Blue Peter

This is going to be one super duper long post, so get out your snacks and prepare to read... if you want to

Hello everyone! I am back from 10 days of Korea. It had been an exciting and fun time, but I am also quite happy to be back.

Although I am there for 10 days, the course is effectively only 8 days, with 1 day of Seoul (shopping ;)). Of the 8 days, the first is the setting up of the base camp, the second is experiential, the third is basic navigation, the fourth is a solo session, the fifth to seventh is an expedition, and the last is the wrap up and cultural exchange. But I am going too fast. Let me bring you all back to the beginning.

On the 12^th, the 27 of us flew to Korea and arrived there early on the 13^th. The weather was fairly cold, but not too bad yet. So we took a bus to the outskirt of Odaesan National Park, where our Base camp was. The view from the bus was quite nice.

Then we stopped over at a small place for lunch. It was dumpling and kimchi with rice. It would be the last meal served for quite some time. The food was very nice. But I wasn’t used to the chopsticks, which were flat. If you look at the bowl, that was the standard type of utensils they use. Big metal bowls.

So we proceeded to our base camp

Nice River near our base camp.

This is our base camp. A very nice place. But you will see a large difference on day 8. Big change.

Setting up the tent.

We had night sessions. The first day we shared about what we want to achieve by the course. Also had a name remembering game, where we learn the name of everyone in the group as well as something the person says about themself. I didn’t like that game, cause I can’t remember names :P By the next day, I had forgotten everything.Day 2. We cooked our own breakfast. Had pancakes and porriage (leftover from last night’s rice). It was surprisingly good. I like anything that is nice and sweet ;)

The worse part about cooking is the washing up. We have to wash up in the cold cold water. That wasn’t very nice. But later, we learnt an alternative method of washing. Not very nice, but better than cold water. Its known as alpine washing. Basically, you pour hot water into your mess tin, and wash it, and then drink it up. Yucks. But we did it anyway.

We went for our experiential programs. Superman (that’s our group) went for abseiling and some flying fox type of thing. It was very fun. Could get a little scary at times, but all of us managed to do it. It was a very steep slope to the place where we did our activities. First time climbing such a thing.

Me in my full battle gear.

Abseiling. Quite far down. But very nice view on the way.

The picture on the top is the flying fox thing. Very fun.

One interesting thing is that we didn’t have lunch for all 8 days. We were constantly on the move, so all we had was snacks.

In the afternoon, we went on a trail. This is a prelude to the later things to come. For now, Yin Shu (that’s one of our trainer) led the way. We hiked a couple of kms and gained some 300m in elevation. The trail was narrow and looked quite dangerouse. It was near the edge of a steep slope, so falling will be quite bad. Single file only.

A nice view by the trail.

The trail itself.

At the halfway mark. Break.

On the night of Day 2, we had a sharing session. We shared on the topic River of our Life. I remember sharing about the journey towards perfection and how it was full of distractions from the larger and easier ways which lead not to our purpose. Knew more about people there, but couldn’t remember that much. Most people shared about their families.

On day 3, we went for a mini expedition. We were supposed to find 3 checkpoints along the trail.

Unfortunately, a few things went wrong. We found the first checkpoint easily enough. However, we depended solely on Reggie for the navigation. He was the one who had to lead the way and tell us to look out for the checkpoints. But we didn’t. As such, we didn’t find the other 2 checkpoints. We didn’t know where we were after a while, and debated on it, but with little consensus. Then we took a wrong turn, and got lost. In the end, we left our origional trail and made one of our own. Good thing the trainers were there. We just went down a super steep slope and ended up quite a distance from where we were supposed to be

This is the trail head.
On the trail, hiking. Not lost yet.

This is where we ended up. Not where we were supposed to be. But anyway… we were all safe, so that counts for something at least. All of us were also in fairly high spirits too.

Quite a nice view. Going back to base camp.

At night, we had a review on the day. Team Batman actually managed to get all 3 checkpoints. Apparantly, we missed one of them which we just hanging beside us, and all of us missed it. My goodness. I was appointed to be one of the 3 people to give an account of our day and our learning points. That was quite an experience. I had little planning and just went there to speak. Fortunately, it went fairly well.

