Woo hoo the Japan trip was so fun!

Overall I'll say for now is that I guess that as a whole we've bonded even more as a band, and as friends (and for certain Sec 4s people it was in many er, senses, erm, life changing). Musically speaking, we've heard the Japanese bands, and thus it follows that we all 心里有数 exactly where we lie.

Anyway, I'll just make a list of all my Japan souvenirs:

(1) Elmo doll (for my pets, sister didn't want)
(2) Squishy pig key chain (mine)
(3) Miniature katana (mine)
(4) Fridge magnet (for grandmother)
(5) Two fans (not sure what to do with them)
(6) Hand towel (for the house)
(7) Chocolates (for parents)
(8) Clarinet maintenance kit (mine)


-- added on 17/06/08 --

I know myself well enough to state that as a fact that if I don't blog about the Japan trip either today or tomorrow, I will forget the details until 一干二净. My initial idea of bringing a little book to be a temporary journal died when I, erm, forgot -_-.

So after the "are you ready to get scientific" SJWP competition, I went back home to do some last minute packing, then headed off to school. It was only halfway there that I remembered that besides the aforementioned little book I also conveniently FORGOT TO BRING MY CAMERA =( so I have 0 pictures to contribute. All the pictures which I will probably post will all appropriated from other bandmates.

Got there a little earlier than 6 PM, the designated meeting time. Everyone was there already (amazing for RI boys) and after some administration (involving coats and bubble wrap) we set off for Terminal Three, Changi Airport.

Well we got there at 8-something PM, five hours earlier than the flight (1:10 AM), because apparently there were three other bands also going to Japan at the same time but different flight and different part of Japan (Tokyo) and we wanted to beat the queue. After checking in, we were dismissed for dinner.

Dinner was, well, interesting, because some of the Sec 4s *ahemsamuelahem*, being Sec 4s, decided to sit next to Russell and his family having dinner in the food court. After which, they started talking cock about him and his four non-existent GFs - evil. Kudos to his parents and sister for not blinking an eye, but after dinner Samuel got viciously poked lol.

We also met the SJI band (they were dressed in a school blazer and us in the polo tee), probably one of the three others going to Japan, so I walked up to a random member and asked them where they were going, and they said Tokyo.

After some more chatting, a drama between Dao Bo and Winston, and a bunch of coffees from Coffee Bean we went to the departure gate. Take off was just on time, flight number SQ618.

I got one of those front row seats where there's nobody sitting in front of you, but it was unfortunately not the kind which you get unlimited leg room because of the wall (note to self, never sit at 52E again). The screens were stowed in the armrest, which was pretty cool, but I hardly used it - cause of the exchange which would take place later tomorrow today, so I went to sleep.


/// DAY ONE: 10/06/08 \\\

The airport at Osaka wasn't as nice as our Changi Airport T3, but it had this cool elevator which shows the gears that run it. We arrived at about 8:30 AM, Japan time (one hour ahead of Hong Kong/Singapore), and boarded the bus to Nara Deer Park.

The park had a lot of cute free roaming deer, very gentle and friendly to humans. Having four pets at home, I'm no stranger to dealing with animals which don't bite you. There were some historical items too, and the guide tried to explain them to us but I don't think we were paying much attention. One of the more interesting items was a pillar with a small hole in it (about as big as, say, a computer screen) which supposedly brings you good luck if you manage to wiggle through - I somehow managed it so yay.

After a buffet lunch in the area, we transferred to the Osaka Toin Senior High School for the musical exchange. To put it concisely, we got owned. They SIGHT-READ Merry Widow better than we actually play it. The Eb clarinets sitting next to me TRANSPOSED the Bb clarinet score perfectly. Their conductor doesn't even NEED to give them beats or tuning because they already can do it without asking. Granted, the school places a lot more emphasis on CCAs than ours does - they have a freaking SYMPHONIC BUILDING all to themselves, and their practices are like, five or six times a week of six hours each or something. But still.

