Shanghai - Day 3

(Travelled date : 31 Oct 2012)


Day 3 was our last day in Shanghai.

In the morning, after our lousy breakfast near the hotel, we took a taxi to one of  the most prominent landmarks of Shanghai - The Oriental Pearl TV tower.

On the way, we saw how the Shanghainese go to work in the morning. Ladies in nice outfit riding motorcycles wearing high heels which is a "never-seen-before" in Malaysia. In Taiwan, we did come across this scene, lots of Ladies riding in motorcycles. The motorcycles must be their mode of transport. We are the lucky lots, majority can afford at least a national car.

Going to work....

Well, after about 20mins of busy traffic, we were at the other end of Huangpu river from the Bund.

Oriental Pearl is a Radio and TV Tower. 

Viewing deck at 2nd sphere, 263m high.

Pa purchased the ticket and off we went inside to the building to queue for the lift up. Once we were up there in the observation deck, we were greeted with the view of Shanghai concrete jungle with all the tall buildings soaring up towards the sky.



What a concrete jungle!

Skyscrapers!

Huangpu River from the top. What a sight!

We then went one floor down to the awaiting Glass Deck. This is really mind blowing! Both the flooring and the wall are transparent! The wind was blowing through the open area and the temperature was quite low, it was cold!



Pa, standing "on air"!

It was not a big problem for me. I could just stepped directly into the deck, though a little scared.  The experience was one of the kind and wonderful!  Walking on something which is transparent and high. I felt like I was on top of the world.

Sitting down.....having fun

Us, looking down....

Facing down......enjoying the thrill!!

Mi was very scared at the beginning. She needed to hold on to my hand. But after a few steps and she was fine. We really enjoyed ourselves up there. Well, a lot of people up there also were scared of the height. We saw a man holding on tight to the railing and moved inch by inch with real difficulty.

 

After spending quite a while there, we went down to the museum located on the ground floor. The museum is very interesting with the history of Shanghai city.

 

 

Without us realizing, it was already way passed the lunch time when we finished. No wonder everyone was hungry. We then took a cab to the Yu Garden again . There we took our lunch and visited the temple .

Lunch, Xiao long bao of course!

 

 



 Yu Garden is very different in the day time. It was packed with tourists around the world.

Comfortable seat
 

The speed indicator.

It was then time to say goodbye to our short and brief visit to Shanghai city. We walked to the hotel to retrieve our luggage and off we went to the station to take the bullet train to Nanjing, our next stop. 

 
 

Percy Jackson

My love for Greek Mythology is huge. Especially the 12 Greek Gods, among them are the big 3: Zeus, King of Gods. Poseidon, God of sea and Hades, God of Underworld. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades are brothers. After the World War 2, the big three swore on their oath, to never have any children with the mortals. But Zeus and Poseidon broke it, Hades had 2 children before the oath, so he didn't break it. However, Hades is excluded in the 12 Greek Gods because he's the god of Underworld and he never visit Mount Olympus.

The other 8 gods were known as Hera, queen of gods, goddess of marriage, birth and women. Demeter, goddess of harvest and fertility of the earth. Athena, goddess of wisdom, warfare and divine intelligence. Dionysus, god of wine. Apollo, god of sun, music and poetry. Artemis, goddess of hunt and moon. Ares, god of war. Aphrodite, goddess of love. Hephaestus, god of fire. Hermes, messenger of gods, god of thieves. 

Zeus had a daughter, Thalia Grace, whilst Poseidon had a son, Percy Jackson.

PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF - BOOK ONE
Percy Jackson had to go to Camp Half-Blood as soon as he got attacked by a Minotaur. Grover, his best friend, a satyr and his mum drove Percy to Camp Half-Blood. Percy discovered his ability and managed to kill the Minotaur and retrieved its horn. Soon after his very first game of capture-the-flag, and his encounter with his rival, Clarisse, daughter of Ares, he was claimed by his father, Poseidon, god of sea. He was set to go on a quest to find Zeus's missing lightning bolt along with Grover, the satyr and Annabeth, daughter of Athena.

PERCY JACKSON AND THE SEA OF MONSTER - BOOK TWO

Grover was missing. Grover contacted Percy through their telepathy link, he was held in captive by a Cyclop. Grover was captured by the cyclops while he was searching for Pan, god of wild and satyrs. And now Camp Half-Blood is under attack, Thalia's tree is dying. Luke poisoned the tree. Percy has to get the Golden Fleece in order to save Camp Half-Blood. Problem is, he wasn't assign on this quest. Clarisse was. Percy, Annabeth and Tyson, Percy's cyclop brother still went on the quest to save Grover. Grover was rescued and the camp was saved. The most shocking thing was that Thalia had come alive, she wasn't a tree anymore (she died and her father, Zeus, turned her into a tree to preserve her soul). The daughter of Zeus came alive once more.