Day 4 is our solo expedition. Well, not really expedition. It was a period of time for quiet reflection on the past, present and the future. We were supposed to write a letter to our future self 6 months down the road. I like it. It was nice and quiet. We had a couple of hours for it. All of us were given a piece of ground to sit on, and there, we did our thinking.

This was my piece of land.

After the solo, we had a sharing session. It was quite powerful. There were people who actually cried and sniffed while talking. Myself… I wasn’t that touched, but it was a nice session. Maybe cause I am usually thinking about things already… But anyway, it was a nice time. Thought about everything I am doing and how God is reflected in it.

I was the leader for that day together with Fung. And since the next day was the expedition, we had to plan for it. So at night, we went to distribute the food and lamps and stuff. That went quite well, thanks to Fung. He conducted the whole session.

I have a thanksgiving. The temperature was just above 0 these few days. In the first 2 days, my hands and feet were frozen. Couldn’t stand the cold. But by the third day, when everyone was complaining about it, I was able to do the washing of the mat. Wet and cold, but I didn’t feel that bad. Strange. All praise be unto God.

The picture on the top shows bacon. As you know, bacon is full of fats. So we had the oil in a mess tin. The next day it froze up and we used it to fry eggs. Yum.

This is another scene of dinner.

Day 5 was the beginning of our expedition. From here, we would leave the base camp and go up a few mountains and stay overnight somewhere else. Initially, we were supposed to go by the route of Odaesan National Park and stay over at a mountain shelter. However, when we got there, the route was closed because of storm forecast. As such, we had to go by an alternative route.

I was the navigator from this day onwards. It was amazing that we didn’t get lost, considering that I only have skill on a route or trail and the snow covered the whole route. There were times when I didn’t know where we were. So we just went on forward. Thank God it was the right route. It was extremely stressful to have to lead everyone. What if I was wrong? And indeed, on the second day of the expedition, I missed a turn and we had to go by a longer way. Good thing that was not fatal. Thank God for pulling me through the whole thing. It was even worse on the third day where the trainers were not with us. But in the end it was alright.

Preparing to set off for the trail. Strike camp. Breakfast was served for today (very nice).

Breakfast

This was supposed to be our trail head. Unfortunately, it was closed. But fortunately, it was closed, because soon, there was a snowstorm. When we left here, there was small snow falling. And we liked the snow. But later, it grew much heavier.

(Top) The bagpack was super heavy. So much so that even I could not carry it up with ease. So they taught was a method of carrying it, such that the smallest girl (Janice) could carry up the largest bag-pack (Reggie’s). It worked quite well.

This is the intended ending point. Just look at all the snow. Happy to see it? Certainly. But not for long.The snow was deep enough that the car got stuck here. We had to help to pull it out.

See all that snow falling? Its no joke when it keeps hitting your face. Cold and wet.

Still quite cheerful though, so that was nice

Now, this is real snow.

Self heating packet

For dinner, we had one of those self heating packs. Just mix everything up and pour water. It was very nice. But it got very cold. Remember I said the temperature was only a little above 0 for most of the time? On the mountain, it is never above 0. In fact, in the 3 days of the expedition, the first night had temperatures hitting almost –20 and the second had the minimum temperature of –29. Very very cold.

But at night, we survived by being in the dining tent, and singing songs. There were soulful songs as well as dirty songs (tsk tsk. Don’t like). But there were better songs as well such as Pass it On, Top of the World, and Prince of Egypt as well as part of One Way. There were also childish songs such as Father Abraham and Eldewise. I was actually called on to sing a solo. That was a new experience. Sang Colors of the Wind. We actually made the place so warm that it smoked on the outside.

On the mountain, everywhere was the toilet for guys, and a small little tent was the toilet for the girls and for solid waste for guys.

Water supply was from the river. It was almost frozen over, but not yet. Boiling water was most of the cooking we had to do. That was long and boring.