Ugh, if I talk about it I get depressed.

After the three hour long exchange, we all went for dinner together, where we got to interact with them more. Like a typical exchange, it started off with each section from each school bunching together, but the food and drink must have cured the tongue enough for pockets of conversation to break out. Thankfully, Paul, Dao Bo, and Hubert all know Japanese, so we could converse, albeit slowly. The OTSHS clarinets all got excited when we gave them our gifts (a pathetic packet of M&Ms from me and some ba kwa from Hubert - really thoughtful), and they gave us a little tube of sweets in return hehe. Some other sections gave them bigger gifts; the flutes gave them a Merlion plush toy whee.

Most of it was small talk, but then things got a little hyper when the trumpet section started fast clapping Happy Birthday to You for one of the female trumpet player's birthday, and things snowballed when someone in the clarinet section had the brilliant idea of telling the OTSHS clars that it was Brandon's (fake) birthday. Obviously, being the enthusiastic people the Japan students were, they started cheering and clapping too. I regret taking a picture of his (Brandon's) face.

Oh, and Zhao Yue met a new, ahem, pen pal.

We checked in to the Shin Hankyu Osaka Hotel for the night. My roommate and I (Russell) got a typical two person room while some lucky people got a three bed room with a wall TV and tea table. It was perhaps here that I realized that my adaptor wouldn't work here, because you need a power transformer for Japanese sockets too. Yeah, so I turned off my phone to last the week.


/// DAY TWO: 11/06/08 \\\

After a buffet breakfast at the hotel, which has a International/Japanese selection, we boarded the buses again. Following which, we went to Universal Studios Japan.

Theme parks are totally wasted on me, because I don't dare go on half the rides. Although not an official medical condition, I feel as if I have mild vertigo or something. Even when playing computer games I don't dare stand on top of cliffs or skyscrapers or things like that, much less fall from them. Might be because of my vivid imagination, but the fact remains that I hate heights.

Even the park entrance was a grand affair, with a giant rotating globe of the USJ logo greeting us amid a cloud of vapour. We arrived before the park opened, so there was a whole throng of people clogging the gates.

So as I said, due to the above mentioned reason, I'm dead scared of roller coasters. I'm also really scared of other rides when I don't know what the ride is like. And no, the cute names like Snoopy Studios and Amity Village don't fool me. It's a really gripping feeling in the stomach when we're all queueing up which threatens to expel whatever should be so unfortunate to be in there.

Eric's (my) group (flutes + clarinets) joined up with Ying Zhe's group (trombones + trumpets) to tour the park. We started off with Jurassic Park - The Ride, which, after I read that there was a 25.9 meter drop, immediately chickened out on. So after the rest of them put on ¥300 ponchos and went in, I went to stand at the exit point to watch others ride the 25.9m flume to the bottom. They were all wet lol =).

I can't remember the exact order, but we watched Backdraft. No matter what the rest say, I think Backdraft was really good; lots of fire and noise carefully choreographed to give the impression of a fire spreading throughout a factory. The ending was a bunch of barrels nearly collapsing on the audience and the floor shaking which gave a little shock.

The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man - The Ride was REALLY good, except that the queue was forty-five minutes long, so I had to endure stomach butterflies for that long. While trying to contain these, we were treated to screens and screens of background plot, so what I gathered was that some villains managed to steal the State of Liberty and Spider-Man had to go and save it. The wait was worth it, though, because the ride combined both a (horizontal, thank goodness) ride and 3D glasses to give the impression of flying through a city, with a climax of falling from a skyscraper (I nearly died here) only to be saved by Spider-Man's web.

I think Hollywood Dream - The Ride was next. It was a gigantic roller coaster which obviously, I didn't go, along with David, Yifan, and Philemon. Going in, the rest said it was too slow, and coming out, they said it was great (O.o), but I still stayed outside.

