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Stargazing @ Sisters' Islands

Written at Sunday, June 20, 2010 | back to top

19th June 2010 - Saturday

and finally, after our Night Cycling with the Woodlands YEC people, they had another event coming up - Stargazing @ Sister's Island. it was actually organised by the Woodlands INC, Admiral Garden Astronomy Club and Woodlands YEC.

the usual of us (Cosca members) signed up for the event, but Edmund could not make it last minute, and so Joshua found his friend, Genevieve, to replace him.

before the event, we decided to make full use of the whole afternoon to make Shun An's belated 18th birthday present. we met up at Ginnette's house, and we spent quite a long time choosing 12 photos out from like over 100 of photos. *phew*

and when we were done with it, we still have to make our way to Bukit Merah Central to get those photos printed out. well, i didn't know smaller photos were much more expensive than the normal 4R one =/ but no choice, because our board couldn't fit so many 4R photos!!!

it's a must-spend money $_$ LOL

than, we have to take bus back to Ginnette's house. like lame!~ haha

and..... it's time to get work!!!! we were actually fighting against time because we have to leave the house at 5pm... and it's already 3.45pm when we were only just about to start. oh shit!

photos... and more photos of Shun An xD

Xue Ni and me were so hardworking eh!!!

we had quite a hard time designing and decorating the board, cutting and glueing the paper, etc. and not forgetting the burning of paper, which dirtied Ginnette's toilet sink *oops*. haha. Joshua came shortly after, and did a little help out with our board. we even include Koko's feather too! haha. *Koko wanted to wish Shun An happy birthday as well* LOL

we were so into the decorating until we totally forgot about the time. it was already 5pm when we looked at the clock. quickly did our finalising of job, Ginnette rushed to bathe, and we cleared the mess that we made.

birthday present DONE!

just left with the pasting of individual message part!

we left the house at around 5.40pm and took a cab down to Marina Bay to catch the bus service 402. luckily we managed to make it on time to catch the 6.16pm bus, the bus came early i guess. so lucky, the next bus will be at 6.48pm =S *phew*

our tickets!!!

Bus 402 with its 30 minutes interval =/

and yay, finally reached Marina South Pier. we got ourselves registered and walked around looking for food since we were pretty early and have to wait for other people to arrive.

walked around, and we decided to have our dinner at South Pier Cafe at level 2.

Marina South Pier.

my first time coming xD

ordered Seafood Hor Fun @ $3.50.

and i have lotsa prawns because Ginnette and Xue Ni all donated their prawns to me xD

SSG with our Seafood Hor Fun!

Singapore flag flew above us.

:rehearsing for NDP:

map to The Sisters Island

a group photo before we board the boat =D

and finally it's time to board the boat at around 7.05pm. it's a 30 minutes boat ride to our destination. the sky turned dark incredibly fast, it was only 7.30pm like that and the sky turned completely dark.

Entrance. yay!

boarding the boat... orange boat =)

group pictures xD

free flow of mineral water!!!

and the required equipment for stargazing!!

they were damn heavy!!!

dark blue sky!

reached @ 7.45pm!!

Welcome to Pular Subar Laut

(Big Sister's Island)

totally pitch dark when we alighted from the boat.

the jetty was in total darkness! haha.

no street lamp by the side or what?

we made our way to our campsite, and there's actually quite alot of people camping down there. we reached our so-called campsite... which turned out to be shelter hut for us. haha. better still, don't need waste time pitching tent! lol.

and so, the 30 plus of us occupied the 4 or 5 shelters. the 6 of us had one whole shelter hut all to ourselves xD. we regarded it as our home and spent time decorating it by hanging lightsticks around it. although it did not have much help to brighten up the place at all. lol. just for the fun and joy of it xD

our hut!!

lightsticks!!

TWIST!!

u prefer legs... or fingers?

our group photo!

and then, we decided to explore the place.... especially the creepy staircase that we saw while walking to our camping area. we were quite curious where the staircase would led us to... and so we went for it.

it was soooo dark that we couldn't even see where we were walking, only surviving with 3 torchlights. finally climbed up the staircase, and infront of us was like a jungle kind of place. is this some kind of forest-bashing? i'm the only one wearing slipper oh!!~ LOL. pretty hard for me to walk. haha.

we walked in, with Moo leading the way. deeper and more deeper into the forest, until we walked until a dead end, then we u-turned back! haha. how brave are we!!!

back to our camping area. suddenyly there's someone who were camping and bbq-ing at the other side came to us and asked us whether we wanted some bbq foods as they had alot left.

lol. Jin Peng they all went to collect the food and brought it over to our hut.