On Day 6, we were supposed to ascend a mountain. Not very far away, just 2.5km away. The problem was the snow. It was so, so, so deep. We were almost swimming in snow. It took about 4 people to break the snow before a path was good for walking with relative ease. As the navigator, I was constantly at number 2. That was quite tiring at times, especially with poor communication abilities in a straight line.

Snow was knee deep. Hard work ploughing through it.

But I must say that the landscape is very nice. At least there was no snowfall that day.

Well, eventually, we had to turn back without reaching the summit because it was getting quite late. Unless we wanted to trek in the dark. So we stopped by to take a group picture at this little thing. Whatever that was.

Group Picture

In the end, we rushed down the mountain and reached the campsite long before dark. That was nice, but we felt that it was a little wasted considering that we might had made it up the mountain. One other thing. It was partially my fault too because I missed the trail.

Oh well. If we cannot reach the mountain, we might as well make a snowman ;)

Day 7, the third day of the expedition. Mostly the same, except that we are all alone. We ourselves have to deal with everything. I have to make sure we don’t get lost. And the weather forecast said that there would be wind. And guess what? I thank God who held the wind back. The trainer said that it was an anormality. We were very fortunate not to have the wind!! It was very significant since the wind would make everything worse. I was already so stressed and tired from breaking the snow and navigating. If there was the wind… But the Lord held it back, and we had a very smooth journey, reaching the final checkpoint with 2 hours to spare. Our group was also fortunate enough that everyone was quite well. The other group had 3 people falling ill and had to be evacuated. I have no idea how. Probably a chopper.

This is view point, our mini summit, and mini checkpoint on the way. Halfway there.

Easy navigation from here. Nice to walk too.

And arrival. At long last

Nice sleeping area with hot floor.

Nice dinner.

A picture of a very popular Korean Instructor Chao Dong

More group photos.

A beautiful sunrise. Pity my camera is not good enough for it.

So on Day 8, we proceed back to our base camp. But on the way, we stopped by 3 places to see the Korean Cultural stuff. The first was a beach. They said was very famous in winter. The sea is the East Sea.

The second place is a house of a rich upper class Korean of the past.

Next, we went to a fish market (below)

Remember this place? This is our base camp. Isn’t it slightly different from when we left? Just 3 days of expedition and this happened.

We had the certificate presentation. We gave them out to one another. And we commended one another.

This is the chairman of OBK. He was nice enough to drive 3 hours to the camp to see us at the beginning, and now he is seeing us at the end again. He shared dinner with us. He is a Christian. He requested that we say grace for dinner. So I did. That was very nice. We also suspect that he treated us for the next day’s hotel and dinner, which were super luxurious. After dinner, we had more entertainment. Guess what? I sang again. This time, there was another singer from the other group who sang with me. We sang Colors of the Wind again, You Raise me Up, and Prince of Egypt. Super nice. But these were the more soulful songs. The later songs were more crappy (sorry, but I really think they lack depth, most of them).

On day 9, we packed up to go to Seoul. Farewell was sad.

The 3 J2s.

Yin Shu, our dear trainer.

Reggie, my tent and room mate. In our hotel room. Nice right?

The streets of Seoul.

A picture taken at a certain fort in the middle of Seoul.

Totally different situation from the previous days. This is a wonderful meal.

Some of the Christians in the group. Post shopping.

This cool robot can tell you loads of information.

Departure.

And so here I am , back in Singapore.

This trip had been very nice experientially. I got to know more people and experience mountain climbing. I think I managed to fulfil one of my aims to be a light to the people. I thank God for giving me opportunities in the sharing sessions and in songs and in personal and life testimony. We did manage to have a devotion together on the last night as well. Just 3 of us, but it was quite something. Did a passage from Malachi which I prepared. Also managed to talk to a few people about Christianity.

The only complain I have would be the cost. But now, it is well worth it. It is still expensive, but I enjoyed myself throughally.

If you had managed to read everything, well done. Sorry for the super long post.

The full photos can be found on this website: http://zhuangmao.multiply.com/photos/album/2

The small version of the movie pictures can be found on this page: http://zhuangmao.multiply.com/video/item/1

The better version (higher quality, slower download can be found here: http://zhuangmao.multiply.com/video/item/2

Peace be with you.