Oh yeah, time to openly 'haolian' to
1. THE TK BAND! TAKE THAT HAHAHA!
2. VICTORIA SCHOOL CHOIR! HAHAHAHA!
Sorry. Exciting start.
I'm back from Russia!!!! FINALLY! After 5 grueling days of hard training and walking around and taking photos and sleeping, my mind is a bloody mess.
But it's allllll worth it.
Y'know why?
Let's start from the beginning.
PS: For once, i'm posting photos which include myself in them. Oh, i'm so freakin screwed^^.
DAY 1 (Tuesday)
Gather round people, step right up and board the airplane to certain doom.
Well, that's what I felt at first. An airplane straight to rock bottom.
Anyways, SQ flight, so it shouldn't be that bad. Took us 10 hours just to fly there, then 10 minutes to fly around the airport until clearence was given.
I watched some movies: Sky of Love: Someone I love is There, and CJ7.
Interesting, but I was bored anyway.
We arrived quite late, so once we got there, we immediately went through a freakin long customs check and boarded a bus to our hotel for 1 night.
It was quite comfy.
DAY 2 (Wednesday)
We got up early and moved to the airport early.
Once in St. Petersburg (where we didn';t have to go through customs for once), we boarded another bus to *ahem* the main group's hotel. Only 13 of us (including me) were not given a room.
We cramped into a small room and practiced for awhile, and when i heard the voices, i thought we were dead.
Anyways, the 13 of us were moved to a hotel that turned out to be a hostel, so we had to make do for 1 night.
DAY 3 (Thursday)
If i'm not wrong, today's the day of theopening ceremony.
We had to do Yuki Nohi, Ave Verum Corpus, and Yver, vous n'estes qu'un vilain.
All of them sucked. We went sharp in everything besides Ave Verum, and rushed in Y'ver.
Sigh....
OH. But this day had a plus side!
2 actually. One, while walking to the Winter Palace aka the Hermitage, (yes with that M there) we heard an accordianist play...
Majulah Singapura.
Yes, I know. What. The. Heck. Is. That. Guy. Thinking?
Was he hired or something?...
2.The 13 lucky us, (which is actually quite weird) were moved to a...
Ahem...
4STAR Hotel! 4STARS! 1,2,3,4!
It's called Park Inn, and because I'm still swamped with Homework now, I'm too lazy to show you the photos.
But they'll come in due time.
I think We also ate Macdonalds (Which looked like MacHoNalbs....seriously, it was weird.), but of course, no fries==
DAY 4 (Friday)
Marathon time!
All 7 choirs were to sing 3 songs.
We sung Yuki Nohi again, Meplalian, and our trump card, Bin nam ma.
We sucked again.
Yep, time to continue. (25/6) It was still quite messed up...and we were made to practice in the cold wind early that morning, due to our crap performance on the previous day.
DAY 5 (Saturday)
It's....the dreaded day. The day we trained hard and long for.
Competition Day.
We woke up early to get our voices warmed up...by singing our Open Mix songs: Bin-nam-ma, Y'ver and Ave Verum.
It was a straight on trip of singing and getting ready there, as we sung Crown Of Roses in the bus as well.
...oh.
Alright. So we settled down in the rehearsal hall. Just a red room with seats like an orchestra, but it works.
Practice and more practice.
At around 10 something, we were up. We readied ourselves, hugged each other and comforted each other, and walked into the performance hall quickly and nervously.
Showtime:
Y'ver was...out of tune. AGAIN. But did we care? NO. We didn't rush, and that's all that matters! Dynamics were also well heard! Woohoo.
Ave Verum....excellent to the singers. Slow and steady, in tune, and of course, dynamical.
Bin-nam-ma, our trump song.
Out of tune only at the end (but we Sops managed, miraculously. It was seriously as if my voice wanted to give way.), only a bbbiiiiittt of rush, and accents were well heard, I guess.
We then walked out....and as soon as we were out of view, walking up to our new room,...we were discussing mistakes all over.
We went down again after awhile to support NUS, who, incase you didn';t know, also participated. Then we went up. I *****, they were freakin amazing.
Mr Foong took over as we continued practicing for the folklore segment. We did have a muffin to eat, and Georgina kinda, forced me to take one from her. *Ifeelsoguilty--* 'nyways, we practiced and rested and whatnot for 1 hour, then our turn came.
Showtime(AGAIN):
Kerraban Sape, simply put, was rushed, not that powerful and a bit sharp.
