YEP 6 Camp Mongolia Day 3
Day 3 – Blog written by Inge and Raghav
Today, after waking to the soothing sound of the South African vuvuzela, we put on our jogging kit, grabbed our costumes and towels, and headed over to the local pool, an olympic sized outdoor pool. It was a huge relief to find that the water wasn’t too cold, although our unfortunate water-camera-man, Simon, might disagree. After a really fun swimming session, consisting of races, challenges, survival and fun, we jogged back home for our breakfast (and not a moment too soon ‘cause we were all pretty hungry by then!)
After breakfast we were introduced to two representative eco-driving instructors from Mercedes-Benz who, in addition to giving us loads of awesome gifts, gave us a very interesting presentation on eco-friendly driving, fuel effeciency, blue-tech, their new S400 hybrid, and the F-Cell prototype.
After our presentations our groups (or those with driver’s licences at least) got a chance to drive with the driving instructors and compare our fuel effeciency from before our eco-effeciency lecture and of course, a bit of healthy competition. Martin had the highest decrease in fuel consumption and C02 emmisions, with Lucas and Magdalena having second and third most respectively and Constantin had the best average, which really means he had the best fuel effeciency.
Although driving with the instructors was a really great experience, the highlight of the day for most of us was definitely driving the F-Cell, worth roughly one million euros and of which there are only 200 available in the world. We were pretty nervous to drive the cars, « fuelled by » a combination of driving on the « wrong side of the road », driving a hugely expensive car and of course driving on the narrowest roads EVER, however, after feeling how smooth and quiet and all in all amazing it was to drive, our nerves were settled and we could take in all that the car had to offer. The F-Cell truly combines luxury, performance and an eco-friendly philosophy. I definitely know what I’m saving up for next !
Someone rightly said that ,’ Those who think they do not have enough time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness’. Today was the day when we realized the importance of fitness. It started off in the evening with Martin leading us to do wall climbing. It turned out to be quite an interesting sport for most of us especially the ones like me who were doing it for the first time. What is the most amazing part of this sport is that it works out all our body muscles, at the same time as improving body co-ordination and control.
After an hour of wall climbing and dinner, we had a wonderful interactive session with experts from Mayo clinic who had flown in all the way from the US. We were shown presentations about a number of relevant topics. Firstly, we discussed about the fitness tests that are going to be conducted tomorrow and what all factors we will be evaluated for. Secondly, we were explained what fitness is all about and its vitality in our daily lives. Thirdly, we discussed, about the effects of dehydration and controlling the level of water and sodium in the body. After that, came the discussion about obesity and its spread in various countries and its relation to climate change and industrialization. We learnt quite a lot about how it affects our lives and how we can counter that. At last, we performed an amazing activity, generating electricity by pedaling and using it to power various electronic devices.
At 10.30 we called it day, and went to bed in anticipation of another amazing day in Chàteau-D’Oex.