Satay and Chicken Wings!

and next, stargazing time. the stars in Sisters Islands were really bright and nice. the entire sky was really dark that made it very nice to stargaze. we spotted a few horoscopes, and of course, Scorpio was the most easy to spot xD

and so, it's time to set up the telescope to see the stars even better =D

studying the stars ^^

super nice telescope xD

looking through the telescope.

we were behind wow-ing at the stars in an exaggerated way LOL

Cheers!~

group photos with Jin Peng.

HALF MOON!!!

and next, we even went down to the sea when it's low-tide. looking and hunting for beautiful sea creatures xD

looking, finding, hunting, exploring, digging and admiring!!!

Hermit Crab spotted =D

random shot.

went back to our hut when the tide is slowly coming back. it's also kinda hard for us to used the toilet as the toilet doesn't have lights at all =/ pee in total darkness?! nah~ while we were inside the cubicle, 2 people will be standing outside shining the torchlight in from the top of the door. lol. like lame!~ lol.

we took a short nap after that on the groundsheets. but was seriously attacked by ANTS!!! thanks to those food crumbs that dropped on the floor that attracted those irritating ants!

totally not in the mood to sleep, and so we decided to play Uno in the dark =D

again! Uno with the help of torchlight xD

we played like 2 rounds, couldn't help anymore. quickly went back to our hut and off to sleep at around 4.30am. i slept on the bench the whole night because i don't want to be attacked by those ants anymore. =/

woke up at around 7.15am. and catch the super beautiful sunrise!!! SUPER ROUND SUN!!!!! xD

sun slowly rising!~

day break time. that means i can see clearly how the entire place looked like actually! yay~

finally i got to see how those telescopes looked like =D

our shelter hut!~

and the creepy staircase we climbed last night!~

Welcome to Sisters' Islands

but i'm going back now!~ aww

GOOD BYE, Sisters' Islands!!!!

back to mainland, Singapore!!!

MY HOME!!~

Labels: camping, overnight, stargazing

Lyrids Adventure Camp @ Pulau Ubin

Written at Tuesday, April 27, 2010 | back to top

24th April 2010 - Saturday

finally my Pulau Ubin post. had been dilly-dally at home. looking the right time, right mood to blog. haha. very tired you know!~

so our 2 days 1 night Pulau Ubin trip organised by Moo. with lots of events piling up for us, the 8 adventurers: Audrey, Edmund, Ginnette, Joshua, Moo, Shun An, Xue Ni and me xD

✖ Cycling Expedition
✖ ~~Quarry dipping~~ (because the place was sealed up =/)
✖ Nigh-walking/Cycling
✖ Trekking + ~~Forest-Bashing~~ (because our dear Edmund wore slippers instead of a proper shoe!!)
✖ Camping ♥
✖ Stargazing with meteors ♥

yeah. so we gathered at Tampines first. i came late and the rest took their first group photo.. without me!! on purpose ='(

but it's okay. nevermind! we shop at the FairPrice for some night supper/snacks. i bought my favourite Calbee Seaweed potato chips as my supper for tonight!! haha.

after that, we took bus 29 to Changi Village. what a long journey. i thought it would be a short one, but no!!!

the 8 adventurers....

inside bus 29...

oh finally we reached Changi Village after a long ride. we made our way to the Changi Point Ferry Terminal to take a bumboat to Pulau Ubin.

heh. maximum only 12 passengers. and it's only $2.50 per ride. but it's only when the boat had a full of 12 passengers. if there's lesser than 12, then we'll have to divide the cost and pay extra loh. haha.

Boarding the bumboat!!!

and we are ready to go!!!

guess whose feet is whose?

and what a lucky day.. we saw rainbow!!!

REACHING SOON!!!

yeah! we have reached Pulau Ubin, the island that i have not been there for 10 over years!!! haha. it's island kind of place, looked so village. small shop houses, bicycle rental shop, etc.

analysing the map.
which route shall we start first?!

and yes, finally we decided to rent a bicycle first, so that we do not need to walk so much =X we rented 6 single bike and 1 couple bike because our dear Xue Ni's cycling skill is not very stable. Edmund will couple bike with Xue Ni, and the rest will stay solo-ed!

the rental fee was $8 each for an overnight bike. quite cheap for it.

our first station was the Secret Garden. half way through, the sky turned quite dark. and so we stopped by one place to get big big plastic bag ready. if it really rain later, we will immediately cover our bag with the plastic bag. yes, the stuffs inside our bag are more important than ourselves xD

the mosquitoes there were very horrible. we only stopped there for less than 10 minutes, but we were attacked by them horribly. shats. i got lots of mosquitoes bite already. quickly applied Audrey's herbal insect repellent, Joshua's moisture type repellent and sprayed Moo's liquid type insect repellent all over our body. super wonder triple layer of protection... woohoooo. and i felt very sticky!!! eww~

the place that we stopped by...

after that, we continued to cycle to the Secret Garden to explore pretty flowers and plants! there's alot of plants, but the horrible mosquitoes spoilt my mood.

damn mosquitoes!!! are u that hungry?! u gave me lots and lots of bum already loh!

