Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Little Kirsty Ventures to Pastures New
Knackered. Diving took it outa me. Thursday night we had the Bible Study, which proved to be a nice relaxing getaway from the school. And yuuus there was delicious food waiting for us at the end. Don, the host, also gave us fab advice on hotels for mammy and gran to stay in when they come and even offered us his "corporate rates", which is cool. On Friday I hada chilled out morning cos I didn't have my first class due to co-curricular studies. Then with my 2nd class, I used a game I learned at RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Award Camp). It's called Shepherd and Sheep- involves one shepherd and 3 sheep per team. There are 2 sheep pens made out of chairs and obstacles in between. The sheep are blindfolded and the shepherd needs to safely guide them to their pen without them bumping into anything. Was quite amusing. Fiona sat in on the lesson (got a feeling she's been asked to supervise my lessons cos the students are getting a little too rowdy. They then performed their dance to her and the "Little Bunny Foo Foo" song I had previously taught them. Think she was pretty impressed.
After class, I rushed to pick up my weekend bag and headed to the deaf department to catch the end of a "going away party" for one of the teachers. We had a yummy buffet then had to head off quickly as we had a taxi (Mr Soo) booked to take us to KK. Once in KK, I booked and payee for flights to Vietnam for other Scottish Kirsty and myself. Was a bit pricey but will be worth it.
We then booked into North Borneo Cabin and met up with Jade, Madlen, Georgie and Cathrine. Thankfully Georgie had the same thing on her mind as me- PASTA- so we headed for Little Italy. Was indescribably satisfying as always and the waiters took lotsa time to talk to us. We then headed to the 7/11 for chocolate- major disappointment on the lack of nuts in my "mixed nut" Cadbury's bar. We've come to the conclusion that the Cadbury's factories in Asia are given a set budget for fruits and nuts, but there was a mistake made along the way. Either the money was squandered, or there was a severe error of judgment in the first batch as to how much fruit and nuts to use. So initially they used almost all of the budget in the first batch, leaving pittance for the rest of the chocolate bars- resulting in a measly 2 or 3 nuts per bar and little to no raisins.
Aanyway- Georgie got her long awaited "Umbrella Chocolate", or what I like to call "Umbrocolate".
We then headed back to the Cabin for an earlyish night since we had Diving the following day. Unfortunately my watch broke, so when I woke up and read 7.45am on my watch, I panicked, jumped outa bed and started getting ready, since we were diving at 8.15. After waking Cathrine up, I discovered it was only 5.30am but I was too awake to go back to sleep so hit the comp for msn.
Bit of a dilemma when we reached the dive shop since Aman still had no medical certificate saying that she was fit to dive, even though the doctor had given her a verbal "go ahead". Luckily after giving the name of the doc to the dive shop, turned out they knew him personally and were able to contact him and we were able to set off. Twas a hot day and there was a lot of hanging around at the jetty. We piled on the sun cream, drank loadsa water then assembled the gear, got our wetsuits on, then headed for Mamutik Island. Ed and Pete came with us but were diving in a separate group.
We started with the Confined Water course- i.e learning to breathe, use the gear etc. Unfortunately about 10 mins in, Aman felt too uncomfortable and opted out of the course.
We continued in a group of 3, with Sasha as our instructor. The water was so so much colder than I expected- especially when we went deeper. After we had covered the basics, which lasted a few long hours, we headed for lunch on the beach. We were starving cos the diving really did take a lota energy. The air tanks are soo heavy! We did our first proper dive after lunch, down to about 9 meters and I started feeling really really cold. We saw a huge nemo protecting its big anemone and Sasha pointed out a squid. The coral is all really damaged due to dynamite fishing but the fish were all really colourful. There were teeny little neon blue ones that are oober cute and there was a coral absolutely covered in tiny little angel fish.
After our dive, I told Sasha how cold I was and tried to heat up a bit but it was so windy, it was kinda difficult.
We did our final Confined water module for the day and since my lips were fast turning blue and I couldn't feel my toes, Sasha decided to cut the day short a bit cos I was absolutely freezing. She said that since I have bad circulation, the nitrogen my body consumes throughout a dive, will remain in my blood for longer so I have to be careful with dive times and how deep I dive etc. Have to say, all I could think about towards the end was the hot shower I was gona get back at the cabin. I felt really woozie as we walked back and after my shower I realized that I had seriously embarrassing tan (or burn) lines where me wetsuit had been. So from the elbow and knees down. I was lobsterfied even though we thickly applied the high factor sun cream. Thankfully my face wasn't too bad.
