True.Illusion

[Sunday, 19 July 2009, 7.15am, Singapore]
Now sitting at the gate A19 at Changi Airport’s Terminal 3 waiting to board the plane. Super sleepy right now. It’s pretty quiet. Most of the choir seems quite subdued. Norma is asleep. Woke up at 4am after a relatively sleepless night. Hard pillow problems as usual. Finished packing quite alright. I don’t feel quite as panicked as last year. I guess it’s cos I adopted the idea that I have what I need and what I left behind, I can live a week without. Yup. I guess I should be feeling ery excited, leaving SG in a few minutes time. But right now, the overriding feeling is a lightheaded sleepiness. Hope I can catch some sleep on the plane. 5 hours ride. Wonder who’ll be around me on board. I got the feeling it’ll be a window seat. :p Jensern is going round taking photos of everyone, like the official photographer.

[10.50am]
So, halfway athrough the flight now. So far, it’s been not too bad. Hit turbulence a while back and it’s turbulent right now. Feel a bit dizzy but I guess I’ll write to keep my mind off things. In seat 52J, right side of plane, between Gabriel and Yi Ling. I’m contemplating asking Gabriel to switch seats with me, but maybe not. Cos the two of them are sleeping quite soundly and me in the middle fidgeting like heck. It would e nice to snooze for a bit but I doubt I’ll be doing it anytime soon.

Anyway, the plane took off on time I suppose. No problems at customs. The gate was freaking far away. Had to take a skytrain shuttle to get there without having to walk for ages.

Back to the flight. I was watching “Labyrinth” just now. Nice, except the screen was a bit dirty. I think I’m not quite used to flying during the day. Really bright sunlight was coming in until Yi Ling pulled the shades down. Nothing much to see outside anyway. According to the flight path thing, we’re currently over the sea between Vietnam and the Philippines. Which probably would account for the turbulence. Someone told me once that there is always more turbulence over water. Probably true. Brings back memories of my last China trip. There was turbulence on the way back and I was watching that “Fearnot” show. Listening to my ipod music now. I suppose I shouldn’t exhaust the battery now. Still got a few more hours bus ride to Hangzhou.

Since there isn’t really anything more to report, I thought I’d talk a bit about the sunset mass I attended last night at Holy Family. The priest was interesting but throughout the homily, thoughts of how his argument was flawed by dint of oracular reasoning kept flooding my mind. And the choir! They sang the Mass of Light version of the Gloria! OMG! I love that version. Would really love to introduce it at St Stephen’s, except that we’ve just introed a new Gloria. Of course, Mass of Light Gloria requires for the priest to sing reasonably well, a requirement which is not quite met at St Stephen’s, unfortunately. Gosh. I’d love to plan hymns at Holy Fam. They had like a 30 strong choir. I want to make it my ambition to build up the sops of our choir. It’s necessary.

Ok, all for now. My hand’s cramping, it’s cold and I gotta pee, but I feel bad for waking Gabriel to let me out cos he seems to be sleeping quite soundly. Sigh.

[2.50pm, Shanghai]
Landed at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport. No men in white suits to greet us on arrival (temperature taking thing that an announcement had suggested during flight). Beautiful pics of Shanghai in the air.

It was an extremely bumpy landing and now my messy handwriting suggest a very bumpy bus ride. Anyway, first impressions. God, it’s HOT! Sweating like I’m back in SG. Second, I don’t feel like I’m in a different country. Like now, in the bus on the wrong side of the road (left hand drive), looking out the window, I don’t feel that it’s alien. It’s different, I’ll admit, but not that unfamiliar feeling. Don’t know how to descibe things. We’re on the highway zooming past what looks like countryside.

Christina says it looks like Indonesia. Maybe. I was thinking of Malaysia, but not quite so Malay. The landscape’s dotted with 2-3 storey houses. Looks quite cute actually. Looks like those houses children draw, with a triangle or a trapezium for the roof and a square for the main house and little square windows. The windows aren’t all aligned in a straight line either. Wonder why. I think it’s staircase windows between floors. I see patches of what looks like crops being grown and every now and then, streams of water. And a stone bridge spanning one of those streams. Looks exactly like something out of a TV serial of Imperial China. Solar panels on the roof of some houses, giving an interesting blend of new and old. Can’t quite figure out which era the architecture belongs to. Not quite as communist as Russia was, but not quite pre-communist either I think, nor modern, except for the solar panels.