End of Secret Garden!

it began to drizzle shortly. and so we cycled back to the jetty to have our early dinner first. we decided to have zi char @ Pulau Ubin Seafood for our dinner. we ordered Sweet & Sour Chicken, Chilli kang Kong and Claypot Toufu. ahhh.. love the food!~

and it's only like $40 for everything! $5 per person for a decent meal! so worth it!!!!

our delicious dinner!

we continued our journey when the rain stopped. we have to get to our campsite fast. it will be harder to cycle when the sky turned dark because there's no street lamp by the walkway at all.

toilet break first!~

and so off we go!!

the last toilet break we have. also for us to change into long pant as it will be very cold at night. i brought jeans as i do not have any baggy pant or track pant at home. and i felt very uncomfortable with my sticky legs sticking to my jeans. eww!~

but i got no other choice, so i have to bear with it.

yay! all changed to long pant!

and we have to get to our campsite fast. there's no street lamp and we only have 3 torch light with us, plus the sky turned dark extremely fast in Ubin. and our bicyle got no backlight at all. pretty dangerous to cycle in the dark with the uneven rocky pathway.

yay! finally we reached our campsite. it's like a big piece of empty land, so spacious. next to the quarry with trees surrounding us. and when we raised up our head, we can see the entire sky clearly without trees blocking our view! a plus point for stargazing latre on xD.

and now, we have to start working hard on pitching the tent. we laid out the groundsheets that Joshua and Moo brought, and then placed all our bags on top of it. then off we go to help pitching the tent. it's not easy to pitch a tent in the dark, especially with just 3 torch light to survive on.

the hardworking people in the process of pitching the tents.

working hard on Audrey's big tent.

Moo's tent looked seriously small when standing beside to Audrey's one. 小巫见大巫 xD

yeah! we're finally done with the tent pitching part. so tired. we gathered around the groundsheets and relaxed. but looked like it's a very humid night.

and also to play with lightsticks. haha. sponsored by Moo. yeh, i love to break lightsticks.

anyway, Moo had planned a task for us to complete. earlier on, when we were cycling our way here to our campsite, Moo secretly hid some "stuff" somewhere from where we came from. our job was to walk back the route and find the "stuff" back for him.

Moo stayed behind to look after our bags, and so the 7 of us started our Night Walking at 9pm. the journey back there was extremely dark and we were only allowed to bring 1 torchlight along.

there's this path that was pretty eerie, surrounded by big trees. it's totally pitch dark if we switched off the torchlight. so creepy!~ we increased our walking speed, wanting to get out of that path. and we saw red light coming from the bushes at the bridge. finally, we found it!

we opened up the plastic bag, and found one piece of paper and a red lightstick inside. Moo placed a lightstick inside so it can be easily spotted!~

the piece of paper: some Astronomy star reading thingy.

quickly made our way back to our campsite. and we have to walk past the eerie path again =/ and also to walk past the dark route, rocky way and muddy ground =S

back finally. we used 30 minutes to complete the task xD

we played Uno to pass the time. the entire place was so dark, and we have limited light, only 3 torchlight. too dark that we couldn't differentiate blue from green. haha. we have to keep passing the torchlight around. Audrey the best, she was wearing that headlight all along. haha

i'm the unlucky one who kept on losing the game. i lost thrice loh. i'm not the only one since Shun An also lost 3 times, but then at least he won the game before. i'm the ultimate loser T_T!!!

and yeh, those who win the game will get to wear Audrey's headlight. and we called it the "light of glory!" no one really likes to wear that. and this is the first time that everybody did not aim to win at all. we must wait until when finally one person win the game, then the rest can quickly finish the game. lol.

playing UNO!~

LIGHT OF GLORY!~

we played until 11.30pm, then we decided to play sparklers, sponsored by Moo again lol!! it's the best thing to play in the dark.

Sparklers!!!!

drawing out shapes and words!!
can you all managed to get what we were actually drawing?
Heart Shape. Star shape. Lyrids and P.Ubin

group pictures!!!!

we stopped playing when it was around 1am. it was said that the meteor shower timing was around 1am plus. so everyone lied down on the groundsheet and stargazed. i saw a few horoscopes as well. i think Scorpio was the nicest. it's so big, with the shape of a Scorpion!! haha.

i waited for so long and i finally get to see my Sagittarius. i was anticipating that it will looked like an arrow or what, but it turned out to look like a teapot!! haha. so cute!~ but it looked so small beside Scorpio =/

we waited for quite some time but never see any meteors yet. and some of us wanted to use the toilet urgently. and so all of us decided to cycle out to the toilet at 2am. it was quite a distance away, we started hanging lightstick at the back of our bike, so that the people behind knew where's the bike infront and won't bang towards it.

