Day 3 of Vancouver Exchange - Friday 13, 2010

Again an early wake up and a quick breakfast and we are off on the sky train to Granville Island. In Granville Island, there is a really really big toy store. Inside there were so many toys that it felt like Charlie the Chocolate Factory but it was filled with toys instead. In this amazing toy store, we played around with all the toys but the toys were too expensive and so we returned empty handed. No one was willing to waste like $7 on a small stuffed animal when one can usually get one at like one at $3-4 in Ontario. We looked at other shops that were available such as an art store, small first nation stores and a really weird store. (its actually not weird but some out of the ordinary items that are usually sold). Before I talk about the weird store, I will talk about the first nation store that I walked into. Inside there were different kinds of jewelry and many household items. I decided to purchase a really nice necklace and a small token that said “Spirit within”. This small token that looked really similar to a quarter had a heart shaped with a bird flying out of it. Not sure why but I felt a connection with it and so I bought it.

In the weird shop there were so many different weird items they sold. It included a tap that would display a red light if the water was hot and a blue light if the water was cold. So when the water is gushing out of the tap, you can determine its temperature by looking at its colour. At first I thought the tap was putting in food colouring to make the water have the colours. On second thought, this food colouring would run out if you used the tap many times. Therefore, I decided to read the box which told me a fluorescent light would light it and that had solved my problem. Other weird items were a mini mouse that was a vacuum cleaner and a boxer that can be used as a hat. I forgot the rest of the things but it was really neat to see these interesting products that you would never encounter in a regular store.

Then we took a long walk along a river to do some sightseeing. Basically, we were staring a river that separated the land we were walking on and Vancouver. It was a long and extremely hot walk. I was envious of those bikers that kept wooshing by us because they were able to experience some wind and they would soon be out of the blazing sun. Many of us were forced to put on sun tan lotion but I refused because sun tan lotion felt so sticky and I just didn’t like it. There were many rules that we had to follow during our Vancouver exchange such as … Walking in a single-filed line, no J-walking which meant we had to go to a traffic light before we could cross the road and having a curfew. There were many other rules but these were a few that I could list out. From what I heard, past Vancouver exchange people had said that if we broke these rules we would have to do push-ups which was known as POL “Position of Learning”. That seemed like nonsense to me and so I pushed their advice aside. We had walked past a Science World which was really similar to the Science Centre in Toronto except that the Science World was for kids. Although we had walked past it, we were not able to go inside it. Firstly, it was too expensive and our organization could not afford it. And secondly, we had a very tight schedule ahead of us. In my mind, I was like, what was the point of walking over an hour to see this building and being able to stand an arms width before it but not have a chance to go inside and explore it. I was a little mad but I held in my anger.

After lunch we went to Gastown. I cannot imagine what it would look like because I have never heard of it before. When we arrived, all I saw was a giant pole and apparently at 12 or something gas would blow out which was supposedly a tourist attraction location. So, we decided to wait for it and when it was time, I was not surprised to see 5 seconds of non-stop steaming before it stopped. This was very very interesting... NOT.. We waited like 15 minutes and all we saw as steam. This was just terrible. Afterwards we were led to a very famous shopping street and shopped around for a bit. I came across a few street meat stands and they sold Japanese hot dogs and other different kinds as well. Way more variety than the ones we have in Toronto.

We had dinner at SUCCESS, the place where the Vancouver people had their meetings and stuff. It was pretty good and filling. We had our Welcome Ceremony and a Training after dinner. It was then that I found out that hiking boots was a must for the upcoming expedition. I was so worried because usually for my expeditions I wore running shoes for them and I did not bring or had any hiking boots. I was so screwed and had to ask for help from the counselors. I felt bad for making them worry about me as well.

