DAY ONE
After so many years and times of traveling, i was still plagued by "last minute stuff" and rushed to finish packing and getting ready. Aimed to reach meeting point before 10am but had to detour to IMM to get Jagabee for Isaac (who happens to be addicted to Hokkaido no. 1 finger-food product). Almost made it at 10.05am not for my "wrong directions" to taxi uncle, we ended up going towards Woodlands on KJE. Haha....made a U-turn and finally arrived. Deffrey, the travel agent who assisted us in the coordination and camp site, text me that our people were very early, as in most of them (except me) arrived before 10am. LOL.... learned from Dn Poh later on that during briefing, he actually told congregation "the bus will leave at 10am sharp". So much for misinformation.
This is also the first time we put on wrist bands (like inpatients) with colour codes. Those who self-drove were there to see us off... hmmm... perhaps they were there to follow us to the restaurant (seeking for directions to lunch). Anyhow, was glad to see Amozie, my brother, Marcus and some others.
Immigration clearance was a breeze. Bus ride was uneventful except for Coach No. 3 which experienced problems with the cooling system and passengers were practically in "hot soup or oven" during the journey up. Poor people... thank God none fainted or else i would have been busy fanning.
Lunch was not too bad...feeling famished, very in fact. Sat next to Lynn (FEBC student, also my good friend) and told her i could eat a horse, only to have her commenting at the end of the meal that the rightful description should be a teeny weeny pony. Oh well, horse or pony, it had been well-fed and by 2pm we began the next leg of our journey.
Eld Boon was very diligent, took out his bible and i saw him turned to Nehemiah. But it wasnt long before i found him slummed at his seat, still at chapter one.... hee hee..... Heh, everyone slept :)
There were many first this year and one of them was the speed at which we all checked in. Firstly, there was already a staff from Deffrey's company, a lady named Quinn, she had already assigned the rooms with all the special requests like who to be next to who and who gets double bed and such. Initially i thought i had to double check before i allowed the people to check in coz i didnt know if she understood the remarks in my file. I requested my coach driver to speed all the way and he did.....hahah.... Anyhow, it turned out she was very competent and everything worked out smoothly. In addition, the coaches arrived one at a time which was good so there was no jam at the lifts (witnessed one church group checking in during my recce on 31 May and it was really a nightmare).
The rooms were fantastic... to me. It was very good except for poor workmanship. The premise is only 3 months old and things are beginning to fall apart. Can you imagine my toilet seat cover was actually a child's size? And the rod in front of my sink, it was broken and i had no place to hang my hand towel. Some people had to change room because the sliding door at the bed area rolled off track and could not be repaired. I guess the most "stupid" fault was the safe in the room. A few of the rooms safe were locked when new guests checked in....had to call this maintenance guy with a gadget that resembled the ones Carpark attendant uses in Singapore to book errant drivers in parking lots.
And this year was the first where the synthesizer was not there during singspiration. Hahah.... it was left in Eld Goh's car boot and he was uncontactable at all prior to 7pm. Met him at the lift lobby at 6.55pm and things started happening. No extension cord and this and that... got it all working by 7.20pm or so.
Eld Seah exhorted us from Psalm 27 with the acronym W.A.I.T. Watch unto prayer, Acknowledge Lordship of Christ, Instructed in His Word and Take God at His promises. Had a round of prayer and everyone was ready to retire to the soft cuddly beds in the rooms.
I had the whole room to myself.. was thinking should i sleep on one bed for first 3 hours and the next for later half..... why? Because i always wake up in the night and so no harm switching beds for the fun of it. My eyes were itching and rather painful but i had to finish some camp stuff before i went to bed. Thought of listening to the news but couldnt locate the TV. Then i thought to myself: "Where is it? Dont tell me my room has no TV?" I knew i couldnt have missed out this "BIG" detail, a MUST to have TV in the room for our people. Found the remote but just could not spot it. Tiredness or blurredness??? When i almost gave up and looked up.....aha... the huge black plasma screen of 29" or 32" size was right before my eyes. So stupid of me trying to locate it on table top....hahahaha... i had a good laugh at myself for being so forgetful. Here's a pic of it taken during camp recce to show how darn tired i was to have missed such an object.
No comments:
Post a Comment