-.o

Sunday, June 18, 2006

oh man i know i'm really behind on posting abt the japan trip but there just seems like too much to blog.. T.T
anyway i dont think i'll blog tt much on the trip (hopefully.. if not i'll have to type till tmr night -.-) partly cus i dont have the patience and partly cus it's pretty hard to fully describe what happened in those 7 days.. SO many things happened..

hmm, ever since i came back to singapore i've been missing everything in japan, from their service to their temperature. and singapore just seems so pathetic as compared to them now. haha. at narita airport kangwei was still saying abt how he'd be writing lots of complaints abt services when he returned to singapore. really. the japanese are just so friendly and polite (even though they talk in japanese but still it's e attitude that matters (:)

decided that i should talk abt the main focus of the trip first - the exchange programme + concert with Soka High School! (: went to Soka High School on 10 June for rehersal. (oh and i forgot to mention that everywhere we went in Japan we were treated so well we felt like VIPs! haha the staff would either stand outside or inside and clap when we arrived.. so there was always a very warm welcome for us ((: we felt so pampered. haha) anyway after a warm up on e stage we were led away by students into the canteen for lunch and between me, huichueh, jingxin and justin we had 3 student guides (tetsuro, toru and e president whose name i've forgotten. oh no. =X) after lunch was the school tour.. and at one point we went to the chemistry lab and the teacher wanted to show us magic! so cute la. haha. so we sat down n he poured two colourless solutions together and asked us to stare at it.. and he kept insisting that magic would happen. den suddenly the whole solution turned orange! hahaha and we were like shocked for a while then started clapping! (: their chem lessons look soo much more fun than ours lor. (n chem teacher too. hehe) oh n outside the gym was the school song so the students stood there to sing for us (they were so enthu abt singing it la!) i shall talk more abt the school song later. XD

e 12th was the concert day n we had to wear our white long sleeves with blazer n school skirt n tie plus court shoes.. so it was quite uncomfortable.. haha. plus my long sleeve shirt was of a wrong size. (due to prom. haha. if anyone still remembers what i wore >.<) we had to walk from soka high school to soka elementary school (in court shoes. T.T) but the children were uber cute! ((((: and so small!! hahaha (pedo-ing~) we managed to peep in at their lessons like calligraphy, english, jap... and i was smitten with all e children. wahah. got non-jap too!! pretty girl somemore.. hehe. x)
had to walk back to soka high school after tt.. (ok now i shall skip right to e concert)

guzheng n e koto club performed first (i spotted so many heads nodding away in e audience!! =X) den came choir.. n when it was band's turn we had to leave to prepare! but we went to e backstage to listen.. they are like super good!?! plus the music they were playing was so grand! oh my i think they can beat singapore's bands hands down. and toru said they were 5th in japan/tokyo i cant rem which but i dont dare to think of what no. 1 will sound like. haha. tetsuro was e oboe soloist (: but actually this standard should be quite expected considering that they practise everyday. -.- n they worry abt their standard dropping from not practising for a few days.. when we count by weeks.. ok i guess this explains a lot. haha. but hearing them play just inspires you to want to join band too... i want to migrate to japan n join band! haha. x)
finally it was us.. i found out how irritating it was to blow suona with a blazer and cough. -.- extremely. oh well i shall just skip our performance. anyway i had an interesting view of the audience from my point of view. hehe. like ppl nodding off while those sitting next to them tried to avoid their heads. lol. oh n there was a girl crying (a little) after we finished Dango! gave me such a shock! anyway i realised after that tt the girl was quite "drama" in the sense tt she seemed to be quite sensitive n showed her emotions in pretty extreme ways.. =X
had to sit through many long speeches.. n i started aching from my left shoulder down to my hand. -.- i think i'm getting too old for such things. hahaha. (skips through stuff......voila!) the school song!! ((: oh my it's such a different experience listening to a handful students sing alone and a while theatre of students sing with the brass band.. even the former was quite impactful because they sang so loudly and in such a patriotic way! multiply tt number by 100 and add tt powerful brass band in and you can feel the song resonate throughout the theatre. the rhythm was so strong n i just felt so overwhelmed by the atmosphere! at tt time you just wish that you knew the song too and that you could sing with them cus you can feel the honour n pride the students have in their school song and you just want to be part of them. (oh no i just feel like i'm rambling on and on and no one will understand me but it's just so hard to describe what i witnessed and all the feelings......) [anyway, luckily they didnt ask us to sing our school song because we'd have been an embarrassment. boy did we feel ashamed of ourselves when thinking of the scene of our assembly every morning]

oh well.
all good things must come to an end. (temporarily)
we packed up and went to take group photos and gave gifts (bookmarks n nj bears) to our student guides.. i ended giving one set to the emcee as well. haha. (e shengyu lookalike) he looked so shocked when i wanted to give him the presents. hehe. tetsuro n toru gave us their e-mails (: justin started the whole tie exchange thing n ichanged mine with tetsuro! haha their lazy ties are interesting. plus i think their's look a whole lot better than nj's one o.O oh n tetsuro gave justin an oboe reed but when justin wanted to give one of his shaozis we werent allowed to get off the bus anymore. T.T
so we sat at our seats n waved (japanese tradition) to all the staff n students until the bus drove out of the school.. it was so sad to think tt our stay at the school was so short n that we didnt get to spend more time with the students.. sigh.
but i definitely enjoyed every bit of my time during the exchange! (:

hopefully we can meet all of them again next year (:

anyway i'm ending this post here n i shall leave the rest of the trip to the next entry (: my brain needs recharging

gnitihz at 6/18/2006 09:10:00 PM