Wah recently the internet not working, now finally it's back to normal.
School holidays going to end already, only 4 more days to school! Today i still must go back to school to help in sec 1 orientation.
This holiday was quite fun, also because i went to Hong Kong with my family and some friends. I was at Hong Kong from the 16 to 22 of December. It was my first time there and Hong Kong's very different from Singapore.
Now let me share some of my experiences there...
On the first day i reached Hong Kong, i had to adjust to the temperature change. The temperature was like from 12 to 19 degrees. Our hotel was Royal Plaza Hotel which is located in Kowloon. Over there, we went a lot of shopping at the road side shops... they call it flower market. It's very crowded there and if you don't know how to speak cantonese, you're dead. But good thing we got this tour guide guy who showed us around everyday. I bought some soccer stuff from the market ( they're very cheap there). I like the streets of Hong Kong. The
re are so many neon banners hanging around and they make the place look so bright at night. And there are also so many people! At night we went to visit the avenue of stars (i think that's what it's called). That's the place where everyone goes to see the beautiful night lights of the Hong Kong skyline. By the way, it's quite cold at night if the wind is very strong. That night i remember watching Arsenal vs Portsmouth in the hotel room. And they drew 2-2...On the second day, i went to the peak where most people go to see the skyline. On top, there's a huge shopping mall and a wax museum in it. The wax museum is quite nice and funny too. I got to take pictures with people like Saddam Husien, George Bush, Lee Kuan Yew and David Beckem! That was quite a fun place.
At night we went for a short cruise where we had a meal on board the ship.
The next morning, we had breakfast at some Macdonalds and i met my teacher Lee Siew Lee there! Of course I wa
s quite surprised!! That day we all went to Ocean Park to play and of course it was fun. Ocean Park is quite big too, bigger than Hong Kong Disneyland. The next day we took a ferry from Hong Kong to Macau early in the morning at 8am. Macau is a very nice place. I don't know why but i like it... not because i
met a ventilation tube man!! (and a bird man too... haha). We went up the Macau tower in the afternoon. I heard it's the tallest tower in Asia with 70 stories or more and it is the highest bungee jumping buildi
ng in the world. We had tea buffet up the tower and the meal was wonderful. All the tables and chairs were on a rotating platform so we moved as we ate. And the walls were made of glass, so we could look out of the window and look down all the way below us. Th
ere's no MRT in Macau so we had to walk most of the time, unlike in Hong Kong where we took the
ir MTR all the time. The next day, we went to Disneyland! Although it's much smaller than the one in US and many people complain about it, i still had a lot of fun!! When you go to Disneyland, you feel like a child again. It's my first time
in Disneyland so of course i enjoyed myself. I liked the shows, the parade and the fireworks at night. The rides were quite fun too and the most thrilling ride was space mountain.... although it was mild, it was fun. Everything was 
fun la! That night, we celebrated my friend's 14th birthday in the hotel room. The next day was all shopping and we returned to Singapore at 1am the following morning. What a fun trip!And there's 1 thing i'll always remember about Hong Kong..... Mango!!! haha....
When i returned to Singapore, i still remember i went to watch my cousin perform at her church. It was some Christmas concert.
Soon it was Christmas! Yay! I went to church and had the usual Christmas party at my house.
Then a few days later on friday, i went to celebrate my cousin's 8th birthday at his house. What a busy holiday! I also went to catch the movie The Curse Of The Golden Flower. It was a good show. I don't mind watching again... quite funny too!
Tomorrow, some of my friends will be at my house celebrating the New year. 2007's coming soon!! And so is school......
Labels: My Greatest Experiences
Gabriel
8:53 PM
Friday, December 15, 2006
Tomorrow i'll be leaving for Hong Kong and will only return to Singapore next Thursday. My family will be going with some of our small group friends. I hope that this will be a very fun holiday!
Gabriel
3:03 PM
Monday, December 11, 2006
Yesterday was a long and fun day. After church, a few friends and I went to Warren Country Club for lunch. It was one of my Aunty's treat. The best part of it was playing in the playroom with all the tunnels. Very childish but " fun". Then we had a game of bowling at the country club. When everyone parted ways, i went to one of my friend's house for his birthday party.
