just got back from KL. what a blast! (warning, LONG post)
first day friday, got up nice and early at 5am and got a lift from ah-ku to cfa. was one of the first there. but the rest started coming. we were a bit irritated that the bus was late. after all their threats about leaving us behind, they were late! anyway, the choir com bought mcdonalds breakfast for us to eat. lots of people were carrying trolley bags. evelyn's bag was HUGE. but that's cos she was going back home after the competition. anyway, we finally got underway, went by the 2nd link. by then, it was fully light liao. sat with felicia. there wasn't space for our duffel bags in the baggage compartment so we had to hold on to it. and the darn bus didn't have a luggage rack on top. anyway, we made it to the checkpoint. zhang zhe forgot to bring down his student card so the official detained his passport and sent him back to the bus to collect it. but no problems other than that. felicia hung her gown from the luggage rack after we changed bus at the m'sia checkpoint and it was like a door for our little private compartment. haha!
we were saying we should hang a 'do not disturb' on the own cos so many people were playing with it. traditional stop at yong peng. yong peng was the usual smelly and gross place. the toilet could not flush. lots of people were already buying chewing gum from the shop there. we arrived at shah alam in time for lunch. checked in to concorde hotel, room 611. first thing that i noticed when entering the room, i thought the previous guests had forgotten to switch off the tv. got 'musical' sounds. (later on i realised that it's the mosque broadcasting the prayers through the loudspeakers) second thing i noticed is that there's only one queen size bed and 2 of us. muahaha! me and felicia shared a bed for the whole stay. anyway, on observing the view, the most prominent feature is...drumroll...t
he JEDI TEMPLE! aka Masjid Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah. beautiful building. HUGE mosque. we could see grand blue wave (GBW) in the far off distance. switched on the tv and channel surfed for a while, waiting for Boss (KK) to phone in instructions. i have never watched so much mtv in my life. well, instructions were to have lunch and then meet for warm-ups. so me and felicia went next door to shah alam center (which is a really pathetic shopping center) for lunch. met paulus and group at the Chicken Rice Shop. the food was ok. the chicken was more 'natural' than singapore. teasing paulus about his ordering barbecued sweet honey chicken noodles, with soup. which turned out to be chicken that wants to be char siew. btw, found out that a pair of guys also got a double bed in their room to share. which sounded a bit wrong. i mean, girls sharing a bed is ok, but guys...saw mj when we came back. and also shok li from singapore poly. haha! didn't expect to see her here. she really slimmed down a lot. couldn't recognise her at first. dinner sucked. by the time we reported, at the time we were told to report, there was hardly any food left. we were picking stuff off dharini's vegetarian plate that's specially prepared for her. only the desserts were good. anyway, went to GBW for the opening ceremony. and the first thing that caught everyone's eye in the grand ballroom was the Estonian Television Children's Choir (ETVCC). big bunch of pretty angmoh all girls choir sitting in the first few rows. but NUS choir had to take balcony seats. anyway, the usual opening ceremony. ETVCC performed. and they were breathtaking. they were even better than Novo. we're already predicting who's gonna be grand final winner. Fingerprints Malaysia also performed (they with their strange "alleuia" being pronounced as "ah-le-lu-ee-ah"), and singapore's combined secondary school choir sang the "voyage of song" song. funny that they didn't mention zacheriah goh toh chye who wrote the song. the other choirs were ok. the star of the night was ETVCC. oh ya, the judges. the usual bunch, jonathan velasco (philippines), leon tong (hong kong), meng da peng (china), jennifer tham (singapore), cristo burger (south africa. but not black) and artistic director nelson kwei. mc is this mark tan from VJ. he looks darn familiar but i just can't remember where i think i saw him before. anyway, ya, the usual opening ceremony speeches etc. then back to concorde. but couldn't sleep. tossing and turning all night. the reception for my hp suddenly came on and the smses started coming in just when i was falling asleep. and when i finally got to sleep in the dawn hours, the mosque starts praying and wakes me up again. thought it was just me, but felicia tells me she couldn't sleep either.
