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"The Sound of Water" by Christal Teoh

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Over the long weekend, my friends and I thought it would be fun to go on a hike to a waterfall. The hike was about an hour and a half from Permai Gardens. The only issue was that we did not know the trail. This should’ve been our first red flag, but we trusted in our sense of direction to get us there. We thought it would be fine as long as we knew where the start was and what we were heading towards. The plan was simple: start the hike at 9:30 am, hike an hour and a half to the waterfall, spend some time there, hike back out, and eat lunch together at the Permai Stalls. There should not have been any complications, or so we thought…

The day did not start off to plan; some miscommunications led us to start the hike at 10:30 am, partly because of Suyoung Lim’s (12) genius idea to go to the Astaka Stalls instead of the Permai Stalls. We also thought it was a good idea not to have breakfast before the hike. 

Fifteen minutes in, we faced our first fork in the road. We did not know whether to go left or right. JD Guffy (12) told us to go left instead of right. He was wrong. After a while, we were getting weary. It had been about an hour and a half since we left, and by now we should've encountered some signs of the waterfall being near, but there were none. We were lost. 

Hungry and discouraged, we stopped and came up with a new game plan. To our surprise, Apple Maps had hiking trails recorded. We found a trail that seemed to lead to a waterfall and decided to follow it. As we continued our hike, we could not escape the bad luck. Nayoung Ko (12) fell and cut open her knee, and Jane Lee’s (12) huge blister popped, exposing raw flesh on her heel. In addition to our injuries, Suyoung, Logan, Nayoung, and I were unlucky enough to walk through a swarm of what we assume were biting midges, each bug leaving a bite that stung like endless needles poking into your skin. The whole hike was 7 teenagers vs nature; it felt like we were on an episode of Survivor. 


 At that point, it was already 1:30 pm, and we did not have the energy to hike any further; we were battling grumbling stomachs and dehydration. But miraculously, we heard the sound of water, like a beacon of hope calling us through the forest. However, as we approached the waterfall, we realised that it was incredibly underwhelming; it looked nothing like the waterfall we were supposed to hike to. Still, we decided to spend some time at the waterfall. Morale was down; we were lost in the forest for 3.5 hours, only to end up at a mediocre waterfall. It was nothing as we had expected. We left through a different route and ended up at the Botanical Gardens. By the time we exited, it was 2:30 pm. Everyone was hangry, defeated, and scarred from that horrid experience. As we finally sat down for our first meal of the day, we felt even more bonded. Lee Yan Tan (12) says, “Even though the hike did not go to plan at all, at least we did it together. It was definitely an unforgettable memory.”

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