Our trip to Bintan(Indonesia)

Last week, My family and I went to Bintan for a holiday. We boarded the ferry called Aria Bupala ". During the ride, I felt very seasick. I guessed the waves were a little more choppy this time.

This is a picture of my brothers and I seating at the top deck of the ferry.

When we reached the hotel, daddy went to the reception to check in. Our room numbers were 1037 and 1035. In the room, my brothers and I quickly changed into my swimming shorts so that I could go and swim in the pool immediately! But when we reached the pool, I found out that the pool was not what I had expected because there were no slides, only a basketball net. I felt disappointed. A while later, we decided to head to the beach. The beach was my favourite place because there were so many black-striped fish, mudskippers and lots of crabs swimming in the stream that led out to the sea. After playing at the beach and climbing large boulders for a while, I decided to explore the stream further. We were so surprised when we spotted a Monitor Lizard!!! Below are some pictures of what we saw at the stream.

The monitor lizard

Mudskippers

The next day, we went to the beach again after breakfast. This time I saw more fish than yesterday. But they were swimming very fast. So, I could not catch any at all. In tthe afternoon, we went to another swimming pool which had a slide, but was not slippery. We ended up walking down the slide instead of sliding down. Daddy, Jabez and I also played table tennis which was fun, but difficult to play. In the evening, we went to the beach again. But this time I managed to catch a small black fish in a rock pool! I was so excited and went to show daddy and mummy my catch. After that, I released the fish back to the sea. I also saw a school of big fish. But they were too big and fast for me to catch. Later, my brothers and I built a dam to try and block the water current. We used rocks and sand to build it.

Our brother Nat wanted to help too! But he ended up destroying our dam.

After building the dam which did not really work, the 3 of us climbed the large boulders again. Jabez and I found some rocks that we thought might be a granite and a geodeo!! As it was low tide , so we could make our way down to a big rock pool where we found more fish and some BIg crabs!

The black spot under the rock is a black crab hiding under a rock.

This is a picture of the 4 of us in the big rock pool

After dinner, we went to take a stroll at the beach. The sky was filled with many stars as the beach was very dark. It was a breath-taking night scene! We spotted 'The Orion' . Actually it was daddy who saw it because I did not know much about star constellations. I enjoyed the night stroll at the beach and listening to the waves splashing.

On the last day, right after breakfast, we went to check our dam. Although it was low-tide, but the water actually covered the whole dam!! We decided to move to the beach and enjoy the gentle waves and swim in the cooling water for a while. By about noon time, we had to return back to our room and get ready to check out. I was sad to leave Bintan, but happy to return home to Singapore. I had a memorable vacation.

Making my first Crossbow

Yesterday, I decided to make a Crossbow. I got the idea from a T.V programme called the Mythbusters on Discovery Channel. The programme is about people who heard of stories and try to make them true. For example Archimedes built a big shield with lots of glass pieces to reflect sun rays to burn down the Roman ships. So, the Mythbusters would try to build what Archimedes built to destroy a ship. This time, the Mythbusters tried to make a Crossbow out of paper and homemade glue and this project worked! I was fascinated by this creation; that they could make actually such a strong crossbow out of flimsy paper! That was why I decided to try and make a Crossbow. These are the steps:

How to make a Crossbow

Things you need:

1. two rubberbands
2. string

3. double sided tape

4. a pair of scissors

5. musking tape

6.wooden chopsticks

7. ice cream sticks.

8. paint(any colour you like)

Steps

1. First, tie two wooden chopsticks together.


2. Then, using a double sided tape and string, attach a ice cream stick to the middle of the pair of wooden chopsticks.


3. Next, use the musking tape to join four ice cream sticks to the first ice cream stick. It should look like a long house.


4. Then, tie one rubberband to each end side of the crossbow. (you might want to use the musking tape to secure the rubberbands)


5. Lastly tie a string to each end of the rubberband with a short piece of string. The string should be about 20 to 30cm.

Optional: You can use the rest of the ice-cream sticks to extend the length of where the arrow would be before fired.

Caution!

do not shoot the arrow at someone. Or Else!

Your Crossbow should look like this