My First Horse Riding Lesson (in Malaysia)

On my birthday (Saturday), I woke just after the sun had risen to go to Malaysia for my first horse riding lesson with my friends. They were Christian, Ekklesia, Ariel, Ecclesia, Seraphina, Anastasia (a baby) and Noah (a toddler). The riding school we were going to was called Riders' Lodge. We had a long ride in our friend’s car. During the journey, we talked mostly about horses.

When we reached the riding school, we went to the stable to look at the horses. There were horses in every stall. The horses were of different colours. We saw that some horses were outside being ridden. We went out to look at other adults ride their horses while the smaller kids went for their pony rides.

We went to the reception area to get a drink. It was cold and sweet, just nice for a warm day. We drove out to find a coffee shop nearby to have lunch. When we came back from lunch, we went to the jacuzzi to play. I had a fun time playing with my friends.

After that we had a snack of biscuits. We went to look at the horses again and to write down the names of the horses. I found that the horse I would be riding was Snappy, Bailey's was Impian and mummy's was Kimba.

Snappy was a white-coated horse, Impian was brown and Kimba was white too. I was very scared not just because the horse was tall but because we saw a stranger crying and hurt. She had fallen down from her horse and was talking about her broken tooth. I was a little worried because Snappy sounded like a horse that might snap at me!

I got up Snappy by climbing up two steps on a wooden stair. At first, an instructor walked beside me. He gave me a whip to whip Snappy and then I controlled the horse alone. The instructor told me to sit up straight and hold the reins up. I had to kick Snappy with my heels to make him walk. I felt very tall, taller then Snappy. The instructor told me to stop the horse from walking by saying "whoa" and tugging at the reins at the same time. She told me to make the horse turn by kicking the opposite side and pulling the reins on the side I want to turn.

One by one we went to the centre of the corral (the fenced up area where we had our lesson) to practice trotting. We needed to stand up and down while we trotted. I was very wobbly. Snappy went very fast around the instructor. I felt like if Snappy went any faster, I would fall off!

In between our lesson, Seraphina had another pony ride. When she came back, we were not done with our lessons yet. So she went to feed the horses. Before we ended the lesson, we went out of the corral to ride around a pond nearby. Then the lesson ended.

When we got off our horses, took off our helmets and were walking back to the chairs beside the jacuzzi where the father s were siting, I saw Seraphina crying. Mummy told me that she was bitten by a horse on her arm when she wanted to feed it. That horse's name was Arterial. He is known to be very moody. We went to a room to comfort Seraphina and to put aloe vera on her bruised arm.

We drove for a long time to a restaurant and settled down to have a delicious dinner. After dinner, we played catching at a playground. Then we drove back home to Singapore. I enjoyed the day very much.

My TripTo Tioman Last Year

This post is copied from my journal. It happened last year in July.


On Sunday morning while it was still dark, I took a train to Kranji then hopped on a bus to go to the Singapore checkpoint. It was a short ride before we arrived at the Malaysian checkpoint. I then took another bus. In the bus I ate raisin bread and looked out of the bus window.

When we reached Mersing, we found a place to have lunch. While we were eating, my incisor dropped out!


After that, we waited to board a boat that will take us to Tioman. We waited for quite a long time. So, daddy and I went to explore the beach. I was worried that the boat will arrive while I was walking around. When the boat finally arrived, we boarded and put our big and heavy bags in a corner for bags. It was very cold inside the boat so daddy and I went up to the top deck which had a roof and railings. There were even seats to sit on but, all the seats were taken up. I took some photographs and one of them is now on the top of Bailey's ( my brother's ) blog. Up there, I looked out at the waves and the bright open sea.

When we reached, I was so excited that I ran out and looked in surprise because it was so beautiful. It was about to rain. We ran to a shelter just when the rain started. When the rain stopped we went to look for a chalet to rent. We were at a town called ABC where there were no air-con houses. We decided to go to another town beside ABC called Tekek. But Marina Park ("sea park" in Malay), the place we wanted to swim at was at ABC. Daddy said, "We will get a taxi when we want to go to Marina Park."

When we found a chalet with air-con beside the sea, we settled down and went out to see the beach and the shells.

For dinner we had seafood and sweet and sour chicken. In the night, we went to sleep in the room of mosquitoes.

The next day, the weather was good for playing on the beach. This is a picture of Bailey and I monkeying around outside our room's front porch railings.

In the middle of lunch, it rained but we were in the shelter. Our neighbour was going home on that day and he happened to be eating at the same place. So we talked to him while we waited for the rain to stop. We ate ice-cream after that for our dessert. Mine was green apple flavor. It was yummy! When the rain stopped we went back to the chalet. In the night we went out to look at the stars. When we were tired, we went to sleep in our chalet of mosquitoes.

In the morning we went to Marina Park to have some fun. We got a taxi to bring us there. When we reached Marina Park, we took off our clothes (we had our swim wear inside).

We swam and swam almost the whole day. For lunch we ate a burger. First we took a towel and dried ourselves, then we ate our burger. When we finished eating our burger we went to swim some more. After awhile, I was tired, so I rested.

We swam and swam for the whole day, before going to bathe. We walked back to the chalet. It took about an hours to walk back. We visited the newly built mariner on the way. There were many yachts parked there.

The next day we took the long journey back home to Singapore. This is a picture of us lying on the hammock outside our chalet before we left. Our chalet is right behind us.

Here's a videoclip from our trip.

Centipede

Centipede

I am slimy.
I am tiny.
I'm a burrower.
I’m a wriggler.
I’m a segmented, many-legged,
Shiny armoured, mighty stinger.

People hate me.
Want me dead!
Stamp their feet
And hit my head.
So I scare them with a bite,
From my poison claws all right!