Next up was Back to the Future - The Ride, which was kind of a disappointment. It was a simulator, in essence, depicting a side plot from the Back to the Future Trilogy where the bad guy steals the time machine-car and the visitors chase him through a city, the Ice Age, and the time of the dinosaurs to retrieve it. However, I don't really think it was good, so it was a bit of a let down.

We then headed to Snoopy Sound Stage Adventure, which was an indoor roller coaster. This one, I went, but it still was scary for me at least. Ugh, I really can't take roller coasters at all.

I think we revisited The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man - The Ride one more time before heading off to lunch outside the theme park. By this time, it was already 3:00 PM, so I managed to finish my pizza =). Bought our final souvenirs, mine was an Elmo doll =)=).

DIRECTLY AFTER THIS, we went for DINNER at Dotonburi rofl. I really couldn't eat, but Hubert kindly gave me a sushi-like wrap, then Russell couldn't finish his udon so I forced it down. Thanks Hubert and THANKS RUSSELL haha.

Back at the hotel, we promptly crashed the three-man room to play bridge. I never really learnt how to play it until this trip, so yeah, whoever was so unfortunate to partner me would lose. Oh, and I learnt how to screenshot cards =).


/// DAY THREE: 12/06/08 \\\

We left Shin Hankyu Osaka Hotel to go to Fukui, but dropped by Kyoto for some sightseeing. We went first to Rokuon-ji Temple, the Golden Pavilion, but being the Singapore teenagers we are, I guess that most of the history of this World Heritage Site was lost on us. To me its just a pavilion plated in gold leaf -_-, so all I took away were photos... oops I forgot I had no camera.

We also went to the Kiyomizu Temple (Kiyomizudera), another historical place but this time also a shopping street. After a bit of scenery enjoyment and fresh inhalations we all walked downhill through the street and did some shopping.

Lunch was at the Kyoto Tower (131m *shudders*), but there wasn't enough time for us to go up, so we ate then just did more shopping. This time, I got Yifan's noodles haha (yeah I know I leech but we mustn't waste food must we?). Bought a miniature katana and a towel, but that was nothing compared to Bryan who got two life-sized wooden (thankfully) katanas.

We arrived at Fukui at 5 PM and checked into the hotel there, called the Riverge Akebono Fukui Hotel. The room was slightly bigger here (yay!) but all standard size, so there wasn't a big room to crash sadly. After some free time, dinner was provided at a restaurant, rice + noodles + soba + tempura.

I feel obliged to mention that CERTAIN PEOPLE quickly discovered the P1/P2 functions on the TV, which they promptly put to use in other people's rooms wth.


/// DAY FOUR: 13/06/08 \\\

Today was the rehearsal at Fukui Harmony Hall, a very nice music hall on par with the Esplanade in Singapore (or at least one of the eyes). We set up and waited in one of their rehearsal rooms for an hour or so before the actual rehearsal. Just in case you didn't know, we're the guest band for the Fukui High School's concert.

I won't talk about the rehearsal itself because it didn't go so well.

After the rehearsal was lunch, a very nice catered bento box lunch. I didn't finish it, which was pretty taboo because (according to Hubert/Irvin's research) the Japanese frown upon wasting food.

In the afternoon we went to err... visit some rocks at the coast. The place is called Tojinbo, and everybody was taking photos and climbing up and down the cliff. More shop spots here, especially for ICE CREAM mmmmm. Dinner followed at a place near the hotel where the clarinets ate a McDonald's.

The night was interesting, because five of us Sec 4s (me + Lucas + Samuel + Leonard + Bryan) decided to go to the public bath, which this hotel had. This is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so we decided to take it. Purely for the cultural experience that is, being the ahem, mature people we are.