Day 2 of Vancouver Exchange - Thursday 12, 2010

Woke up early in the morning to start our sightseeing! I felt so sleepy though and my bed was really really soft and comfy. I didn't want to leave it at all. Our breakfast was at the cafeteria where we were served potatoes, bacon, egg, bread and orange juice. It was pretty good and I started my day all energized and full. We took the sky-train to Richmond. The sky-train is very similar to the subway in Toronto but most of train's path are not underground but outside. Not only that, the train was so much nicer and faster. It also looked way nicer than our subway as well. First off, we arrived at some harbour place which resembled Hong Kong's harbour. There was nothing interesting. I decided to try out the gelato and I got ripped off after paying $7 for a cup of ice cream. I was expecting a big cup of ice cream but they only gave me like two scoops. I felt like I was scammed. After that, I found another gelato store which sold ice cream for $2.50 and this time, they gave me a big cone of ice cream. This made me even more regretful of wasting my $7 on that junk. At lunch we ate at a legit fish and chip store. After that, we visited many different places at Richmond from Richmond Oval, Richmond Center, Steveston and Aberdeen where we had our dinner. There was nothing special about any of these places but the Richmond Oval was one of the areas where it hosted the Vancouver Olympics. However it was in the middle of nowhere and as we went inside, they were renovating it to a big basketball arena. It felt like such a waste of spending so much money on this building for winter olympics and then after that, changing it back to an indoor arena. But after thinking about the costs of making the whole place icy cold made me rethink their idea.
At Aberdeen, it felt like Pacific Mall. It was a very asian place and apparently the most asian place they have in Vancouver. There were many chinese stores and a big big area for food. I spent over $20 on toys such as toy guns and a necklace! The mini guns looked really nice and they were well worth the money! My dinner consisted of a 'yakisoba' and the picture above is how it looks like. It tasted really good and when I looked closely, the top of the noodles moved. I really don't know how they do that but I am not lying. It looked like they were moving. I shopped around for a bit and saw a bunch of others buying a big box of instant noodles for the few days to come.
When we got back home, some of the girls ran to the movie room because "Jersey Shore" was on. I decided to take a look and see how it is. Its very very sex-related and I didn't enjoy it much at all. However I heard lots of laughing from the people as the actors made a fool of themselves. They say that its not a movie but a reality show. I really doubt it though.

Day 1 of Vancouver Exchange - Wednesday 11, 2010

When we arrive at Vancouver, it is morning already and during my plane ride, I did not get sleep at all. So I was pretty tired but I was still ready to have some fun. I am not sure but we ate either lunch or dinner at the Vancouver Airport. This was like my very first time eating food at an airport. My parents were always very cheap and they always brought food to the airport and would not even let us eat there because everything was overpriced. They were right, but the feeling of eating at the airport was so awesome. I ate a large hamburger combo at Harvey's and it was really filling. We played Big 2 until we had to leave for our carride. Then we had to leave for our bus ride to our shelter. However we waited over an hour firstly because our leader got lost at her home ground and secondly the bus driver arrived late. This was pretty sad because we had to stand there in the sun with all our luggage looking like idiots waiting for our bus. I saw many people leave and many buses come and go but none of those buses were ours. But finally our bus came and I was overjoyed to board a comfortable travel bus to our hostel!

At the hostel, it was supposed to mimic a barrack and it did. All the beds were bunk beds and it looked like a barrack actually. There was a cafeteria, a laundry room, a kitchen, movie area, lots of stairs, a relaxation room and an office. It was pretty cool and I was so happy that I could live somewhere other than my house for once and for awhile as well! Then we went to the beach for some free time and icebreakers. We introduced ourselves and named a few special things about ourselves and played beach volleyball. Some started wrestling on the sand and others went to breakdance on the sand as well. I decided to do a little of beach volleyball but I was not so good at it. The ball always flew out somewhere and when I tried to serve, it was always too far because I hit too hard. So I decided to watch people breakdance on sand. Usually breakdancing is on hard floor but it does not hurt as much when you fall on sand. I wanted to learn some moves but I didn't want to have a risk of having an injury before my hike so I just watched them make their power moves and other stuff.
Then someone suggested the idea of running into the water. Many of us pussyed out but me and 2 others decided to run down to the water on the count of three. We literally ran straight into the water and all our clothes got wet. The first thing I felt was the cold water at my face as we got into the water. I tasted salty water as well and a lot of sand in my face. My legs felt so weird as they fought the cold water and tried to lift me out of the water. We stayed there for like 5 minutes before we decided to get out because it was so dirty and cold. When we got out of the water, my hair felt so sandy and I started shivering. A BBQ had been prepared and I was so happy to eat hamburgers and hot dogs. Western food is always so good!!! We chatted amongst the Vancouver kids before we walked back to the hostel to go sleep. However instead of sleeping, we played poker and fooled around. So in the end, I slept pretty late.

