Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!!! Did all of you have a Happy Chinese New Year regardless of your race? One thing I like about Chinese New Year is all the Red Packets that I can get when visiting $.$ so as you should know I am a Chinese. One of the Chinese traditions is to have a reunion dinner with your relatives at home, at a restaurant or some place simple on the Eve of Chinese New Year. Above are some pictures of the must have dish during the reunion dinner, Yu Sheng. At any eating place, the shop should be selling the Yu Sheng during Chinese New Year. The Yu Sheng is usually the 1st dish to be eaten then followed by 7-9 dishes as it is believed to be auspicious. The shop worker will add certain ingredients and 4 worded Chinese phrases which are of special meaning. Then the families who are eating will use chopsticks to mix the noodles, crackers, edible raw fish and other ingredients together. On the very day of Chinese New Year, one family will eat together. I usually eat a steamboat meal for Chinese New Year. How about you? How do you celebrate Chinese New Year?

NCC Camp STEEL

Basically this is what Camp STEEL stands for : Standards

Tenacity

Emotional Intelligence

Energy

Leadership

I went to Camp STEEL just this Monday and Tuesday. There were quite a few activities. An obstacle course, Paint ball fight, Army Daze movie and rappelling (like abseiling). The obstacle course consists of a ramp and then sliding down a pole, high wall, leopard crawling, going up 2 poles on all fours, crawling through tires, rope climbing, walking on balancing logs, climb over a net and then swinging over water on a rope. Be careful when doing the rope climbing, my friend got a terrible rope burn on his hands. all the pictures above except the bottom are pictures of the obstacle course. These were taken by other people as cameras are not allowed into the Amoy Quee Camp where I had Camp STEEL. Here is the website: http://www.ncc.org.sg/ncc/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81&Itemid=149

By the way, the picture at the bottom is a rappelling training only to show how to rappel correctly and what commands are used when rappelling. The rappelling station is about 4-stories high.

We slept in bunks and some people did not get to bathe as it was lights-out and there were only 2 toilets available... Luckily it was only 2 days 1 night so it didn't stink that badly.

Here are the 7 NCC core values every cadet should know: Care, Responsibility, Discipline, Leadership, Uprightness, Loyalty, Adventurous.

We didn't watch finish the Army Daze... so sad.

The Paint ball fight was the best even though it was a short game. There were 6 teams and it would be a 1v1 fight for a capture the flag kind of thing. Each team only played 1 round. The paint when just hit you will be yellow but after a while it will turn grey and unnoticeable. The armor is very important. If you get hit by a paint ball where there is no armor, prepare for a swelling bruise.

That was one of the best camp I had except from the one in my primary school when I camped at the Underwater World. At least the food at Camp STEEL was good. Thanks to all ICs, OIC, PCs, APCs, S1, S4, instructors and all those who prepared the camp.