[9.50pm, Hangzhou]
Back, after going out for dinner. The hotel room is damn posh. I don’t think I’ve been in a nicer one. It’s even got background music in the bathrooms if we want to turn it on.

It’s still extremely hot, despite it being night time. I should have packed different stuff. Outside, it feels like mid afternoon in a car park in SG. 33 degress apparently. God help us.

Anyway, like I said, went out for dinner. It was alright. Chinese food, ordinary stuff by our standards. It was a bit of a surprise coming back to the hotel after because someone, probably the housekeeping, had been in. Boiled a kettle of water, turned down the sheets and drew the curtains for us. Quite a nice touch, after the initial shock was over. Have briefing later. Not sure what time it will be. Hope not too late. Sleepy. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. Should be fun in 39 degree weather.

[Monday, 20 July 2009, 8.20pm]
Not much happened today. Had practice literally the whole day at a very nice Hangzhou Youth Centre place. Weather still bakingly hot but I think maybe we’re more used to it. Not sweating as much. Resorted to using umbrella when walking outside. Protection from the sun but still can feel waves of heat radiating from the pavement. Ran into Shi Yun singing with the Vocal Consort.

Breakfast was at a western buffet place on the 34th floor. Freaking nice view, though visibility was not that high. Breakfadst was only remarkable in some strangeness. They translated “sausage” into “breakfast intestines”. Kind of made me lose my appetite for a while. The bacon wasn’t fried. Not sure what it was. Steamed, some people said. I really like the noodles, though it was spicy so couldn’t eat too much. Pity.

Yup. I suppose that’s it for today. Had some corny jokes about 导游 or 倒油”dao you”, 要咸 “yao hsien” and 加甜 “jia tian”. For those who don’t know Mandarin, the first one is a play on the Chinese word for tour guide which sounds like the Chinese phrase “pour oil”. The second and third ones are plays on names of our choir memebers which sound like “want salty” and “add sweet” respectively. Yeah, go figure. There were more corny jokes after we were served a plate of corn at dinner. I don’t think it’s necessary to record more corny jokes down.

Competition day tomorrow. All the best to us. I think we’ll rock!

[Tuesday, 21 July 2009]
Freaking long day thus far. Jun’s alarm woke us up at 5.30am. Thought I was home or something cos my arm automatically reached to where I usually keep my alarm clock. Snoozed until the hotel’s morning call at 6am. Washed up and all. Breakfast quickly. The sun rises reallye arly her. Can’t say it sets early though, boo. Make up, dress up, warm ups. Lucky I packed my badg the night before. Used the garment bag. That thing can really put a lot of things. Ran into Nelson in the lift going down to the lobby. He said he hoped we hadn’t oversung since yesterday’s crazy long practice. Discovered wifi in the lobby, so could check my email with the iTouch. All junk mail. Couldn’t access facebook though. Apparently China blocks it. Didn’t want to put up blogs or anything. I refuse to transfer those long entires using the iTouch’s mini keyboard. I’ll get carpal tunnel syndrome for sure.

Anyway, started out with Folklore. Hangzhou’s Grand Theatre has lovely architecture. It’s the little silver thing next to the big orange sun-like thing. The hall is smaller than I thought. It’s only about a bit bigger than the UCC theatre. Very nice acoustics. Folklore was pretty fine. Saw Nelson nodding as we sang “Soleram” so it was probably good. Then was “Sik Sik“. Went quite well. It was actually quite fun. Forgot a minor bit of the choreo, but I managed to fix it quick. (Thanks to Melissa on FB for the videos) Then there was a mad dash to deposit our bags in the lobby. By the way, we came in through the staff entrance, adjoining the car park. The lobby didn’t seem to be in use, wrt to Orientale Concentus. Wish they had turned on the air con though. It was baking, especially with the glass panels around it. Green house effect. Carzy dash to the toilet to change into our formal outfit, getting ready for the open mixed category. Went to the “opera house” to prepare. Very nice place. Like the UCC Hall but with red seats. Terrance’s songs seemed to go alright, except that we were all kind of flustered for some reason. He kept trying to calm all of us down, remind us to take lots of dep breaths and not panic. Anyway, open mix went really well. Bit hard to explain the feeling as I sang and followed Terrance’s conducting. Like this is the accumulation of all that hard work, but something more. Like reaching journey’s end at last. Never had that feeling before. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing, this possibly being my last competition with them. I still haven’t decided yet if I’m going to come back.

