For the more acute of you readers, you would have realised that the entire entry on JEX has mysteriously disappeared. And the mystery is not so mysterious afterall, for the simple reason that i've decided to rewrite the whole chronicles of the expedition for i feel it deserves a well deserved piece for posterity's sake. And so if you've already read the old entry, well you get double the fun by reading it all over again.

Actually the main reason is that i'm gonna blog about JEX bit by bit, little by little, day by day. And this is because i'm gonna use blogging as "motivation" for my mugging, as those occasional oasis in this desert of 2 weeks. And however flawed the logic of using "work" as motivation to do work, it works for me to indulge in the memories every time i write about it, taking me away from this cold mugging hell.

Thus, without further ado, we present to you once again...
And yes, for those of you who still have no idea what Jex is, it stands for June EXpedition, to the far away lands of terrengganu. The main gist of the trip was to kayak in the open south china sea from mainland to the little island of Tenggol, a distance of 32km. And so the whole trip's supposed to last 6 days, and they ended up to be 6 days of great adventure, greater company, and super experience.

Day ONE: The day begins at 6.30am at the specs gal and after we packed the group logistics and settled group photos we were off on our supposed 10 hour bus ride, which was not meant to be. Very unfortunately, my companion of the day was to be Kellynq (aka buay song). It was quite an anticlimax to be stuck in a traffic jam on the singapore side that left us delayed for about an hour and a half. Swiftly cleared customs and lunch was due next.

And one thing about the rest stop was the insane amount of flies/whatever you call those irritating small flying things. And in the background you can always hear cracking sounds, sound of the flies being zapped by the electric fly zapping things there. Ordered satu mee rebus which was really like appetiser size so consumed "post lunch" of satu nasi lemak. Left muchly contented.

Then we were told that we would have to wait for a change of bus cause the one we were on would likely overheat. And what was supposed to be "a short while" turned out to be the entire length of Ice Age 2, which i didnt really catch cause i was right at the back of the bus. Ended up sleeping instead. And the bus we changed to was even more chui than the one we were on. Noteworthy to mention my new sitting companion was Rng! And so we were off on our very very long journey, a journey marked by obscene periods whereby the aircon spouted warm air instead and its truly incredible how i can nap on such a bus. The afternoon journey was a real real pain.

But things changed for the better in the evening, when i started chatting with Rng and things were more bearable. The girls around were also playing some singing game and singing many many songs so i joined them and was very very high for the rest of the trip.

Which proved to be my ultimate downfall. As the theory goes, a lot of singing + a lot of junk food = a bad throat. And it wasn't a mere bad throat, i kind of lost my voice altogether. And so i was left to shut up for the rest of the expedition and speaking with an oh-so-sexy voice. A voice that scared even myself at times. We must commend Kiampah for tolerating and actually talking to that scary voice throughout the rowing back to mainland. Anyway one good thing of the bad throat was i didnt have to do sentry at all throughout JEX. And yes, back to the story, so the whole lot of us arrived at Paka at 10.30pm at night whereby dinner was swiftly consumed. Then a quick washup and we all tucked into our sleeping bags for what we could make of our 5 hour sleep, before The Journey tomorrow.

And as the saying goes, good things come in small packages, so this chronicles of JEX will end here for tonight.

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And so this week saw one store wash on tuesday which everyone was especially enthusiastic about, no matter how temporary a cure for PED it served. And during which, old and older food was dug out from the room and we fried the 30 eggs which we were supposed to bring on JEX. The eggs were of course courtesy of the girls. Who bought them from the supermarket about one and a half weeks ago. Tasted a little weird but odacians kinda eat a lot of shit so who cares. Yishan also made jelly-in-mould jelly and shared with everyone. Then went out for lunch and a little of mugging before going off to the airport to pick Marie up.

And so me and gavan were there at Belt 36 waiting like some fool for Maria to come out. And i decided to hold up a piece of paper that read "Odac Baby". And finally Marie came out, talking on the phone and not registering the Odac Baby paper. Only when i took it off my face and she saw me, did she stun for 3 seconds and then jumped (ok she's not THAT short) and gave me a big hug, haha. It's good to have you back baby marie and we all missed you a lot.

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Today was spent at the national library doing a little book searching for PW and i was pleasantly surprised at the amount of literature available on fast food. And also i realise there are so so many books, and if you know me well, i'm not someone who reads very regularly. And i really should do so, there are so many interesting books to just dig into. Unfortunately, time is not something on our side. So perhaps after the holidays lah.

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500 miles by The Kingston Trio

If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone, you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.
A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

Lord, I'm one, Lord, I'm two, Lord, I'm three, Lord, I'm four, Lord, I'm five hundred miles a way from home.
Away from home, away from home, away from home, away from home, Lord, I'm five hundred miles away from home.

Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name. Lord, I can't go back home this-a way.
This-a way, this-a way, this-a way, this-a way, Lord, I can't go back home this-a way. (Interlude, repeat first verse)

You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

For the long long long journey there and back, a journey worth travelled.