second day saturday, morning call at 6am. so reluctant to drag ourselves out of bed. but have to. so we get up and go down for breakfast. again sucky breakfast. only got coffee and tea. really dry fried rice, bee hoon, porridge, scraps of scrambled egg (finished liao and they hadn't topped it up). had some free time after warm-ups so went over to giant to buy food for next day's breakfast. ran into lots of choir ppl at giant also buying food. bought baby biscuits. :D back in the room, me and felicia had a make-up dry run. as in, we both did our hair and make-up to 'try' out for the next day's competition. not bad actually. mei nus on parade! haha!
anyway, in the afternoon, we went back to GBW to watch some of the competitions. watched the childrens' choirs. that was sheer torture. some choirs were good, for eg the one that sang the jazz song with the hats, and the CHIJ-OLGC choir (the barbie doll choir cos of their pink dresses). but others were so bad, it couldn't get any worse. they were so soft, we had to strain to hear them. it was so draining just listening to them. their cuteness isn't enough to cover their horrible singing. after that we watched adyll and wei wei with the TPJC male chorus. FINALLY some good singing.
something fun during practices after that. yan ting made us do this tribal dance thingy to fine tune our coordination skills. we sang by the swimming pool. must have scared everyone there. but it was fun singing there. the "adus bareng" was particularly good i think, cos there were kids playing in the pool live. so no need to imagine the images. same for "lily". the water part was obvious. anyway, after the practice, me and felicia went to mei si, dharini and winnie's room for mei si's makeover/makeup dry run. at first, mei si put up some resistance. but we triumphed. 
haha! it was a fun girls' night. dharini was telling us about indian wedding customs and we were relating all of it to "dong dong kui". and then we were taking photos in their bathroom, and bathtub. and laughing and talking loudly way past curfew time. and Boss's room was just next to theirs. haha! so scared that they might carry out their threat and check on us. but luckily they didn't. anyway, we came up with an excuse in case they find us; we are borrowing their make up. ;D just a note, slept much better the second night. probably cos we were so exhausted by then.
third day sunday. competition day! me and felicia decided to skip the hotel breakfast (sucky anyway) and eat in our room. instant noodles. and juice and milo that we got from giant. and then, rush rush down to warm ups. did the tribal dance thing again. back to the room to do makeup and dress. i think cos of our dry run the day before, we were quite fast. when we went up to mei si's room to kaypoh, they were not ready at all. just did the hair and wore the top. anyway, had to go hui jun's room for QC aka checking that everyone's makeup is thick enough. the 2 of us were ok. haha! at least don't need to use brown eyeshadow anymore. used my blue one. although it didn't really match my green skirt. but i don't have green eyeshadow. and i refuse to put on green eyeshadow. what'll it look like sia. 
anyway, the sops looked like they had too little makeup on. it was barely there, compared to the altos. after everyone had passed QC, went down to the lobby for another short warm up, and on to GBW. saw mj there. all the best, all the best. went into the holding room, yan ting made us 'meditate' for a while to settle ourselves. we were the last choir to perform. saw mj sitting in the balcony. scary sia. i think it went ok. it sounded a bit off at first for "wayang kulit" but i think it went ok later on. "dong dong kui", yan ting's pitchpipe malfunctioned, gave off a weird note. but i think we ended on the right chord. i think it went ok. but later on, feedback, from mj, said that we were out of tune, the girls' pronounciation was bad, sharp. lunch at GBW. the food is so much better than at concorde.
back to concorde to wait the few hours before open mix. took photos with some of the mj juniors. 
went back to the room to slack. watch tv. freshen up. no QC this time. went down for wei wei's warm ups. listen to all the brainwashing that he's trying to do. back to GBW. holding room again. amusing thing, wei wei made us meditate also. and suddenly, all the lights in the room suddenly glowed really brightly. wei wei was giving this oh-my-god-the-room-is-haunted look. we had a long long time to wait. almost an hour. charlotte fell asleep and almost toppled onto the floor. finally it's our turn. "sweet honey sucking bees" went ok. "lily" wasn't that bad. "dokin" was ok for me until the repeat part. it was kinda awkward for me. didn't get the chance to talk to shi yun about this one. but the general consensus was that it's ok.
