Early in the morning on Sat, 8 Nov, Moon and I went to the meet up point to head to a Singles' Trip to Mt. Ophir for the day. I decided to use this day trip as my chance to play with my new SJ4000 camera too! Our attitudes were this: just have fun and enjoy the hike plus massage. If I remember correctly, we each paid S$48 for this trip and it includes a group insurance as well as 1 meal.

There were 38 of us in this trip - 19 females and 19 males. After passing through customs on both sides, we headed to breakfast (we paid for whatever we ordered) before heading over to a brown rice factory (yes...very touristy) before heading towards Mt. Ophir. On the way, we played speed dating in the bus where we females sat next to the window while the guys rotated every 10 minutes. 10 minutes seems like a long time but honestly, if you're a chatty person, the 10 minutes flies by and it's really not long enough to get to know the person very well. Moreover, we didn't get to know everyone!

Soon after was lunch and it was at a nice Chinese restaurant with 8-9 courses (meal inclusive in the package) and I can't post the photos up due to privacy reasons. I found it hilarious that the organiser, Jerald, had prepared masks and cartoon fans for us to cover our faces in case we didn't want our faces in the photos. Most of us wondered why not just NOT be in the pics? I guess it's just for Jerald's sake when he sends us the photos and he simply labelled us according to our 'serial nos.'.


After lunch was another long drive before we finally arrive at Mt. Ophir, also known by it's Malay name of Gunung Ledang. It's the highest mountain in the state of Johor and the 64th highest peak in the whole of Malaysia, which is probably why it's one of the most climbed mountain in Malaysia.

As we arrived at Mt. Ophir at 2pm, we didn't have a lot of time to hike up since we needed to be back in the bus at 3.45pm.


Here we are at the start of the trail, still looking cool although hiking at 2pm in our climate is such a bad idea.
 From the above photo, I conclude that the zoom function of the SJ4000 is crap. -_-
There were quite a lot of people dipping into the water but one of the guys kept talking about leeches and bugs...needless to say, Moon and I didn't put any body part into the cool stream. I'll let you guys enjoy more photos:





It has been a long time since I've seen centipedes and this one was fat! Side note: loving the fish eye effect of the SJ4000.

After the hike, my T-shirt was soaked in perspiration and it was a shame that neither Moon nor I brought a change in outfit. I also forgot to bring my Cooltech towel to cool myself off. Sigh. To add, as I had just recovered from a stomach flu, the hike made me feel a bit sick. When I went into the bus, I promptly fell asleep and woke up at 5.30pm to find out that our bus was delayed (maybe due to the wedding of the Sultan's son?) so we ended up reaching Johor Bahru only at 7pm. Nonetheless, we continued with our full body massage (RM63) while some went for a foot massage (RM50) and those who didn't want to get massaged went shopping and to grab a bite.

After being thoroughly kneaded and loosened, we went for dinner (not included in the package). Moon and I spied our little eyes on...
Lok lok! These were such a throwback to my childhood and sadly, I think my generation is the last one in Singapore to experience the true Lok Lok - cooking our choice of skewered items in shared cooking pots and then dipping them into shared pots of sauces.

As you can see, the ends of the skewers are coloured. Each colour corresponds to a certain price and you pay for what you pick. Most of the food items are fried while some veggies and other items are boiled. You can request them to be boiled but then some items will taste odd when boiled.
Blood cubes, oh how I've missed you. Ever since the health issues of pork from Indonesia/ Malaysia, Singapore has banned blood cubes from being imported so I haven't eaten this for at least 15 years! My loot cost me RM20, which I felt is a little pricey but I can't complain about the taste.

Overall, the trip was interesting because we did get to expand our social circles. I didn't find anyone whom I had a deeper need to get to know better. No matter what, I had a good massage and good food out of this trip! I really don't mind going for another one. :)