Chorale Trip Pictures
Hello! Since I took too many pictures, I selected some so at least you can have an idea what my trip was like -- people, places, food, everything.
This is Changi Airport -- after we entered the gate. This is my group (we were split into groups to avoid losing any sheep).
From left -- Yi Kai (really blur guy), Qi Zhao (the Chorale President), Wei Song, ME, Avonne, Deborah aka Bonkie, Chang Qing (my roommate)
**************
Below are pictures of Vienna -- we did a city tour by bus upon touchdown.
Random picture of Vienna from the bus
Another picture of Vienna from the bus, this time with Danube River in view
The Parliament.
This is me and Jina (next year's Chorale Vice-Chair and also a fellow alto). It was drizzling, windy and DAMN COLD, hence the umbrella, the jacket and the hugging. Haha!
**************
After a short city tour of Vienna we headed on to Hungary and had dinner at the border.
This is me and Ruth, my roommate and closest Chorale buddy, at the restaurant. The servings are damn big and the pieces of meat are just H-U-G-E. One normal serving beats KFC flat la.
What my friend, Songhua did with his fries because he couldn't finish them. We realised through subsequent meals that Westerners really love potatoes and big chunks of meat, and Ms. Loh my teacher was SO bored with potatoes after the trip. Yup. I Love Chinese food best. One week of Western food can just kill. Your pong-tay still the best haha.
**************
After we reached the hotel all of us burned out so we rested for the night and went touring the next day :-).
From left-- Adrian, Avonne, ME, Nikki, Zhao Feng, Chin Ee, Wen Hao
Adrian is bass and is always holding his neck when singing. Avonne is soprano, one of my good friends in chorale. Nikki is alto, treasurer and another good friend (The three of us and Ruth go shopping together! haha). Zhao Feng is SOPRANO, section leader, very adorable because he's childlike, but very very smart, analytical and takes English Lit. Chin Ee is student conductor. Wen Hao is next year's Chairman and is a damn good leader. Also very intimidating at committee meetings.
This is a bunch of us juniors at Buda Castle. Did you know Budapest is divided into two sections -- Buda and Pest? Haha!! That's not a joke okay. Anyway there's this ledge called Fishermen's Bastion at Buda Castle where there's a terrific view. I got you a souvenir from here -- some painted hang-on-the-wall model of Fishermen's Bastion. I grabbed some postcards too. I say grabbed because we only had ten minutes worth of supermarket shopping so I had no time to really sift through anything much. Grabbed some chocolate also haha.
**************
Alexandra Palace - some kind of summer palace I think.
Random view.
Another random view of the Danube and some bridge. Sitting right atop the hill on the right you can see a statue. That's the statue of Liberty. Some lady who symbolises liberation from war or something along those lines. Haha.
**************
Another day already. We went to St. Peter's Basilica. (One of their famous landmarks I suppose). <---- Is my previous sentence grammatically correct, by the way??
Okay this is the basilica. The words in gold (can see??) mean 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. In Latin, Ego=I, Sum=Am, Via=Way, Veritas=Truth, Et=And, Vita=Life.
So majestic right?? Damn I know it's not symmetrical. I bet Jin is going to laugh at that.
**************
Another day already. Our performance at Deak Hall. 'Hall' and 'Performance' sound really grand but actually it's just a small hall with very very few people, old and decrepit bored-looking people may I add, making up the audience. Sigh. Disappointing but maybe this is what choir performances are like in the West? Because it's too common or something?
Anyway we got to train for a few days with this Hungarian professor called Prof. Eva Kollar, and we got to perform with her choir (Monteverdi Choir). Pictures not with me because obviously I can't take pictures while singing. The official photographer has them. Obviously official merely means 'a student assigned'. Haha.
The Professor was quite funny and quite in stark contrast to our own dear Mr. Toh, because while Mr. Toh is harsh, to-the-point, in-your-face, very very blunt, she says things like "Ooooh very good! Very good! Congratulations! I like it!", then goes on to point out our mistakes. Either that or she just spews compliments when we actually suck, because Westerners are apparently very gentle, courteous people, unlike us chor-lor Malaysian/Singaporean people. But it's quite true la actually. Haha. She was pretty nice, though. Quite an experience having a Hungarian conductor for a while heeeh.
Us!