Anyway, lunch kind of sucked. Chicken with towgay, sick looking cucumber and another unidentified vegetable. The rice was in a separate packet. And a bowl of something which the guide called soup, but looked like tau huay and ended up being steamed egg. Didn’t eat much of it.

Grand Finals after lunch. We were category winners for the Folklore Category. Gabriel and Harris must have been proud. Both of them first time leading the choir into competition. Terrance seemed a little subdued. Found out later that he was feeling a little under the weather. Hurriedly changed back into our Folklore outfit and had a blast singing and dancing the songs yet again. The St Angela’s Children Choir from Indonesia was one of the finalists. They are freaking cute!! Vocal consort was also a finalist. They won the open mixed category. I didn’t understand their songs at all. Lots of weird and seemingly random screaming with Glenn sticking out at certain high and exciting parts. But, eventually, they emerged as the grand champion and overall winner of the competition. Not to put down the Vocal Consort, but I think we sang better than them. There was a suspicion that it was the sacred pieces which pulled us down quite badly. Nelson marked us pretty highly, which was nice, but one of the other judges marked us down. Sigh. We won the special Jury Award though. Whatever that means. They say this is the award they give to a choir when they want to give an award but there isn’t any to give. Get it? Anyway, maybe Nelson would explain it someday.

Came back to the hotel after that for a very refreshing shower before dinner. We were all kind of rowdy at dinner cos they were giving out the certifcates of participation for all of us. We had to be told to hush.

Shopping after dinner. Or rather, walking around the street absorbing heat. Didn’t really buy anything. Just some souvenior food stuff. Not much interesting. I don’t like shopping when I’m overseas cos I always feel that in today’s commercial world, shopping and goods are the same everywhere. Seen one, seen all.

One the way back on the bus, some people were sharing a dirty joke. It goes like this: A papaya leaf can be used to soften meat. There is something else which can be used to harde meat. What is it? It’s not artifical, meaning, it’s natural. It’s a food. It took a really long time, with people guessing everything from rice to green curry. Even the resident self-professed dirty mind person gave up. The answer: lady’s fingers. WTF.

[Wednesday, 23 July 2009, 9.33am]
No update for yesterday cos it was a really long day and too much happened and I didn’t have time to put it down. On the bus now, on the way back to Shanghai. Should be catching some shut eye but I think I’m past my natural sleep-wake cycle. Can’t get my mind to shut down long enough to sleep, so I guess I’ll catch up on my writing before Shanghai creates another long story to tell.

So to begin with yesterday. It was our day to sleep in, having to report only at 10am. But it was also the day of the eclipse. I’ve been looking forward to it since the beginning of the year when I heard in Astronomy class that the eclipse in China in July would coincide with the choir trip. So, I was kind of excited. They say it’s the longest eclipse in 500 years, that’s what makes it so special. Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Got woken up at 4am yestday, hearing what sounded like a series of small explosions. Went over to the window to look out, just in case World War Three started. It was FIREWORKS! Can you imagine? Fireworks at 4 in the morning. They were kind of small, so I assume it was a rehersal or something. There really wasn’t much point of fireworks at 4 in the morning. So, went back to sleep. Woke up around 7.45, 8am. Since, like I said, I was excited about the eclipse (日全食), I went to look out the window, and, a mixture of surprise and gladness and disappointment and anticipation. The sky outside was overcast and the river (钱江) and the city were misty. I expected it since the last few times I remember eclipses of some sort, the skies were all overcast too. Had breakfast in the room then went up to the 34th floor restaurant. Meantime, we had CCTV news on and there was live coverage of the eclipse. Anyway, went up to the the 34th floor. Now, you might think that me having been looking forward to it would have been totally ready, but I wasn’t. I went up there with no idea whatsoever what I would be doing. It’s dangerous to look at it with the naked eye. There was a huge crowd of the choir people there already watching with cameras at the ready. I managed to get a pair of solar filter glasses from Rachel. She didn’t ask for it back so I guess she isn’t as much a geek as me. It was quite an awkward position cos the position of the sun and the placement of the windows meant a rather painful contortion of the body, especially the neck. But it was TOTALLY worth it.

Toilet break now. Be back later!

[10.57am]
Alrighty, back. You know, so far, my bad impression of toilets in China have not been confirmed. Well, rather, my very ‘interesting’ encounter with toilets the last time seems to have been an isolate incident. Well, the toilets still smell pretty badly and I did encounter a toilet where the dividing boards were low enough for me to see the head of the person in the next cubicle. I think Huiling had a bit of a shock when she found that out. Haha!

