Last 48ish hours!

On the to-do list: 1 more point to go! which is what I am gonna to do now.The last on the list:write about your experience at Our Chalet in 600 words! The thing is, since it is to the world foundation[thank god Katie gonna proofread it later on], do I write a formal letter or not? I guess I’ll rack my brain tonight about it and come up with something decent. 

Oh yes, I found my watch.hehe. It was on the grass near the compost bin..

You know how they say about murphy’s law, about how you hope your last days will be quiet but it turns out to be super busy? The same thing kinda happened on my last days on internship[but then again, it was New Year's] and it’s happening now.LOL.Been running around for the last 2 days like nobody’s business but I guess that’s how it is. I guess part of the reason was that I was preparing for the summer vollies’ surprise tea party at Baby Chalet. 

I think we have 30ish guests now, and since the summer vollies were off for the last 2 days, Rachael and I were on breakfast yesterday. After looking at the amount of people, both of us went straight in “Helen Storrow Seminar mode”.Which translates into not eating breakfast with the guests and start clean up as soon as possible. We kinda learn early on in the season that we don’t have time to clean up after morning meeting. hehe. The new kids are still getting their feet wet on this one, feeling kinda envious that they have 5 people on for breakfast though[2 for set up and 3 for clean up].I don’t blame them, HSS was a a shock to the spring vollies’ system.

The surprise tea party was planned a few days ago,and we kinda conspire with Katie&Rhianna in such a way that they will find out about it at the last minute. On the menu was Catt’s Victoria sponge cake with whipped cream and jam, Stef’s lemon bars and Scottish shortbread and my cornflakes cookies. Of course, all these were made in secret. hahaha. I made mine yesterday, so I was in the kitchen pretty much all day since I was in the kitchen baking before dinner prep. Stef did hers at midnight and Catt did it this afternoon. 

Since they had a communications with Katie outdoors right before the tea party, we put them right outside stockli where the view to Baby Chalet was obstructed. We also did that cos our plan A, bringing everything over before their communication session started didn’t work when they were all in the T-bar and the first person that we bumped into while attempting to bring the goodies over was Jessica! HAHA. So we waited till they were engrossed in the session and brought the food from the kitchen to Baby Chalet via the T-bar. So, we managed to surprise them after all!  

you know when your season is ending when there is surprises everywhere. Speaking of surprises, it’s HARD to keep a surprise here cos it’s like a kampong where everyone know each other’s business. Ahh well, I’ve managed to keep 2 soo far.LOL. And yes, you will find out about them on the last working day. You also know when your season is ending when you have cleaning list for stockli, when the hiking boots that you’ve been wearing for the past 3 months is finally been put away in the boiler room, when you feel emotional over little stuff, when you get anxious cos your page for the vollies’ book isn’t up yet, when the June schedule is at the stockli wall and when your room get emptier by the day. 

I am also curious as to what the next 48 hours holds. Anw, LAST campfire tmr!Not sure whether it’s the spring or summer vollies who are doing it.lol.

Oeschinensee&last day of programme

crap! lost my swiss watch today! and god knows where I lost it. I’ve been pretty much running around all day. My gut feelings tells me that its in the kitchen, since I’ve been there all day but I can’t find it anywhere! Fingers crossed that it will reappear before I fly off…

Sorry about that diversion, I had to get it off my chest. 

Back to the story of Oeschinensee. Breakfast at KISC is different, in a good way. The look on our faces when you see 6 different types of cornflakes, among them coco pops and coco crunch are priceless. Of course, we went for the coco crunch and coco pops cos we rarely have them. 

After that, we had a KISC tour.which reminds me of the Our Chalet tour-the ghost legend and stuff but theirs was based more on facilities rather than history.They also don’t have powerpoints like we do. We set off to the Oeschinensee lake after that, the lake that we were suppose to go to on the RSG week staff day out but didn’t end up going cos of the rain. Anw, Rachael, Karin and Carly wanted to hike up to save up so Stef, Eve and I took the gondola up cos after all that hiking the day before, my legs jz couldn’t take more hiking. 

