I AM BAAAAAACK!!!!!! :D :D :D wahahaa korea was fun!! the organizers were like pampering us! hahaa. it was SO COLD there!!! T.T apparently it was -5 degrees the first day T.T T.T booooooooooo. luckily we stayed indoors most of the time! except when we were touring :D haha. this is going to be a long post!!

day 0: left s'pore

day 1:

took a LONG flight! and i didn't sleep much cause i was too excited!~ haha. when we reached seoul, i THINK we saw snow O.o hahaa. there were some white things drifting down! and when we were on the domestic flight plane, there were lots of white things on the ground!! haha when we reached changwon, a few other countries were there already! indonesia, malaysia etc. i think O.o but we had the whole bus to ourselves during the ride to the hostel :D apparently, the other people who were supposed to share our bus wasn't there yet! hahaa. the hostel's great! hahaa. i suppose. it's cleaner than PGPR. xD umm. if you dont look under the bed O.o so anyways. they didnt provide lunch for us at first!~ noooo. then a lot of us didnt have lunch to eat too so they ordered hamburgers for us! went out to the park looking patch of grass outside our hostel and sat in the pavillion to eat lunch with the zimbs. haha they were really friendly!

after a LONG wait.... (and still no sign of my roommate) we left for the welcome dinner! there were LOADS of speeches. but the food after that was great!!! and it was buffet-style :D actually, all my meals in korea were all buffet style (except when we went out during tours to eat at the korean cuisine restaurants) so i ate A LOT. and there were performances during the welcome dinner. there was some korean version of grease O.o hahaa. it was quite amusing!~!! though i didnt really understand the story O.o the subtitles were off half the time. and we met our guide, yoojin! after we got back to the hostel, i met my roommate! from lithuania. but there was another lituanian girl that got a whole room to herself so i was effectively having a single room :D luckily xD i've taken a habit of throwing my things all over the room! hahaaa.

day 2:

"attention please, attention please. it is now 6:45. it is time to wake up. i repeat. it is time to wake up." we hear that every morning over the PA system that unfortunately is very VERY loud. and there are speakers throughout the hostel O.o except the toilets. so anyways after the breakfast we went for the opening ceremony. which was more boring that the welcome dinner cause there wasnt food xD hahaa. but there were performances like some korean dance with drums thingy.

(this was a performance of some guy in a balloon that happened before the opening ceremony)

and the performance to signify the opening of ijso was some past medal winners cycling to generate electricity to light up some tree light thingy with balloons/balls hanging on it O.o hahaa. anyways we got to view some science fair later. cause ijso coincided with the international science fair. the exhibits were all in korean O.o but it was still quite fun cause a lot of it was interactive. haahaa. and the lego thingy was cool!! and we saw some robot that kicked and punched when you pressed some remote control. and it was really cute~! hahaa. and there were lots of little kids around xD i bet they understood the fair more than we did! oh and we got a hover craft. i just finished building mine. it really hovers O.o except it moves REALLY slowly. hahaa. umm. next they had a science talk specially for us O.o and they invited some other korean high school students. nobody was listening. hahaa. i dont even rmb what it's supposed to be about. hmm. tried to study when we reached the hostel but ended up playing cards! :D hahaa.

day 3:

nothing much in the morning other than the 1st test. i think i screwed up. half the questions were really easy. the other half were questions i didnt understand at all/i had no clue about. and the problem is, you could correct your answer on your answer sheet only once. and you have to CROSS out the correct answer. which is baad. cause i circled LOTS of my correct answers. and a circle with a cross inside means you dont want that answer anymore. (did the above paragraph make sense?) so i was like "SHIT" cause half my answers were marked wrongly or something. but i think a lot of other ppl were like me cause they let us get a new answer sheet in the end xD in the like. last 20 mins or something.

WE WENT TO THE NAVAL ACADEMY NEXT. hahaa. the whole place was BIG and COOOL! and i took a picture with the guides who were from the navy :D hahaa. and we went into some turtle ship! that's famous cause it was crucial in winning some battle or something. no wait. the ship's ROOF was crucial in winning some battle O.o they had spikes on the roof. haha.

and i almost knocked my head entering the ship. guess i'm too tall :p and they had like some navy museum or something. and there were huge planes and guns all around!

day 4:

toured at the wetlands today. the trees were all BROWN. hahaa. anyways after we toured the first wetland, we went to some other wetland that had an outdoor eating place kind ofthing. and ate lunch there. some floury thing and some vermicelli thing. hmm. according to the korean guide, they only eat these kind of things in the new year O.o haha so anyways we got to tour the second wetland after lunch. this wetland had some building that had like exhibits of uh. plants. and some animals. O.o anyways the water in the wetland was half frozen. so the zimb guy went to walk on the water. uh. ice. hahaa. for about 1 meter. then he heard a crack or something and walked back. apparently one of his foot got soaked O.o haha. dunno. and we went to the observatory. which was so high up our guide stopped halfway up the steps to take a rest xD and when she finally decided to climb all the way up, we decided to go down xD hahaa.

day 5:

2nd test... physics was HARD. i just suddenly blanked out when i saw the electricity question. haha. i failed the physics question. and they we had our 3rd science talk. which was equally. uh. interesting.