Anyway, back to the eclipse. Was using Rachel’s solar glasses to watch the moon moving across the sun. Tried to put the filter onto my camera lens to try to watch on a bigger screen in a more comfortable position, but my camera wasn’t powerful enough to do that. The filter is really dark. Can’t see anything but the sun through it. Then the magic moment arrived. The moon completely covered the sun. The whole city went dark as night at 9.30am. One minute it was overcast but light, the next, a plunge into darkness. It was exhilirating. We clapped and cheered. We could see the sun/moon with the naked eye, just a white empty circle in the sky. Only the corona (?) was visible. The rest of the sun was coverd by the moon. My photos don’t do it justice at all. My photos make it look like a random smudge or speck of dust on the lens. A “Spot the Object” exercise. But in real life, it was a very Heroes moment, seeing the sun/moon like that. Fireworks were wet off in the city in celebration of this once in 500 years event and, in the Chinese tradition of scaring away the demon that’s devouring the sun. The darkness remained for 5 minutes at least (the news reports say 6 minutes and a bit), before in almost a blink of an eye, the sun reemerged and it was light again. Incredible, fantastic, brilliant, amazing – take your pick of adjective, it’s probably still not enough to describe it. I feel like a geek saying this, but I feel that I was incredibly lucky for the eclipse and the trip to coincide, that the hotel is so high up, that China (Hangzhou/Shanghai for that matter) lay in the optimum eclipse path. It was one of those things, like being at the top of the Eiffel Tower, that you’ll remember forever cos it’s just so incredible and amazing.

Ok, after that, we went for a bit of sightseeing. Went to the plantation where they grow Hangzhou’s famous Long Jing tea, 龙井茶. I was there before. I distinctly remember because the last time I was there with SAC, I was bored stiff and didn’t drink any tea because I was still too immature to drink it. They hadn’t changed anything since nine years ago. Not even the layout of the room. That’s why the memories came rushing back. This time, I’m older and I know how to drink tea now. The tea smells like meat and tastes like mildly flavoured water. Hate the smell but the tea’s tolerable, just as long as the tea leaves don’t get in the way. Those don’t taste too good. The presenter was doing ‘magic’ tricks with the tea. She made iodine water and rice mixture 90% clear again just by adding some tea. She claims it has an anti-oxident effect. I have no idea whether it’s true or not but I bought some back anyway.

Nothing to report about lunch except that it started raining so it was a very comfortable temperature. It stopped raining after lunch and we made our way to West Lake 西湖 (Xi Hu). Long journey there. Apparently we passed by the area where Jackie Chan has a house. Very nice residential area. It was pretty humid when we entered the park bordering the lake. Combined with Wild Empire and Vocal Consort to take a boat trip across the lake. There were a lot of goofy pictures being taken at the dock while we were waiting for the boat. Xi Hu is so beautiful. Apparently it’s pretty shallow too, 1.55m with 3m approx at it’s deepest. But at 1.55m, there’s a layer of loose mud cos the lake used to be a place to grow lotuses. Wonder what it would have looked like. The guide, Xiao Ren 小任, was telling us stories of the area during the ride. I couldn’t really understand her cos she was talking so fast, but I did know a bit of the area so I just sat and enjoyed the ride. The scenery was beautiful, especially with the bit of mist lingering and the lovely breeze.

After the boat ride, we went for some souvenior shopping near Wushan 吴山. Interesting mix of roadside stores and established store fronts, of modern city buildings and traditional country houses. It was very curious to walk down the shopping street and see an alleyway that looked as though it opened up to a pre-communist countryside China.

Dinner was delicious. Cos of some Malays in the choir, we had not had the opportunity to eat any pork, but this time, they included local specialities like fatty pork and beggars’ chicken. It was sinful. Full of fat and oil but oh so tasty. Yum. I’m drooling just remembering it. The fish was a bit difficult to eat though. It was full of bones. I had to mash up my fish to make sure there were no bones but even then, I would miss some and have to pick out the bones. But it was nice fish. Freshwater. Same as the prawns. There’s a story about it the guide told us, but I can’t remember. Something about seafood actually being extremely expensive and rare for the locals.

