RE-EDITED. AND almost COMPLETE. ENJOY.I'll be updating on the Osaka trip as promised. So some of you can stop chasing me! Haha. This post will be long. If you've already viewed my album in Multiply, then the photos in this post'll look familiar. Otherwise, this post will save you the hassle of going through all 292 photos in Multiply.
Do take note, if you don't like looooong posts, this is not the place for you.ALL PHOTOS in this blog are taken with my finepix z5 fd UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED. Japan photos on my Multiply site also taken with my camera. If you see the photos anywhere else besides my frienster account (,multiply, this blog) it means that someone koped it. Haha.
Charlene and Lim Xi were in charge of preparing for devotion/vesper/vasper/whatever and I must say they did an excellent job! So girls, well done!
ACJC and MGS string ensemble were there for the concert and a dinner with us, they had a separate programme. I heard that they stayed at the same hotel for their entire trip.
For this trip, the total (incl. homestay) guy girl ratio was
3:1. Kinda scary.
At least I made some new friends?
LSBC members if you're reading this...
Joshua Chen was there! Our old church mate! I've said this a few times to a few people already but not to anyone in church yet so yup, now you kow. I didn't approach him to ask if he remembers or recognises me. So other than a few eye contacts, there's nothing else.
Alright so on day
minus one (lol!), we went to school to vacuum the cushions,
wrap the bell boxes with those plastic stuff,
wrap up the cushions,
touch up on the writing of scores,
etc etc. Mind you, that was almost half a day! (photos up soon. you have no idea how long is my 'soon' man.)
Day
zero, we met up at terminal 2, 10pm.
Saw a lot of familiar faces from the briefing... and everyone's families.
Mrs Wong's son cried la, haha. Then we boarded the plane for a 6-hr flight. Ok unglam shot there.
Day 1:

Arrived at the airport with all our stuff, nicely parked. hahaha.
Met the tour guide, shared shared the bus with the homestay guys, and went to Kaiyukan, some aquarium. My dad would have liked it. He and his obsession with fishes. Lol. I used Heng Xuan's picture below as you can see Rumi and her orange flag! Wahahhs she's so so so cute.

I liked the penguins best.

They need to go on a diet!
Lunch was interesting. We cooked our own food.

After that.. we left for Tezukayama High School, ACS' sister school which I think specializes in the arts. This photo was taken against sunlight, if I'm not wrong.

Their koto (a Jap traditional instrument which looks like a guzheng) group played a long piece for us, followed by their string ensemble.
We were downright impressed ok. It was CLEAN and ON TUNE and together!
And maybe better than string ensembles from Sg la.
Part of the CO formed a plucked string quartet and they played something too.
They were good.
Hmm the yang qin isn't plucked wad right.
Then the homestay guys left for their own programme and the we, handbellers had the entire bus to ourselves!
Haha.. the bus driver took us to Osaka Rhiga Royal Hotel and then to Ramada Hotel for an Italian buffet.
I remember wetting my pinafore cos' I was trying out that butt-washing thing in the toilet bowl in the hotel. This is Diana's photo, I koped it from her blog.

And it looked like I stained my pinafore with blood lar!
Yeah, we did not change out and went for dinner in school uniform.
Ahem. I want to complain here.
We had to sit on the floor to eat cos' there was not enough chairs and the CO occupied all the chairs.
We were wearing skirts leh!!
And their teacher said "let the girls go first" but they didn't. Wth.
My roommates Christabel and Preethi slept early that night, and I later, cos' I was playing with that ironing thing.
Day 2:
Left the hotel with all the luggage, to Nara Prefectural Cultural Hall (as printed on the prog. sheet) for rehearsals, followed by the concert itself.
We were given a super short time to rehearse la...