We headed for a Japanese restaurant highly recommended by Madlen and Jade. Turned out to be delicious at a budget price. Headed to the cinema after dinner to see "Jack and Jane" (Jim Carrey's new film). Was so surreal when we sat in front of the screen. Since every cinema is similar, it really did feel like I had been transported back to the UK. It felt really weird. Especially when I put my coke in the arm of the chair- it just felt freaky.
Was highly amusing cos the Malay people find ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING hilarious. So the second the film started, they were in fits of laughter. We ended up laughing more at the audience than the film. Was a little off-putting at times though. Cos when the sexy scenes came up, we found some of it really funny but the audience restrained themselves from laughing, so was a little uncomfortable.
After the film we had a long walk from one end of KK to the other to get back to the cabin. There were 3 of us, yet I felt for the first time really vulnerable. It was dark and the street we were walking along seemed a little dodgy even in day time. So picked up the pace and got really weird looks from groups of Pilipino men. So we just speed walked along and ended up passing groups of transvestites and prostitutes-we were like- ahh. I think they were all Chinese/ Malay. Thankfully we safely reached the nice end off KK and decided we are never walking in that area again at night. Tis so annoying cos if we had a group of male gapers, it would be ok but its not like Ed and Pete would do anything to protect us, they'd be terrified themselves.
I was feeling absolutely knackered by the time we reached the cabin and just KO'd.
On Sunday morning Georgie and Catherine left early to catch the bus back to Ranau and
I got up to check out the Sunday market. I felt so woozie from the day before. The pressure in my head didn't feel right and I just felt completely run down with a severe lack of energy. After wandering about, at the market, Aman and I decided to go back to the cabin and just chill out. We watched the OC with the girl that works there (legend) and I wrote a few postcards. Tis so funny cos the girl that works there flirts with every single guy that comes to stay at the cabin- even if they hava girlfriend. Most guys can play guitar and she always lends them her guitar and sits and flirts with them as they play. She is really cute though. But was so funny cos when Ed and Pete came up to NBC she was sitting chatting to them- and I thought- noway is she gona start flirting with them. But turned out she was saying "How old are you?" and when they replied "18/19" she was like "Noway, I thought you were about 9 years old". Edward took serious offense and was like "what 9 year olds are as tall as me" and she said "all Europeans are tall when they're 9 years old". Was so funny cos she was totally dissin them, then moved onto this Rasta guy and started flirtin big time with him. Yesterday I spotted her checking out a website where she has photos of herself and loooadsa diff guys at the cabin- highly amusing. She must love her job. I'm sure she doesn't do anything untoward with them but she must enjoy meeting loadsa diff people and I've often seen her being invited to parties and out for dinner.
Anyway. We just chilled out at the cabin cos I was feeling really run down. I then forced myself to get up and check out the hotel Promenade that mum and gran might stay at when they come. It was suuuch a long walk in the heat. The hotel seemed really nice but it was so so far away from our "hang out" spots at the other end of town.
We then went on the lookout for somewhere to eat and came across a place called the "Seafood Village". We sat down and asked for the menu but were then directed to a part of the restaurant completely filled with tanks of crabs, lobster, huuge eels, muscles, limpits-everything. We were asked to point at what we wanted, then tell the chef how we would like it cooked. We didn't quite run screaming but we briskly turned on our heels and exited. I think it was the massive eel that freaked me out. Poor little (well big) things- all squished in teeny tanks.
We went to "Bamboo Café" and got a decent meal then grabbed some essentials from the supermarket and hitched a ride with Mr Soo back to the school. We KO'd in our room but I was soon drawn to the dorm next door, where Joyce's beautiful voice was coming from. I went through and sang some songs with her as she played guitar. We listened to some Eva Cassidy then she played it back perfectly as I sang along. Twas fab.
Got an early night as we were seriously knacked. This morning I had 40 students from from 2A. I am taking the entire class for only 3 days since they have exams coming up and are not going to be able to attend at the end of the week or any of next week.
Aman just informed me that the deaf camp has been cut short by one day due to crap organization by the venue. Kinda sucks but at least it's still going ahead.
Aw yeah- congrats to SCOTLAND for the rugby!! Tis immense- absolutely gutted I missed the celebrations. Will be rubbing it in the boys faces next weekend though. Only 2 weeks till the hols! Woo- pretty excited. I'm off to ask permission to paint eggs for Easter as it might be a "Taboo" subject.
- comments