Jet lagged quite a lot. I woke up at 3am (which was supposedly 10am in Singapore) and thankfully there was wifi! So I managed to text some people who had viber (yes viber is simply godsend!) and stoned in bed, but to my surprise, the sun had already started rising! And zomg, at 10pm the previous night, the sun has yet to set WTP. I think the summer here is pretty scary. Although it isn't that warm like Singapore (yes the temperature here in UK is half that of Singapore on a
rainy day -.-), the daylight timings are woah.
Woke up at 630am to go for morning walk with Fena and Ruo Ling, and I realized that no matter how many times they had refurnished the building, it can never take away the antique feeling of this place which is in a sense quite peaceful. There are loads of trees in the area and I think the building is surrounded by 'green' at all its four corners! Perhaps it is all these 'green' that made the air there very fresh and welcoming (: I also felt so much more energized despite the lack of sleep.
The place we had to conduct our studies today was at a rocky shore (yes, it was really full of rocks) and hmm, that was actually the place we got our present for our class! haha although this sounds a little cheapo but it is a great representation of our trip actually. we
were supposed to come here for field studies so that explains the present. shall not reveal what it is to keep everyone else in suspense XD and I think it also shows our sincerity? it requires
much effort to obtain the gifts alright!
For our studies, we had to identify the species which were within the 1m by 1m quadrant we had placed at a particular site, 60m vertically away (yepp not horizontally!) and we had to use this cool instrument to measure the height to ensure the site was really 60m 'above'. hmm, the rocky shore here was really different from the one at changi! it was filled with seaweed and there were much more diversity and abundance of species :D
But THAT also made the identification difficult. We had to dig through what seemed like tons and tons of seaweed just to identify the dog whelks, limpets, barnacles and other organisms that lived in the rocky shore. And yepp, it wasn't that easy as we had to identify what type of seaweed/shells there was through their properties and especially for the shells, they looked so similar! :/ haha, so it was pretty much of a headache and i think siow, nana, zeng jin and I were quite epic after a while when we got bored. I'd still remember a particular seaweed which was named 'armpit hair' as it really looked like a 'bush of hair'! LOLLOL.
Ih3aRtF3LiN3SxDD
1:56 AM
DAY 1 IN UK!
Spent like 12 hours on the plane, until I was really restless. I kept tossing and turning around oops and I really hope I didn’t disturb nana and Yan Lei that much! Was lucky to get to sit with nana and Yan Lei is nice too (: she spent her birthday in the plane LOL and she was eating the birthday cake her mum had packed for her! Haha so cute (: Speaking about eating, this was one of the rare moments when I actually ate at Singapore time 1am! Beef noodles zomg which tasted nice and warm but I didn’t touch the cold appetizer and desert. It was wayyyy too much for me at 1am in the morning D< so basically this was how I spent my 12 hours (actually 12 hours 34min to be exact) on the plane. I watched 2 movies, black swan and blah (oops forgot the name!) Black swan was disgusting, so no wonder it was M18 in the cinemas but on the plane, despite all the censoring of the disgusting parts, I still felt pretty grossed out gahh. Because as you know, I hate gore and thankfully I didn’t puke :/
The plane arrived at 5am London time and after that we took a 5 hour long ride to Orielton field studies centre in Pembroke, Wales. I was very impressed by the scenery on the way. Everything felt so surreal. I suddenly recalled of the time when I was staring at David Waugh (haha, the way my geog teachers always call the textbook!) one year ago, looking at the highway M4 passing through London, Oxford and other cities and now, one year later, I was ACTUALLY travelling on the highway, in a bus! Everything looked especially special. The fields, the short structures, the cattle, and not to forget the sky (yes idk why but it IS bluer here ):! The scene was definitely different in Singapore because it was a countryside and the only thing that did not belong was us. Travelling on a highway in a bus LOL. Somehow I yearned to just get down and run up to one of the horses (though I think in reality I would take an hour to reach those horses) to ride on them, across the fields ;D
We had a stopover after about 2.5 hours and nana, Ruo Ling, Yan Lei and I bought yoghurt which tasted very nice. Kinda gave me the feeling of ice cream together with yoghurt (:
(photo)
Reached Orielton Field Studies Centre at about 1pm and gawd, I had a hard time dragging my 17kg luggage up 3 floors ._. my room was called guillemot (if you dk what it is read on! Heh heh, an incentive LOL) and I bunked with nana, siow, Hazel, Jie Min and Ruo Ling! After we settled down (meaning going to look at the toilets and bathing area to see if it was good XD and a fire drill which we had to rush down a staircase like this)
we went to the river near, to pick up samples of water from river so that we could identify WTP is living in it. -.- Had to step inside a muddy river which was o.o and the idea of insects flying around (luckily there was much less insects as compared to bukit timah!) was quite disturbing but nonetheless, it was cool using some new apparatus that I have never seen before to measure the speed at which the river was flowing and other abiotic factors.
HAHA, it was also a new experience, having to use a plastic spoon to scoop up jumping shrimps and other wriggly worms onto a Petri dish (:
not to forget biggest joke of the day: -inside the river measuring abiotic factors so asked Siow and Fena how they were going about counting and identifying the organisms in the sample-
Me: ehh so how many chongchongs are there?
Siow: huh what type of chongchong you talking about?
Fena: worms larh if not what, sperms meh?
And I looked up, seeing BOTH Mrs Lim and Mr Han right behind us having hmm, amused faces? LOL.
Ih3aRtF3LiN3SxDD
12:39 AM
sabbiie ho