After one failed attempt wipe, we went up. There are two rooms divided by a transparent screen door, a changing room and the bath room itself. The changing room has lockers for putting stuff and basins for grooming, while the bath room itself is divided into two parts. One part is the pool/bath, with water at a scorching 45 degrees Celsius or something like that, while the other is a wall filled with taps, showers, soap, and shampoo to wash yourself down with water at different temperatures. There's also a steam room or something like that branching off the bath.

I'll say first that it is the Japanese culture to participate in the public bath nude, so I don't think I was the only one that felt kind of weird at the start. But its really 爽 after being boiled in the bath to pour cold water all over yourself. Except that, like, I was feeling light-headed after about ten minutes in the water so I had to get out first.

After we all got out of the pool to the wash down area, all the Japanese guys had all left already so we, the crazy RI boys we are, started erm, splashing water around the whole place. Thank goodness there wasn't anyone to see... actually, there was, just one Japanese guy watching us from the other room laughing. Oops.

Later Zhao Yue came to my room to talk about his pen pal *covers eyes*.


/// DAY FIVE: 14/06/08 \\\

So we were watching the news on the TV downstairs at the lift lobby while waiting for the bus, and we saw on the news that an earthquake had JUST happened. At 8:43 AM, Japan time, and earthquake of magnitude 6.8 hit the province of northern Honshu. We didn't feel a thing, though, and we were watching the news at like, 8:45 AM. The news agency was showing footage of their own security cameras taking videos of the building shaking and celing lamps wobbling.

Went to Fukui Harmony Hall again, for rehearsal, which was even worse than yesterday's. Will not elaborate.

There was a long lull between lunch and the concert itself where we amused ourselves in the rehearsal room while listening to the live recordings of the Fukui High School perform. Owned once again. They had all these professional soloists to perform, including this REALLY IMBA trumpeter names Erick who plays high notes like nobody's business.

For concert itself, I think we did better than usual, usual being a normal band practice, but obviously not as good as the Fukui HS Band. Their idea of a concert is a little different from the Singapore one; they've got a lot of flashy gimmicks and actions to spice up the music as well as some drama involving a chipmunk costume.

The concert was in three parts, or stages. First stage was some classical music by them, second stage was us, and the third stage was a pop mix by them. The third stage was the real highlight of the concert, where they started off with the 20th Century Fox fanfare, followed by pieces like Takarajima and Rhapsody in Blue (professional clarinet player of course). The trumpeter came out here to join them with all his fantastic solos in Somewhere Over The Rainbow and Carmen. On the whole, it was an excellent concert, though I still think the RJCSB concert was better if you minus off all the professional soloists.

Dinner was at the same place as yesterday, McDonald's, because the rest of the area was already closed lol. Went again to the public bath, this time with the original five of us plus Jerald, Russell, Eric, and Austin (Wei Jie appeared later). Thankfully, there was no retarded throwing of water.


/// DAY SIX: 15/06/08 \\\

We had a musical exchange with the Fukui HS Band students - minus the music, because they were all bubble wrapped. They had a whole floor of their school block for the band, with sectional rooms and a band room. The exchange was just icebreakers in essence, but very fun ones. This time, our clarinet counterparts barely knew a scrap of English, so they pulled out a electronic dictionary to translate. There was also lots of food, of the snack genre, and we added our M&Ms to the pile.

We asked them to teach us a game, and they taught us one (which I have learnt before but I can't place the name) before switching to another much more fun one. It involves everyone sitting in a circle facing inwards except for one person holding a handkerchief. That person is to walk circles around the circle, and at one point, drop the handkerchief behind one of the people without him/her noticing and continue walking. When the victim finally notices that the handkerchief is behind him/her, he/she is to get up and chase the other person in the same direction.

If the person who dropped the handkerchief can manage to reach and sit the seat of his/her victim before the victim catches up, then he gets to sit down, and the victim must choose the next target to drop the handkerchief behind. If the victim catches up and taps the other person, then he/she is out of the game. And if the victim doesn't notice that the handkerchief is behind him and gets tapped, then he/she loses. It was really funny, especially when the Fukui HS clarinet SL was laughing at the previous victim and didn't notice the handkerchief behind her and got tapped.

