Friday, May 20, 2011

Green Day

We spent the Labour day holiday the other day at Janda Baik for a green retreat. It was such a beautiful place; so green and peaceful. There were birds chirping, river flowing, cool breeze, lush green trees... I miss the place already!



Once in a while it's nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of concrete jungle, and into the actual jungle. It made me realize how important it is to preserve these beauties. It's great there's Earth Day and other "green" campaigns to raise public awareness about the importance of saving the environment.

Sloggi, the underwear brand, also launched their own Love World campaign the other day, with partners TrEES and the Forestry Department of Selangor. It was held at Sungai Tekala Recreational Forest in Hulu Langat, which is the third largest forest park in Peninsular Malaysia.




The aim of this campaign was to create awareness on the importance of saving the rainforest, as well as showing our love and appreciation for the environment.


Welcome speech by the Director of TrEES, Christa Hashim



We had a mini jungle trekking shortly after that! FYI, that wasn't my first time masuk hutan. I've jungle-trekked a few times and the earliest was at a Summer Camp by Dr. Hassan Ali when I was about 9. Seronok, except for the leeches part! I've been bitten by leeches a few times in my life and the scariest one was on my tummy! *shudders*

But don't worry, no one was attacked by leeches that day (thank God it didn't rain!).


We were each given this to protect ourselves from mosquitoes.
It worked! For me, at least.


Say hi to Audrey!


That's Joyce.


Everything is so greeeeeeeen!




Of course I wasn't wearing heels ;p


There were tiny flowers growing on the ground.
So nice!


Oh, did you know the age of a tree can be determined by measuring the circumference of the trunk in inches? Let say if the circumference of a tree trunk is 50 inches, the tree is approximately 50 years old.

If human age is determined the same way (waist circumference), I'd be....

I'd be....

Oh gee. I'm not gonna tell you. But I'd be older than I am now, that's for sure.
So fat one! *cries*

This tree is about 80 years old!


Cindy just added years to this tree's age ;p




With Ceera




I've heard of pokok Merbau, Meranti, Jati, etc before but never knew what they looked like until that day...


That Meranti tree is really old. Almost 100 years if I'm not mistaken!


Pokok petai pun ada!


Saw a river on our way back


The trail walk took about 30 minutes.

And then we planted a tree! I've never planted a tree before so that was actually my first time.

I don't even know if I'm holding the spade correctly
(Umm...that white thing is called a spade, right?)



I think I burned a lot of calories that day! :) It felt great too, to be able to give something back to mother nature.

You know, if every one of us do our part to save the environment, the benefits for our earth will quickly add up! How about challenging yourself to do something green for a week? Do something different everyday and maintain that change for at least a week. It's a start to something good!

I already participated in the 7-day challenge:

Day 1: Limit the usage of aircond.
I usually turn on the aircond at 10pm and only turn it off at 10am the next day. That's 12 hours daily! But starting 25th April, I only limit it to 7-8 hours. It was hard at first, but we're trying to get used to it.

Day 2: Save water
I still remember my mom used to nag when she saw me washing the dishes when I was younger. "Jangan membazir air! Tutup air, basuh semua pinggan mangkuk dengan sabun dulu, baru bilas semua sekali harung. Buka air perlahan, tak payah buka besar-besar. Tengok orang susah takde air macam mana, bla bla bla". She can lecture me about water for an hour I tell you! Same goes to laundry. But it's good that I have a "green mom" because thanks to her "lectures", I now know how to save water when doing the dishes and only do laundry when I have a full load!

Day 3: Save electricity
This one is the same as above. And I've actually taught my kid! When no one is in the living room and the TV is on, Ayra would turn it off without me telling her to do so. It's never too early to teach the kids!

Day 4: Stop paper bank statements
We can save hundreds of trees a year if we cancel the monthly paper statements and opt for electronic statements instead. I even stop buying newspapers and just read them online. Everything is online nowadays! You can even opt for e-books instead of books!

Day 5: Use reusable water bottle
My husband and I started bringing our own reusable water bottle instead of buying bottled mineral water when we're out and about. There are a lot of cute ones and BPA-free!

Day 6: Use eco-friendly shopping bag
Saturday is a no-plastic-bag day at most supermarkets and I usually do my grocery shopping on that day. I love using my reusable shopping bags, not only for groceries. They're cute and you can actually save the world in style!

Day 7: Enjoy the nature
How can you love something if you don't enjoy it, right? Go somewhere with a beautiful scenery. The beach, the hills, the waterfall, the lake, etc. Get in touch with nature - literally! As I mentioned earlier, we went for a trip to Janda Baik and the view is breathtaking. When you love something, you'd want to help preserve it!


Doing something green is actually not as hard as I thought. I hope I can make it a habit of the things I did for the past 7 days because the simplest things we do have a great impact on our earth!

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She slipped off her pink stilettos at 10:00 AM |





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