day 6:

hmmm. the bus ride to the gyeongnam aboretum was LONG. anyways the whole aboretum exhibition was filled with fake stuff xDoh but there was this really cool stairway that was made from like lots of different woods. and there were tags on them that had all the scientific names of all the plants that made it O.o hahaa. anyways the aboretun had the cool garden place exhibiting lots of diff plants. which all looked the same to me. and there was this snow white and the four dwarves thing in the garden. hahaa. the skirts and pants of snowwhite and the dwarves were all made from plants or something. hahaa. and we had lunch at some korean restaurant again. :D hahaa. ate uh. bimbibap? (or something like that) jinju castle later was COOL. it was so old! haahaaa. and there was this cliff thingy... without a railing bordering it..... with only a sign that probably says danger.... that was totally in korean..... and the cliff thingy was really really reall high.............................. haha anyways ppl were trying to skip stones. O.o some guy did like 5 skips or something. oh and there was some newly opened museum in the castle. we decided to watch the 3D movie of some war O.o hahaaa. some japanese invasion of korea in the 1500s/1600s/1700s or something. haha. the graphics were great!!! anyways when we went back to the hostel some ppl started playing basketball O.o (in that weather?!?!?!) and apparently they got owned by some korean guide that was really pro! hahaa. and there was this guy making a card tower. 10 STOREYS!!!!! woah.

day 7:

third tests. bio was to dissect a squid. haahaa. which i didnt dare touch. physics was some optics thingy that was quite simple. chem was paper chromatography and tlc chromatography. i thought i did badly for that one cause my separation didnt come out properly,. when the our teachers marked it, they gave the team 9.6/13 or something. but in the end we got 12.6 ^^ haha!! i wonder where the 3 marks came from :D after that was the last science talk. (phewwwwww)

day 8:

went to some museum again! gimhae national musuem. this museum was quite cool, cause the things there were like REALLY old. from the stone age and the bronze age and stuff. hahaa. and there was this really cool saw!!! hmmm. let me post the picture. haha.

the teeth of the saw are supposed to be the birds or something O.o ithink. how can it saw anything O.o

next we went to the busan gyeongnam race park! haha. we patted horses. :D mine was called m something. hahaa.and we watched a horse race! i betted that 12 would win. and it got 2nd :D not bet la! haha. 12 was the coolest looking horse with the coolest looking jockey! ahaha. and one korean guide gave me a sticker that said "i am the best" in korean xD pasted it on my camera for everyone to seeee!!! ahahaa. then we got into some hmm. dry sled thingy? hahaa. you sit in this. uh. tray. and then you get pushed off some slope! or you can kick yourself off if you want. ahaha. the slope was quite gentle. but it was FUN. cause it gets REALLY REALLY fast at the end! whooooo.

day 9 & day 10:

omg. last day. omg last day. omg last day. we got to shop a bit. like really A BIT. they didnt give enough time! T.T i bought lots of korean snacks :D hahaa. and then it was closing + award ceremony. woots. i got a silver for individual, as expected. (actually i was hoping i wouldnt get bronze cause i really screwed up badly for the 2nd test). and my team actually got another bronze (3rd) for practical O.o hahaa. and i still got a silver overall. hmm. my theory must really suck! hahaa. singapore ended up with 3 golds, 3 silvers and 1(x3) team bronze. taipei and korea owned with 6 golds. hahaa. overall winner was korea!

(This was some cool performance during the farewell. the guy kicked some apple on some sword that was really high later)

anyways during the farewell dinner we had to perform too. omg omg omg omg. i had to sing omgomgomgomg. like. solo. sort of. omgomgomgomg. it was so SCARY. omgomgomgomgomg. there were like dunno how many hundred ppl watching. omgomgomggomgomg. haha. but i kind of drank a teeny weeny bit of wine before that. so when i walked up stage i felt a bit far away (??). hahaa.

when we went back to the hostel, it was already so late!! but we all stayed up :D the guy on the PA was quite funny! "it's 11:40 now. i repeat, it's 11:45 now." ?? then. "it's too late. it's time to sleep!" but everyone daoed him! hahaaa. last night lehhhhhh T.T haha. everyone was still playing/dancing and having fun at midnight! and we had to leave the hostel at 4AM anyway. so it was pointless to sleep. at around 2AM half the hostel was asleep already. the other half was still playing. uh we were playing werewolf. hahaa. i was starting to get groggy. kk. at 4AM we left the hostel. we switched buses so we could be in the same bus as the mongolians :D hahaa. a few other countries were taking the early domestic flight tooo.

(*it was SUPER hard to pack!!!! i had a hard time squishing everything in. 2 bags became 4 bags :D ahaha whoops!)

waited in seoul airport for like. 6h or something. the mongolians waited for 4h. so the last 2h we were like alone. with nothing to do except play cards! hahaa.

bye korea!

day 10:

hello singapore! haha. i was starting to feel homesick around day 7 already... but it was sad to leave korea! T.T

oh! and i learnt LOTS of new card tricks! :D from alex and the guys hahaaa. O.o

*yawns* slept for really long today!

ohoh!

hmm. interesting. hahaa. it's supposed to be some famous korean quote or something O.o

aiyah lazy to upload the rest of the photos! why does blogger only upload 5 at one time!

omg. the holidays are ending T.T T.T