trust me!
for the past week or so, the four of us had been going on a shopping spree, getting stuff ranging from laptop accessories like laptop sleeves and ethernet cables to miscellaneous things like torch lights. lol i have burnt a big hole in my pocket already:( and i have yet to finish buying everything that i need.
and guess what. if you inspect the things that we have bought so far, you will find at least a 50% similarity. what we call - shopping 'communist' style
thanks to huiling, who has successfully converted me into a hedgehog lover...
Now, what exactly is a hedgehog? To put it simply, and to quote my dad, a hedgehog is just a small little animal that lives in a hedge.
And as huiling has explained, a hedgehog does not equal to a porcupine!
Hedgehogs have modified hairs on their neck and back called quills. These quills are not barbed like a porcupine, as many people assume. Hedgehogs cannot "throw" their quills, either. Their quills feel somewhat like a rough scrub brush.
A baby hedgehog = hoglet
And remember i used to have a virtual pet, pokey? Yes! pokey!
I want a domesticated african hedgehog, which has a nice white belly:)
african hedgehog
And guess what? Hedgehogs help to control insect and vermin populations. They show a high tolerance to toxins, both natural and human-made. They have been known to consume many animals whose toxins could be fatal to humans including certain beetles, wasps, bees, and venomous snakes.
wow! they actually eat venomous snakes? Cool! i going to bring it along for trekking and camping!
wow! haven't been to sentosa for a long time, probably for around 3 years to date, and when i went there with hui jun on 30 June, I was in for a nice surprise:)
it's really nice now:) clean beaches and waters, modern facilities which gave the place a 'sleek' look, and loads of things to try out.
Most thrilling of course would be the luge ride! It is part go-cart, part-toboggan, basically a fun-filled gravity ride that cleverly exploits physics.
lol. I couldn't help but think about the formula for centripetal acceleration as i approached bends. When I was too fast, and the luge 'skidded', i knew why. And the course was banked! cool. lol... imagine if i hadn't taken physics, i wouldn't even have noticed that it was banked!
[digress: during my driving lesson, the instructor pointed out to me that the bends on the roads were mostly banked. I did not notice this, probably because of the scale. Then he went on to explain, and trust me, this is a good explanation. He said the banking, or slope as he called it, was to allow the rainwater to run quickly into the drainage system. It sounds logical, and I am sure that it is one of the spin-off benefits of having a banked road, but i had a hard time trying to control my laughter]
picture of a luge
yup, and the beach was really nice:)
nice sand
muah haha!! look at how we ruin the sand!
The sunset was really beautiful! And Hui Jun managed to capture very nice pictures:)
haha:D right after obs was a week's worth of pre-departure programme. And it was fun:)
The highlight was of course cooking lessons at Shatec. It was a really nicce session - at least it helped assure me that cooking is not such a daunting task afterall. However, the hands-on session proved that, perhaps, I am not meant to step into the kitchen.
First mistake: I boiled the spaghetti, but i forgot to add oil to the water... so when we drained the water, the spaghetti clumped together:( Luckily Yunqin knew how to salvage the situation - she placed the spaghtti back into water. Smart girl:)
I had to fry rice to... At first, I put just enough oil to line the pan, and I thought it was a lot. But an assistant came around, shook her head, and asked me to add a lot more oil. Wow! (they say its ard 11 tablespoons of oil)
Moral of the story: Fried rice is really oily - you put a lot of oil, and the rice still comes out looking dry:(
Anyway, I started out well enough, until I had to fry the egg. Guess what? Here comes mistake 2: I did not know we had to control the fire as we fry the egg... so the egg was stuck to the pan:( and it became cao4 ta1.
But i told myself nevermind, and continued to fry the rice. I happily stirred fry the rice, and third mistake: I forgot all about adding soy sauce! oh man! by the time i realise it, it was too late. The rice was too dry to add anything. Sigh. Had to salvage it by adding pepper instead. So the rice turned out bland.
The stewed chicken turned out good! because Yunqin was in charge of it. Hee.
But i guess i'll not cook when I'm in US, unless
1. it's a group thing, and i'll offer to prepare the ingredients. They can handle anything to do with the stove.
2. it is deep in winter, and going out for food is not an option, and I have no rations.
3. it's baking:)
yup! after that, our watch decided to have a Raja KTV outing. We made our way to Youth Park, sat down and started eating the food we ate. Then its off to orchard party world. I must say we have really good singers amongst us!
@ youth park!
On friday, we also had a sharing session with our seniors, and it was really insightful! For example, I have decided to take my driving test in the US, although I'll still continue with lessons in Singapore. Firstly, it's the time factor. I'll not be able to get a test date before I leave for US. Secondly, and the more important reason, is that it is MUCH MUCH easier to pass in the US. The test is only 5 minutes! You just drive around a block, and wah la! You get your license. 
group photo of us (departing batch) n seniors from wisconsin-madison
pictures courtesy of kangyi and khian hong
was a wonderful experience!
Kayaking was fun! besides the fact the wAter off pulau ubin leaves much to be desired (lol:o i had nowhere to look but at the sea. I shall describe it briefly - you can see brown foam - most probably diesel from motorboats that ply the channel. You can also spot bits of styrofoam with algae growing on it, food wrappers etc. If you're lucky, you'll catch the remnants of a dead fish). i'm so glad we kayaked cross island (not to Sembawang sea sports centre), partly because of the distance, and the other part because we got to kayak though the river and mangrove systems of pulau ubin - which was really beautiful. lol. it was easy to get caught in the branches of some of the mangrove plants though. and to add to the experience, we had to navigate ourselves! cool! my partner was the navigator, and i must say it wasn't an easy job at all. The map that they gave us was completely outdated (various elements had caused new features to be formed, previous ones to be eroded). We had a hard time deciding which inlet to enter, which turn to make etc. A few times, we had to rackie (is this how you spell the word?) to confirm a route. One thing about this route is that we had to beach-up and carry our kayaks over land 2 times before we finally reached camp. It was completely exhausting, and the kayaks were heavy... (ok. i'm useless) We kayaked for around 6 hours before we finally reached an ulu camp site on the north of pulau ubin.
We had to construct a raft there - given 4 empty barrels and 8 pipes. Seemed easy enough. We constructed the 'tried and tested' model of a raft that had the 4 barrels as the base, overlaying the pipes on top to form a square base. We proudly named our raft the fantastic float - and boy, it was 'fantastic'!
