Friday 27 July 2007

Back from Hong Kong Part 3

Day 4 was the most exciting and the "funnest" day in the whole trip. We went to Disneyland! Actually, I visited there once before, so I could recognise the place well and the weather was cold. But this time, the weather was scorching hot. First, we went to the Astro Blasters, which was a game where you had to shoot as many "Z" as possible to get as many points as possible. Although I played it the last time, I almost forgot what it was like. I managed to get 424,700 points. Next, we watched a 10-minute 4D movie. Since I watched it before during my first trip, I knew that something infront of my seat would spray the water or wind to create the 4D effect. I did not like the water, so I covered it with my hands before the show commenced. In the end, my hands became very wet. Later, we watched a skit which was slightly longer than the movie. It was not that nice actually. That was the end of our tour, and now we could go to any ride we fancied.

At about 3.30pm, the parade started. The people or "trucks" in the parade kept spraying water at us. It was due to the extremely hot and humid weather. I became soaked and drenched and my camera almost failed because of the water. After the parade, everyone, except me, went to the Space Mountain. It was a roller coaster ride in the dark. It was really fast that they had to take off their glasses, that's what they said. Of course, I was afraid to ride on roller coasters and I was the only one who did not ride on it. The other 3 friends played it 3 times, then we played the Astro Blasters again about 2 more times. My highest score was my first try. Late that day, we watched the fireworks. It was a picturisque view and was awesome. I really hoped to see it again, however it was actually polluting the air. Imagine what will happen when they display the fireworks everyday?

Day 5 was the return trip. We took a bus all the way to the airport. We were too early and waited for a while. When we boarded the aeroplane, the same thing almost happened like day 1 and the whole procedure repeated. When we reached Singapore at the arrival gate, I saw my mother, Lim Li and my grandmother. They were there to pick me up.

When I went to school the next morning, there was a welcome for me at the school gate. It was so heart-warming to see my principals, maam and my 6A friends welcoming and cheering for me.

Well, that's all. I had nothing else to type. You can view the photos below.















Wednesday 25 July 2007

Back from Hong Kong Part 2

The first day in Hong Kong was over. On day 2, it was quite boring. First, we went to the... I didn't know where we went (I think one of the places was Victoria Peak), we basically toured all around Hong Kong. That's all. That's what we had done the whole of day 2.

Since day 2's description is just a few lines, maybe I should continue with day 3. Day 3 was the big day - the main reason why we came to Hong Kong in the first place. It was none other than the competition day. During the start of the Individual Contest, I was feeling very nervous, just like what I felt during any competition. I felt like going to the toilet, but after a while, I felt like not going anymore. Initially, I found the 15 questions a bit difficult. I skipped some of the questions and went back to do them after I finished the easy ones. Some of the questions also required a little of Guess and Check, which took a while. I thought that they would take our question papers, so I wrote the answers on a blank piece of paper. In the end, they only took the answer sheet. After that, we went a few levels down to have our lunch. I could see that the queue was quite long, so I waited, hoping that the queue would become shorter. I left all my papers and water bottle on the table. After a while, the queue became even longer, so I quickly joined in the queue. Halfway, I went to the toilet. When I came back, all my stuff on the table was missing, except for the blank paper. I kept searching high and low, but only managed to find the water bottle. My pencil box was missing, AGAIN!!! (I lost one in Hwa Chong during the APMOPS) I could not have lost it. Maybe it was in the classroom where we took the exam.

Next was the Team Contest. We returned to the classroom and my pencil box was there! I thought that I had brought it down with me. We were given instructions. We had 5 minutes to discuss which questions who should do. There were 8 questions and I took questions 5 and 6. Then we only had 45 minutes to do the questions, we were not allowed to discuss with one another. Apparently 45 minutes was more than sufficient to do only 2 questions, so I had plenty of time to check. After that, they gave us questions 9 and 10. We only had 15 minutes left! Luckily, we managed to solve both of them on time. For questions 1 to 8, each of us did 2 questions. However, the Hwa Chong team, 2 of them did 2 questions each, 1 did only 1 and the other one did 3. Our teacher had the answer key. It turned out that I had gotten full marks for the Individual Contest. It seemed almost impossible. One of the Hwa Chong team members also got full marks. The prize presentation was not held at Po Leung Kuk, instead, it was held at the Panda Hotel -- our hotel.

