Heyyy.
I'm back! From BATAM!!!!!1111SHIFTONE
EXCELLENT TRIP. I'll start off from the beginning, as usual.

So, on the 20th, I woke up at about 5.30, and got myself down to Harbourfront, then to the cruise center to meet up with the rest of the folks. Reached the place at around 7.15 am, the stipulated time. We sat around, or rather stood around with our bags on the floor for a while, filling in the arrival/departure cards, preparing our passports and all that. After customs and immigration, we finally boarded Sea Raider II, for a boat ride to last a little over an hour. Sat around playing cards, listening to mp3 and stuff, while the boat was infused with the kind of music that you hear in shopping center toilets, the light strings type. So we finally got to Batam, got through customs, and I changed $50 sing for exactly 290,000 rupiah. Go calculate the exchange rate yourself xD Then we got on a bus to this little pier thinggy that was made of wood, and climbed aboard a small boat (think ubin bumboats) and set off for another hour plus journey to Nemo Island. So, yea, on the boat I sat on the deck or what was the deck in the sun, and enjoyed the scenery and wind, as well as the sun. (note that that was the first thing that led to the horrible sunburn I have now) After a plenty boring trip, reaching Nemo was like a farce, almost. We were greeted with a kelong at first, until we walked further in and found that their stilted huts with the grass roofs were actually really really nice huts in the interior, even with airconditioning xD

We were allocated into the land rooms, until we asked for a change to be upgraded to the much nicer huts, and Edric, Marcus, Chian Fern and I shared one of them. Thanks to the strong winds and omnious clouds, we were all forced to go for the trek around the island first, and leave the snorkelling for the next day. The trek was fine, especially cos the sun wasn't around and we went to the beach at LOW tide. This meant a nice time to grab sea shells while the tide was down, and all the nice shells were exposed x) I found a really nice spiral shell ^^ hee. And this done, it started raining. We walked back to the resort and waited for the rain to stop, then went on to fishing. Well, fishing was quite farcial, because we were just dropping the hooks into the water and hoping some fish would bite. It ended that amongst the 26 people who fished, only one person caught a fish. Excellent. By then, it was dinner time. We had dinner, sat around, played cards (strip poker) then went to watch them work the kelong at night, using electric lamps to attrack fishes then raise the net. We thus also found the source of the sotong that we ate everyday. x.x This was followed by supper, some kind of banana soup dessert, then bed. Or for the sec 4s, we were actually sitting in the dining area and using the television. Nelson brought a PS2 there. >_>" And yes, I was owned at wining eleven 10, just because the power meter fills up SO fast.

The next day brought us much more. We woke up late, and other just fished their lives away, not catching anything anyway. Breakfast, then snorkelling. Now, their reefs there cannot be compared to those at Tioman, not to mention this stinging thing that somehow got to all of us. So, we got out pretty soon, and I went to the beach to collect shells. This time the tide was high, so I didn't really find anything... Swam back from the beach to the kelong, and pretty much got most of my sunburn then. We thus had lunch, then took leave of the place and went back to Batam Island, and along the way to Harris Resort, we stopped at a place to shop for clothes. I got two very nice t-shirts, both from diesel. ^^ pretty cheap too, at half price they were around $6-7 each ^^. Then we moved on to have dinner at a seafood restaurant(golden prawn) (which served pretty lousy food) and then headed to the mall to shop for 45 minutes. I am proud to say I found a pair of keychains there, and I bought this really cool looking Nike watch. Thus done, we boarded the bus again to go down to the Harris Resort. To call it a resort is wrong, for the place is really really nice. Bing and I were assigned room 449, and we got in and were in awe of the room. IT's SO NICE!!!!!! Like woah. We then went down to the lobby to meet the two teachers and went to the bowling alley. Ok, i hit my lowest in three years >_>" 58. But at least it was fun, and Ballz/Woo Meng Fai/WeiZhi got a shocking 150 points, totally trashing the bowling pro Nelson. Back at the room later, we just happened to get a call from the Sec1s, calling Bing to join them for cards. He bathed and went over, while I slowly soaked in their bathtub >=] I got out before bing came back, and munched on the bread I ate earlier. Bing came back to find me watching TV, and we started watching Diamonds are Forever. Bing went ot sleep about half an hour into the show, while I watched until I fell asleep with the TV on. >.<" I woke up at about 3 to turn it off and enjoyed the sleep that night.

I must say that getting up and rubbing your sunburnt back against a surface is a very painful experience. That's what happened this morning >_>" I got up, and went OW. It really hurts. We had breakfast in the hotel, then took a van trip to the go-karting circuit. Well, I spent more time playing pool than go-karting, but I must admit the experience is really thrilling. I mean, it's so fun to speed! especially when you confuse the brakes and the accelerator, and jam the accelerator trying to do a bend. Result? A spin! I slammed my way through some tyres as well. Ow. I think the worst was when I did a 180 degree spin, and just when I stopped, someone else doing the bend at full speed crashed my kart headfirst. The jarring hurt my butt. A lot. x.x The track is really wet and muddy though =/ We then went back to the resort, chekced out, and brought all our stuff across the road to the cable skiing site. Thanks to the numerous burns on my body, I decided to give the cable skiing a miss and played pool throughout our stay there (about 4 hours). After that, it was time to board the ferry for the ride home. That's where I am now. =)

If there's just one thing I must commend about this trip, it's the punctuality of the things we do. EVERYTHING is done according to schedule, the boat rides end at exactly the time stipulated, same for bus rides and all that. It's really cool, how that's done. Wish I could plan like that too. x.x

Off to tend to my burns....~