could you hear me?

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

the festival of songs!

8th June

Had been travelling for the whole day. Slept on and off. Tired. Time lag too. Kept referring back to S'pore time. Had the only chinese meal in Europe. Restaurant Neptune China at Old Town. Bus journey to Olomouc. Took some pics of the land on the way. Shall upload some other time. =) Checked in to Hotel Flora. Nice place! Though I got a bad room, one facing the lift lobby. You dun wanna know how noisy these kids are. Lol! Did nothing this night. Mr Kwei wanted us to rest. And so we did. Had an early night.

9th June

Performed for a short concert at Reduta. Heard this other choir sang. Kinda soft. Dynamics so-so only. Then we went up on stage. Sharp for Diffusa, flat for Tsubasa. No importa la was quite nicely done. Then Mr Kwei made us sing Bin nam ma. We were like, "Is he kiddin?" Sang it anyway. Rush again lah. Haiz. So we practically screwed up the 3 competition songs. Went to Nadorni dum to pay a little visit. Visited the town square. Watched the opening of the festival of songs. Practiced at 7pm at the 10th floor(actually it's 12, cuz they got floor 0 and M). The view up there was fantastic.

10th June

Went to watch the children folklore. Heard choirs from Hungary, Poland and Czech. Got one female chorister from a Czech choir fainted and fell from the tiers. Fit or sth. We were all shocked lah. Thought that it's part of the choreo or sth until she really landed with a loud thud. Ouch. And other kids were feeling fainty too. The conductress was really nice. She warmed up the kids with some excercises and resumed again. Ate at a pizza place cuz the packed lunch was almost inedible(esp mine cuz i crushed the bread by accident. oops.. =P), though I didnt get to eat pizza cuz they finished it all. Lol! Visited a castle. Really nice place. Though a bit creepy. Hahaz. Practiced at 7 pm again.

11th June

2:30pm
Practiced early morn at 9. Sounded ok only. Changed and stuff. Mark gave some more inspiration talks again. Recalled the days in the 1 and half years in choir. Set off for the competition. Youth superior at Reduta was so-so only. Sang one extra word. Crap. Walked to a columbarium to practice. So dumb. Then walked back to Nadorni dum(by this time my feet were full of blisters and hurt like crazy). Folklore was ok lah. Then I did the final pose for Dong Dong Kui wrongly(yes to all those who had read jean's blog. that person is me. i'm full of guilt now. happy? -_-). So suay.. Nelson said we were good. Might be able to compete for grand champ. =)

4:30pm
Went to listen to the results. They announced in english and their own language(czech? german?) for alternate results. They had so many cateories this day. Then we heard "..I2.." and we quickly perked up. After some bronze and silvers, results for the gold came up. "99 pts, Anderson Junior College, Singapore." Joyful screams were heard and stuff. Then, "winner for category I2, 100 points gold, Anglo-Chinese Junior College, Singapore." All the smiles turned to sad faces and tears of sorrow came. "1 point loss?" Anguish came as I2(folklore) was our hopeful category in beating AC. Then more results from other categories came. "..E2 Superior.." And we all gathered in a circle, each of us praying not to hear AJ being called(they announced from bottom to top, you see). "...96pts gold, Anglo-Chinese Jr College, Singapore.." and we cheered for them. "..99 pts gold, Anderson Jr College, Singapore.." And yea, we screamed like hell. But we still didnt clinch the top. This other choir from Czech(i thought i heard Helsinki.. dunno lah) beat us with a 100 pt gold. Oh well, at least we beat AC square and flat. 99pointers! Hahaz. And the best thing of all was that we received news that we got into the grand finals for the absolute winner! Hahaz. Got back to the hotel for more practice!

7:40pm
After dinner and gotten ready for the comp, we went for more prac. After a few songs we sang No importa la distancia again. Some of the girls teared. Oh wellz..

12th June

12:13am
Performed. Think it's the best few we've ever done. Almost fell off the tiers while doing Pok pok alimpakok. Janger was ok. Perhaps the rhythm wasnt exactly stable. Then Bin nam ma. It was one of the best few times we've ever done. The final chord was the wow-est we've ever gotten. Ended our choir life with a blast!

Greeted by cheers in the balcony. We didnt know that they watched us thru the tv. So embarrassing. Then announcement of the results came. The bad thing about it is that they announced vote by vote. We were all so anxious. At first we were like the top choir with the most vote. But the Czech choir caught up and won with about 10 votes. The happy thing is we got 2nd(2nd all the way! lol!) and we BEAT ACJC! Flat with 5-2! Lol! We win! Haha!

Went to the square to gather and took photos with Nelson. Then we sang No importa la again, this time with controlled pitching. And the girls teared again. Went back to the hotel to have fun. Supposed to lights out by 11. But they were still running around and screaming at 1. Slept at 12 plus. Tired. Packed most of the stuff.

8:15am
Woke up late. We juz felt like sleeping. But thank God that He sent Ms Low into our lives. Hahaz. She called us to ask whether we wanna have breakfast together. Yepz. That woke us up. Got down at 7, ate till 7:30. Packed the remaining stuff. On the way to prague!

13th June

9:18am
Visited Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, Goldline Street and Old Town ytd. Shopped a bit. The water there is damn ex la. Ate Creams and Dream's tiramisu and citron ice-cream. Citron is damn sour but tiramisu is damn nice. =P Ate dinner at an underground dungeon restaurant. Atmosphere is so nice. They had this small polish triplet playin for us. We sang Diffusa for them. Went to stay a night at Hotel Juno. The guys called it Hotel Ju-on. Added on to the creepy atmosphere. Dun like the hotel. 3 star like hotel flora but it's so much worse. The check-in service was lousy. Not as efficient as that of Hotel Flora. Then the security service is so damn tight la. Need to use the door-card to go up the lift. The lift is damn small. While trying to access the buttons of the lift 2 of the sop jrs who were with Chunwei and me said, "Retarded leh this hotel." We bursted out laughing. When we reached our room, Chunwei opened the door and asked me to go in first. I was like "Wat the? You opened the door and ask me to go in? Thanks huh.." Lol! Christabel came over to sleep with us. That girl slept so soundly cuz she was tired while the other girls wanna have more fun. Haha. You dun wanna know how sound she was. Lol!

Breakfast this morn. Ms Low didnt know i was from AndSS. She's my grand(times dunno what) senior. Packed. Now goin to take flight to Helsinki for more sightseeing. =)

9:44pm
Back at the airport. Went to visit this protestant church made of rock(named Rock Church) and this white literary cathedral. Went to Helsinki commercial square. Ate dinner at a burger joint on our own. Then shopped for more stuff. Came back. Goin to fly in an hour plus time. 14 hours. Dread it.
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all those timings were the actual time i input those words in my hp. yea. think in owe some pple who wanna know wat happen so yah. there u go.
Ruth-Skunk || 11:06 pm