Nearly neglected to mention that SOMEONE decided that it was Andy's birthday this time and we all sang the birthday song again. For a moment there I thought that the whole hall would suddenly find an amazing number of people with "birthdays" today -_-.

And Ying Zhe got a pink wristband, so sweet lol.

The rest of the day was spent travelling back to Osaka. Apparently, the others on the bus tell me that I was sleeping with my eyes open (like a fish, glub).

We had lunch at a rest stop. There was a ticket machine which sells you tickets for a price, then you take the ticket to the counter to get your food. Also some shopping opportunities, so I bought some presents.

Checked back into the Shin Hankyu Osaka Hotel way ahead of schedule, so we went exploring to a mall full of electronics. Of note were the iPods selling for ¥980 ($13 in SGD, but we couldn't buy them), those kiddy machines dispensing capsules with little plastic toys inside, and a section chock full of anime stuff. After two hours, I left empty handed lol.

Dinner was at a place where we had Shabu Shabu, a kind of Japanese steamboat. My table (me + Brandon + Yifan + Wei Jie) demolished five plates of beef/pork, one plate of vegetables/tofu/fungi, one plate of noodles, and a bowl of rice each. Sadly, only the beef was refillable. Mr Oura was like, "one minute more, who wants another plate" O.o. I think combined, we must have eaten Eric a few times over (sorry Eric =P). We didn't eat the most, though, the J1s ate NINE plates of beef altogether.

I'm not going to tell the Chronicles of 4068 here, because if I did, it would have to be censored. Hehe if Lucas decides to put it on YouTube I'll stick the link here. All I can say that:

(1) Its REALLY HARD to watch Chicken Wing Indiana Jones.
(2) The best way to stay alive in a room with RIMB batch of '08 in it is to not say anything about the weather/PSI (e.g. Ying Zhe/Leonard).
(3) Russell > Jerald > Samuel > Austin > Lucas in terms of getting **ped.
(4) Carry a breath mask with you. Always.
(5) I might add pictures later.


/// DAY SEVEN: 16/06/08 \\\

Woke up early to get ready for the flight. Shopped for chocolates at the airport, especially some famous brand which you can't get in Singapore or something.

This time, I spent all six hours of the flight watching 10,000 BC, Friends (again), How I Met Your Mother, and Step Up 2: The Streets (again). Lunch was a Japanese meat selection with noodles and soba yum yum.

We got a reception committee at Changi Airport - some RJCSB people welcoming the alumni, Kirk welcoming us, and Mr Paul Lim, our former discipline master and my former science teacher welcoming the teachers! I think he now works for Global Travel or something, which is the tour agency we used.

Going back to RI, I somehow felt that our band room was just a little bit... small. Curious.

Band cheer at the band room was a little smaller than usual, but just as spirited. We did it twice, once for Prometheum XII (Sec 2s against the wall) and once for the Japan trip (Sec 3s against the wall).

So that's it, for the RIMB Japan Trip'08! I'm suffering from Japan withdrawal already...


-- added on 18/06/08 --

For the sake of extending the word count to 4,000 I'll just add a little more about the aftermath of the trip. At about 10-something in the morning today Jerald suggested that we go for lunch (cause we both needed to hand in homework which we were doing), then later on we both tried to transform it into a batch lunch (failing miserably).

In the end, met up with Jerald and Eric to hand in the 私函 and have lunch at KFC. It was raining cats and dogs so I got all wet (and I was intelligently wearing school uniform and track shoes so now they're all wet).

Jerald says that he misses our band batch already, hence the lunch... and after a little introspection I find that I do too. *withdrawal symptoms!* Can't wait for school term to start... wait, homework. Retract that.

4,068 words - wow, my longest post. The number rings a bell too...

Labels: band