We treated ourselves to movenpick ice cream to see what was all the fuss about. Now we know.hahaha. It is gonna to be my 1 of my favourite ice cream, joining the ranks of B&J and Haagen Daz.Swiss ice cream is indeed addictive! Anw, we met them at the top, had lunch at the lake and played around for a while in the water. You know, you kinda appreciate a day off together with your fellow vollies when you haven’t had a day off together in a looong while[like 3 months ago].

It seems that the metal toboggan run is THE THING to do while at the lake.HAHA.cos we met some of the KISC pinkies there too! how coincidental! And they were talking about how they wanna come over and visit us soon. Rachael and Stef bought 10 runs between them while Carly, Karin, Eve and I shared another 10. I have to say, the first run was scary but once you get used to it, it’s pretty fun.hahaha. I had enough excitement for the day and I wasn’t feeling very well so I took 2 runs. Shall go back for more next time!

Karin, Stef, Rachael and Carly then hike down while dear Eve accompanied me on the gondola. It was a good choice for me cos if I had followed them, I don’t think we could have caught the 4pm bus back to Adelboden! And I managed to squeeze in last minute chocolate shopping too! We also managed to reach Our Chalet by dinner time. 

It was a good way to end our season, with a pretty big bang, and ending off with(almost) all the things that we wanted to do. As cliche as this will sound[and I think that alot of things that I will write later on will be even more cliche], but we needed that time to spend as a group together. A good way to(almost) end the circle, like playing “pass the pigs” and being away from the evils of the laptop.LOL.

Lo and behold. as fate would have it, my last day of programme, the hike to the woodcravers’ was the day after we came back from KISC. Which translates into still having sore legs and aching back and trying not to look like you are dying in front of a group of 9. 

We can pretty much do it blindfolded, which is a good thing. The group itself was kinda good, mainly cos of their leader and I was the back person for most parts of the hike there. As a back person, I try[most of the time] to channel Katie.haha. As in, I try to do for them what she did for me during the hikes. Does it make sense? So far, it seems to be working. 

On the way back, the older girls wanted to go back to Our Chalet while the 2 younger girls wanted to go to town. So, Carly took the older girls back while I was the group to town. It was a pretty pleasant walk up to town and the Brazilian/American mom that I was talking to was very nice. In town, we did a little scarvanger hunt and she even bought me ice cream when we went to the coop! 

Ending programme on that note, was frankly, darn awesome! 

More about my day that never ends later…

To Kandersteg via Bunderspitz!

This is a little bit late…but better late than never.hahaha.

We are down to our last week of the season, with 4 days left in the season. Amazing how fast time flies,eh? I can’t imagine what the last day will be like. 

Anw, the spring vollies decided to hike to KISC via Bunderspitz together on our pre-arranged off days on the 24th and 25th. And Katie kindly came along and lead the hike even though it was her off day. Now you know why she’s 1 of our favourites.hahaha.

We started off from Our Chalet at 8am, and after the hike to Elsighorn, my bag was considerably lighter. On hindsight though, I shouldn’t have brought the snowshoes along. The hike there was steep, as Katie said, but we got used to the “steepness” pretty quickly. Since I am the least experienced hiker of the group, I felt bad for slowing the group down sometimes. 

The atmosphere for this hike was considerably different too.Oh yes, on the way up, we also saw 3 marmots[on the same hill!] which are rarely seen in Switzerland. We also saw a gamse[an Alpine goat] and an eagle. When we were near the top, Katie also spotted a broken hiking sign.haha. And we couldn’t resist taking pictures with it! All in the name of fun

Maybe it’s just me, but I think we hiked to the summit pretty quickly too. Also, the last part before the summit was not as hard as I though it would be. Maybe cos there was a grassier terrain instead of the rocky ones we had on the way to Elsighorn. In any way, I wasn’t panting and dying[yet] so it a good thing. We had to leave the summit at 2pm to be in time for dinner at KISC so we had 10mins to find the geocache at the summit and Rachael did!It turned out to be the 1st of the 2 geocaches that we will find for the day. 

