Peeling the Banana

I’m quite, but not very, drained as I just got back from a hiking trip at Mount. Gading and hit the waves at Sematan Beach Resort. I am going to blog about the great trip but before this post, I was supposed to talk about the colourful Citrawarna event held last Wednesday in the university in occasion of its convocation. Wow that rhymes… Anyway, why dont I just combine the both of them into one post.

It was a contemplation between attending debate meeting or Citrawarna. Debate was important but Citrawarna is an event described so well that I did not want to miss it. It was also because of the dedication of my friends who were involved and the team by each college, which spent almost every night practicing their act. Citrawarna was also a onetime event to me so me and my friends didn’t want to miss it.

As usual, it started off with speeches and its official launching. There was an opening act and a mini parade by the alumni of UNIMAS before the competition. Soon after, the battle of colours began. It was mostly magnificent.

Each colleges had their own distinct themes, one was focused on the Indian culture as another was focused on the Mexican culture. My college performed a Rio theme and others had their own. I am usually not attracted to such traditional events but I am always attracted to the idea of synchronisation. It was a beautiful sight to see about 40 students from each college putting together a dance performance, boasting creativity and skills.In the end, my college, Bunga Raya, won the overall title for the competition. Im really proud of them and of course, to my friends Phoebe, Qiu Xi, Leo Lim and Joshua Jerome who were part of the performance.  

Moving on to my exciting day trip, it was a satisfying trip. It all started off hilariously. The event was actually planned by some Chinese society in the university and my friend, Jeff, knowing the meaning of my name in Chinese, submitted my name in Chinese, which I did not understand. Yes, I don’t know my own name in Chinese and am a so called banana. Wo Shi Xiang Jiao Ren...

As we were about to leave, I was looking for my name in the namelist, which I of course did not understand. I looked for my phone number instead and signed. As we went on the bus, we had ice breaking and games in Chinese. I did not understand so it was funny actually. We had to introduce ourselves and when my turn came up, I said, “Dui bu qi, wo bu hui chiang hua yi.” That means, im sorry, I cannot speak Chinese. Sorry if I typed the Chinese words wrongly. Anyway, they told me to introduce myself in English, but I told them that I want to try it in Chinese. So then I said, “Wo de ming shi Andrian. Faculty shi FSKPM, program SK.” It means my name is Andrian, faculty is FSKPM and program is SK.

We also played a game in Chinese but I forgot how it went so I cannot describe it. The journey from our 

university to Mount Gading took about 2 hours so for the rest of the journey, I was listening to the music in Carmen’s phone, as she was listening to mine. She’s a good singer and plays the guitar well.

As we reached the main entrance, we got off and quickly started snapping photos. I was busy trying to get internet connection to check into Foursquare. I use it only when I arrive at some grand place or a new place.

We soon began our hike, sweeping through lots of flora and fauna. It is said that the Raflessia, the largest flower in the world, blooms here. Throughout the journey, we did see one of it, but it was black in colour, not red. Perhaps it was dying because they have a very short lifespan, of about 5 days if im not mistaken. You will be very lucky if you are able to see a fully bloom Raflessia in red.

We hiked up for quite a while to reach waterfall No.3. I think it wasn’t a major waterfall as compared to Waterfall No.7 which is at a higher altitude and we were supposed to go there, but we did not have enough time. We were able to take lots of photos and play in the shallow water for a period of time. We soon headed back to the entrance to have our barbecue lunch.

Sematan Palm Beach Resort was our next destination. It took about half an hour to get there. When we arrived, we were so happy to see the beach, its fine soft sand and big waves from the South China Sea. We quickly put our things down and ran into the water. We played a lot, and really a lot, as if the wave was our enemy, we kept making human barricades to fight the waves. It was such a great time.

After much playing, me and Carmen decided to get off shore to have a good cup of coffee at the café nearby. She’s also a coffee junkie like me. We had a great chat about our dreams and interest, including coffee and alcoholic drinks. It was good to have a great companion at a café drinking coffee beside the beach. It’s something that I haven’t done in a long long time.

We spent an adequate amount of time chatting and then we left to go for dinner at Bukit Mata Seafood. The food there was quite good. We had tofu, broccoli, mixed vegetables, butter prawns, chicken and seaweed soup. My friend Xinh Guan had 5 bowls of rice. He aint that big but he swallowed them all up.

It was a great day trip, which I was just informed 2 days ago. I am still hanging on to the words, do not regret what you did, but regret the things you never did. I still don’t know who came up with that quote, but Im still living it. Gonna keep travelling around whenever I can.

Like it? Subscribe to The BOAT or follow me on Twitter @andriantam
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TamsUpProductions