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Location : Hotel Room, Universal City Hilton, Los Angeles
Date : 21/11/1998 (Saturday)

Woke up feeling real tired. It was about seven thirty in the morning if I didn't remember wrongly. We missed the yoga session. Jeroen called up his coach and introduced him to me. We chatted for a while and proceeded to the cafeteria for breakfast.

Breakfast was interesting.

The cafeteria was situated right opposite to the entrance of the hotel. It was open-air and bordered by low walls about half a metre tall, simply marking its boundaries. A waitress came up to us and collected our breakfast coupons, after which she brought us to our seats, which were located at the inner-most of the cafeteria, close to the walls. The cafeteria had lots more variety to choose from than the so-called Food Festival the day before. Yes. There was Chinese food. Grabbed a bowl and filled it up with congee without hesitation. There was the fried dumpling (guo(1) tie(4)) as well. Took a few of those. Filled up the rest of the empty space with two croissants. What a weird combination for a breakfast.

Nothing much was being discussed. Mr. Hans asked where my teacher cheperon was. He was so surprised I didn't know where she was. Well, that was the fact. Hadn't met her since we parted in Narita Airport and I was surprised she hadn't tried contacting me in the hotel itself. She wasn't even present at the welcome reception the day before. God knows where she went.

We had the Event Orientation at the ballroom right after our breakfast. It wasn't much of an orientation, cause I remembered none of the points that was being discussed. Guess the main purpose there was for everyone to meet. Jason and I were discussing on what to do for the day and we decided on Universal Studios.

Location : Universal Studios Hollywood, Los Angeles

A gargantuan Christmas tree towered before us. Oh. Christmas's around the corner hehehe. It would serve as our meeting point if we ever got lost in the midst of all the excitement. It was great to have someone who'd been there before. Jason led us all the way to the inner depths of the theme park for the "Back to the Future" ride. Miraculously, the queue was short(see, I told ya). Working our way from the inside out was such a great idea.

We were split into two groups for the ride. Obviously, no car would be able to fit so many people. It was totally awesome. Gave me the feeling of an Omnimax movie with all the thrills and spills and real car movements as well, clashing and banging into billboards, houses, etc, dashing through the different eras in search for the evil guy(his name was insignificant) who stole the prototype car. There was one scene where we reached the prehistoric period. Mrs A made good fun of me when we were plummeting down a deep volcano, heat intensifying. "Quick, think of a solution, it's your topic you know!". A flash of light and we were back to the present. Heh.

We went on to the Jurasic Park ride. We faced the ultimate danger of getting real wet as we didn't bother to buy the ponchos. Well, nobody cared anyway. So we went onto the "boat". The initial part was so misleading. It was such a tranquil ride, the "boat" moving slowly through the meandering river. One or two friendly dinosaurs popped out once or twice. Nothing much to pump up our adrenaline. Then the boat tilted and entered a steep slope. It was dark with red alert lights surrounding us. Then the alert signal alarm buzzed through our ears. There, on the very top, we see bright light. No, it wasn't flat. It was a slope equally steep, but this time downwards. It happened so fast. My bum nearly left up the seat. SPLASH. Okay. Not too bad. I wasn't really that wet as compared to the others. Heh. Ahh. Didn't know we're being photographed on our way down! Saw our disgusting selves on the monitor above the sales counter. It would cost nine dollars to buy that in a folder. Looking at it on the monitor was bad enough. Buy it to remember how stupid we looked for the rest of our lives? Nah... you can erase the photo from the random access memory.

We were finding a place to dry ourselves. Ah! Exclaimed Jason, Backdraft would do the work. We went over and took a look. Sigh. Ride under renovation. On we went to the restrooms to clean up. I mean dry up.

Lunchtime. Went to Marvel Mania, the theme restaurant for all the Marvel comic characters. The decor was real cool. Television monitors stacked up to form one gigantic screen, displaying all the various characters from the X-Men series, Spiderman series, etc. Wolverine was there twisting and turning balloons into figurines for little kiddies. It was so ludicrous to see a red deformed balloon figurine with a maker-drawn spider on the body being called Spiderman. It didn't even remotely look like the actual super hero at all. Anyway, we surrendered our meal coupons and got our lunch in return. For me, I had a hamburger with fries and onion rings. The hamburger, as compared to the McDonalds' one, was a zillion times bigger, larger than BK Broiler. The slab of beef was at least three times thicker. Flourless onion rings was served. It was really deep fried onions. Needless to say, the meal was filling.