The day was not over yet... at night, all my small group friends, 6 boys, came over to my house for a slumber party. Good thing my bedroom is big enough for all 6 people to sleep in. So we spent the night playing com and playing vollyball in the room. I know it sounds dumb but it's fun.... we even made a league.
Then the best part came.... ARSENAL vs CHELSEA!!!! At 12am in the morning. All of us stayed in the living room all so excited and anxious.
Well, haha, they drew 1-1.... good for Arsenal, although Chelsea desrved to win. They had like "10" open goals and they hit the post like 5 times..... Arsenal was so nervous while playing with Chelsea that they made so many mistakes in their defence. Arsenal's keeper Jens Lehmann was so clumsy that he couldn't even save some simple shots. Anyway, a draw is good enough for both teams.
After the match, which ended at 2am, we went back to the room to play more com while some of us slowly dozed off........
The next day, which is today, we had a game of soccer in the morning.... but it was so hot that i couldn't take it after 20 mins.... so we went back to refresh ourselves.
Gabriel
1:50 PM
Friday, December 08, 2006
YM Camp 2006
Hi, read my story about this year's YM camp below and here are some pictures of the camp during the worship and prayer sessions.I just came back from YM camp. The camp was a 4 day 3 night camp at the YWCA building near my church, which is Wesley Methodist Church. The camp was great and the worship part was excellent. Maybe my church should have more camps in a year.
I don't know how to describe the camp... a lot of fun and games and a lot of worship too! On the last night of camp we started worship at 7.30pm and ended at 1am. The keynote speaker for the camp was Dave Reardon. He's a humourous speaker and all his sermons were funny but touching. The best part is always the alter call. Almost every single person responded and then the worship would begin again. I could tell that everyone was really worshiping God and many even broke out in tears. Then there was the lively part of the worship where everyone would just lift up their hands and jump around. This was indeed the best worship experience for me. It felt as if you wanted it to go on forever. During normal sundays, the worship service in church is somewhat dead... but during the camp, everyone is so alive.... Now there are currently 500 people in the Youth ministry. The chairman of YM, Adriel, shared with us his vision of what he wanted YM to be like. He wanted to see a YM with 1000 youths. All each of us has to do is to invite 2 new people to YM and that would make 1000 people! Then he said something like the YWCA building will be too small for us so we have to change venue to the Singapore Expo.
During the camp, we played many many games and they were very fun and interesting. The people who planned the games must have been very creative. Most of the games were outdoor games and thank God it didn't rain during the 2 days we played games. The war games was very fun... i remember we had to create our group flag, and at first, we just sat down for half an hour staring at a piece of green colour cloth.... with no ideas how to decorate the flag. Then suddenly we had a brilliant idea. We decided that our flag will be different from all the other groups (By the way there were 24 groups during the camp and 300 plus people came for the camp. This is the biggest YM camp in YM's history, ever since it was started in 2003). As i was saying, we wanted our group flag to be the most outstanding. So we started plucking leaves and pasting them all over the flag. It looked like some flag that could be well camouflaged in a bush. Our flag was the most outstanding as all the other groups decorated their flag with the usual markers, spray cans.... so boring. However, the problem with our flag was if you try to wave it around, the leaves would fall out! There's a picture of my group with our flag above if you scroll up...... So during the war games, one part of the game was to protect the flag while going round " fighting" with other groups. What our group did was simply to hide to flag in the bushes so that no one could spot it. And true enough, no one spotted it.... it was well camouflaged. By the way, the war games was held at Fort Canning Park.
The food during the camp was excellent and i enjoyed it. All the breakfasts were buffets at the YWCA cafe while we had our lunch and dinners at the main church. Of course they were packed food. On the last night, we had a buffet dinner instead of packed food and there were 2 suppers that night ( hungry from all the worshiping... and i can tell you that jumping while singing is very tiring). Overall the camp food is very good but there was one lunch where the chicken rice was soo hard and.... i don't want to talk about it.....
The rooms in YWCA are satisfactory and the aircon wasn't too cold, there was a heater for the shower and the room has a TV. The biggest problem for all campers was the lifts. Some people can wait half an hour just for the lift to come! There was once i was waiting for the lift... when the lift finally arrived, it was full... so i had to wait for the next one. The lift went all the way down to the 1st floor ( and it stopped at every level!!!) before coming back to my floor, the 11th floor. When the lift doors opened, it was full again with different people!! So i had to wait again and this went on for a long time.