The choir split into half after dinner. Half went for another round of city shopping where, we were told, they witnessed our tour bus run over a motocycle and saw first hand how real Chinese people argue and settle disputes. I’m told that a huge bunch of curious passersby were involved. But for the rest of us, we joined half of the Vocal Consort group (who didn’t go shopping to0) and went to 宋城. I suppose it could be translated into Song (Dynasty) City. It’s like a Chinese cultural/historical version of Disneyland. Apparently Hangzhou used to be the seat of the Song Dynasty government. The highlight was a ‘cultural show’ 秀 done by the famous Zhang Yimou. Yup. The guy that produced the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. I was expecting an open air stage on Xi Hu like that arts fest thing on the Singapore River, based on the guide’s description. It wasn’t like that but it was still worth it. It was an indoor theatre thing and reminded me of those CCTV Chinese New Year variety performances. But it was totally Zhang Yimou. Huge sets, lots of performers, big scale with soaring music, laser, water and light effects. It was mainly dance and complementing acrobatics, though apparently there was a screw up and one of the aerial acrobatic acts wasn’t performed. The guide sounded disappointed when she told us about it after. It wasn’t quite a full house – there was an extra row behind us which was completely empty. Oh, and the seats weren’t positioned very well. Had to sit forward and crane my neck to see over people. Didn’t help that every now and then, cameras would shoot up and block the view again.

I think I’ll stop for now. It’s 11.04am, my fingers are cramping and I think we’re almost there. It looks like we’re approaching Shanghai city now.

[From here on, the entries are backdated]

[Wednesday, 22 July 2009, Hangzhou (continued from the previous entry)]
Where was I? Oh yeah 宋城. After the show. When the show was done, we went exploring the rest of the place. Went to 怪街. Strange Street. It was a series of old Chinese houses, the kind in the Imperial China shows, that weren’t quite right. There was a bodiless machine/head-on-a-platter thing in one. We were having quite a bit of fun with that one. Another had an upside down room – quite a classic in traditional Chinese horror. Another was slanted at an angle. That was incredibly uncomfortable for some reason. I felt super dizzy  after that one. We all had fun with the forced perspective house, arranging such that we all look the same height even though we’re not. A stifling mirror maze. And of course, lots of photos with the usual people goofing around and acting funny. The haunted house was closed at that time of night though. Luckily. Chinese/Asian ghosts scare me much more than Western ones.

Love this picture:

Drove back to the hotel after. Noticed something strange. Since Astronomy class, I’ve got this tendency to look up into the sky to spot stars at night. But I couldn’t see any stars in Hangzhou. Nor the moon. Which was weird cos it was supposed to be a full moon. And it looked like a relatively clear night sky.

Anyway, the debrief was damn late. We were told to meet at 10.30pm after we arrived back. So we did, only to be told to disperse and meet again at an unspecified time, at an unspecified location TBD. I was kind of pissed cos it was late and I knew we all had to pack and would be having another freaking long day the next day. It seemed like a colossal waste of time. But, not to bitch about the com. As much as I don’t like their ways, I’m sure they’re trying their best.

[Thursday, 23 July 2009, Shanghai]
So, it was about 1.30am before we finally tumbled into bed. Got woken at 6am by the hotel morning call. We had to check out at 7.30am (so freaking early). The morning was the mistiest I’d ever seen in Hangzhou. I could barely make out the shapes of the Grand Theatre that’s usually visible from the room window. Went up to breakfast half asleep and ate breakfast in slo-mo. Enjoyed the lovely view for the last time. Checked out and boarded the bus. Was a bit of a delay cos Terrance apparently hadn’t been aware of the change in timing (the booklet said 8.30am). But everyone arrived eventually and we set out for Shanghai.

I don’t have too much to report about Shanghai. It’s alright. Weather was bordering towards hot, but not baking. The bus driver was nice enough to ferry us around Shanghai, an offer we took up to prevent the 40 odd of us having to brave public transport. Chemin was our guide around Shanghai. I think Shanghai is mostly about the architecture, cos of its history, there’s a lot of different building styles and all. Lots of people cam whoring which the tired me found a tad annoying. I kind of agree with Xiao Ren that the advent of digital cameras mean that photographs have lost its meaning. When one goes around taking random shots of random things every two seconds… I’m too sleepy to figure out how to finish the sentence. Compare with the era of film photography where one has to make every shot count. So yeah. I was in quite a bit of a grumpy mood.

Then came the shopping. Went to Nanjing Road first.