The hike down, was another story all together. Stef and Katie had checked out the route to go down while the rest of us were hiking to the summit and it seems that the only way down was to lean against the rock and slowly climb down. It was scary, to tell you the truth. Luckily, we reached the grassy terrain in about 20mins and it was a matter of just going then. THEN, came the fun part! It is, by far, my favourite part of the 9 1/2 hours hike. Cos there was still snow, and it was still too steep to snowshoe down, so we all put on our rain pants and jackets and gloves and slide down! HAHA. Rachael went down first and her “strategy” was to hit the grass patch then continue. I wanted to follow, but it turned out that I had other ideas. I ended up sliding past Rachael right past to the end of the “bank” and the rest follow suit. Before all that happened, Carly’s socks went flying down. It was a hilarious sight. And yes, she did end up finding them. 

This is why I didn’t need to bring my snowshoes[and I felt kinda bad cos Katie ended up carrying them back to Our Chalet for me], cos we ended up doing that for pretty much the rest of the way till we hit the road. It was much faster and easier that way. 

The road down was less straightforward than I though it will be. Just when we though that we were going down, the road went up again. We also did some major river crossing.HAHA.my instincts told me to jz cross but the current was too strong and Rachael and Stef found a way to cross it. So yes, it was interesting, to say the least. We also found a geocache on the way down.hahaha. The theme for this season is truly geocaching!

We also came to a crossroads where we had the choice to take the faster path down which was 1.5 hours or the slower path was will take 1 hour 50mins. It was already 5pm and dinner was at 6pm so we took the faster route. Also, it lead straight to KISC so that was a bonus too. Halfway down though, I was pretty much dying.haha. I think cos I needed sugar and we were not stopping so it was a bad combination. Thank god for Rachael  

Imagine our joy[and happiness] when we saw KISC!!! Even though we were 30mins late for dinner, but the sight of Eve was like an oasis on a desert. We said goodbye to Katie[she was taking the train down back to Adelboden to have dinner with Alex and she was working the next day too-I don't know how she does it after a 9.5 hours hike.haha] and rushed down to dinner. Dinner that day was especially delicious and we had doughnuts for dessert! 

Eve had checked in for us when she came at 5pm and we had the “dutch room” all to ourselves. It’s the first time since we’ve lived in the Spycher attic that we’ve stayed together. We played “pass the pigs”, a game that we haven’t played since, you guessed it, spycher attic! We also played Eve’s hello kitty top trumps and UNO! 

We had a very early night, and went to bed at around 8pm. I have to say that I like Our Chalet’s beds better.hahaha. And thank god that we know how to put on pillows,duvet and mattress covers.lol.It wasn’t a peaceful night though, cos the danish boys next year were like playing rugby[or jumping off the beds] till 12mn. 

haha.anw, THANKS KATIE!! WE COULDN’T HAVE DONE THE HIKE WITHOUT YOU!!! <3

I am not a talker

by nature. If I do talk, people will have to start the conversation first. 

I guess that’s why I am a pastry cook, make videos and write blogs. It’s much easier to express myself that way. 

It’s down to the last week. If you want to get technical, I have 4 more working days. Which really also means that I should start packing and sorting out the pile of stuff I wanna keep and throw. But, I will leave it till after the Bunderspitz hike. Other than biking to Frutigen with Paige, last minute chocolate shopping, sending my luggage to town to get it shipped to the airport[if I can get it packed in time.haha]and maybe having a chocolate tour at Caillei, I have no more plans for the next 7 days.

It’s deja vu, and it feels like the end of my internship all over again. It’s hard to answer whether you are sad or happy to be leaving cos it’s a pretty tricky question. I am happy I get to go home to all the food[and friends and all that stuff] but sad that the international exposure is over. More often than not, it’s pretty much a big well of mixed feelings. Yes, I am counting down the days, not in a happy way, rather in a way so that everything will be organized when I leave. 

