Vacation in Greenland

Hi everyone! I just came back from my vacation in greenland, and here are some photos I'd like to share with you!

(Oops, can't bring camera into camp...)

I just finished 2 weeks worth of reservist training - this being my very first - and I must say it was not quite what I have expected it to be. Let me run through my training with you.

Day 1:
Day 1 can simply be summarised in 2 simple words: "I waited."

Seriously, I didn't have anything to do for the whole day. Did my in-processing late (because the taxi driver couldn't find the camp **see foot note for details), and did nothing the whole day. I was supposed to have some training, but they couldn't find the person in charge, they double booked the training room so the whole bunch of us got chased out and had no where to go.

Made three friends who were also having their first reservist, and the bunch of us "idled" the whole day away. Well... actually, I didn't idle the day away. I spent the day memorising the set of Hiragana (Jap) characters and memorised about 75% of them.

Since, no one knew we existed, we booked out at 530pm and returned home. It was good to go home. I thought I wasn't able to see June for 2 weeks straight, and the thought of it really irked me.

Day 2:
Day can be summarised in 4 simple words now: "I waited some more."

The admin people still couldn't find the person in charge (I don't think they even know who's in charge to begin with).

Spent the whole day doing memorising the rest of my Hiragana character set and did up my homework. Quite a feat memorising 46 foreign characters in 2 days. Thank you tax-payers for contributing to my education in Japanese. Your contributions have not been in vain and are not forgotten. :P

Day 3:
Day can be now be summarised in 6 simple words: "I waited for half a day."

They informed me that I would be having a refresher course at 930 in the morning, and lo and behold, it did start on time. That was something I didn't quite expect, and I must applaud the greenlanders for breaking the tradition of making sure their servicemen have enough rest at the lecture venue before beginning the lesson proper.

After the 1 hour lesson, they had no idea where we were supposed to go again, so I spent the rest of the day resting away in the officers mess with my new found friends. The greenlanders really treat their soldiers well, giving us ample time for rest and bonding.

Day 4 - 6:
I'm a lost sheep no more! :) Managed to find my flock this morning and got to know a few old birdies in the same company. Spent the next few days preparing and setting up our equipment for the major 3-day exercise next Mon - Wed. (Won't be called a high key reservist without the exercise.)

Had a bit of training in Big-2 (I only played when there was no money involved), and got to know them pretty well through the games and the interactions.

Day 7:
Had to book in at night because of the exercise tomorrow. Sleeping alone on an unhygenic, cold single bed felt so odd and uncomfortable.

Day 8 - 10:
Spent 3 days out in the field for the exercise, and it was more fun than I thought it would be! There wasn't the usual "wait to rush, rush to wait" anymore. We did things at a more relaxed pace, and everyone helped each other out. For the first time I saw team work in action. In the past, it used to be chiong to finish what you need to do, and then mind your own business (and avoid arrows as much as possible.)

The exercise itself was pretty interesting. I'm not at liberty to disclose the details, but quite a fair bit of scenarios were played out, and quite a few technologies were used. (Could roughly work out the storyline because I was manning comms at HQ for most of the exercise.)

The food was good too. You can't believe what we ate there. One of my camp mates actually brought in a gas stove (yes, a gas stove; not a bunsen burner mind you, a real gas stove, with a gas canister for fuel, and knobs to adjust the intensity of the fire) and a cooking pot to cook for all of us. So he managed to whip up hainanese chicken rice (with chinese sausage), chicken porridge, sharksfin soup (yesh, I know this one takes the cake) just to name a few. There was the usual canned food, and instant noodles to supplement the meals, and they really tasted pretty good. (Although anything would taste good compared to rations.)

This year they compressed the exercises a bit, and the second deployment ground was just next to my reservist camp, so we managed to wrap everything up in 2.5 days. Had a nice shower and headed back home to meet June. (Yay!)

Day 11:
Returned all our stores today. Wasn't too difficult. Tearing things down are always much easier than setting things up. :P Had a bit of rest in my bunk before the appreciation dinner that evening.

They shifted the dinner to Thu night from Fri night, which I think was a pretty good choice. Previously my camp mates had a mandatory one day rest to wait for the dinner before they could do their out processing.

Day 12:
Came back to do a survey, waited for them to check through the stock (which took quite a while), and did my out-processing. Managed to escape the lunch provided for us. The one thing that hasn't changed much is the quality of food served in camp. Depending on which layer your rice is, it either is too soggy or a little uncooked (same applies for vege and meat). The portions are just simply pathetic.

All in all, I would have to say that reservist was much more fun than I had expected it to be. There was the usual mandatory rest periods which let your brain cells degenerate rapidly if you were not careful, but it was still a pretty pleasant experience. Though I'm not exactly looking forward to the next one, I definately do not have as much ill feelings towards it as I used to.


** My S*F100 - the piece of paper they used to summon me into my greens - said I was supposed to report to A**C at Kr*nji Camp 2, but we simply couldn't find the place. Passerbys gave wildy differing instructions, and it took the driver some half hour and lots of turns to find the place. In the end, we found out that there was NO camp 2 (or there was camp 2), and A**C is in camp 3.

Interestingly, when I got to my admin office (after being directed from place to place), the admin staff asked me when I was supposed to come. Thinking that I've gotten myself into trouble, I muttered a sheepish, "Urm... 730?". The guy looked at me for quite a while before he said, "Oh, today ah?". So they were just expecting me to come in some time that day? :P