and yah, there's only 3 torchlight to brighten our route, so the first, the middle and the last person will be holding the torclight. and it's really not easy to cycle in the dark especially with rocky, bumpy slopes!! the path was so dark there i don't even know whether i should cycle straight or turned left =S

reached the toilet, like finally!!

forever SSG!~

and now, we have to make our way back. half way through, all of us decided to get off and push the bike back. it was too dark and the remaining route was mostly up slope.

went back safe and sound. haha. and we continued our stargazing. i waited for so long but did not get to see a single meteor =(. so at around 3am Audrey, Xue Ni and me went to sleep inside the big tent, while Edmund and Shun An sleep inside the smaller tent, the rest stayed outside continued to stargaze.

it was so uncomfortable as the ground was so hard, with small small rocks poking me. and my whole body was so sticky. and the humidity level was quite high, our hair looked very wet and damp =/ewwww~

i was sleeping and suddenly i heard Ginnette shouting that she saw one meteor. haha it was around 4am loh. too bad, i missed it D=

anyway, we woke up at around 7am like that. damn, i missed the sunrise!! ahhhhhhh!!! and we finally get to see clearly how the place actually looked like. last night, in the dark we couldn't even see the surrounding well loh.

well, it was quite a nice place to camp, just that it rained last night, that's why the place was so wet and muddy.

plants & flowers!

nice and beautiful scenery!

the quarry! so clear xD

the wet area!

our camping place.
we managed to find a dry spot to lay our groundsheets and tents!

we took out our biscuit for breakfast and started packing our stuffs. we changed back to short pant as well xD luckily we were fast enough, just right after we cleared finish almost everything, it rained all of a sudden. all of us dumped everything inside the tent and we stayed inside for shelter.

the 6 of us inside Audrey's tent.
while Edmund and Shun An inside the other smaller tent.

it looked like it was just a passing-by rain. it stopped pretty fast and so we continued the packing up job. the most difficult part was to fold and keep back the tent.

and lastly, before we left our campsite, a group picture with the beautiful quarry behind!!

group photo xD

left the place and cycle to further explore the place. Moo wanted to bring us to somewhere but the place turned out to be blocked. no trespassing allowed. disappointed, but to U-turn back.

stopped by for a drinks!

finally saw one lady selling drinks. stopped by to buy drinks to quench our thirst and also to rest for awhile. after 20 minutes or so, we cycled back to the jetty to return our bike.

and we had our lunch at Cheong Lian Yuen. we ordered zi char again. haha. this time round with Fu-yung egg, Chicken Wings and non-chilli Kang Kong. lol. we waited very long for the food to be served loh. and it's also $5 per person. haha. very worth it. so if you have big group of friends, it's best to order zi char xD.

our lunch.

it started to pour again when we finished our lunch. have to delay our plan and went to seek shelter near the information area there.

the umbrella people!

shelter!~

i couldn't stand soaking feet and so i changed back to my slipper. haha. went to wash my legs in the toilet and i felt so good! haha. no more sticky leg xD

next stop was the Mini Zoo. we started our journey when the rain stopped. no more bicycle, we have to made the rest of the journey by walking =X. with the damn mosquitoes keep attacking us!!! we don't know sprayed how many times of insect repellent!!

group picture again!

this place have alot of big big flying insect. but they were not as horrible mosquitoes. at least they didn't even bother to fly near us! haha.

yay! reached Mini Zoo finally. as said, mini zoo! really have very limited animals!!

wild boar and rabbits!!

and that's the end of the Mini zoo. made our way back to the jetty. this time round we walked a different route back.

trekkingggg!

Have a nice day, and Good Bye Ubin!!!!

and lastly, that's the end of our Pulau Ubin trip. so thrilling, exciting and fun, although with lots and lots of irritating mosquitoes bite. what an unforgettable experience i had! camping was fun ♥
we took a bumboat back. the person splitted us up as if we have to wait quite long for us 8 people to be in the same boat together. and so we agreed to split into 4:4. there's a boat still short of 4 people, so Audrey, Edmund, Shun An and me went ahead first, while the rest wait for the next boat.

waving goodbye to them. bye bye!

3 2 and 1!!

our hair looked freaking wet.

and lastly, picture in the boat!!

we waited for the rest at the terminal, and then took bus 29 back to Tampines, train back to Tiong Bahru and then bus back home!!!

now i wanted most was to WASH MY HAIR and scrub myself clean clean!! hahaha. GOOD BYE!!!!

Labels: astronomy, camping, Cosca, Epsilon, HSS friends, night cycling, overnight, stargazing