During the prize presentation, I thought that we would win something. But we did not win anything at all (the big trophy above was given to every team which took part). What a shame. Even the Hwa Chong team won some trophies. However, at the airport on the last day, my teacher gave me my certificate (First Class Honour for Individual Performance).














To be continued... (again!)

Sunday 22 July 2007

Back from Hong Kong

Sorry I did not update for about 2 weeks. The previous entry (photos at the airport) was not posted by me, it was by my mother. On the departure date, most of my friends came to send me off. They brought banners. placards and "pong pong" to cheer me. They had put in a lot of effort to prepare the whole event. I really appreciated it a lot. They really care about me, and I am sure that I will also cheer for those who will be going away. Just after I entered the gate, they were outside, still cheering. They really used the last few minutes, or seconds, cheering before I leave. The other 3, who were going to Hong Kong too, did not have any supporters.

When we were in the aeroplane, all 4 of us started playing computer games. The whole flight to Hong Kong seemed only an hour (actually it was 4 hours) when we were enjoying ourselves. The Hong Kong airport looked almost the same as the Singapore's, except that the words were all in chinese. We waited at the airport for more than 1 hour. I thought that we were supposed to wait for the other teams from other countries. Over there, we also saw the Hwa Chong team. Later, we boarded a bus, which was very crowded. When we reached the hotel, we were assigned 2 rooms - 1 for the teacher, the other one for 4 of us. My teacher's room had 2 beds, so we transferred 1 to our room. We then asked for another bed for 4 of us. We went to the hotel restaurant for dinner at about 6 pm. Since it's a buffet, I ate till I almost exploded.

There will be something for the 1000th visitor.

To be continued...

Sunday 8 July 2007

NUS high selection test

Sorry I didn't update my blog for a long time because of my homework, but since today is Sunday, I am free. Yesterday, I went to NUS high, and NUS on the same day. The NUSH selection test was about Science and Maths. Too bad that there were 47 science questions and only 14 maths questions. The total science score was 45 but the maths was only 35. Those whose science was outstanding like Afiq would have no problem with it. The science question was all about weird stuff like molecue and some super bombastic big words that I didn't even know the meaning. Whereas, the maths was not so difficult compared to the science. The duration was only 2 hours and there were 202 questions! Just kidding, but there was a no. 202 question. I thought 2 hours was very little, so I rushed through my work. In the end, I still had like 45 min left. After the test, my family went to NUS, not the secondary school, for NUS homecoming scrumptious buffet lunch. The mouth-watering food was delicious, but the lime juice was disgusting.

*Afternote: Lim Li's NUS High selection test on 25 June 2011 is posted here.

Only 6 more days to Hong Kong, and I still don't know which bag to bring.

Sunday 1 July 2007

Scrabble and SMO

Yesterday, I had the most difficult, or maybe the second most difficult Maths competition - SMO. It was so difficult that we were given 3 hours to complete it. It was so difficult that there were only 5 questions, and mostly proving type. Anyway, 2.5 hours after the start of the test, I left as I was not going to waste the other 1/2 hour doing nothing. After that, I ate chicken rice in the canteen. They have an ice-cream vending maching. I saw someone buy from it. It has a sucking thing to suck the ice-cream. After that, We went to look for the scrabblers. They were at the MPH(Multi Purpose Hall). We walked for so long until we reached the MPH. In the end, we went to the wrong MPH! I was so upset and frustrated that I felt like going home without knowing the scrabble results. We took a shuttle bus there instead. After that, we sort of like, did not do anything else. Just to tell you, Both competitions were held at NUS but were more than 1 km apart. Weird right? The whole NUS is more than a few kilometres long and wide, such that they need a shuttle bus to travel from one place to another, there are even public buses driving to and fro in the school.


I am not in the scrabble team (finals) and I am not playing.