Sunday, June 20, 2010

Dare to Lead; Dare to Overcome; I'm an Adventurer!


Are you an adventurer? Are you brave enough to take the risk? That's the classroom in the wild over at Jurong bird Park which kept me busy and weared out during the two days' camp on the 14th and 15th of June last week. Last year, i did attend this classroom in the wild event but in comparison with this year's one, it's much more happening during the whole camp with a change of new camp site. There's definitely much more to explore over at Jurong Bird Park rather than just around the woodlands vicinity where we held our classroom in the wild the previous year. This year was special too, we had more teacher helpers with us and more importantly, my bestie(sok) joined me for this stayover night camp as well. As the saying goes, the more the merrier...
(More of the fun will be elaborated as you read on.)

This is the aviary which we visited during day two. Have you ever tried feeding the birds before? That was a brand new experience for me. The aviary is located at Lory Loft in Jurong Bird Park and we took a short tram ride over to this station during day two. You can easily come into close contact with many colourful birds flying around in this open area and sometimes even landing on your shoulder. we are supposed to feed them with this liquid food and the birds are fighting over them. With their sharp screeching chirpy sounds which would sometimes cause slight discomfort in your ears...

"BEHIND THE SCENES"

So what exactly does it mean by "Behind the scenes"?!?

In short, we were actually given the privilege to tour not only around jurong bird park, but also the places which are in the restricted zones. Usually if one purchases a ticket to visit jurong bird park, he/she will be prohibited to enter the restricted zone. For us, we were allowed to visit places in jurong bird park like the clinic area (a place where vets operate on the birds), weaning area as well as the place where the nanny will have to take special care of the new-born young birds.
As seen in the above photos,
1: This is the weaning area where different species of birds are kept in the same area so that they can mix around and get along with other species. We were told by this bird park camp coordinator, Ivan, that birds are sometimes kept not just only to their own species; they get to mix around with other species as well.

2: New-born young birds need to be kept in this incubator, designed with special temperature for they can't suit to the outside room temperature. Apart from that, the nanny will have to feed them every 2 hrs for they will always go hungry during this stage.

3: Samples of eggs. One of which is the ostrich egg, coated with colour pigment. For your information, these eggs can hold up to a man's weight (as heavy as 80kg) largely due to their hard egg shell.

4: This is the baby parrot (not fully developed), kept in the incubator and taken with special care by the nanny.

5: This one that you see here in picture 5 is a once-alive penguin!

The Lodge on Flamingo Lake

A nice scenic view of the flamingos

We were well-fed during the 2 days' camp. Breakfast, lunch, dinner were all buffet style. As compared to last year's classroom in the wild where we were treated to sakura buffet, this year's one was somewhat on par despite not sakura. I especially love this american breakfast during day two. They're all my favourites. Delectable morning delights along with a cup of hot milo to start your day with. we were also told to eat our fill for later on during afternoon, it would be exhausting especially for the teachers during the treasure hunt game. we're gonna' run and sweat like hell!

Thank god i was actually allocated to a group of young kids (around the age of 5-6) and they will not be involved in the game. i just took them for a tram ride to tour around jurong bird park. That's my assigned task, tsktsk...

This video was taken as i was touring around jurong bird park in the tram ride with those kids. The whole tram ride took about 10-15 minutes for us to comb through the entire jurong bird park. Nice captivating scenery aong the way through the glass panel.

Apart from the tram ride, we also went for two different timeslots of the birds of the prey show on respective days. One of the teacher helpers was selected to help out during the show. i managed to film down a short video on it. Here it is.

(Sit back and enjoy for the next few seconds.)

i belonged to this clan, nightingale. So i was one of the nightingale facilitators during the camp. my friend belonged to the kingfisher clan initially, but in the end she was swopped over to join me in our nightingale clan. As a clan, we have our own cheers, one of which is the most common one(Cheer #1) which i believe most of your must have heard before. This is how it goes:

Cheer #1

Everywhere we go (Teachers)
Everywhere we go (Students)
People want to know (Teachers)
People want to know (Students)
Who we are? (Teachers)
Who we are? (Students)
We are the nightingale! (Teachers)
We are the nightingale! (Students)
Mighty Mighty Nightingale! (Teachers)
Mighty Mighty Nightingale! (Students)
Ee-ya-ee-ya-oo! (ALL)

Cheer #2
Sha-ka-la-ka Pi-ya Pi-ya
Waka Waka Yay, yay.
Gooooo Nightingale!!!


Sounds familiar? The usual cheers and shoutings that one would use during camp.

Nightingale managed to emerge as the top two winners of the treasure hunt game during day two. They claimed the victory and glory for our clan. Three cheers and three cheers and three cheers for nightingale; hip hip hooray X 3!!!

Overall, the 2D/1N adventure camp was memorable. i kinda' miss it till date. Much more happening than last year's classroom in the wild for this time round was an outdoor stayover-night camp at Jurong bird park. It has been decades ever since i last visited jurong bird park. Around the age of nine, i guess so. That was many years back. i'm thankful that i was given the opportunity to revisit the whole bird park once again. The serenity of nature

Awesome!:)



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