My Final Year "Recital" (Day 1)

ALright .. today is already the 7th day after the passing of the Yamaha Asia Electone Festival 2008 and i think it's time i should sit down and blog about it. I've been very very lazy indeed for the past days after touching down from Jakarta on Mon MIDNIGHT (Thanks to Air Asia!) .. but more so because i was still busy sinking the GREAT feeling in. HHEHEHHEHEH So since we spent about 5 days in Jakarta and there were SO MANY happenings throughout the trip , i definitely have to split each day for each post. Happy reading folks! =)

Let's see... i woke up feeling really super duper lousy and tired because i slept very late the night before packing clothes , changing money and also hanging out a little with mom enjoying my last night in KL before travelling to another foreign land. To my astonishment i found out my computer had some minor problem which caused a MAJOR consequence and i was very devastated after having a pretty bad day throughout the day.

Woke up at 8+am and got myself ready , it was RAINING cats and dogs when we left for KL Central at 9 am to meet C.H there. Reached KL central at 9 30am and boarded the LCCT airport bus. Bus ride took about 1 hour and we reached LCCT airport around 10 30am. I was pretty pretty disappointed by the airport's condition .... it was packed with a LOT of people and there were only 2 restaurants there which was McD and one Asian cafe that served local food ... plus with the amount of people the whole place looked like a market. HIGH CLASS one of course.. it's no wonder they call it Low Cost Cheap Terminal Airport. ... eeiissshhh

After waiting a little while , Kelvin arrived (my chaperon from Yamaha Msia) and we chatted a little , checked in together and had lunch together. It's nice to get to know him more throughout this trip , yet i have to honestly admit i never really had a good impression of him before this competition because of certain reasons but after the whole trip i must say he is a nice guy and has done his job pretty well. No complaints. We checked in and boarded the plane by 1+pm but by then it was already raining like cats and dogs outside , i stood there waiting with C.H at the EXPRESS BOARDING LANE praying for the rain to stop so our flight would not be delayed. Thankfully it wasn't .. and this is where the AMAZING part started.

The gate was opened... the ground staff showed us the way to walk to our plane , but due to the rain ... we had to walk EXTRA MILES and turn one big super round with the rain water flooding the floors of the TAR road and so everyone walked through with rain water splashing towards us and not to mention ... walking through puddles of WET water and getting our shoes mightily wet! By the time we reached the plane, they showed us HOW to use the UMBRELLAS to board the plane and C.H and i exchanged this STRANGE "cannot tahan" look towards each other and laughed our way up .. So we walked through floods of water to board the plane! NICE!

Boarded the plane , reserved seat for mom .. and it was pretty exciting to really sit an aeroplane after like 11 years ever since i been to Hong Kong .. hahahah .. anyway the plane took off around 1 40pm and by the time we reached Jakarta it was almost 3pm Jakarta time. Jakarta is 1 hour later than Malaysia so 1 hour is saved in between the time difference. Reached the airport , checked out through the immigration .. and was AMAZED once again at their Soekarno Hatta International Airport... HHAHAHAHHAHAH

Their airport is so run down and lowly maintained that we were really amazed at that being an INTERNATIONAL airport .... if i thought LCCT was like a market , then Jakarta's airport is more of a run down bazaar. The whole place was pretty scary , and so after getting our luggages we checked out and Kelvin changed some money outside while i saw 2 ladies carrying this YAMAHA paper sign board waving around waiting for us. YAY! i thought ... they were our chaperons from Yamaha Indonesia!

They greeted us and we waited for our transport to come pick us up ... and we left the airport to the Hotel around 3pm and a Toyota Innova came to pick us up (Jakarta streets are filled with almost 90% Toyota cars!) and we reached the Sultan Hotel just before 4pm after some traffic jam (So common there!) Okay here is where the classic story begans...

We reached Sultan Hotel and they brought us into the lobby where some participants were seen and we were taken to 1 of the table where the Yamaha staffs prepared and suddenly while waiting for our rooms, this lady came to us and asked me to leave everyone and everything at the lobby and follow her upstairs to 1 room for VIDEO SHOOTING. I thought i heard wrongly and was shocked and went bezerk suddenly. WHAT ?! Video shooting ?! I haven't even smell my room!! So since i wasn't allowed to bring anyone up with me, my mom and the guys just waited downstairs for the hotel room and i followed the lady up for video shooting which she claimed will only take me 5 minutes! My stomach was already growling by then because we were told that there wasn't any official thing going on for that day since it was the arrival of every country's participants.

Feeling really frustrated yet i knew i had to be PATIENT i just swallowed all my frustration with deep breaths and followed her up to the room. On the way up i asked how long has the other contestants (S'pore, Taiwan , HK , Mexico) reached she claimed they were already up there for 15 min and so i thought it must've started and wouldn't take long for me to finish so i could EAT. Reached the room, saw the other contestants from S'pore, HK and Taiwan ... and i sat at one of the chair waiting .. for the briefing , and to my astonishment they havne't started anything .. and i was beginning to get pissed off. By the time they briefed us and was done with what we have to say in front of the camera , the chaperon asked if any of us was ready to start. Joyce from HK was courageous enough and went to shoot first.