They say it’s the small things that you miss, like waking up to a mountain view every morning, a view that after a while, you tend to take for granted. Also, the weather, the very cooling mountainous weather. Yea sure, it will rain, but the rain here isn’t like the torrential downpour back home. And the people you see everyday. yea, it’s stuff like that. 

On the other hand, I do have stuff planned for the inevitable last day, and I am guessing so do the other vollies. The LTS sees this cycle 4 times a year, and I do wonder if it does get old for them. I also wonder if they think that they’ve made the right choice in choosing the 6 of us. It’s the questions you always want to know but don’t dare to ask. 

Ah well, off to bed soon! hiking to KISC via Bunderspitz with Stef, Karin, Carly, Rachael and Katie and maybe Catt and Koka too. I hope everything turns out well tmr!

End-of-season spring staff day out

First of all, this was a top secret operation by the members of the long-term staff. We were not given any clues to where we were going or even what we were gonna to have for breakfast. We were also told not to enter the dining room the night before our spring staff day out.

In short, they were preparing to spoil us for the day.

We were, however, given a piece of paper telling us to be at breakfast at 8am and to prepare 2 different types of socks, a backpack, an accessory, a hat and a jacket in 6 different colours; white, red, green, yellow, orange and blue. And that we will be back in time for dinner at 6pm.

I’ve come to the conclusion that you know when you are being pampered at Our Chalet when they give you pain au chocolat, watermelon and croissants cos we had Easter bread and Croissants during our Easter breakfast too. Oh yes, and eggs.

Not only that, EVERYBODY(like the WHOLE STAFF) came for breakfast today. Now, that’s a rare sight, considering that the only ones who normally eat breakfast at Main Chalet now are the summer vollies and the guests. Of course, the last time that happened was when we cooked bacons, eggs, fried toast and fried rosti on the morning of our Centenary celebration. And it felt like this happened ages ago. What I also mean by being pampered is when none of the vollies(summer or spring) were allowed in the kitchen for the day. Susanne, Katy, Michael, Catt and Koka kindly took over the jobs for the day cos the summer vollies were off and the spring vollies were not allowed to clean up in the kitchen(this was written in black&white too).

Onto the main event! In line with the mystery final destination, we were told by Katie that we were going to Ballenberg to geocache! So, our final destination turned out to be Ballenberg, the swiss open-air museum which showcases the different cantons of Switzerland. It’s like a huge giant set of Switzerland, and it is way cooler than it sounds. We were told that there was 3 geocaches in the “park” itself and we(okay, mostly Karin) went to work on finding out the clues.

After that, it was Catt’s turn and she was saying that during each season’s day out, there is usually a theme which had a major part in that particular season. For our season, it was the geocaches and the rubiks cube, which was why we were dressed in 6 different colours. HAHA. At any point of the day, when Catt shouts “CHANGE!”, everyone got to trade something with someone else and we have to get 1 particular colour by the end of the day. This resulted in a very hilarious day.

For most parts of the morning, when we weren’t geocaching(the plan was to start geocaching after lunch), I was mostly hanging around with Susanne. We were looking at the old houses, cheese-making,woodcraving and fabric-making. It was pretty cool cos 1 of the houses from the Adelboden area(where I am living now) was the 1st house in the museum and it used to be down the road from where Sally lives and Scouts and Guides used to stay there before Our Chalet was built. You can say that it’s thanks to this house that I get to go over to Switzerland in the first place

After having lunch, in a place full of schoolchildren(I think this place is their version of the Kranji War Memorial, except alot cooler), the group split up into 2, 1 was mainly the LTS, who went straight to the Italian Canton and the other consisted of the spring vollies and Katie. Our aim was to find the geocaches but we spent most of our time along the trail to the geocaches exploring the houses. Oh yes, Eve and Katie also found this underground kids’ insect world! It was soo much fun climbing through the small holes, especially with my gigantic haversack.All was not lost, when while waiting for the rest of the vollies, Karin and Katie found 1/3 of the geocache! 