Top row from left -- Wei Song, Clarissa (my other Section Leader), Kat/Yu Chien, Nikki, Jeff
Sitting from left -- Yi Kai, Clifford (Malaysian but resides in Singapore, Siang Ee (Malaysian scholar!! But J2 aka senior), ME!, Bonkie again
Don't we look good in our chorale uniforms!! Anyway yeah this is Deak Hall, pre-performance photowhoring (Singaporean teenage slang for playing the fool with a camera).
Post-performance cruise on the Danube river, this is my group again waiting by the river for the cruise to start. No, more like waiting for Mr. Toh to search for the boat. We thought we were supposed to go to this jetty but it turned out that we were slightly late so Mr. Toh had to go run after the boat. Something like that. Not very sure. Or was it that we got the wrong jetty all along??
Boat trip was fun. The cruise was one hour plus, and we drank two rounds of apple juice. The Chorale alumni got to drink champagne because they are adults, and also because they're technically not under school care anymore haha. So they went around showing off their champagne to make us jealous but HEY I was not jealous alright? I have no interest in alcohol. It tastes and smells bad.
View from the boat. The picture is SO DAMN NICE but too bad the camera doesn't do well with night shots. Not that I'm complaining. I like the camera a lot. It gives damn clear damn good shots in the day, except that I'm a pretty lousy photographer so not all the photos I take properly demonstrate the POWER of the camera. Hahaha.
This one I put here because the background picture is clear.
Look, the guy on the right is Songhua, the one with the fries. Haha.
The guy in the cap is Ye Chao, the alumni member who was showing off his champagne!
**************
Went back to Vienna, this time for a proper tour on foot. But I'm not going to put that many pictures of the city tour because Tek went to Vienna before. Haha. I'll show you the good scenery from the hostel, though. It overlooks Vienne because it's on a hill on the border of Vienna.
See? The view is good! This is me and Huimin my senior section leader. Very nice person. She's patient and very talented also.
A few seniors posing the 'Meteor Garden' pose for fun. You know, the cheesy cliché annoying Mandarin series from F4?? Jin will know.
From left: Jeff, Ivee (the senior vice-chair), Huimin, Siang Ee
Our hostel.
**************
Finally to Olomouc, our competition venue.
Avonne and I in our costumes. This is after the festival opening ceremony performance, dinnertime at the hotel. We took this because we were both in Malay costume.
This is where we sang the song 'Soleram' (you should have seen it on the Grand Finals video). What's great is that during the song, someone whispered 'It's beautiful' (our senior overheard). Then after we ended, there was this momentary pin-drop silence and then someone said 'Bravo' and there was thunderous applause. HAHA yay!
Nikki, me and Avonne trying to act angry because Gerard was taking SO LONG to snap the picture argh. Haha.
View from mine and Ruth's hotel room. Looks beautiful!! Overlooks the city :-D.
On top: Avonne
From Left: Chuyan (senior), Sandra, Jina, Me, Nikki
At the hotel lobby.
View along Czech country road. Looks very pretty. We were on our way to some castle and to explore a cave. Quite cool. We had to PAY to take pictures in the cave, so we decided that only the official photographer would take pictures. That's why there aren't any pictures of the insides of the cave.
Bought some random stuff at the souvenir stalls, like a necklace (amethyst. purple!!). We once again only had ten minutes so we had to run and pant all the way back to the bus!
Another view. From the bus, yet again.
Us at the hotel lobby with our guide, Katrina. I'm not exactly sure how to spell her name, actually but it sounds something like Katrina haha.
She's only a university student, and volunteered to be a tour guide for the Music Festival. She's quite nice. When we took pictures with her she said 'I feel like a celebrity!'. Hahaha.
From left: Jeff, Chuyan, Kat, Me, Ruth
**************
Finally. Our shopping clique at Dubai airport playing Bridge!! From left: Avonne Nikki Me Ruth. Ruth is eating chicken masala. Bought souvenirs here too -- some kind of mini carpet, quite cute. And a badge that says 'Crazy about Dubai'. Haha. That badge I keep of course. But I'm sending back the mini carpet! Mini = very mini, meaning only 12 cmx12 cm maybe.
Okay this is all for Chorale Trip. The bulk of the pictures will be somehow shown to you sometime soon, like 25th July maybe?
See ya!