PE11 Class Trip

I bade goodbye to my dad as I got off the car and walked to the train station. I had planned to take the train from home at about 2 hours before departure time from KL Sentral. However, my first piece of adrenaline rush hit me right away.

The ticket counters in the train station was not working. There was only one worker there writing out makeshift tickets in a piece of paper for us. I knew that if I missed the train that was waiting to depart, I would not make it in time to take the intercity train with my friends.

After patiently waiting for the ticket while telling myself to remain calm, I got my ticket rushed into the train. It was about 5 minutes before I realized that the train was not moving. I guess it must have been because of the ticket delay. I was just keeping my fingers crossed so that the train would start moving as soon as possible. When the doors shut, I breathed a sigh of relief.

More than an hour later, I alighted the train much my delight as I had made it half an hour before departure time. Then, I met my friends in Starbucks who had to wait an agonizing 2 hours in KL Sentral as they had arrived very much earlier because the anticipated traffic jam was no where to be seen. In about 45 minutes time, we were on the train looking for our seats.

Excitement just filled the atmosphere in the train because for many of us, it was the first time that we were going to board a train at night to another city. Sleep was definitely not of the mind of many of us.

We walked up and down the train a few times. As some were hungry, we stopped by a small store in the train to get some food. After that, we were just chit chatting and disturbing our friends who were asleep. One of our friends even woke up asking whether we had reached when she had only gotten 20 minutes of sleep (we tickled her feet till she woke up). At that moment, it was just epic laughter.

Apparently, we were just too noisy and irritating to others that night despite our best efforts to tone down our volumes. One guy got pissed off and said "excuse me, this is not a private train". We laughed in our hearts and headed off to our respective bunkers. I closed my eyes in anticipation of of the next day.

Five hours  later, I woke up to the rustles and hustles around the train. Most of my friends were up before me. Brushed my teeth, washed my face and in 20 minutes time, I was smelling the air of Bukit Mertajam. We were greeted by 2 of our friends who were Penangites. Another showed up minutes later.

Basically, the plan was to for all 21 of us to travel in 4 cars (3 friends' car and 1 rented car). After breakfast ( I had soup noodles with pork in it), we took the ferry to Penang Island. Once we got our rented car from a place near the jetty, our adventure began.

As soon as we checked into our apartment, we left for our main activity of the trip-Penang's very own Escape theme park. No, it is not like the theme park in Genting Highlands or Sunway Lagoon. It's a very physical obstacle course, which can drain out your energy.

Our only mistake was not going there as early as possible. I'll tell you why. The main thing at Escape is the obstacle course which is divided into levels. The higher the level, the higher the difficulty and the higher the position of the obstacles. The obstacles require strength, flexibility, agility, balance and precision coordination. And to get your money's full worth, you would need the whole day.

It's the perfect setting for a fitness freak like me. It is pretty difficult for me to explain what is there because I don't know the exact words to describe the obstacles. To put it in simple words, it's what you would expect jungle men to be excellent at, without the need of a harness. And it is definitely a nightmare for people who have fear of heights.

I managed to complete 2 courses on Level 1, 1 on Level 2 and one agonizing, painful and exhausting course on Level 3. After I was done with Level 2, I straight away headed to Level 3 without taking a break. When I was doing the first obstacle, fatigue set in immediately.

I was holding on to the ropes when my hands and legs started to tremble. I knew right away that that was due to weakness and fatigue. I was just too determined to give up and mustered some strength to overcome the first obstacle. And then, I just sat down on the wooden platform 3 stories high for a breather.

The second obstacle was hell. It was made worse by the presence of tree branches in between the obstacles. It is really tiring trying to balance your legs on wooden poles and the trying to climb over trees at 3 storeys high. After that, another breather and I continued to complete the subsequent ones which were slightly easier.

The final obstacle was the ultimate test. I saw a few friends failing it when I was taking a break on one of the wooden platforms. After resting for almost 10 minutes on the 3 storey high  wooden platform, I took up the challenge. Step by step, I shrugged of the tiredness and completed it. Mission accomplished. I'd had enough. I took a water break.

After the break, I tried the only other thing that I really wanted to try-bungee jumping. Trust me, it was really scary when I stood at the platform before the fall. I am really scared of heights and I just wanted to get rid of it. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...and I fell. Sadly, the scary part only lasted for a while. When I reached the ground, a sense of accomplishment. I tried a few other things as well after that. The super long flying fox was definitely awesome.After all that energy draining stuff, we took some pictures and headed back to the apartment.