After that, we went to work finding the 2nd one, a tricky one cos it was in a forested area and the clues weren’t exactly helpful. The picture clues had a pine tree and a big rock taken 2 years ago. After digging through every big moss covered rock that kinda resembles the pictures, we still couldn’t find it and gave up and started exploring the Italian cantons. 

We didn’t get very far till we bumped into Christoph who told us that he had some amazing chestnut cake. So, we went exploring a little bit and went to the small shop to have some cake and ice cream! By that time, it was 4pm and it was time to head back to the van to be back in time for dinner. 

chestnut cake(pie?)

Before we set off, we traded back all our items and we must have looked funny pulling off socks, belts and jackets.On the way back on the van with Catt, Stef, Karin, Carly and Katie, you can tell that everyone was exhausted. So I didn’t really talk much(okay, I don’t talk much anw) and tried my best not to fall asleep cos I was at the back with Katie and there wasn’t anywhere to lean on from where I was sitting.

By dinnertime, all the spring vollies were in lalaland, ready to fall asleep anytime soon. 

After dinner, Katie also stopped by stockli to talk over the Bunderspitz hike to KISC(a 8-10 hours hike) since she will be off for the next 2 days. The hike up to the summit will take about 5 hours, depending on the weather conditions and we have to play by ear for the hike down to KISC cos Katie only did it once or twice before. Nonetheless, I am very grateful that she chose to come and lead us for that hike during her days off cos it will help alot. Looking at the Elgishorn hike, I think that I will most likely be bringing snowshoes along and that last part of the hike before the summit will kill me. And take an extra water bottle. 

hahaha.You also know when there is a geocache fever going around in Our Chalet when your programme manager sends the vollies in your season a fb message telling you that there is a geocache being planted near your area, that we will be the FTF and should we have picnic there within the next 8 days? 

Now you know why I am soo she bu de? 

Bern&Interlaken

It was a good idea to spend the day with the summer vollies in Bern. for 1, I found out that Bern was alot more fun if you are going with 8 other people. We bumped into Jan who was planning to sneak out quietly at the bus stop and I sat with Jan till she got out at Bern to catch her train to the Geneva airport. I am really gonna to miss the RSG people. 

While we were wondering around Bern at the first half of the day, looking for breakfast, we found this churros stand making fresh churros. It was CHF 6 for a cone of it and it was worth the money cos we were full by the time we finished it and it was freshly made. I am soo gonna get that churros the next time I go back to Bern. 

my breakfast for the day, fresh churros!

After that piping hot breakfast that about 5 of us in different variations, we decided to split the group up into 2 cos it was too big. I ended up going with Paige, Jessica and Mariam. It was nice to wonder around and tick the things off  from Jessica’s list to see. And she had this cool ipad kinda thing where they tell you the history of the places so it was our “tour guide” for the day. We also played around in the playground and went to see the bears at the bear park. We met up with the other group during lunch and climbed up the church tower after lunch. It was a long climb! 

Heather and Libby, 2 of the 11 summer vollies

Sarah(a summer vollie) and I at the tower!

we managed to climb to the top in the end and the view was pretty beautiful. haha.But then again, we had to pay CHF 5 to climb the tower. After that we explored the church and then went to the chocolate shop. The sheer amounts of chocolate here always amazes me to no end. It’s like there is chocolate everywhere and every supermarket have their own brand! After that, we split ways, with Jessica, Paige and I going back to Our Chalet for dinner and the rest of them staying in Bern. 

On our way back to Frutigen, we got on this cool train with a playground! A playground in a train is something I’ve never heard of, much less see. Jessica was talking about hitchhiking our way up to Our Chalet but all the cars that came was going down…till Catt came! LOL. And we were in time for dinner too!I heard that the rest of the group came back at 12:30mn so I am glad we didn’t join them. 

