Hillary Challenge

Hillary Challenge was quite amazing. It was like firing a glock, only to realize that it shoots like a magnum, and have the bullet ricochet back at you and tear your face off because you didn't realize it would be that powerful.

It was very tiring, but was rather fun. To put it into perspective, I would rather go for Hillary Challenge than play through bloody palace on DMC 4. Let me break it down for you.

I reach school at 6.45, and leave school about 15 mins later. Turns out we gotta register by 7.45, and it's at CHANGI. We reach changi about 7.40, give or take 5 mins cos my memory isn't that good. We register, and they give us 1 tray of bananas(about 18?), 20 packets of milo, 9 plastic bags of bread and cake, and a life vest each(they call it a Personal Flotation Device, which I think is quite retarded). We had 9 people there was just enough food. We sit down and psyche ourselves, then go for the briefing. They tell us about the "exciting" events they have in store for us, we cheer and groan, and now we are ready to throw ourselves in the sea.

We begin by gathering about 200-300m away from the first event. Everyone runs in to the ramp leading into the sea. Our life vests are on and we are all rushing for the ramp. 4 of us, me, Bingle, Matthew and Yaoqing go in first. We were originally supposed to swim 150m in the sea, but they reduced it to 50m. 50m in the sea is nothing like 50m in the swimming pool. We swim for quite a while before making it to shore. All the time I'm swimming, it feels like I'm not moving. Eventually we get there, and I realize if i swam 150m I'd be half dead. As I move out of the sea, my shoes are filled with sand. I knew this would happen, which is why I swapped shoes with our reserve before going in. We wait for our other 4 team members, Qiaowei, Shereen, Fangqi and Jesslyn. Qiaowei, Jesslyn and Fangqi appear eventually, but turns out Shereen was comforting and pulling this girl who couldn't swim along.

We rush off to our next event, which for 3 of us is cycling and for the rest is CASEVAC. I happen to be in cycling with Qiaowei and Shereen, so we grab a bike and go. By this time we are in the last 10 teams I think. Qiaowei has trouble mounting the bike because of her height(or lack thereof) and we get slowed whenever she has to dismount, like when crossing the road. I should probably point out that it wasn't our choice to dismount. The people in charge said so. We cycle about 5km or 4....that's the first half of the trip. Then we cycle back to the starting point, which is also the finishing point. On the return trip Shereen hits some guy because he swerved to the right, I swerved off-track to avoid crashing into him like Shereen did right after I went off, because she didn't see I think. We check everyone is okay, then we continue. After we catch up with Qiaowei, she falls down while staring at my back(or so she says) and gets a few scratches(quite deep, she says). Wash the wounds, then we continue. When we reach the place, we are the 2nd last team. Yaoqing and Shereen rush off to outdoor cooking and the rest of us rush off to tent pitching. After a few mins, Shereen comes over and tells me to go help Yaoqing. Apparently he has trouble starting the fire.

I get there, and we decide to light the solid fuel first, then build the fire around it. Soon we get a strong fire going and we cook an egg. Because that's all they gave us. We eat the unseasoned egg(which tasted reasonably good) and then we go for kayaking.

It's a two man kayak, and we set out in 2 teams. first team, Me and Bingle, Matthew and Yaoqing because me and yaoqing have never learned to kayak. We do reasonably well, I think, although Bingle says I suck at kayaking. Then we reach shore and the second team sets out, the girls. They do quite well, and we go from 2nd last to quite near the front, because some teams don't know how to kayak, and Queenstown, who were originally the top few, dropped to the last few. I LoLed.

We move on to the second last station, the sand in my shoes scraping my feet off. The second last station is Orienteering, and it was very confusing. They just gave us a set of instructions and a compass, and we set off. With the instructions were a few questions we were supposed to answer when we reach certain points, and we fill them in accordingly. We do this, and return to the start point. The guy in charge reviews our answers and tell us the last question is wrong. Says there's some colour on a tree, and asks us what the colour is. We guess orange and we get it correct miraculously. We rush off to last station, Rock Climbing/Abseiling.

Matthew is our climber, with Bingle and/or Fangqi as belayer(memories hazy), yaoqing as supporter, and me as anchor. Qiaowei goes for abseiling with Shereen and Jesslyn. She was done even before Matthew started climbing, so eventually we are done with the station, not much going on, and we rush to finish point.

This is the most excruciating point in the race. We race against Gan Eng Seng and are behind them by 3 secs. There would be a total of 12 teams that proceed to the finals. We decide that if Gan Eng Seng is 12, it would suck more than a new vacuum cleaner. As we wait for the results, Zhaiyang(Mr. Reserve) calls Mr. Tan(Tan Chee Yeng) and asks him to buy KFC(lol). He turns up with fried and barbecued chicken wings(apparently no KFC present in the entire district).
Zhaiyang/Bingle: McDonald's leh?
Mr. Tan: You go and find one for me, I go buy for you now.

Anyway, the announcing of the results was slow.
Eventually we came to this: "And the last team to enter the finals......GAN ENG SENG!"

Reaction from Gan Eng Seng: WOO! *screams* *cheers*

Reaction from our team: WALAU EH! SO CLOSE! WHAT THE HELL!

So as it turns out, we didn't get in the finals(BUT SO CLOSE!) but it was very fun. I don't think anyone from our team was to blame for that 3 secs, but thinking about it, we should have probably sprinted for 3 more seconds in the beginning. Ah well, it's over, and I'm both happy and sad(reminds me of a story by Supraman. Tell you later). I didn't feel the ache until about 24 hours after the thing ended(give or take 1 hour), and I slept at 9pm that night(reached home at 7.50).

Anyway, 2 years ago, I was at Camporee in Kuala Lumpur and the Guy in charge was this old indian guy called Supramania something something. He got kind of annoying, and we just called him Supraman. He told us this story about being both happy and sad at the same time. Before that, he looked around, pointed at this guy and said, "What's your name?" "Tan Bao Ren". "Ok you'll be our main character."

"Once upon a time, Tan Bao Rrren was riding a camel in the middle of the desert. Suddenly he heard a voice, "Tan Bao Rrren, pick up the pebbles." He decided to ignore the voice, and he rode on. After awhile, he heard a voice, "Tan Bao Rrren, pick up the pebbles." He thought about it for awhile, then rode on. After awhile, he heard the voice again, "Tan Bao Rrren, pick up the pebbles." So Tan Bao Rrren got off his camel, picked up 3 or 4 pebbles, stuffed them in his pocket, and forgot about them. When he got home, Tan Bao Rrren took out the things in his pocket and put them on his table. He then went to sleep. When he woke up, he saw something bright and shiny on the table. It was the pebbles he picked up. They were actually diamonds covered by the dust, and when he saw this, Tan Bao Rrren was both happy and sad. Happy because he had a few diamonds. Sad because he only picked up 4. So, he was both happy and sad at the same time."

And that's all, folks!