PERCY JACKSON AND THE TITAN'S CURSE -BOOK THREE

Annabeth went missing, Artemis was chained up. And this time, 5 campers will rescue Artemis. Thalia, Grover, Percy and two Artemis's huntress, Zoe and Bianca. Bianca and Nico Di Angelo were the children of Hades but Bianca joined Artemis and the huntress. The Oracle predicted that not everyone will be safe. Bianca died sacrificing herself to defeat a monster. Zoe was killed by her own father, Atlas, the titan. Annabeth was captured by Luke and Artemis was supporting the weight of the sky. Luke was thrown over the edge of Mount Othrys. But he was still alive after the god's party upon the demigod's victory. 

PERCY JACKSON AND THE BATTLE OF LABYRINTH -BOOK FOUR

Luke wants revenge now. He and his army planned to invade Camp Half-blood via an ancient labyrinth created by Hephaestus. Percy, Grover, Annabeth and Tyson(Percy's cyclops brother) were set into the labyrinth to find Daedalus's workshop before Luke does. With the help of Briares, a.k.a. the Hundred-handed one cyclops and Hephaestus, God of fire and forges. Meanwhile, Grover was also on a quest to find the lost god, Pan. Pan spoke to Grover in the labyrinth, he asked Grover to tell the other satyrs that he is dead. The labyrinth had to be destroyed, and Daedalus is willing to die along with the labyrinth. Both of them are connected as one because Daedalus created the labyrinth. 

PERCY JACKSON AND THE LAST OLYMPIAN -BOOK FIVE 
THE FINAL BOOK OF PERCY JACKSON SERIES
Percy Jackson is turning sixteen and the fate of the whole world depends on him. Kronos (or Luke since he gave his body as a host to Kronos) is strong now and he is preparing for the final battle. And the awful Typhon is heading their way. The gods are busy batting with Typhon while camp half-blood prepares for Kronos. Problem is, they are only 40 campers against hundreds of enemies. Percy found out that Luke bathed in the River Styx, down in the Underworld. That is why Kronos was so strong. Percy ended up bathing in the River Styx as well, but before he bathed, he had to choose a weak spot on his body. He chose his lower back, one strike at that spot and he's dead. Everyone battled, Thalia and the hunters, even Clarisse and her cabin. The enemies were strong, but the campers were stronger. Percy and Annabeth was then faced to faced with Luke. He's soul is poisoned by Kronos. He told Percy that he must be perished in order for Kronos to die. Since Luke is in his body form. Percy handed Annebeth's blade to Luke and Luke stabbed himself in the weak spot, killing him and Kronos.
Back at Olympus, the heroes were rewarded. Percy got to talk to his dad and Athena. Though Athena warned Percy to stay away from her daughter, Annabeth. Percy and Annabeth were happy together and they went back to camp half-blood, awaiting their next quest.

Wetworld Shah Alam : School trip

Last Tuesday, the form 4 and form 5s in our school had to go to Wet World Shah Alam to carry over experiments. We form 4s has our physics coursework to do : construct an experiment involving water. My group had a simple experiment; how does the arch of the sail affect the time taken for the boat to slide down the slide. Unfortunately, we had to do it 5 times and 5 times each, a total of 25 times and the most troublesome part is that one of us had to go down and take the boat and go back to the top of the slide.

On the other hand, the form 5s had their add maths coursework to do. Those who didn't take add maths, did a physics activity. So most of the form 5s finished their activity before us.

After we're done with our coursework we get to play :D

Around 12pm, my group finished our coursework and went to play. My first ride was a slide, kheng yue, Yiting and I went down the slide but we were stuck halfway so we had to push ourselves. There was a little "tradition" that day was the day where students get to push teachers down the slide and the teachers would take revenge.

I was chilling at the pool with my fellow friends/classmates when I saw Tr Pui Khe, my accounts teacher. Shim and I (the only accounting students from my class aside Chiao You) decided to push her down. We sneaked up on her, I jumped and pull her down to the water. Of course, both of us were laughing but cher Pui khe was unamused.

She pulled me  and kheng yue along to the same slide we went earlier. We hung out for a while. There were tubes (you know the 2 person floaties for some slides) yeah, for us to rent. Many students were carrying it around. Kheng Yue and I were so tempted. The tubes were Rm20, another Rm 20 for deposit.

Once we got the tubes, we tried out every single slide. We had a warm up slide, it was small, dark. Nothing much. We walked further in where the other slides were. There was a super long one for tubes but it was closed for maintenance. :(

We went to a long slide where a number of tubes had to go together. It was a flat and smooth slide. We placed our tubes down, when the time comes, there was a huge water pushing us from the back. It was fast, there were also vines halfway through. We rode that slide for several times because there wasn't much slides.

