes to the side.

Owners at Play

Just to take pictures...

Well... after about an hour and a half of getting our feet numb, we trotted back for a cold shower 0.0 ... .... Cold + Cold = Hot ^^ just like negative + negative = positive ^^ ... ... ... okay... nevermind me...

The cold shower after a cold leg dip was seriously a WRONG idea. Having a 10 degrees celcius shower would practically make girls scream and guy's balls shrink into nothingness.


Having paid more than 500 bucks to freeze our asses in some wet river though... there IS... of course... something good that comes out of that. And that is buffet meals~! We had a filling steamboat dinner that night, and an even more stuffing breakfast the next morning. I have to say that the most enjoyable thing about this trip I had...... is that I did not have to worry about FOOD!!

Even the squirrels had to take the chance to have breakfast with us.


At 9:00 am of the 2nd day.... locked and loaded, we headed off

The first day's walk is an 8km walk uphill.... I have to admit that the road climbing up is actually very EASY.... especially for a person like me, who only did serious training 1~2 week prior to the climb.... and who usually sits at home only playing COD and O2Jam.... all it takes is 1.5 litres of water, 1 bar of chocolate, 1 lunch pack, and LOTS and LOTS of REST along the way... ... You'll feel as if your brain was going to explode and your heart would stop any minute... and if it rains, bravo~, you just got yourself some natural air-con that's pre-set to 12 degrees C and cannot be turned down.

But don't sweat it =) because there's always a resting hut within an hour's walk from where you are. And if you EVER happen to run out of water along the way.... and you're like in the middle of the whole journey and nearly half dead from thirst, and you expect to re-fill your bottle on the road... there's always this:

It really does make soOooo much sense when you're in the middle of nowhere and somewhere... with no water left... to be informed that you should've brought more water doesn't it? Thank you for your Understanding... Oh sure... I DO understand... ~.~


Anyway... it's a good thing I didn't run out of water myself. But pity the other people who thought they could get some water along the way... uh-uh.... too bad for them.


Honestly though. If anybody were to ask me where was the Best place in Sabah to have a photoshoot. In all honestly, my suggestion would be: Mt. Kinabalu.

Besides the challenging surroundings and backgrounds to take photographs with, there're still much insanely beautiful scenery to take pictures of. If you're not so interested in the scenery, you could even try some of this.... ....

Looks like some kind of album cover page if you ask me ^^

Of course... for serious photographers.... carrying your full set equipment, tripod, and lighting could break your back in 101 places. You'll need so many lenses from wide angle to telephoto to macro to cover the whole heavenly sky to the tiny squirrels and spiderlings which made Spiderman spiderman.

Cutting off from photography talk... we arrived at mid-mountain... or so-called Laban Rata in the evening.... 8 hours of climb, rest, eat, talk, photo-shoot..... I guess we did fine ^^ But the worst was yet to come....

That night. None of us bathed. We stayed in Gunting Lagadan, which didn't have a heater... so the water was like... ... 5 degrees?? But it seemed that Laban Rata wasn't doing much better =)

We continued our climb at about 2:30 am midnight. Climbing in pitch-black darkness. The darkness was one thing... the steepness of the mountain is another!! and the COLD WIND is the worst part~!

Unfortunately, since my camera flash is out of order, I don't have any pictures of the climb T.T

To cut the long story short... we climbed 3 hours in the Cold Night... walking on without a clue where we were going (of course the only clue was.... the peak)... all we did was walk along a the white rope which our whole journey depended on. In the middle of the night, 50 Meters LOOKED like a 100 meters!! But FELT like 500~!!!

Your Life Line

It was more of a test of Mentality that physical fitness I'll tell you:

"Your Body is about to collapse... your lips are nearly frozen... you are 2 kilometers more to the peak. You can choose to walk 500 meters downhill back to your warm room... or you could walk uphill till your eyes froze for another 2 kilometers... Which do you choose...."


Somehow... I managed to make it in to the peak in time for sunrise ^^ But I was already too tired to be taking photographs... so I just watched... while my face was blown dry by the icy wind.

To sum it all up... I'm pretty satisfied and proud of myself for actually reaching the peak... because it wasn't only once, that the idea of turning back and just giving it all up came to mind.... but I thought that if so many others could've made it, I can too, and I pushed on...

**I'll give a hint to those intending on climbing and haven't climbed before.. Looking at the photo on top.... and all other photos taken by people at Mt. K's peak... it seems small doesn't it?? I'll tell you that... from the place I was standing when I took that photo, to the tiny person walking there.... is about 100 ~ 150 meters of downhill walk.... which would take you about.... 4~5 minutes to walk... ^^


If you asked me if I'd want to climb again.... my answer:

I'd love to. But with better camera equipment, a flash... and a tripod.
When? Not anytime within a year's time, haha.
And this time I'm gonna train harder and further so that I won't have to be bothered with being tired while making my way up...
Oh.... and if I didn't have to worry about the price =.=.... RM600 a year.... no thanks... that's gonna blow my pocket.

As we grow older...

This post might be a bit odd as my first actual post coming back to KK, but anyway....

Once again, I couldn't sleep. My mind just seems to be to active at the wrong times of the day, so I ended up here again, typing my thoughts into this computer, and up onto my blog, which I didn't really want to at first, cause I felt it was a little awkward, but anyway, here it is....

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1 week... I've been back for slightly more than a week. Yet all too soon, I've already felt.... something that I didn't want to. Even if it's just a week, I felt that somehow..... with my friends.... everyone... each other.... have somehow started to grow apart.

