Hong Kong trip

DAY 1
I went to Hong Kong for a track and field competition. The whole trip was from Thursday to Monday. On Thursday, I still had to attend lessons as the flight was at night. The whole track and field team gathered at terminal 1 at 4.30pm. We checked-in our luggage, took group photos and got into the boarding gate. We got in the plane and by the time the plane was about to take flight, it was 6.30pm. The whole plane trip was pretty smooth - no turbulence and smooth landings. By the time we landed. We quickly got onto a coach, checked in to our hotels and slept.

DAY 2
The competition starts tomorrow so we decided to enjoy ourselves before going for the race. We woke up early in the morning, had our buffet breakfast and went to Hong Kong's Ocean Park. We got into groups and went to explore the extremely big Ocean Park. Ocean Park consists of two main areas - the highlands and the lowlands. The lowlands did not have trill rides, so my group went to the highlands. To get there, we took the cable car. The cable car ride was about 15 minutes and we took photos of the scenic view up in the cable car. The first trill ride we took was called "Raging River". After that, we went on to the "Crazy Galleon". It is similar to the viking rides we have in Singapore. I was actually afraid to get on to these trill rides. But all my friends were going on the ride so I took the ride. It was first time on these kinds of ride and I found it pretty fun. Next, was "The Dragon". It was roller coaster ride that had 3 loops. I have never went on a roller coaster and it was my first time. The roller coaster went really fast and I could feel the gravity on me. After the whole ride, I felt relieved that it was finally over. By the time we were done with Ocean Park, it was dinner time. We ate dinner at a small restaurant near our hotel. Food was quite expensive in Hong Kong and my dinner cost roughly 7 SGD. We retired for the day after dinner.

DAY 3
It was finally time for the competition. The weather in Hong Kong was very cold and temperatures were about 10~13 degrees Celsius. It was my first time in such a cold country and I could get use to the weather. We increased our warm-up intensity to make up for the cold weather. During my 800m race, I was very nervous as everybody there looked bulky and fit. Halfway through the race, I was freezing and the cold dry air attacked every part of my lungs. Unable to acclimatise to the weather, I could not surge and go faster. Even though I broke my personal best, I was not really happy with the results as I felt I could have gone faster.

DAY 4
Competition today again, this time instead of being in the morning, my event was in the late evening. I felt groggy in the morning due to a bad night. ( Think I might be having a slight cold) Anyways, I had to quickly eat breakfast before the bus leaves without me. Our team arrived at the stadium at about 7.30am. Since my event was like 9 more hours later, I took a nap and woke up for lunch. Lunch was ramen at the restaurant near the stadium. Another 4 more hours...
And soon it was 3.15pm - time for warm-up. I felt weird during warm-up, it was probably my cold affecting me. Soon, my event was starting and I was called to the start line. The race started and tried to pull up to the front, got behind my senior and ran in the slip-stream to save energy. Within a lap, I started to feel exhausted and wondered if I could even survive another 2 more laps. The pace was so fast and I could not keep up, so I fell back. After finishing another lap, I had 1 last lap. The runner behind me surged past me and I tried to keep the lead but to no avail, he overtook me. I followed closely till the last 200m where I pushed my body to the limit and surged. "CHASE! CHASE! CHASE! CHASE!" My teammates roared as I tried speed up and at least get a 3rd place. The other runner looked around and did not expect me to follow so tightly and charged forward as well. By the time I reached 50m mark, I knew there was no chance I could beat the runner and gave up chasing. I looked up the time and saw a 5.026 timing. I did not hit my target but at least I broke my old personal best(PB) of 5.06. I was pretty relieved after this as that will be all the events I am doing.

DAY 4 (Night)
An all night round of fun. My teammates got to my hotel room and we started to play cards. We play "tai-ti" or Big 2 for 2 whole hours( No gambling don't worry). Another 1 more hour of Indian poker and I felt like sleeping desperately. We played blackjack last, but I fell asleep halfway so I can't remember much.

DAY 5 Last Day
We went to "Dai Yi Shan" today. We went there by Hong Kong's train system, MTR. The train took about 30~40 minutes and we were lucky not to travel during the peak hours. The train carriages were pretty much empty. We reached the base of "Dai Yi Shan" and took the cable car up. The scenic view featured the sea,forest and the hilly terrain. I climbed the famous 100 steps staircase to the big statue of Buddha. After that, I bought some souvenirs and got back to the hotel. It was quite a rush as we had to reach the airport at 4pm. We got back to the hotel, got our luggage and left for the airport. Once we reached the airport, we checked-in and it was free-and-easy till it was airplane boarding time. I got to an internet kiosk and updated my family on my whereabouts and what happened in Hong Kong. Time past quickly and it was soon time to board the plane. The plane was a newer model than the plane I took to Hong Kong. It was much more comfortable on the plane, or not. There were long periods of turbulence during the flight. There seemed to be a storm and I had to hold my pee till the plane got out of the turbulent zone. It was about half past midnight when the plane arrived in Singapore. My parents were waiting to pick me up so I quickly got through customs. My father drove back and I fell asleep during the drive back home.