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Location : Universal City Hilton, Los Angeles
Date : 22/11/1998 (Sunday)

The team finally met up for a group breakfast in the cafeteria. I remembered lucidly that I had congee with peanuts, orange juice, fried dumpling, etc. Basically, the list came from the day before. Funny how I didn't get sick of the food. Palatability level was way too high up for me to say no to the food.

We discussed the strategies that we're going to take later on at the judging in the saloon over breakfast. When the time came, we walked in calmly and were greeted by a panel of three judges, one of whom I knew, Mr. Moses Sia - the Singaporean judge. I was uplifted with a sudden feeling of euphoria. He had our weekly statistics on his hands and was perusing through them while we churned out a whole lot of crap. Well, not really crap... But we managed to ramble on for more than an hour, which was quite a feat, as we heard some other teams finished their process in only fifteen minutes. We showed them photos taken while Cameron was visiting Guatemala for the project, comics drawn by Jeroen's father and all these pretty much captivated them. Well. This pretty much rounds up the judging. We were sort of elated when we left the saloon. It's finally over!

We had a hearty lunch in a fast food restaurant along Citywalk. The decor reminded me of that of the interior of a ship, a very woody feeling. It was burger coupled by onion rings and pepsi[poured from pet bottles] as usual. The lunch was satisfying in the spiritual sense as we finally got the chance to sit down together and enjoy a meal.

I rushed back to buy Frozen Fusion on our way back to the hotel. I remembered this as I held the entire team back. They had to stand and wait beside the big Universal Studios globe till I came rushing with my bottle of fusion. Yum!

The rest of the day was unknowingly spent in the hotel room watching all the available channels. I remembered watching the Disney Channel, Discovery Channel, etc. Then we moved on to order a video to watch. I chose "Parent's Trap" but didn't manage to finish it. I'd learnt how to waste money this way. We had to join in the dinner fiesta down at the ballroom.

The style was totally different. On the ThinkQuest schedule, this slot was labelled "Food Court + Arcade Games". It was supposed to be full of fun [fun indeed for many] but I didn't manage to identify with the atmosphere. I was left out in a sense. I should had been more outgoing. They had all the aparatus of American Gladiators, the Joust [I lacked the courage to go unto the uplifted platform and contend with a stick]... Hey. Actually only the Joust resembled any of the games in American Gladiators. Hehe. Others include the gigantic boxing gloves, the usual table soccer and hockey, the maze which resembled laserquest["pumped up" scenario] and the sticky castle which one dons a suit which sticks onto the surfaces of the castle upon contact. Sad to say, I only played the maze.

Felt very bored. Luckily Gim Teck approached me and asked if I wanted to go catch a movie. So off we went, together with Vincent, a few Dutch counterparts and some American counterparts, to the Universal CityWalk Movie Theatre to watch Will Smith's [I forgot the movie title!]. Gosh, instead of remembering the movie title, I remembered seeing the advertisement for The Prince of Egypt! This proves that my mind registers the wrong things. Duh. After the movie, we went on a shopping spree. I had a second go at the Hard Rock Cafe merchandise shop and bought some more clothes for my relatives, after which I trudged on to another shop to purchase this huge "Babe" life size plush toy for my sis. Oh boy. It was HUGE[like my sis]! I wondered how I managed to squeeze it into my luggage. All thanks to Mrs A!

By the time we finished shopping, most of the shops had already closed. There was virtually no one in sight except for one cleaner mopping the floor. The atmosphere was one of a kind[besides being very cooling]. We returned to the hotel and shortly after retired to bed.

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