back to concorde again to change for the friendship concert. sucky dinner. eating lots of yummy chocolate cake and blueberry crumble. :D cfa gave us little merlions and "uniquely singapore" pins to give to whoever we make friends with who may not be from singapore. the merlions looked like mer-rats. we all thought it was hamster toys before iris gave them out. and the mane was moulting. me and dharini exchanged merlions. :D in the end, i don't think any of those merlions left to other countries. cos we ended up attaching them to our jeans and performing with them on. anyway, the friendship concert. 
nus and ETVCC were the first choirs there. so nus had front row seats! there was some issues before the concert began that ended up with adyll crying. something about the choir and the management of the choir and the seniors. anyway, ETVCC did the first item. there was 3 soloists singing a song, holding candles. 
then the whole choir sang 2 (supposedly estonian) songs and danced! they danced "all i want for christmas is you". and they brought the house down with their performance. (3 guesses who's getting into grand finals) felicia recorded their performance with my cam. so everyone was very very very high when suddenly, mark tan announced that nus choir is going next. what da?! how come so fast? anyway, we went up, and sang "linden lea" and "dong dong kui". which i think was just short of a fiasco. i mean, it's impossible to look and sound good after ETVCC performs. but we survived. another choir that performed was NYJC. they did this cute tribal thingy that had rainforest sounds. everyone was imitating them after their song was done.
the barbie dolls (CHIJ-OLGC) sang too. they had a soloist elvina who sang "Pie Jesu". oh. my. god. she's charlotte church incarnate. and i don't think she's any older than 10. keep in mind that she's a primary schooler. and she's outsinging everyone in the hall. nus choir was thinking, "yan ting in the making." elvina got a few minutes long standing ovation. must have been the best moment of her life. wonder how it feels. and they sang "that's what friends are for" also. the whole grand ballroom was swaying and singing along to it. expect them to win gold in their category. then at the end, mark tan was pressurised into singing a solo for us. he did. he sang "hey jude" with his own piano accompanyment. and got the whole ballroom singing the "na na na" line over and over again. he's got his own fan club that guy has. cos after the concert, we saw him sitting on the conductor's podium posing while a huge bunch of primary schoolers queued up to photograph him. ;D still very high so we were singing christmas carols in the bus on the way back to concorde. btw, there was some fella that kept shushing people during the concert everytime they tried to clap and sing along to the music. party pooper. after that, back in the room, watching mtv, clay's "invisible" was on! what a nice end to a relatively nice day.
fourth day monday. day of reckoning. results day! we slept till nearly 9am. and then ate baby biscuits for breakfast cos we missed the hotel breakfast. supposed to do prepare some blogging and plan for the church choir while felicia went to the gym. me ended up doing a nameing exercise cos i was preparing the labels for my photos. anyway, later went shopping at the center next door. when we left the hotel, everyone was looking for wei wei (the girl) who apparently went missing. me and felicia ran into hui jun and wei wei (the guy) all over the center. felicia wanted to buy toiletries which are so much cheaper than in singapore. then went to "the reject shop" where they sell those great second hand clothes. i was so tempted to buy, but control remembering that i'm going penang and thailand next week. but really tempted cos the clothes were so nice and cheap. anyway, ran into a big bunch of them at the pizza hut. nearly half the choir was there. but me and felicia wanted to save money so we decided to eat in the hotel. and the food was not bad actually. so later on we were teasing the others that they missed a nice lunch and had to spend so much for ordinary pizza. social hour with the philipino girls at lunch. took photo with shok li. then back to the orchard room for more brainwashing session. blissfully unaware of what was coming. 