Handbell was the last to rehearse and we only got to play LK and CLCTL once through. With many mistakes.
Halfway thru' one of them, the CO and string ensemble (from ACJC and MGS) went to get seated, waiting to be briefed. That's how little time we were given.
Whatever.
Everyone was supposed to gather at the reception to prepare to make a grand entrance.
Handbellers were late, as usual. (there was only one hour to eat, get changed and makeup. No time luh.)
This time Mrs Wong allowed us to let down our hair! Haha, yay.
We had to put the fake frangipani(?) which was part of the SYF/Kaleidoscope costume.
The looks on most faces (from the CO) were priceless, lol.
We screwed all 3 pieces like shit for the actual performance, yet God helped us to handle them properly.
LK - first chord was not together, countless wrong notes.
CLTCL - bass too soft, melody didn't play the first round of london bridge/ode to joy. Dynamics were... uhhhh, ..
However, the students were very auto.
They started clapping to the beat once we started playing the main melody haha.
Amazing Grace - The girls in the audience got high when Benedict the CO conductor appeared on the stage. I think they like his
hair and tuxedo.
Timing was inconsistent! Same thing, a few wrong notes.. and I forgot to look up at Ben for the final part so I came in too early! Melody some more. Damn paiseh.
Tezukayama High School's orchestra pwned big time ok.
They played major parts from the
Phantom of the Opera!
Including the Overture (strings imitated the organ), Think of Me, Angel of Music, All I Ask of You, a small part of Masquerade and Music of The Night.
We gave them a standing ovation. So much so that their conductor gave a 'curtain call' hahaha.
Their mandolin guitar item also pwned.
I know what made us so impressed. One of the reasons why they seemed to be better than the Singaporeans was because they had the quantity.
We didn't have that many people.
The students there are cute. They get excited so easily.
I just waved when we were making our exit and they were over the moon!
We did not get to go to Nara park where the THS cultural club students were supposed to host activities for the exchange program.
It was raining quite heavily.
And then.. we were transferred to Yoshino Ryokan for the night.
Shoes had to be left at a shoe cupboard at the entrance.
I can see my
pink/
white/
grey shoes among the
blacks =D

All of us had to wear this thing down for dinner, I dunno what it's called, robe is it?
Haha. There's a name for it.
We were supposed to just wear our undergarments underneath.
Most of the guys wear until so low la, purposely expose their chest...
(not like it's very nice)
Anyway here's some pics from dinner that day.

Roommates!

Burnt. And finally, from another table,

They weren't supposed to crack the eggs there! Stupid.
Christabel, Sherry, Deborah, Cheryl and I went to the onsen.
No pictures, it's not allowed.
It's like some hot spring where we had to strip naked in a dressing room, leave all our clothes there and shower in the public bath with only a small towel, before going in to soak.
(it's indoor, males and females separated, thank God)
We took quite awhile to strip... First time, whaddya expect?
Mrs Wong and the tour guide were there too!
Well I didn't like
exposing myself.. Even though we used that small towel to cover our front, but yeah, how much could we 'protect'?
I wonder how it's like over at the guys side.
Were they struggling (to cover up) like us, or what
That night the few of us roomies (Lee Xuan Theodora Preethi Chris) talked for 2-3 hours, cos' it was warm and we couldn't sleep.
We talked about everything from Mr Fong to Mrs Wong to the ACS guys (homestay/CO) to the tour guide Rumi to Ms Gan to certain girls in school to some stuff which I can't remember and back to Mr Fong and Mrs Wong again.
That was actually a good form of bonding.
Christabel slept early.
Day 3:
Took some last minute photos of our room, packed up and lugged our luggage to the reception before heading for breakfast.

View from our room, and the room itself.


Traditional bathtub, only available in our room. haha.

Breakfast! We were early, FOR ONCE.

Yup, and we took a group photo with the CO and then realised NON of us passed our cameras to the photographer! Aaaaaaaargh. Wasted.
The staff of the Ryokan were so adorable, we shouted "sayonara" to them and they waved back! They looked so happy. So were we luh. I really enjoyed my stay there.
It was about 2 hours before we reached THS... so most of us used that time to catch up on sleep. We didn't wear our school u there. Cos' Mrs Wong only asked us to bring one set there.
Speaking of Mrs Wong, I was very surprised that she did not comment on my attire that day!
Cos' it was.. a bit 'complex', not like what she told us to wear, simple t-shirt and jeans. (i think)
I didn't know that my bra strap could be seen from the back until we stepped into the hotel that night la. I thought it would blend in with my spaghetti strap.
Enough about my attire and Mrs Wong. Haha.
From what I know... we were supposed to go for some folklore music workshop?
But we didn't. I felt so cheated pls.
We had a calligraphy and flower arrangement class instead. Hurhur.
It wasn't too bad, I got praised by the THS principal, Theodora's favourite ang moh guy, Mrs Wong, and someone else I forgot.
That's something, cos' it's my FIRST ATTEMPT at calligraphy!

Not this one la.. was just bored. The face is so cute! Yeah, then that's Christabel and I below.

And the flower arrangement thing. We had to throw the flowers away in the end. Can't go thru' customs.

We proceeded to their music room for observation for awhile...
The students sang for us

I can't comment much about that cos' I'm no choirster (?).
And later played a very out of tune Edelweiss for us, with Mr Fong as the pianist.
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