One time, Yiting, dylan, kheng yue and I went together. Who knows, Tr William and Tr Alex were at the end of the slide. Kheng yue and I were the first tube to reach the end. Both of them looked suspicious, I asked them what were they doing. Tr William, with his all-time serious face, answered they had to make sure they clear the path so no one got hurt. Silly me fell into their trap, they flipped our tube and we fell into the water. The other tubes knew what happened and they got up and ran away.

Then we saw the vortex slide, the one where you go in circles, similar to vuvuzela. I never saw this one before but I heard of it, so I was excited.

It was really fast, I screamed because... why not? :D the whole tube went sideways and we exited to the open. It was a big "cup" we went around it 3 times before exiting it. Unlucky for me, I sat at the back of the tube. And we exited backwards so I was the first who went down backwards. It was fun really. We sat this for several times too because it was fun and we got nothing else to do :/ I got pushed down from the tubes many times by my friends.

At 3pm, we changed and returned our floats. The bathroom wasn't that bad as what they had said. I was devastated when I saw my really tan skin. You can obviously see the sleeve mark of my shirt :(

The tan was worth it if you ask me, haha. I had loads of fun. Can't wait for next year's wetworld trip again.

Fin.

A Mask Fantasia

It all started bad. We didn't have a story or a plot. We had trouble and arguments. We were the worst group. We disappointed the teachers. A lot of us didn't show up for practices. But we hardcore at the end. 3 years of drama experience comes down to this day.
July 21st

A Mask Fantasia. Sirius Scholar production. This was our big theatre showcase for this year. We were performing in KLPAC (Kuala Lumpur Perofmeing Arts Centre) a professional stage.

6 months ago, our group had trouble, I could make out that most of us don't have the interest in it. How disappointing. Soon we had our story:

The story takes place in the 90s similar to the Noir film. Colours were missing from the world. The colours Black and White paid a witch to kidnap the primary colours, Red, Blue and Yellow. The Secondary Colours, Green, Orange, Purple and Brown hired the famous Detective Conor to investigate this case.

I played as the character Blue with David as Yellow and Liesl as Red. Adam was our detective and Yiting was the witch. Black and White were played by Kheng Yue and Ashley.

Lucky for us, we had an awesome, dramatic senior to help us out, we call him by the name of Fufu. Fufu was really nice to work with, he helped us with our character. But sometimes we went a little overboard with him.

21st July
PERFORMANCE DAY
The bus took us from pts to KLPAC. KLPAC is big. There is a field where stalls are set up. We went to our stage. It was so professional, the seats were like those in cinemas, there were doors and floating windows to make it more fantasy-like.   

There were 2 performances that day. One on the afternoon and one at night. Basically we have to perform twice in a day. :) 

Some of us finally got our hands on our costumes by lunch time. Mine was a beautiful strapless, long, dark blue dress, the front was shorter than the back. The other colours got their costumes as well. Liesl's was a red bollywood-ish dress and David's was a yellow coat with yellow pants. Tr Erica gave us hair spray and wanted us to spray our hair to our respective colours to make it more realistic. 

As Black, Kheng Yue wore a black trench coat and White, Ashley wore a short, white dress with a white fan. Liesl had a big red ribbon-pin. While I had a blue feather pin. 

3pm

Performance time!~

Doors open at 3pm sharp. The form 2s group went first. Still Life, Madness (form 2s), Beyond, Contrast (form 4s *I'm in Contrast*) then Fractured (form 5s). Contrast waited in dressing room 2 with Fufu. I wasn't that nervous as I know that the afternoon one wasn't really that scary as the night one. All the groups were good. My favourite was Fractured. Beyond was beautiful. 

STILL LIFE was about a few friends who were playing football. The football was kicked into a store. The captain went into the store to retrieve the ball, who knows mannequins came alive and captured the captain turning him into a mannequin. His friends found him but were captured as well. One of the mannequin helped them escape. And they escaped. 

MADNESS was about zombies. A detective was set to find a missing guy but ended up in the middle of a zombie chaos.

BEYOND was a beautiful, touching piece. Miranda had entered the Mirror World to find her father. The Hush welcomed her but were stopped by Illusious, ruler of Reflected. Miranda found her father but they can't escape together because the father created the Mirror World. This piece had myself and the audience in tears.

CONTRAST(ours) colours were missing from world. Detective Conor was hired by the secondary Colours to find the primary colours who were captured by the witch. Black and White paid the witch to captured them because people forgot about black and white when the colours come to the world.

