Kampar Youth College Retreat

I know I know, this is really really backdated. I haven’t been going online much these days, partly due to the start of the new semester, with new subjects and new lecturers and a whole bunch of classmates. Anyway, ahh right the update.

As you all might already know, a total of 14 of us college-going youths of FGA USJ spent the weekends up in a small town of Kampar from the 27th of June till the 29th of June. It was a well deserved break for the most of us as we were having our semester breaks then (especially us ACCA students). Pastor Dennis and Pastor Sue came along with us as well =D

Anyway we gathered in church at 10AM, then we hit the road and our journey to Kampar began. It was a long journey, and being the only three boys in the van seated at the last row of the van (Jonathan’s the other boy, he was driving the Vios), and with two DSLRS with a 55-200mm zoom lens, we began “shooting” our “pursuer”.

Jonathan and bunch posing for the shot!

There was this shot where I caught Pei Yi looking rather … okay I shall elaborate no further. =p They knew we were taking their pictures alright, so there weren’t any chances of us taking a sneak shot.

Along the way, I texted Wei Ling, one of the authors studying in Kampar that we were going up for her. Right till the moment where I already warmed my butt on the bed of the hotel room, she still didn’t believe that we were in Kampar, haha.

Anyway, we made it to Grand Kampar Hotel at around 2PM or so.

I quote Andrea Mah,
“Grand Kampar Hotel is like the grandest thing in Kampar.”

True enough, it is the largest and tallest building in the whole of Kampar town.

Grand Kampar Hotel standing tall.

Christopher, Ren Yau, Jonathan and I were the only guys on this trip, so we got to enjoy a room to ourselves! w00t! Anyway if you miss the update on how our room looked like, here’s a repeat of the video.

and some pictures.

The bed where Christopher forced himself on Ren Yau.

The couch and the TV set.

Jonathan, happily tired.

Christopher’s turn to replicate the “heavenly” feel.

We had nothing to do till dinner, thus we decided to head up to the rooftop to check out the swimming pool. No, we didn’t go for a dip, the girls went. Instead, we joined Li Teng for a game of ping pong.

Grand Kampar Hotel rooftop.

We met up with our friend Wei Ling that night itself, and she brought us along for a short tour around the new town. Coincidently, there was this stage set up in the field right opposite the Grand Kampar Hotel. True enough there were performances at night, bands and singers displayed their talents. It was some sort of Malam Mesra for the people of Kampar.

Well, their talents were obviously not on par with those of Christopher’s. He “crashed” the concert by performing some sleek shuffling moves in front of the stage, soon enough he caught the attention of the crowd! The kids simply loved him and started immitating his shuffling moves. Unfortunately for Wei Ling, she couldn’t bear to witness such things were to happen in her presence . XD

The significant events that we did during the 3 days 2 nights retreat were of course the Gua Tempurung exploration and the White Water Rafting over at the Kampar River.

Gua Tempurung’s Grand Tour

The cave exploration was exhausting. We were both mentally and physically pushed to the limits during the 4 hrs long expedition. Like Chris had typed in his post, we were divided into groups of three with one torchlight per group. I had Ren Yau and Pastor Sue in the team, and I was the torchlight bearer! w00t!

In the course of the exploration, I had a near death experience while climbing up one of the steep slopes. I lost my footing when I almost reached the top, and was clinging onto the rough terrain with both my hands while gravity slowly took its place.

Christopher was ahead of me, and attempted to lend a helping hand, but due to the difficult positions we were in, he didn’t succeed to “rescue” me. Haha I felt like a damsel in distress LOL! Ren Yau who was behind me, climbed to the sides and helped pulled me up after that. It was the most terrifying experience to date. Seriously.

There were no safety gears whatsoever and in the event if one fell, I really had no idea what would have become of the whole scenario. So I thought that was pretty dangerous. I’m sure you would have read whats in the whole Gua Tempurung in Christopher’s update, and if that’s not enough, head over to Pei Yi’s update. She will tell you how scary those 300 over steps out of the cave were. XD

White Water Rafting

Simply awesome. Well of course discounting the fact that I suffered yet another misfortune. -.-” I damaged my manhood along the way. (ouch!) Anyway, I’m fine. Ahem.

Now come back to the rafting experience, it was worth the money I guess, we were tackling the huge rapids of the Kampar River like daredevils in no time! We were introduced to the technique of body rafting as well, just incase in the event of any emergency capsizing we will not be not consumed by the monstrous rapids. xD

We had fun alright. We divided ourselves into two separate boats, with Citrine, Tze Mien and Ren Yau as my raft mates and the others got a boat to themselves.

There was this time we got too close to a tree, and a yellow long legged spider fell into our raft. Instead of focusing on where we were going and how are we going to help steer the raft, Ren Yau and I concentrated on using our pedals to kill the spider!

P/S – Tze Mien got thrown off the raft twice! =p

All in all, I really really enjoyed myself through out the days in Kampar. It has been a long time since I felt really stress-free. Not to mention the group games we played at night in the hotel rooms, Taboo, Bluff, Hand Tapping and of course Mafia, which resulted in a few fierce debates and accusations, hahaha!

Ren Yau and Pastor Dennis.

Pei Yi and Christopher.

I generally felt that the bonds between us youths had definitely grown stronger, given the opportunity that we were finally able to do stuffs together. It was definitely a great outing, with a great place to stay, and the right group of friends and mentors.

Group shot #1, by Yours Truly.

Group shot #2, by Christopher.

FGA USJ ROCKED GRAND KAMPAR HOTEL! =D

Top (L-R): Jade, Li Teng, Ren Yau, Jonathan, Yours truly, Christopher, Ps Sue, Ps Dennis.
Bottom (L-R): Citrine, Ee Leen, Rachel, Lai Mun, Tze Mien, Wei Yan, Jessica, Pei Yi.

Last 5 posts by Nicholas

• Friendships - June 11th, 2011
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