The Beach

It wasn't until the recent event that I understood what walking along a beach meant. Namely, the event was a picnic-cum-project assignment held at the Tanjung Bungah beach on August the 1st and Benny, the class monitor was the organiser of the event. All in all, everything went smoothly except for the weather and myself, who was ill-prepared for it.

As I arrived at the meeting place, which was Prangin Mall at 8:05am. Any later and I'd be slapped with a "free ice-cream for everybody" punishment. Looking at my classmates, I realised what ill-prepared meant was in this case, I was wearing a pair of long pants with sports shoes, I didn't brought along an extra pair of T-shirt and I didn't brought along my backpack. Shit.

I tried to take note of the directions and important buildings in order to inform my parents of the location to fetch me when this event ends. =\ I was a bit worried if bacteria had grown on the food, I'm paranoid about these things you know! Blame it on a bad experience with contaminated food. We got off at the bus station opposite the Paradise Hotel / Crown Jewel Hotel and passed by the houses of some wealthy families, one of them being my classmate's house.

Reaching a spot under a large tree, they placed their stuff on a stone table and set off on doing the assignment first. I noticed that some people had brought along their dogs for the trip to the beach, a foreigner was petting a black dog which I presumed to be his, but it turns out that there were some stray dogs on the beach. Well, at least they were friendly to people. I reached out and petted one or two of the dogs after the foreigner left.

As the rest of them rushed towards the coastline, I was a bit hesitant in walking along the beach barefooted. Nontheless, I took off my socks and shoes and braced for the sensation. Although there was a bit of stinging from the rough sand, it gradually felt finer and softer as I walked towards the sea. I spotted a ice-cream dessert (made out of sand of course) and a heart-shaped sand island created near to the table. The whole group then walked about 500 metres (I think) to another part of the beach to take the photos for the assignment. For the first time in my life, I got to walk along the beach barefooted, it's a special experience for me feeling the soft sand under my feet with the warm sea water rushing against it. I loved it. Too bad my pants got soaked. =P

And when we got there, the whole thing was like: pick up trash - *snap*, pick up leaves - *snap*, group-shot - *snap*. Done. Picnic time! Some of my classmates had prepared fried noodles, some brought snacks and some brought soft drinks. Sheak Peng went up to the ice-van and bought a bag of ice for the drinks. Warm Pepsi ruins everything, doesn't it? XD

I think I might've overreacted when I fell into shallow water, as a result of being pushed into the water, and screamed loudly before I even hit the water. As you can see, I ain't no swimmer. In fact, I would've sank to the bottom of the sea if you threw me overboard a ship. Anyway, I was blinded a bit, I couldn't feel where was up and the sand kept moving, adding to my confusion. I struggled to get up and managed to do it with my friends' help, luckily. I then kept spinning in circles until I hit a female classmate. XD

So now that my life was saved, the only problem was that my clothes were completely soaked and I hadn't brought an extra pair. Solution: take it off. Crap, I have to note that my body isn't one of the most aesthetically pleasing ones around. (I'll be joining the school gym next year, btw.) Well, I left for it to dry and walked around topless, this provoked some of my classmates to make an obvious comment (I'm not explaining about it further) so I just shrugged it off. I never felt cold from the air after my body dried up, but Benny said he was shivering when he wore his wet T-shirt. Some of the others took out their badminton rackets to play badminton (duh) and some played a bit of beach football. Most of the boys stood in the shallow part of the sea and wrestled each other in the water. Seemed pretty fun, wish I could swim.

When my parents came to fetch me back, I noticed that Chyi Shen's foot had cramped up and Benny was massaging his foot to ease the pain. It reminded me of the time dad used the same technique to ease my night-cramps. Moments later it started raining and turned into a huge downpour. Everyone took shelter while I dashed back to my parent's car (which was loaned by my sis, btw). On the way back, to my dismay I realised that I had forgotten to bring back several of my items, namely my socks (and bottle of water). Well since it was still a new pair, I said "what the heck, let's go back" and retrieved it. Put on wet shirt and brought it back. Took off the shirt. Went out again without shirt to retrieve handkerchief which had fallen out during first retrieval, gaaaah.

A couple of hours later, I got a phone call from Chyi Shen, turns out that I left my wallet in his bag and he said he'll return it to me tomorrow. I also got to knew that the group were now at Prangin Mall (with clean, dry clothes I presume?).

I'm so absent-minded. -_-