FRACTURED was a deep,creepy play. John's life was never perfect. He was haunted by the 7 deadly sins. The leader of the sins (not sure about the name) takes John back to his past life, he was killed by the sins in the end. It gave me the chills and this was my favourite piece and it was a good end to Mask Fantasia.

6pm
We get yelled
I was worried about our play. Most of the teachers went to watch us in the afternoon play but half of the seats were filled. Teacher Erica, Weiyan, Reuben called us in.

Apparently, we did badly for the play. We did not had time to practice with the sound and light. There wasn't any tech-run. Form 2s energy was low. Beyond was beautiful, expected, with Bryan's work. Our play was the 2nd favoured by the audience. We were all happy and proud because we were the worst group. Fufu was proud too. But Fractured had a slow pacing and was a mess up. I was surprised because that was the best group aside Beyond.

With 2 hours to our night performance. We got dressed and did our final touch-up. With our hair spray and body paint. 2 hours passed by fast.

8pm
Doors opened
It was a full house at night. Contrast were in the dressing room, alone. Fufu got us into our character for the last time. We were at the very last stage. Our last owrodan in KLPAC. Soon, Still Life came back. I was chilling with my colours, camwhoring. No big deal.

Finally it was our moment to shine. My heart was pounding but I managed to keep my cool. I went out and did 2 scenes. The first scenes was easy because I had to be fainted. Last scene though had actions but that didn't stop
me. I just think of any other rehearsals we did previously.

10pm
We did our curtain call and we cheered loudly. The night showcase was soo much better than the afternoon one, I could tell. I was really proud and happy. I got comments from my friends that we were good but the choice will be made by the teachers. And it did turned out good luckily. We were on the very edge of getting cut off (not allowed to perform on stage) we were considered very lucky.

We had to cleaned up our dressing rooms before we could leave. The bus back to our school leaves at 10.45pm. I was helping (Ofcourse) haha. We changed into our own clothes and returned our costumes. :( 

Next thing I know, I was snoozing in the bus.

Till today, I miss KLPAC,staybacks, my costumes. I still have my mask and tag. I miss Fufu. But most of all, I miss my character. this was the best showcase ever. Never in my life I regretted joining drama. 

End.

Leadership Training Camp 2013 DAY 5

Sorry for the late post. I was having exams last week. And I'm having drama rehearsal right now. You now have a hint of my next blog ;)
-----------------------------------
9am
The speakers were playing Daylight as I wake from my sleep. How ironic. I lay in my sleeping bag and enjoyed the music as it played Heart Attack. We get to sleep in that day.

10am
After our breakfast and our last morning exercise. We had to pack our bags and put it in the hall, ready for departure. Then we had to clean up our dirty-with-sand-and-dirt dorm.

Kheng Yue brought the broomstick and we took turns sweeping. Sabrina and I threw unessacary rubbish and items. We put our sleeping bags to a side.

Chin Tong, Angela and I were chilling by the balcony with Call Me Maybe playing. The hall was just opposite of the teacher's dorm. When we were singing Call Me Maybe, Teacher Ben walked past and we sang the song. It was a funny scene.

12pm
We had our early lunch so we can get ready to leave. I got my phone back and in 5 days time, I finally heard my mum and dad. Apparently, they managed to reach me and I answer but I can't hear them clearly. It was a relief.

2pm
Farewell Gopeng Resort
We had our last "briefing". All the groups had to perform their battle cry (great) how embarrassing. But I admit, I enjoyed it. It IS the last performance as a group. Then there was prize giving for best male and female player and best group. Sadly, my group didn't win. But I was proud of us.

The trucks arrived. Our last truck ride. We did our boom boom on the truck. It was sad and disappointing saying goodbye to the facilitators. I was looking forward to go back home but really sad at the same time. A mix of emotions.

3pm
First air-con breeze in 5 days
The bus arrived and we got onto the bus, it was heart-breaking, it seemed that we just went there yesterday. And leaving the next day.

Most of us slept in the bus, we were all tired out and just wanted to rest. I managed to close my eyes for one good hour, when i woke up, we were already an hour away from school. So fast.

6pm
Due to the traffic conditions. We arrived at school at 7. It was sad to have a sight of our school, we had fun on the bus and we camwhored a lot.

I returned to my lovely, warm home. My mum welcomed me back and I got licked by my dog. It was good coming back but I'm gonna miss Gopeng.

-----------------------------------

Til now, I still miss camp. Me and my friends will bring back the memories in class and we'll laugh about it. I learned a lot during camp and had loads of fun. I'll be honest, thinking back, I miss summit climb, the fresh air, the river, the rain, the truck, cave, waterfall. I even make lots of new friends. Wenxiu and I are now really close, we still talk to each other and tease each other. Leadership Training Camp is the highlight event of 2013 so far.

End of story