I got 2 toys for the 2 kids of that 2010 Shanghai Expo mascot. The salesgirl was giving a real pissed off face, so much so that even though I initially wanted to buy 3, one for myself, I ended up with just 2. Didn’t want to have any more interaction with her than necessary. Sales staff like that really piss me off and I was already in a grumpy mood, so I ended up in a real foul mood.

Foul mood dissipated when we met up with Glenn’s group. He was warbling out an extremely disturbing version of “Ding Dong Merrily On High”. And a crowd was starting to gather around him. It was hilarious. And then we attempted to sing “Ilay”, which failed dismally. It was really extremely embarrassing. But very very funny. I laughed till my stomach hurt.

Another annoying thing about the choir is that people (including the com) are very unpunctual. Which is annoying because you’d expect the office bearers to follow their own rules and abide with the timing they set. It’s called showing a good example to the ordinary members. It’s so not funny when it means those who are on time have to stand on a sidewalk smelling of dirty sewer stuff and getting wet in the rain while waiting for those who are late. I really really REALLY can’t stand people who are late. Turns me off and spoils my day.

Shanghai World Financial Centre. Apparently the tallest building in the world. Didn’t go in cos it was raining so the visibility would have been bad. It’s the one with a hole at the top, but the building next to it is really high too.

Not much to say about the trip to Superbrand mall. It was just an ordinary shopping mall to me. Another day of me following shopaholics around. I did get some shirts for the bro at UniQlo. Looked quite nice. Hope it would fit him though. Had dinner at a noodle place with Jensern and Jun, after which we discovered that the rest of the choir seemed to have lost us. Luckily, we found Yao Hsien, who despite him and his group having officially gone off on their own extension already, offered to bring us to where we thought the rest of them were. Then, a hot and sweaty walk to see the Shanghai night lights. But they didn’t seem to be much special. Yao Hsien said that for some reason, the lights weren’t turned on to full capacity so we couldn’t see the spectacle.

Then went to the airport to check in and board the flight. Really nothing much to report. Except that a bottle of Evian water at the airport costs 20RMB, which is S$4, which is pure robbery. But it was the only brand of mineral water available. The rest was carbonated drinks and tea. Managed to buy myself a panda soft toy as souvenior. It’s so cute. Little round ball with a tilted head. haven’t decided what to call it yet. Maybe I’ll call it Josh cos of Josh Groban’s “Panda Sex Song“. Ok, random. But I’m leaning towards 依云, which is apparently Evian in Chinese. Very random. Haha! The panda needs a Chinese name.

Was still seated with Gabriel and Yi Ling on the flight back, though Chemin came over and asked to swap seats with Gabriel cos she didn’t want to sit alone with Terrance. It was quite a turbulent take off cos it was raining with thunder and lightning in Shanghai. The rest of the flight was alright, mostly trying to get comfortable to sleep. Watched a bit of “Inkheart” at 3.30am when they woke us up to eat breakfast. Turbulent again as we approached Changi cos it was raining in SG also. Very scary dips and rises of the plance. But it was a relatively smooth landing, although there were a few false starts – ones that felt like a landing but wasn’t. My 2 seat mates were lucky enough to sleep though the whole thing. I was sleeping too until that one terrifying sudden dip.

[3.45pm, SG]
So, back home now. Had breakfast at Macs with the parents after an apple pie with some of the choir peeps who were hanging around at the airport after. Had a few hours of sleep after coming back. Have to pack for the choir camp and I’m so reluctant to move right now. Wish I can don’t attend. I really need sleep. But it’s freaking noisy now. I’d forgotten about the fucking construction noise and now it’s back to haunt me with drilling and hammering. Next time, if I get a house of my own, I’ll get it somewhere really isolated and quiet.

Anyway, that’s it. The end of the trip. It flew by so fast. Seems like only yesterday we were flying off. Gabriel said it feels like just another extended choir practice. Hangzhou was nice. I don’t mind going back. But I don’t like Shanghai. Too commercialised. I would have preferred sightseeing rather than shopping but there are some of us who define how nice a place is by how cheap the shopping is there. Which doesn’t make sense to me.

I suppose I’ll miss travellin, tiring though it may be. Days like the 22nd are reasons why I love it so much. All that wonderful, incredible experiences, things I would not otherwise have seen. Time now for those to turn to sweet memory until the next time I travel. Looking forward to it immensely.

More photos on Facebook:
Part1
Part2
Part3