galalgalasyalala*//: shanghaiiii

YAY. okay im back from Shanghai!

SHANGHAI was cold. it was never above 20 degrees when i was there. and it rained like half the time i was there. and i complained it was too cold.

but now singapore is just way too hot.

just be thankful hor.

i miss china!

i think.

haha.

tell u a secret.

i went there alone. the SIA flight was good. it was a night flight. 5hours long. but i slept for like 2 hrs. i watched kite runner. i reached pudong airport around 6.30am. and i was scared cuz there was noone there to pick me up. the number they gave me was invalid. so i waited. until 8.30am. i was already freaking out okay. i msged lilian and nicholas and izzat. i dint know what to do. :( then then then, i saw the thailand team arrive. phew. finally at 9am, the bus came and drove us to shanghai water sports centre. waaayyyyy in this rural province of shanghai called Qingpu. it was about an hour's journey.

on the first night i cried. I KNOW. i feel so stupid, pls. but yeah. i felt so alone and desolated and miserable. i wanted to go home. i felt terrible. it was cold. and silent. and i cried and cried. i called my mum, i called izzat. omg. its only the first night and i was already home sick.

IT WAS (embarrassingly) BAD.

to think about it i felt so bodoh nak mampos! haha. shit. okay, over.

everynight i sleep with the lights and TV on. (dont ask me why)

and shanghai's springy spring spring season is gorgeous. LOOK!

the water sports centre

the hotel (with no name)

15 mins walk to the water sports centre

i had a room with 3 beds to myself.

and a TV with 70 over channels,

and only one in English.

and its a news channel.

the boat house.

the sign outside the boathouse says,

"GROUND FOR TRAINING ONLY NO ENTERING WITHOUT BEING ASKED"

right.

training was pretty okay. it was considered light but for this fat blob from singapore who havent trained for 5 months it was pretty hard. and my blisters were back. ho ho ho. i counted them i have 14 in total on both palms. SEDAP, you.

rowers are sadists.

dint you know?

dayung my sampan.

eh. its so cold there i hardly sweat.

and there was this one morning. the only morning i was there in fact, there was sunlight.

sunlight in Shanghai is a rare occassion.

i dint say i was a neat freak.

oh and my bag was so heavy cuz i had books in them. i brought books to study and yes i did study okay! im so proud of myself. but my progress isnt far. slowly but surely. hmm, yelah.

and sometimes i got bored.

well, most of the times.

so i doodled.

finished up izzat's triple chocolate crunch (the best cereal in the world),

attempted to learn chinese.

(oh wait, i learnt chinese.

but i forgot half of what i learnt.)

(and OH! im a quarter chinese.

but i dont look like im a quarter chinese.)

oh well.

and i LAYANed DIRI.

i was THAT bored, pls.

okay so yah. we have coach's meeting everynight. im an athlete, a coach and a manager. power kan? and my coach is Andreas from Swizerland. he's really nice. :)

there were many many countries involved in the training camp and we were separated into groups and each group was coached by FISA coaches. so my group had Andreas and my group had thailand, qatar, mynmar, malaysia and south korea. the koreans left halfway to another group. the mynmar rowers were fast. the mynmar lady was the one who beat my in SEA games to clinch the silver. we attempted to communicate, but to no avail. haha. but she's nice. she gave me coffee sweets.

err, yah.

look at my mismatched handles. they are the cause of my pretty hands.
my palms now are a good match for my pretty toes.
wee.

oh and i celebrated my birthday in china. how exciting.
i celebrated alone. very fun u know. u should try it too.

so on sunday, 20th april 2008 when i turned 20. i had a time trial which i did badly. its a good way to start a birthday.

but good thing was, sunday was free day. so in the afternn, the organizers had plans to bring us to shanghai city!

we went sight seeing at the Bund, we went up the Oriental Pearl TV Tower (something like that) and we went to the Super Brand Mall! but we dint shop. cuz the stuff were kinda priceyyy. :(

but oh well. i had fun. i made lots of new friends! :)

and new discoveries!

like..even TEAs have sexual orientations.

ans we went up 263 stories high!

haha. nolah. 263m.

okay best. then we headed back to the hotel.

what a great birthday.

hmm.

on the last night before i left, they made us change hotels. so i moved to another hotel down the road which was under renovation.but the rooms were gorgeous!