Yuki Nohi was indeed terrible (as always, anyway). Flat, uncontrallable, but somewhat...brrrr.
Meplalian was the folklore's trump card. Actions which helped boost power and marks, kept us not too sharp and not rushed. Indeed, good.
Talktalktalk again, as if we'll need it for the next 1 month, and at that time...
All hell could have broken loose right there and then.
RESULTS:
O. M. G. Time for the crying or laughing, sobbing or hugging. It's that time we all know and love and hate all at the same time,....the results.
We waited for 1and a half hours for them to get ready --. At 1.40, the guys came up. Time for joy and sorrow.
And that beautiful threat of being headed on a downward path to total doom if we didn't get 2 golds.
Open Mix:....this was indeed scary. We were so scared of Y'ver, we thought we were more or less SCREWED!
NUS were 10 times better than us.
But...
"Tanjong Katong Secondary School Choir, with 100 points, earning a golden cup of Peter the Great!"
From that single '100', no longer would you want to bother hearing the rest. A high gold, we won. And with a perfect score. You could really see Mr Kwei smiling all the way through. (Of course, NUS's Results were before us and unsurprisingly, they got perf too, AND OF COURSE WE CHEERED! SINGAPORE ROCKS!!)
It took a while for us to cool down, but everything was not happy yet. One little slip, and we're downhill from there.
Folklore: The real worry. Took us a while to finally get there, but it was being read out.
"Tanjong Katong Secondary School Choir, with a score of 96 points, earning a golden cup of Peter the Great!"
And that was it. The celebrations started from there on. The fate of the TK Choir was sealed for another year. We're safe.
Mr Fong was obviously smiling too much for his face, andjoyohjoy, so were we. Everyone in the concert hall (even those from USA, Poland, Czech...) was cheering for EVERYONE. And I Mean EVERYONE.
NUS and TK were literally screaming it all out. Some were crying, some were jumping, some were hugging, some were grabbing the cup like it was a dubloon, some were snapping shots of the cup with their friends; it was awesome.
It was better than Pattaya, as we were category champions for BOTH CATEGORIES THIS TIME! (Of course, there's the tie with NUS)...
I love this freakin place.
2nd part of the day...(Saturday)
After all that, we got changed into 'comftable clothing', and ate some Subway sandwiches, and suddenly, i don't remember where we went....OH YEAH. We went to a souvenir shop!
Northend, they calll it, and they have all kinds of crap there. Russian Dolls, Egg Decos, anything they have in Russia, you name it they got it.
Then we went to eat dinner at....I forgot. SCREW THIS!
Final Day (Sunday)
Awesome. One more day to home sweet home.
First stop? THE AIRPORT!
From St. Pete's to Moscow (aka Domodemodo Airport (DME)), then to the (freakin cold) Red Square. it's seriously Red. NOT BLOOD, DAMMIT!
Anyways, it's so cold there, everyone's hands were in pockets, no kiddin.
And Olivia, was VERY busy, taking candid shots.
VERY.
Geez, Liv, get a life.
Anyways, I ATE ICE-CREAM! WHEEE.
And then it was the one-way trip back to Domodemodo.
It took us 1 hour to go through checkin (in which time Mr Foong played his PSP YET AGAIN.), and another 30 minutes to shop for snacks, and 1 hour to wait for the plane to clean itself up from Houston ==...
But we were all on the plane back soon enough. BUT THE KRISWORLD SUCKED! Radio was only played when you were in that menu, and movies were messed up. But I watched Vantage Point, Cloverfield and slept all the same.
I'm going Home...(Monday)
Woke up, looked around. I think it was 8 am, because everyone was still sleeping but the sun was up.
Joy.
Back at Changi Airport (with a Terminal change of T2 to T3), we were greeted by Mr Lee and the IT guy, and some parents who just continued clapping like we just came back from an important event. As in, worldwide level.
Heh.
We sung Kerraban Sape one more time by Mdm Goo's suggestion (though we SERIOUSLY wanted to sing Bin-Nam-Ma) and went home happy.
I Love TK Choir. No one of you can change that.
Sopranos rock! I'm still one, so stop saying I've broekn voice! IT's HURTFUL == in some way.
EDIT 26/6: Sorry! Photos still taking some time. Mostly because i'm too lazy, but also becuz of homework! screw homework! =3
Memory Files Preserved at... 1:06 PM
!? Sorry, but i have seriously been too lazy to post for the last 2 weeks.
Firstly, i guess i'm gonna have to talk bout my CH trip.
