miau...

Monday, November 24, 2008,9:31 PM

Chinese Dance Expedition to Seoul 15-20 Nov 08

Our Chinese Dance group set off on our trip to Seoul on the 15 Nov 08.
I woke up at abt 430am and got ready as I was to meet a group of kids and set off with them from school. The kids and their parents were punctual (to my surprise) and after taking a group pix, we set off from school at exactly 630am.

We met up with the rest of the group at the airport Terminal 3. The terminal was big and beautiful, but somehow, though I was at the airport getting ready to set off on an overseas trip, I wasn't exactly in the usual holidaying mood. Mrs Yeo came to see us off at the airport, which came as a surprise to me. Showed her the pictures we took at school b4 we set off as she was really keen on seeing the pictures of the kids with their parents, a specific one to be exact.
Anyways, the flight to Seoul took approx 6hours and by the time we landed, it was about time for dinner.

Day 1
Our 1st dinner in Seoul was yummy! It was kinda like noodles steamboat~!

Upon reaching our hotel, to my horror, the hotel did not have any bell boys and we actually had to carry our own luggage from the coach and into the hotel lobby!! >.<" gosh!! That wasn't the end of the night's shock. After some waiting, we finally checked in and went up to our respective rooms. YL and I shared a room (thank goodness) and when we opened the door, our jaws dropped. Unbelieveable. The room was puny! It was so small that with the 2 single beds separated, we basically almost din have any walking space! >.<" It looked so different from what we saw from the hotel's website. Disappointed. sigh... so much for a 4* hotel (by Korean standard, it seems).

A glimpse of our tiny room~

Computer monitor?
Nope! It's our TV screen! LCD wor~

Almost immediately after putting our luggage in the room, we met up with the girls again to have our final practice/rehearsals in the hotel's conference room. It was again, disappointing as we teachers had to do manual work again by moving the tables and chairs away to the side to allow room for the girls to dance. After almost 1-1.5hours there, we ended the practice and we dragged our bodies back to our rooms. By the end of our very 1st night.. I was terribly homesick.

Day 2 - Competition Day
We woke up early to have our breakfast at the hotel (which happened to be the SAME few dishes EVERYDAY of the remaining days at the hotel, cooked in different ways)
We had :- eggs (hard boiled, sunny side up etc)
- sausages (cocktail sausages, LONG sausages etc)
- potatoes (mashed, boiled etc)
- rice (white and fried only)
- fruits (bananas and apples only)
- porridge (SAME type everyday)

After breakfast, the kids went up to their rooms to change and they proceeded straight to the conference room to have their makeup and hair done. This took us around 2 hours.

We left the hotel at about 1130am to adjourn to the competition venue. As we had to reach the venue by 2pm, we didn't have time to stop for lunch. Hence we ordered pizza takeaways and luckily, the lunch wasn't disappointing. :)

The weather was very cold.. I heard it was 2-5deg. Pity the girls having to be dressed only in their costumes, jeans and their sweater. I was all wrapped up in layers of my tops and sweater. Hours flew by and before I knew it, the competition ended and luckily, we managed to clinch an award (to answer to the bosses, otherwise, our heads will prob roll).

Soon, it was dinner time again. The girls did well and we were all rewarded with ginseng chicken meal. It was yummy! It was so cold by night time that the piping hot meal was to die-for. :)

Day 3 - Rest and relax.....

The following days were all about sightseeing... it was generally relaxing except that some kids suffered from severe motion sickness and coldness so they kept puking on the coach - which is very stressful.. home sickness too.. oh well... other than that, the scenery in Seoul + Faceshop sprees = FANTASTIC! :D

Let the photos do the talking~ :)