Summer Retreat~~!

First of all, I have to warn you guys that Hillsong does not organize camps the way we do it in Kuala Lumpur. So throw away your previous mindsets and expectations of camp and hear me out. These are some of the differences:

1. You have to get your own transportation to the camp, either by car pooling or by public transportation (bus/train).

2. You have to find your own accommodation. This is the most shocking to me! But I had the help of my Connect Group Leader, who graciously invited me to bunk-in with the other girls in my CG.

3. The place we have sessions is apart from the resort we lived at. Hence, we had to car pool to get to the venue/place for sessions everyday! This is so unheard of in KL, right?! Anyway, I was more fortunate than others who had to walk there, which took them around 20 minutes or so.. I'm estimating here..

4. Lastly, I had to share a room with 5 girls, including myself. Imagine how time consuming it was to wait on each other to use the bathroom every morning and night. In KL, rooms are more affordable so there was no need so pack so many people into 1 room, but sadly this is not the case here.

As a result of these differences, I was unable to fully enjoy myself at the start of camp, but slowly and surely I managed to cast away my nostalgia of home and have FUN. I took a lot of pictures because I wanted to share them with my friends from home, but I posted more pictures on my Facebook, so feel free to flip through them. Great! On with the pictures then.

Basically our room space is mostly taken up by the twin bed & single bed. I didn't get to sleep in any of them, because the other girls took up the beds. So me and one of my friends took turns to alternate sleeping on the couch and the extra bed for the 2 nights.

Here it comes! My make-shift bed for this first night. For my short stature, I thought that I would fit nicely in the couch, but I was so so wrong. I couldn't stretch my feet out so it resulted in a lack of sleep and a grumpy/blur attitude the next day.

Haha will you guys believe it that this was all I packed for a 3 days & 2 nights camp? Usually I bring a luggage bad with wheels and more, but thank GOD I managed to fit everything inside nicely and snug.

So these are the girls that I hung out with during the time at Summer Camp. From the right to left is Julia (with the blue spagetti strap top), Allison Kwan, Sandra Sally (Indonesian), Joanna, Meegan, myself, Anna Follesdal (CG Leader & the girl behind me), and lastly Natalia. It was nice to just relax and spend time with girls for once.

Another group photo together. Some guy took it for us, that's why it's blurry.

This is Joanna, holding a cool looking camera that allows you to take pictures from a 180 degree angle, I think.. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Everyone was waiting outside the venue to get inside on the first day of session. The venue is actually a church but they removed all the chairs so we had to sit on the floor. It was packed inside and people were bumping into me during worship, so that made me irritable sometimes.. Only sometimes..

*This is mostly what took place on the first day. The following pictures will be the 2nd Day.*

This is Terrigal Beach and look how blue the water is.. It was so nice to just soak my tired feet into the cold and relaxing water.. This was 1 thing I will miss about the beach..

What would a beach be without the steaming hot Fish & Chips?! It was great even though the chips were too much.

After the lunch of Fish & Chips, we headed down to the sand and saw all these people! Practically everyone from Summer Camp was here.

So apart from sitting and getting tan, I went in search of these things called 'Blue Bottles'/Portuguese Man of War. We don't have these in Malaysia and it piqued my curiosity, so I scouted the shore to find one. Finally I stumbled upon one that looked like it was half dead.

'Blue Bottles' are actually kind of like jellyfish, in the way that they sting people and cause you pain, except they are smaller. For more info, this is the website: http://www.australianfauna.com/bluebottlejellyfish.php.

This is the bigger one that curl around people's abdomens and sting them. Obviously this is found on the internet, because I would not go so near one to get a shot.

After all the water, sand and Blue Bottles, I was carrying my friend's surfboard to the car. I found it really funny and flattering that people think the surfboard is mine and I'm a surfer chick. Hehe makes me feel so cool.

The next post of the 3rd day of Camp will be posted in the next few days . Thanks for reading so far. Hope no one got freaked out because of the 'Blue Bottles'.