Uplands

After a relaxing weekend we were on course again, huraahh! Uplands International School of Penang, a group of 13-15 yr old school kids who all speak english and don't have the best attitude! Very western, all the latest gear (one kid wearing genuine Ferrari gear) and enough junk food to last a year. So prepared for an OB course. Oh how me and Ali took pleasure in doing the wake-up calls. 5.45am = bang on room door as loud as possible, shout good morning, make sure the lights are on and repeat in next room! You make our lives hell during the day, we'll get you in the morning! First activity: raft building. Admitidly the kids did pretty well with this, most rafts floated! The teachers however, asked if they could make their own raft, so after us being told we would join with them since we hadn't done rafting before we sourced all the rope and humped all the barrells and pipes around we were kindly requested to leave the teachers to it. They wanted to show the kids they could do it too. Good luck, there was 3 of them and they only had half an hour. Should of taken our help, the guy ended up with awful ropeburn! The rest of the course all the support staff(us) would be belaying for the high ropes course up in the mosquito ridden jungle. This was reasonably enjoyable for the first two hours or so but after ten it gets pretty tiring and patience will be lost with anyone who says its not safe, or insists in coming down half way round but won't let go off the platform! One of the bonuses of this course was that they got snacks twice a day, resulting in 3 free packets of Malaysian style oreo's! Thank goodness next morning brought their departure, plenty of leftover cake and welcome rest! Now as for Libby, she was ill for the start of the course so spent the rest of it recovering, however this meant the jammy person got put on "support" for the OB Singapore staff trip! Pretty much she got to go kayaking in their amazing kayaks to paradise islands for 4 days while me and Ali spent our time being extremely bored and unable to even go to town since everyone went home and we have no bikes yet! We totally weren't jealous or anything! Its incrdible how different the two operations are, Singapore just seem so professional and have heaps more funding. We've been invited to go down to OB Singapore sometime, hopefully Christmas or New Year! This week we have been "working" in Logistics, shame no-one told them! This has just been frustrating! Literally my work for the week has been sweep 6 rooms, fill 2 barrels of food, go shopping, drink Milo, discuss escape routes if all the locals happen to be zombies, count some plates and cups and drink more Milo! Apparently work will get more difficult soon...we'll wait and see. I think they're just a little lost with what to do with us since the 25day course we were supposed to do got cancelled. We have tried some cool food lately though ranging from really sweet ice cream thing with added sweetcorn to super spicy curry served on real banana leaves! In other food news I've started practicing for Come Dine With Me with the help of the kitchen staff, it should be aired in early next year!! Ps. I apologise for not being very cheery in this, we're getting just a little aggitated that we're not doing much, especially when we're hearing OB South Africa lot haven't stopped doing tonnes of physical training...if only!! Jumpa Lagi