1st Day (Saturday)
Wake up early in the morning (earlier than usual) and go to school not knowing much of the details. Like I care. So there was Wen Cai, Adam and 2 other guys playing....stuff. Again.
Alright, the crowd of 40 slowly comes in, and we get briefed by Ms Liz (who isn't coming?! WTH?!)
Anyways, get on the bus, and prepare for a supposedly 10-hour long ride. ...Yeah right.
It took us about 40 minutes to get to the Tuas checkpoint, we go through Causeway, and go past Malaysia Checkpoint, and then we move towards CH.
I remembered stuff about Kota Tinggi then.
Once we reached the mountains (which freakin took us 8 hours to reach!) Some people started snapping cams away. Including me. But I'm too lazy to post pics now, so...
Anyways, quite a dangerous climb. There was no railing, it was actually rainin sometimes, and....heightophobia.
It took us 6 hours to climb that highland. Then we got caught in a traffic jam which took us 1 hour to break out of.
Then we stopped for directions for 10 minutes.
Then we ate dinner at a restaurant for more time.
We reached the hotel at 10 freakin pm.
2nd Day (Sunday)Thanks to Kim Seng, I managed to wake up early.
so i took a quick bath....and changed and went down for the breakfast menu.
Not bad, but not too good either.
Anyway, we then moved for the Tea Plantation.
The 'BOH' Tea Plantation.
Interesting way they have of doing tea extraction. I bought a pack of ice blackcurrant tea too...
Next was the Rose Garden, where I was absolutely lost, until I found 2D hanging up at the peak of the mountains, and then as I was going down, Panda came up. So I stayed with him for the next few minutes, enjoying the breeze.
Lunch, then the Bee Garden.
Boring.
Nothing to talk about.
AH, the fun part! Shopping for crap in the local market!
But they have good stuff, really. I bought a jacket for myself. Thickkkk
And some food.
Dinner, then another trip back to the hotel and sleep.
3rd Day (Monday)ONOS. Lucky for me I packed my bag the day b4.
So put it in the bus, climb up, miss a group photo T_T and go on back down the dangerous mountain.
7 freakin hours.
you know the rest.
we stopped at KL for lunch, then proceeded straight for SG.
NEXT.
My RHYA trip.
Man, what a tiring trip.
Okay, it was a camp really.
1st Day (2nd day for the rest) Tuesday
I skipped the first day due to my arrival from MY.
So when I came, i was greeted warmly by dunno who.
Then introduced to my group, the Yellow group, Group 3, Gladiators.
Wootawootawootawoot.
First thing i see? Project Discussion.
I help out a bit, then we move for....lunch. I get a bottle and some bandana (which i wore around my neck).
So...i was new and everything and was lost. XD
Then we returned to our rooms and got all the stuff for outdoor camping.
But due to wet weather, it was indoor camping in the MPH.
LOL. So much for plans.
And also, the cooking by ourselves part.
SPAGHETTIIIIIII
I helped by opening and closing the lid. I'm useless T_T
2nd Day (3rd Day) Wednesday
Cook our own breakfast as well. My team did egg with hotdog, and...i forgot. And we put it in bread. Delicious.
Community Drumming aka BEST PART OF DAY EVA.
Drum to our own beat, and just whack anything we wish.
Fun, really.
Hip-Hop Workshop aka the no-one-gives-a-damn-about-it activity.
I was like one of the only few people dancing well.
Also, at the end, Shahrul, you rock dude. Who knew you could break that well?
During lunch today, I saw a familiar face...
A trainer from Kota Tinggi aka my Sec 2 Cohort Camp.
Not mine, though, I just said hi.
And how could I forget the Campfire!?
It was awesome.
I lost my voice, I'm sure.
3rd Day (4th for the rest) Thursday
Pack up the tents and move quickly for that 2 hour break!
We were promised that if we packed everything up nicely from 0900 to 1040
Which we did.
I was the only guy helping out with clearing the campfire, with the exception of Shahrul and Aydyl (and another trainer). The rest were girls.
Geez, thanks guys.
Nothing else today....it was just preparing for the Graduation Ceremony.
4th and last Day (5th for the rest) Friday
Graduation Ceremony....
Not much of a good thing.
Normal stuff, really.
But after tea, that was the emotional part.
We were all crying and hugging each other.
After all, it's almost goodbye.
...
I can't say anymore. It's too heartbreakin sometimes.
Memory Files Preserved at... 4:57 PM