I was still busy rehearsing my script and honestly was a little stuck by what i had to say so after i was done with my script , i asked the chaperon if after Joyce i could go next but now he REJECTED me and said

"I'm sorry , you have to wait for the rest to finish first , because HK, S'pore and Taiwan came first"

By then i was VERY pissed off already inside my heart but i chose to put the most fake smile i ever had and said ,

"Oh it's ok then .Nevermind i'll wait.Because you asked if we were ready and i thought i could go after this because i'm hungry"

The chaperon apologized and i sat at my chair and waited patiently ... but took out my hp to sms C.H and complained to him. After almost half hour later my stomach was making so much noise and i looked extremely exhausted and bored that i stood at one side of the hotel room and waited.. the same chaperon saw me with that stupid looking face and remarked ,

"Are you ok ? You looked so bored and hungry .... i'm sorry you have to wait. Why don't u eat some fruits over there ? There's grapes banana and apple there!"

He then pointed over to 1 plate of fruits that looked like it was there for AGES and so i turned back to him in disbelief and stared at him with this pissed off "EXCUSE ME?" face and i said

"NO THANKS. They make me more hungry!"

Everyone BURST out laughing ... NICE one... eeiiisshhhhh

Finally after each contestant were done and after some taking a much longer time than the rest would (due to language barrier) .. it was my turn . And by then it was already 5 + pm almost 6pm. I was already veery frustrated by then , and told myself that i'd only do 1 take and get it done and off with. It's not because i want to show off or what , but because my video is a little long and with all the counting i'm putting in , i usually could do the best shot in the 1st take. So instead of practising in front of the camera, i told this very very nice indonesian guy who helped us with the video shooting (there was 1 statement he said that caught me until now was - There's no perfection isn't it? Because perfection belongs to God") when he was advising one of the contestant for the shooting ... So when it was my turn , i just told them i wanted to take 1 shot and after crapping and babbling and ALMOST breaking down , i saved myself and finished the whole thing smoothly with ONE take and when i was done , everyone who watched were shocked and clapped hands for me.

No i'm not showing off how good my english is or how cocky i am .. but i only want to get this done with 1 take because i feel i am ready for it and the first shot is usually the best. So the Indon officers were shocked i did it well and shook my hands and so i left the room. I finished less than 5 minutes. By then , one of the chaperons took me and the 2 Taiwan girls down to the Hotel Lobby to meet my own chaperon and it was already 6pm by then. In the lift on the way down, the same chaperon who joked about asking me to eat the fruits told me how shock he was that i could finished in such a short time and apologized AGAIN for starving me .... (EEEIISH)

When i got down to the lobby , my chaperon spoke to me and another bad news came .. i was shocked to hear that our ROOMS WERE NOT READY yet .. and so i wondered where my mom and the guys went for the past 2 hours i was away. She brought me to them and asked me to wait a little while more because she should be getting the rooms and so we could go for dinner soon. I followed her to the Cafe downstairs and i saw these few BORED looking faces at the table chatting looking extremely exhausted. POOR THEM! Then i heard some other contestants were already waiting since 11am and was still waiting for their room! AMAZING .... international event yet no rooms to stay!

Almost 15 minutes later and after swallowing and chewing LOADS of Fruitella sweets to keep my stomach from producing gaster juice we finally got our rooms! While waiting at the lobby upstairs , we saw some more familiar faces ... and it was Julie , Margaret , Jit , Kenny and Ms Soo's arrival! Yay TEAM MALAYSIA is here! Kelvin complained to them about the chaos throughout the whole afternoon and Margaret who saw my pathetic face pitied me and said they should've given me some snacks instead of starving me. So after putting our bags in our rooms, we left for dinner without the others ... just myself , mom , Kelvin and C.H .

We took a cab to Plaza Senayan which was quite an expensive mall and without me knowing , we landed in this shopping mall .... recommended by the chaperon and i was making a remark at how we should've went to another mall that my "TOUR GUIDE" wrote for me on my Jakarta tour list ... but it was too late because i was toooo exhausted and drained off by then. We reached Senayan Plaza and walked around upstairs to check out food , was too hungry so we decided to eat in a Japanese restaurant which was quite nice. It's like another Sakae Sushi but much more nicer atmosphere and with reasonable price. After a short walk around the mall to buy bread for myself to eat the next day to keep my stomach quiet , we left the mall.

It was just 8+pm and so we left back to the hotel. After showering and resting , the night seems so short .. and so i slept pretty early because i had to wake up early the next day for a REALLY ANOTHER TIRING DRAINED OFF day! Their schedule is packed but not because t here were many things to do , but because they have problem managing time well. The only thing they did well was to make us really drained off so that all of us had no choice but to sleep well which is pretty rare because during competitions like these i usually can't sleep! Hahahaha... there goes my day 1. Day 2 coming tomorrow! STAY TUNED! what a glimpse of jakarta within that 24 hours!