present and in awe.

Shanghai Day 1

Thursday, September 06, 2007 @ 9:03 pm.

This post is dedicated to my friend. She posted her account of Shanghai Day 1 first, and anyway, I might as well comment on the things she has said and add on to it.

This was her post. The names I have altered are in brackets. I'll explain them later. If they are not nicknames, only singular letters are used.

I am back in Singapore!

There will be a long story and lots of photos of China for this blog, and I still hve homework...so I'll just write a short story of Day 1.

Waking up at 5.00am was a chore(Why do they have to put the flight at 8am???)I woke up later.

Forward to shopping at the airport... (The Ravenous Jellybean) bought coffee.

Nothing much...forward to boarding the plane.

That time, I did not want to go to China!I was so dreading work...so I was sad to leave Singapore.

When we arrived at China, everyone chionged to grab the luggages randomly.The teachers commented that we were "good girls to help each other".

It was tough there. There was this non-air conditioned place where we had to wait for the lift. And we were not the only people using it. So quite some time spent getting to the carpark...

Then,I pointed out to (A) that one of her luggage lock(she had 2)did not lock both zips. She was going "This should not the way it should be" and she sounded really funny. Then came "This is the way it should be." Funny (A).

We travelled to Suzhou and it was a very long trip. By the time we arrived, it was time for dinner(I think).

Around my table were: (Long Bean) , (Hyper Drunkard), (Eyeball Snatcher) , (Gandhi/ ), (Myself) ,me, (Voice of Reason),(??) ,(Fishtail Eater) and (Burp Queen). The (unlucky) people who got to seat at the teachers' table were: (Hi-Jean),(B),(C),(D),(E) and (F).

There was so much food! Then came this dish that we did not recognise. We went all crazy to find out what it was.

Then,we found out that it was rabbit legs' And I thought it was quail legs.

*Gasp!*

Some brave people who ate the legs were: (Voice of Reason),(Myself) and me(But i was not recognised)Don't remember anyone else.

(Myself) LOVED the legs. She kept on picking food from the dish. But she refused to finish the legs, so everyone had to eat something.

We also found out that (Gandhi) and (Burp Queen) did not eat watermelon,and the soup tasted like salt soup.Luckily I did not drink any.

The hotel was very big and 4-star(according to [myself]).

-End of Day 1-

Well, this is my reply back to her. I'm sorry you're getting this about the time everyone else that views this does. But it's hard to do this sort of thing on MSN.

All I can say is... consider yourself lucky. I woke up at 04 40 hours. And I was running around the house and checking to see if I hadn't brought anything and trying to stomach my breakfast (of course I wasn't hungry). By the time I left I think it was around 05 30 or 05 20. I think at that time I was rushing my dad and getting all frantic.

And I didn't want to go either. I think this might have been due to the potential pickpockets (but in the end nothing was stolen) or because of the homework still waiting for me at home. But I didn't want to go.

I went though. And you were late. I was blinking at your SMS. We all got green ribbons, right? And then we were all checking in and peering at the weights of our luggages and THEN you came. I fear that you were the latest, or among the latest? How could you have not been ready anyway? I guess I was one of the only ones flitting around the house trying to figure out whether there was anything missing.

Why did you not mention the plane ride? The breakfast frittata was delicious. As were the potatoes. And the bun and blueberry jam and butter. I was pretty hungry due to the unfinished breakfast and tried smearing the potatoes with the leftover butter. I also mixed up the butter and jam and licked it. It was pretty good in some way. The frittata added on to my nausea, though. I'm not sure why. Certain foodstuffs do that to me.

However, the maelstrom scene in POTC 3 seems to cure nausea pretty well. =D

I didn't manage to chiong luggage.

We didn't have lunch. The only food we had were Lays. Italian red meat. Pretty good, but I don't think I actually finished it. The taste got to me after a while. Bought it at the toilet stop.

So dinner. I think that you've already explained enough up there. And the hotel WAS four-star. There was a big plaque with four stars on it above an engraving of the hotel propped up on the reception counter. Big fat plaque.

I'm done.

P.S: There was no *Gasp!*. Just a momentary silence. Then I said "Never mind. They taste good," and reached for another.

So, I guess I owe you an explanation of the nicknames now.
The Ravenous Jelly Bean was self-used.

"(Long Bean) , (Hyper Drunkard), (Eyeball Snatcher) , (Gandhi/ ), (Myself) ,me, (Voice of Reason),(??) ,(Fishtail Eater) and (Burp Queen)."
As for those above, perhaps you shall notice that we were all around the same table. While this did not happen fully on the first night, all these names were derived at a random hyper moment around the dinner table. We had had fish for the second time and prawn for the third time... and soft drinks for the third time... and the culmination of all the meals before led up to this. I think this was the last dinner with the same party around the table. This is what happened.

Long Bean: We had long beans that day, and this girl was fairly tall and lithe. So she was christened as such.

Hyper Drunkard: As I said, we had had soft drinks that night, and this particular girl had taken more than enough Sprite. She kept proclaiming that she was getting drunk on Sprite, and christened herself as such.

Eyeball Snatcher: She divulged the fact that she ate fish eyeballs.

Gandhi: I don't know when this came up. But it's related to the spelling of her name. The slash is that she was given another name at the dinner table but I forgot it.

Myself: I suppose you want to know what my nickname was. I wanted to be "Drunk on Coke" but that didn't happen. You see, I was wearing all white due to the company visit that day, and Hyper Drunkard kept professing that there were weevils in the rice that looked just like the white grains except that they were crunchy. So... guess what happened.

"me": My friend was originally called "Hillbilly" due to her loose and checkered (not checkerboard checkered. A milder pattern) shirt. I knew that this was pretty offensive (although she did not) and renamed her Purple.

Voice of Reason: She seemed to be the sanest one.

??: I can't remember her nickname... TT.TT

Fishtail Eater: Refer to Eyeball Snatcher.

Burp Queen: At our first dinner, we all trooped off to the toilet together. I was really high and wanted to time everyone to see how long they took in the toilet. So I was counting down ("3, 2, 1!" and coincidentally she expelled a high-decibel eructation. In layman's terms, she burped very loudly. She did it again at the dinner table that day (without the countdown), and I suppose you can infer what happens next.

Hi-Jean... Well... try saying it aloud.

I'll stop now. This was pretty long and I suppose you don't enjoy long chunks of text.

Cheers,
Kkori