back to GBW for the announcement of results. mj got gold C for both categories. nus also got gold C. *shrugs* it was a bit disappointing. can tell that we were disappointed. no one cheered when the results were annouced, just mechanical clapping. i admit, i was disappointed. cos despite all our hard work and belief in ourselves, we only just scraped a gold C. i was expecting gold B at least. sigh. at least we got gold lah. but...sigh. the only choir in the entire competition that got gold A is ETVCC. and they were category winners for 2 categories. wow. adyll and wei wei's TPJC male chorus also went on to the grand finals. back at concorde, at the debriefing, we discovered that for open mix, we could have gotten gold B. all the judges but one marked us for gold B. only jennifer tham marked us down. darn her. shi yun says that she marked them down also. folklore was a definite gold C from all the judges. ok. some of the seniors were crying during the debrief. the journey back from GBW was markedly subdued. oh well, that's that lah. it's over liao. no use crying about it. could feel that the morale of the choir suddenly dropped to an all time low. little thing, when we were alighting at concorde, i think it was renee that was alighting from the bus when the driver decided to move a bit more inward. so he warned, in chinese, not to alight cos he's going to move the bus. naturally, renee doesn't know chinese so she almost fell off the open bus. then the driver scolded her. and evelyn scolded him back that renee doesn't know chinese. i heard that the driver had a astounded look on his face when evelyn snapped back at him.
went back GBW for the grand finals. all of us knew that it wasn't going to be much of a challenge. we all knew who was going to win. it was obvious. anyway, when mark tan was announcing the judges, you could tell immediately which judge the choirs hated and liked. the applause level was so different for all the judges. first choir to perform was TKSS. loved their songs. wish i could do those songs too. especially the one that got the clapping and stamping. cool. then there was ETVCC. i don't remember their first song. but i remember their second. "Aglepta". that song was ScARy. really. for those who don't know, the song is mostly sounds, it's a curse for enemies. SAc tried to do it once and failed. ETVCC did it so well. they acted out the song. it was freaky, they looked like they were possessed. there was a very very nightmarish quality about that song. i could sense stunned silence in the audience. anyway, moving on, TPJC was ok. adyll's solo sounded like he came in too early from the rest of the group, couldn't tell that it was a solo. the other 2 choirs were ok. i don't remember the one whose name started with 'D'. i think they did this song "elijah rock" that was good. the sops went super high. very nice song. the other choir, Fingerprints Malaysia, the one that beat us in open mix, didn't sound so good to me. the soloist sounded like karaoke queen. and the beginning song sounded like it was going to fall apart any second.
well, like i said, no surprises who won the grand prize. ETVCC. nus won the recognition for the best interpretation of the set piece "sweet honey sucking bees". whatever lah. at least we got a trophy to bring home. but it did cheer up the choir a little. after the finals and closing ceremony, we were all waiting for the bus and wei wei. until we were the only choir left in the ballroom. haha! party time for us. the philipino girls were dismantling the judges' flowers on the table. 
yan ting was having karaoke session by the piano. felicia and jenica were having an impromtu dance lesson, language 1000 level lessons to learn the "please stand behind the yellow line" message in malay and tamil. :D went back to concorde where the party went on in huai zhi's room. practically half the choir gathered there. after packing, first to come was me felicia and the philipino girls. the girls brought sardines, which looked a little gross inside the glass when we didn't know what it was. then the rest of them drifted in. 
so there was a group playing 'gambling' card games, 
another group playing 'intellectual' bridge, another group in front of the tv (watching "miss world" and "miss congeniality 2), another group eating cake. quite fun actually. felicia and jenica went out to the lift lobby to continue their dance lesson. me and felicia left at around 1 plus. would have loved to stay but too tired.
last day tuesday. the morning call was at 7. but we slept till 8. then rushed down for the last remnants of breakfast. which was quite nice. nasi lemak, scrambled egg and sausage. and orange juice (not fresh tho, syrup). checked out punctually at 9.15am after reluctantly dragging ourselves away from the extreme sports competition on tv (boarding, biking etc). bus left at 10 sharp. the bus was spanking new, but the seat was darn hard. imagine TIBS bus kind of seat. slept most of the way back. dharini said that she didn't sleep at all, she was at huai zhi's room till the party broke up at 6am when huai zhi kicked them out so that he could sleep for a while. yup, quite an uneventful ride back. erm...they were teasing joseph cos he chased iris away from sitting with him, we were asking him who he wants to sit with; J, R, A or K (the philipino girls). and kk broke the trophy at the singapore checkpoint cos he was juggling too many things in his hands. 6 hours after leaving shah alam, we reached nus. yay!home sweet home!
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