Next up was the pool. Yes, the swimming pool in the apartment was empty and we conquered it. We played a game where we formed a circle with one person in the centre. The person in the centre would guess a number and the person on the circumference of the circle who guesses the number would have to take their pants off and twirl it in the air. If the person does not guess the correct number, the range of numbers where the "lucky number" is will be narrowed down.

This is a great great time for bonding among our classmates. We were really sporting and almost every one of us were eager to guess the number and remove our pants just for the fun of it. I had loads of fun there but it had to be cut-short as we had to go for dinner.

It was time for food fiesta next. I was in Penang with a bunch of Penangites and I knew that this was my chance to try the best of the best of famous Penang food. We started off with the curry noodles and wan tan mee. The curry noodles was a bit spicy but the latter was somehow very light and tasty.

No no, I wasn't done. While having that, I was also munching on some lobak. After lobak, I still had some space in my "bottomless tummy" (as quoted by my friend) to try out some chee cheong fun. The good thing about Penang food is that it's cheap and it comes in small portions. It's just a haven for people who want to try out many different types of food.

After filling our tummies with delicious Penang hawker food, we divided ourselves into 2 groups. The first group consisting of only guys were going to head to Straits Quay while the other group with some boys and girls were going for a movie. Well, Straits Quay is a place with pubs and clubs.

And I was definitely going to Straits Quay because I did not go to Penang to watch a movie. I don't take alcohol but I just wanted to chill out with my friends. And so we walked around Straits Quay which was located by the sea and decided to settle down in a pub called The Library, ironically. I settled down with a glass of pink guava juice while most of my friends shared money to get a tower of beer.

The highlight of the night was the confession session. It was getting pretty boring and my friend suggested that we talk about our past love lives. It was actually just a ploy to get me at the beginning but after I resisted, they decided to make it a group thing where everyone had to tell their stories.

I was actually quite surprised to hear some of the stories because I had never once thought that certain friends did actually have a love story to tell. The names were anonymous but the some stories were interesting enough to overshadow the need for names. After that confession session, we headed back to our apartment.

I opened my eyes the next day with the fact in mind that it was time to go back. But no, the adventure was not over. The best adrenaline rush was waiting for us hours away. And I still had to fill my insatiable hunger.

We started our food fiesta part 2 with the best way possible-entertaining our hungry tummies with the famous Penang char koay teow. The thing that makes it special is the fact that the noodles is fried in pork lard only in Penang. And the prawns in the noodles are big and juicy. Even the sight and smell of it can make you salivate, more so when you're hungry.

After char koay teow, it was time for another famous dish-cendol. This dessert is actually shaved ice with red beans, some kind of jelly and some sweet stuff. Cendol was not my cup of tea but I still tried it and I have to say that it was indeed delicious and refreshing.

Next up, Penang laksa. Penang laksa is dish that fuses sour and spicy tastes with thick white noodles and shreds of sardine fish. When we were eating it, one friend was talking about how some vendors use cardboard instead of fish to give it the fishy texture. Phew, thank God I had some Penangites with me. After a little walk around, we headed off to Queensbay Mall just to relax before our flight. The biggest mistake we made.

Our flight was at 5.30 p.m. and we decided to leave the mall at 4.30. After exiting the mall, we decided to meet up at the airport as we had parked the cars in different places. The thing was, we were counting on GPS and somehow the GPS in the car that I was in with 3 others malfunctioned.

Minutes into our journey, I realized that we were driving in a very out-of-town like road. I immediately asked my Penangite friend who was driving whether we were going in the right direction. He too realized that something was wrong and reset his GPS. Problem number 2 surfaced pretty soon.

The road shown on the GPS was through a highway but the highway was temporarily closed due to the of part of the second Penang bridge. The tension was getting to us as we had about half an hour left before our departure an we were still some distance away. He reset the route and it was a race against time from there on.

Every time the car slowed down due to traffic, I looked at the clock. When we reached the airport, we grabbed our bags and made a run for it. Once we passed through customs, we dashed for the gate as we only had 5 minutes remaining. Once we reached the gates, all of us breathed a sigh of relief. Man, that was close.

After that, we just laughed. I mean, what else could I expect from a holiday. We travelled by train, ferry, car and aeroplane. I ate tons of food till I could eat no more. I worked out like hell in Escape. Had a great great time in the pool. Had an Amazing race to the airport and most of all, got the chance to see my classmates beyond the books and lectures. Awesome holiday for sure!