I remember back in high school, there were times, when all of us would know what Steam would buy for breakfast; what Amos's math marks were; what was CKCham's favourite phrase of the day; what was the height of our classmates; where the girls would usually sit and eat; what would be the topic for that day..... and so on.....

Yet now, even as we talk to each other, there's so many things that we don't know anymore. As we live in different parts of the world, as we busy ourselves with our own business these days, even with the best technology in this world.... it seems we're all slowly growing apart.


As we grow older, there will be things.... that will naturally disappear.... Things that we no longer have to do, while other things that we will start to do; there will be more and more troublesome things, things that we just wave off with a sentace of "I'm busy", or "that's a waste of time", or "we'll do that next time", or some sort.....

In another few years.... we might not ever be able to do the same things we could do last time.... or even now....

And all those worthless things we did, the stupid quarrels we had, all the time we had together.... now turning into memories.... precious memories..... I really never would've thought it would be like this back then.
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end

reminiscence

Everytime I realise that I haven't actually touched much of my books to be ready for exam, I'm "Oh great.... and I thought exams were quite a long way more to go....". Turns out I've got another 4 days in between before I do my first subject (excluding today)


Miri's weather is so unpredictable, one day you could get

Figure 1. Strong winds, heavy clouds

Strong winds that take the roofs off the bus stops, bring down 40 year old trees, and those that blow your just dried pantees to god-knows-where......

And as a compensation, you get this, the very next day

Figure 2. My bed....


Figure 3. My room.....

The blazing oven heat coming in from my window makes sure I can't sleep in the afternoon, so that I can use that time to study Management 100. But what the hell!?? Who can study in such heat???


The heat + the frustration + the oh-for-God's-sake + the I-don't-give-a-damn in me always came down to one thing..... Closing the window, turning on the Air-con, and going to sleep.


I really felt kinda hopeless these days.... hoping that I didn't have to study, hoping that I was better, hoping that I could go back to KK and enjoy myself...... but that very last thought..... of going back to KK, opened the door.....

Today, when the barbequeing sun was crawling back to its homes in preparation for night, I watched the sunset.... it reminded me of my times back in KK, it reminded me of the sunset I loved at the Sports Complex; it reminded me of the Sunrise I watched while everyone else was asleep during our trips; I remembered the fun I had back with my friends.... and how much I longed to go back just to have more fun with them.

As I watched the clouds part, the flaming red melting into purple..... more and more memories came back.... and out of the blue..... I realised..... that there was still hope.... there was still so much more waiting....

And then I thought, I should get back to studying.... I don't wanna get hauled back for a supplementary test while I'm back there in KK busy creating more memories..... but this time.... even with the heat, even with the frustrations..... just by thinking of what's there to come...... it all seemed so tiny in front of those thoughts......


Miss all of you RENs, waiting to see all of you soon....... soon..... very soon.....

Life as it Is

There hasn't been much going on here lately, except that I moved to the villa while all our "KayKay Zhai" went back to KK. And over there, theres some crappy internet that suddenly made me feel that lakeside wasn't so bad afterall.

However, somehow, last night, I had a weird dream.... Of my classmates, and me. It was sort of a flashback, or was it something else, I don't know.... dreams always seem a blur to me after I wake up. I only know that I dreamt about some of the times we went through as a class, the trips we enjoyed, and been through till the very end. The "yam cha"'s after badminton, after school, after exams, after dancing practice, after marching practice, after pom pom making......

The bak kut teh, the "chao fan dai mao", the "wo die", the KFCs, the YoYo's, the "Ren Ai"s, and all the KK food which can only be compared by none other than the "Chocolate Peanut Toast" here (so far the most delicious toast I've eaten).


And when I woke up, I thought of going home.... and I thought of the holidays I'll have during April, or June..... I thought that things could all be back the same way when I went back home...


But then, I thought again, that even if I went back.... .... the times, the moments.... they will never be like they were before....



Things will never be the same..... ever...

Sijil Pertandingan Meniru 2007 Results

Sorry for the late update in my blog.... cause I was caught up in 2 things...., 1st is the every suddenly changing course of uni life, received a couple of assignments and stuff I had to catch up with recently. And 2nd, is I had so many passwords I forgot which one was the one for my blog.... =.= (lame, I know, sry)


Anyhow, I got my Sijil Pertandingan Meniru results (SPM, mind you) somewhere around last week... For a student like me, I feel.... my results are quite okay..... though my parents think otherwise (they always do... anyway). Now... I'm already in Uni in fact, why the hell do I still need those results?

Well, seems like they still come in handy once in a while for other stuff, but anyway. I never expected getting ?? As for SPM, considering the minuscule amount of time put into studying, against the sleepless nights spent in front of the computer typing out the answers for Sejarah essay sections.... The results I got seemed pretty satisfactory for me, hehe.

Thanks to the help of my fellow friends also (or partners in crime, so to say), I managed to get my Chinese better than my Malay (which resulted in a "How come your Malay is worse than your Chinese??!?" from my mom). I also got a/an ?? for my Physics, as "expected" due to the tremendous amount of sources found in the Male toilet, and a/an ?? for Chemistry, also without doubt, is because of the help of the construction of our "Ai Xin Che Shuo" toilet. And another thing, we surely have to give thanks to the kind photocopy shop who made their outlet just outside the toilet, making it readily available, easily accessible, and with fast service (only with exam answer papers though).


Hmm, well, I've got to stop right here for now, due to the rumbling thunder in my stomach, and another lecture from one of the brainless lecturers coming up.

So long.