Plane Ride to Vancouver - Wednesday, 11, 2010

We woke up really early this morning to catch our flight but who would have known that we would arrive at the airport half an hour early. We had predicted that there would be a lot of traffic to the airport but it turns out we were wrong. So we stood in the Terminal 1 of the airport with our bags and luggages on the ground waiting for our group members to arrive. It was a long wait. Then we checked-in our luggages with the Group Check-in area which was at the underground level. I never knew there was an underground level. Our counsellor had suggested us to tie up our straps on our backpacks because it may get caught and break as the workers try and yank out the strap. Many of our group members forgot to tie up the straps on our back packs. And so they had to roll plastic wrapping all over their bags to prevent the straps from dangling around. We were smart though, we used a large, clearless plastic bag and put it over our backpack. It was very easy and got the job done.

Before our plane ride, I went to Starbucks to get a drink. I got a vente(large) coffee. But when I received the drink, it was black coffee and there was no milk and sugar. I got desperate and asked the cashier to give me sugar and milk. It turns out that milk and sugar was on the side and at our disgression. I put a lot of sugar and salt and I also grabbed lotsa plastic tubes to play with on my plane ride. On the plane ride, I spilt my coffee and my coke and my jeans were pretty wet. Good thing the person beside me didn't get wet too much but they still got a little wet. I felt bad for them. On the plane ride, I watched Date Night and She's Out of My League. They were pretty nice movies and I was about to start Iron Man 2 before our plane was over. Darn!!! I promised myself I will finish Iron Man 2 next time!!

My Last Day - Tuesday, 10, 2010

All that yelling made me feel so tired and dead that I fell asleep immediately. When I open my eyes, bright sunshine is shining on my face. Woke up pretty early today but I felt sleepy. I think I slept for 6 hours because I went to sleep at 3:30AM yesterday.

Had to go to the dentist. Usually kids are afraid to go to the dentist because they always lose feel like they are either going to lose their teeth or something. Me on the other hand, I don't mind it at all because its like a visit to an old family friend. I have been seeing this dentist ever since I was 1 and he has been really friendly. But seeing him today made me think that he will retire soon. He seems so old now and if he retires, I must go and find another dentist. Today's dentist appointment was only a yearly check-up. But just when I open my mouth and he puts his small stick mirror into my mouth, he spots something wrong. Apparently, my wisdom teeth are coming out and they have no space to grow. So all my teeth are getting squished even more to allow space for the appearance of my wisdom teeth. Also, he had performed a surgery where he took out 1 of my wisdom teeth last year. I cannot believe I could not remember that. When he spotted this problem, I was like oh no, I am gonna lose 4 of my wisdom teeth. He says "4 minus 1 equal to 3" and I will only be losing 3 wisdom teeth because I had lost one already. I felt like I was in kindergarten and the teacher was teaching us how to count numbers. I felt so stupid and embarrassed. Then he gave me X-rays to see how bad this wisdom teeth problem was and he was like, after you get back from Vancouver, you must see me immediately. He wants to take out my wisdom teeth asap. I was kind of pretty scared because when I saw some people who had lost their wisdom teeth, their cheeks were really chubby. I didn't want my cheeks chubby.

I must finish packing for my trip. I feel that I have overpacked but at the same time, I think I packed too little. I feel that I have brought a lot of stuff but when I look at my luggage and bags. They look so empty. Right now, I only have a filled up luggage for 2 weeks of stay. Is that enough? I guess so.

Just 2 days ago, I thought my flight was on Friday. I thought I still had a lot of time to pack up. Just like recently, I looked at my calender and I saw that my flight was on Wednesday. I freaked out.