With that being said, I really enjoyed hanging out the summer vollies. Seeing some of them reminded me of how we were. They are adjusting pretty well and they are pretty talkative so its pretty easy for me to get them to talk too. The “blue” in me really came out that day.hahaha. 

I then out another day trip out again today. This time to Interlaken. I wanted to go there cos I heard soo much good things about it. However, I think I chose the wrong day to go. However, something very interesting happened on the train. Besides Ruby from HSS who is from Taiwan and Crystal, the HK summer vollie, I haven’t met any other Asians during my time here. surprise surprise! On the train to Interlaken, a korean couple[clearly on holiday cos there was tons of photo taking] and a chinese/korean girl was sitting across me. When we were in Interlaken West, the girl across me asked me whether she was suppose to get off at that station then showed me her paper and we started talking. Turns out she is a hospitality student at 1 of the hospitality schools in Lusanne/Geneva and she is going to Grindweld for an interview at a hotel. She’s also a Taiwanese living in Vancouver. So yes, we started speaking in Chinese. Funny how such coincidences happened, huh? Anw, I gave her my e-mail address and name so let’s see how things goes. 

Oh yes, on why today is the wrong day to visit Interlaken. Cos there was a tons of china/korean/indian tourists coming in busloads and in every corner you can see them. It’s like I spent most of my morning trying to avoid them. And unlike them, I didn’t have the cash to spend my lunch money on restaurants/macs so I bought lunch from the coop. Speaking of which, there is at least 1 chinese and indian restaurant at a 500m radius there at its scary. It was beginning to feel like I was at Little India back home, or Chinatown so I took an early train home. 

Katie will be back from her holiday tmr but Rhianna will be leaving for a 1 week course at Pax tmr! Which means that we will only get to see her for 3 more days till our season is over As much as I wanna to delay leaving, my flight is already booked and I already bought my train ticket. At times like this, the international camp seems a little pain in the neck. All of us are also beginning to have separation anxiety or soon-to-be Our Chalet withdrawal symptoms. It’s like the LTS are dropping by stockli more than usual[Rhianna had been dropping by to chat, which I really liked and Katy came by this evening to get dvds.haha] and I am all for spring vollies and LTS sitting on the same table during lunch/dinner.HAHA. The spring vollies might steal the LTS away from the summer vollies till we end our season then they can have them back after that cos they have 3 months to get to know them. Though, I heard that 4 of them are going home early, around mid-august I think. 

12 more days of quality time with my fellow spring vollies and LTS and it seems that we all have surprises up our sleeves. From what I know, Katie and Rhianna are keeping their mouths shut on our spring vollies day out and we are keeping our mouths shut for their surprises too!

It will be an interesting and memorable end to the season

 

 

Bern

with the summer vollies tmr-yes! all 10 of them! I know I’ve been there before, but I went there alone, so this time, it will be different. By mere coincidence, both of my off days are with them so why not? After that, it’s Interlaken by myself the day after, mainly to go chocolate shopping and to eat around Interlaken. Looks like I will not be sleeping in anytime soon then! hahaha. It’s probably gonna kill me later, when I am on that hike to Bunderspitz. Oh well, I will survive somehow. 

Speaking of the hike, I am pretty excited to go! Don’t know why. That Elgishorn hike really got me into something. It may not be that high, but it’s alot higher than Bukit Timah. And coming from a place that does not even have a mountain, conquering that mountain was pretty sweet! Also, doing it with Katie[hopefully, fingers crossed] makes it even better cos we can get to spend some quality time with her before we leave  

The new kids are already on the webpage and they are done with the posters.haha.jz wait for 2 weeks and our posters will come down and it will be replaced with theirs. I wanna make these 2 weeks last…

By being a vollie here, my bucket list jz became that much longer. Now I have places to visit and places to come back to. 

Don’t worry, I’ll leave the sappy and sentimental side of it on the 30th here, or on that 600 words essay that I have to write for sally, or both.HAHA. Either way, 31st May is gonna suck big time. I hope they liked what I’ve planned for them though.