Next stop - the Backlot Tram Tour, where we had a deserving rest on the tram through the backlot of Universal Studios after hours of plodding, now that we knew that our legs were actually hurting. We were brought to see lots of buildings and special effects, including the homes of the Flintstones and the clock tower in Back to the Future. We visited houses of famous celebrities such as Alfred Hitchhock. On several occasions, the tram brought us into the different soundstages to experience different kinds of special effects. We had a friendly(not) encounter with King Kong raining destruction through the town (and of course, the tram), experienced an underground quake measuring eight on the richter scale with water gushing into the underground train station in all directions and fire ignited by exposed wiring. Truly amazing, the tour was definitely an eye-opener.

Location : Hotel Room, Universal City Hilton, Los Angeles

Finally we got back to the Hotel for a brief rest, after which we would be off to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Took the chance and held a brief meeting instead in preparation for judging the next day. Cameron showed us the newspaper article featuring him and I showed mine. We exchanged gifts. Cameron gave each of us a Creed CD(much like 3EB, but more grunge) and I gave them T-shirts showing how "fine" Singapore is. I'm listening to it, Cam. =) Okay, so we'd decided on the strategy to use when we faced the judges. Now we could have a rest.

Location : Hard Rock Cafe, Universal Citywalk, Los Angeles

It was my first time in any Hard Rock Cafe. The atmosphere was very different: dark, gloomy, basically those kind you get when you attend rock concerts. Yeah, forgotten to include the noisiness. Rock music was blasting from all directions. We shared a table with a lady, also from Thinkquest. Every time a song started playing, we would compete to identify the song. Sad to say, I only recognised Alanis's Ironic. Heh.

Ahh. Hamburger AGAIN. Luckily there was salad this time round. No need for further description for the burger, cause it was identical to the one I had in the afternoon.

After the meal, there was desert - a bowl of brown solid with whipped cream on top. Cameron identified that as brownie. Oh, so that was how a brownie looked like. Scooped off and finished the whipped cream first. Tried poking the fork into the brownie but it failed to penetrate. "Ermm... are brownies that hard?" Cameron smiled. Forceful as I was, the brownie refused to give way. The others were having the same problem. Tried to bite it. Luckily it wasn't a forceful bite, or I would have lost all my teeth. "They've probably left them in the refrigerator for too long a time." Ahh. Enlightenment. All of us decided to forgo the brownie.

Bought a lot of Hard Rock Cafe stuff. Never knew I was such a shopaholic. One go and I could spend so much. Well, the only reason I could give was that I didn't want to bother to find other places to buy clothes and stuff for my relatives. Oh well. Bought a Hard Rock teddy bear for Ania as well. Her birthday's today!

Location : Ballroom, Universal City Hilton, Los Angeles

The magic show was, well, in my opinion, boring. Couldn't remember much of it. Funny though, I remembered the two metre tall tree stump monster who didn't fit into the picture at all. There he was at the corner waiting for the limelight to shine upon him. The magician called for him, he walked all the way to the front, and walked right out of the room. I wasn't amused, I was bemused.

Location : Mrs A's Room, Universal City Hilton, Los Angeles
Time : 11:30pm

Time to celebrate Ania's birthday. Jason asked Ania's father to bring her back to his room first while we got things started. A big piece of rice crispies served as the Birthday cake. On it were candles, a few which were sabotaged. Mrs A ringed her up for "an urgent team meeting". Hehe. Guessed she was really surprised when she entered the room. It was well decorated up with balloons and such. "Happy Birthday to you..." She tried blowing out the candles. Three of them kept on relighting. It was so fun to see how much effort she put into blowing them out. In the end we had to extinguish them in water. She finally realised it was trick candles. Hehe.. Oh evil Mrs A. =)

Location : Hotel Room, Universal City Hilton, Los Angeles
Time : 12:30am

Well, time to call it a day. Jeroen was already sleeping when I entered the room. Guessed I woke him up. Ah well. Had a warm and soothing bath and went to bed. The air was real cooling.

Thinkquest Status
[OOO...........................................] 2.5%

Food of the Day
Garlic Bread, Potatoes in addition of a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza

Colour of the Day
White. Good for a change.

Phrase of the Day
"Ahhhhhh...."