One thing i really love about this camp is the worship sessions. Everone is really singing in unison and really worshiping God with all their heart. Everyone worshiped until many had tears flowing down their cheeks and their eyes gone all red. At some points in time, i too really felt like crying (and i did). One part of the worship session that i really enjoyed was the jumping part. It was great, like everyone shouting and rejoycing away. Every night, the worship would go on for hours and hours and people never got bored of it. When the night finally came to an end, everyone was so sad (this is so unlike normal YM on Sundays). The chairman shared with us that during camps, everyone would we spiritually high... but after the camp, everyone would go back to their usual ways, meaning like no more enthusiasm for God. He told us that worship wasn't just something we do during camps or on sundays but it is a daily thing. And the only way to mantain that spiritual high from camps is to constantly read the bible every day after the camp. He said that the real test wasn't during the camp but after the camp, when we would return to our homes, our school and our usual lives. Camps are really wonderful, it is not only fun but you really learn a lot more about God. For all those people in YM who haven't gone to a camp before, i encourage you to go for it. It brings you a lot of fun but more inportantly, it also brings you closer to God and you will also become more enthusiastic in going to church. Although this camp is the first YM camp i have ever gone to, i really enjoyed it and it greatly impacted my life. It will greatly impact your life too.... so go for next year's camp!! It's really fun.....
This year's camp theme is " The fear of the Lord" and the camp verse is "then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever."- Jeremiah 32: 39a
This YM Camp was a great experience for me and i look forward to the next camp.
Labels: My Greatest Experiences
Gabriel
4:35 PM
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Arsenal vs Tottenham 3-0
Hahaha...... Arsenal win Tottenham 3-0 at Emirates. Adebayor scored 1 good goal and Gilberto scored 2 penalties. The Adebayor goal was a very good one.... he beat the offside trap to go 1 to 1 with the keeper and it required a lot of skill to score the goal.......to the top right hand corner of the net. Arsenal dominated the game and earned themselves 3 points in the table. Hopefully they can ascend to 3rd placing, below Man u and Chelsea..... that's provided Reading draws with Bolton and Aston Villa draws with Portsmouth. Arsenal will be playing with Porto on Wednesday for Champions League and it will be the last match of the group stage. If Arsenal win, they will get into the 2nd round. If they don't win, they stand a chance to get knocked out. Arsene Wenger is resting many players for that important match. He hopes that Arsenal wins the Champions League. Of course everyone hopes that Arsenal wins the Champions League.
Oh ya... and i take back what i say about hoping Chelsea wins the Premiership. If Arsenal doesn't win the premiership ( but there's still hope.... very very litte hope) then i hope Man u wins.... because Chelsea won too many times recently already.....
Gabriel
10:42 PM
Gabriel
6:01 PM
I just got my ear fixed today... now i can hear again.... yay!!! But the proccess was a bit painful, with all the water shooting into my ear and the sharp needle thing, just to get rid of the ear wax. Yay now i can really hear.....
Tonight Arsenal is playing Tottenham at Arsenal. Arsenal already lost two matches this week... they should win this one as Tottenham isn't doing well...... If Arsenal doesn't win this season, then i hope Chelsea wins. I take back what i said about hoping man u wins, now Chelsea sounds better...... but of course Arsenal still the best......
Gabriel
5:13 PM
Friday, December 01, 2006
Just came back from chalet. It was fun but i also got myself half deaf. Now my right ear is deaf probably due to all the swimming. Tomorrow i'm gonna get it fixed. During the chalet most of the time we were just playing xbox and swimming, didn't really sleep much. So on the last day i was almost dead and i went home to zzzz sleep..... The chalet extremely small, 12 people sleeping in one tiny room with only 2 single beds in it. The BBQ was ok and most of our meals were on cup noodles. We also threw the class flag we made into the sea on the last day ( had a lot difficulties doing that..... ). I think it was supposed to mean the end of the year as a class.....
When i returned home, i found out that Arsenal lost to Fulham 2-1... NOOOO....... This is getting ridiculous......
Now my house got new LCD screen TV... Yay!!.... But got some problems with it......
Gabriel
7:13 PM