Ridiculous Night - Monday 9, 2010

Woke up early at 9:00ish but went back to sleep. I feel so tired........ and slept for a long long time before I was able to wake up. I get up and do homework and that's about it. It feels so boring these days. As nightfall came, my big argument with my parents started. We yelled at each other from 11:30pm to 2:30am. I shed tears, I was crying, I was mad and most of all I was mad at my parents. They thought everything they say is right which is actually NOT. They didn't even understand and when I explain things, they still don't understand. It feels like such a waste of time to talk to them about this stuff. Actually what started was, my parents asked me, why are you working so hard? I am like I am working this hard because I want to leave this hateful place. Then they start yelling at me and such and such.... I really hate listening to them because all they say is nonsense. Just like that, they yelled at me, 2 against 1. I lost of course because every time they are about to lose, they just say this is their house and they make the rules here. I am like wth. No matter how much I argue using logic and common sense, they just give me this nonsense of owning this house. Its such a waste of time trying to argue with them.

The end - Saturday 7, 2010

After a long day of duty, I was finally able to return home with a sunburned face and arms. I felt all sweaty because when the football players were injured on the field, I had to carry them to the benches. They were really heavy and it took like 2 first-aiders to lift him up and walk him off the field. Another thing was, he was filled with sweat and it smelled so bad. I hated the feeling of having my arms all smelly from it. Thinking of it gives me shudders already, having all their sweat all over my shoulders and on my arms. Oh well, think on the good side, I was back home and I could shower FINALLY. After taking like 5 minute shower.... I can't seem to stay in the shower for a long time. Its just not my thing so i get out and turn on the television. Apparently my favourite TV show疲子英雄(or Black and White) was at its last episode. It was saddening that this drama was about to end but at the same time, usually the last episode would be the most epic episode ever. There is so much to say about what happened that I can't list them out. You will have to watch it yourself but I gotta say its one of the top dramas I have watched before. There will be a sequel to this drama which makes it even more awesome. I look forward to watching it!!! and so this ends my Black and White Drama already.

First Duty - Saturday 7, 2010

[St. John Ambulance Truck that I rode on at the back)

With only 6 hours of sleep, I was still able to wake up for my first every duty. It took an hour to pick up other kids that were on the duty as well and then we finally arrived at the place to pick up this ambulance from the picture above. It's kind of big and roomy inside but I have a big problem with the seatbelts. Throughout the carride to our duty, I was wobbling because I had no seatbelt or actually I could not find one on the seat. I could either strap myself on, like a stretcher or just sit there and fall as the driver kept braking. I would usually fall down on a net on my side as the truck stopped. Throughout the journey, it was like this and my seat didn't even feel comfortable.

So we finally arrived at the duty location which was a football stadium. It was a minor league and it was only half a stadium. Not an actual stadium, there was only one side with bleachers and on the other side there was grass. The grass part was where we put up our first-aid booth. We got roasted since there were few clouds in the sky. One of our teammates had sunscreen but it was outdated. Oh well, we all put it on because it was so darn sunny. But I forgot to put sunscreen on my nose and its kind of red from the sunburn. Not only that, we had to stand because they didn't have chair for us. For the chairs, we used a stretcher so we can sit because to be honest, I doubt you can stand for like 5 hours. Also, they only gave us a table which was broken as well. That's great! and while we entered this place. It felt like we were unwelcomed. Everyone was staring at us with glares and such.

We watched the game progress from peewee kids that are aged from 7-9 yrs old to 12-13 yrs old to 16-17 yrs old which were my age. Their physical size were so different as the age group changed. Well here is what I mean, we watched like 5 games, firstly 3 games of 7-9 yrs old, then a game with 12-13 yrs old and then last of all 16-17 yrs old. Its quite funny, most of the cases were from 7-9 yrs old and not the older kids. Although the older kids were rough, I think they just held the pain in because it was bruises and stuff. They know the drill which was ice pack and to stop moving it. But for the little kids, whenever they felt hurt, they would lie on the field. Then we would have to run to the middle of the field and treat him. I actually liked having injuries because it was so boring just sitting on the stretcher. It didn't feel that good and I couldn't lie back either. Most of the injuries were like bruises hand, legs, stomachache. Can you believe this though, we ran out of ice packs, but its not surprising since every bruise requires an ice pack to reduce the swelling. If every kid that came running to us wanted an ice pack, it would definitely run out. This was the case for us but the thing is, our supply of ice packs were low at the start. We had only like 7 which was pretty sad because it had to last for 7 hours. We used it all up in 3 hours.

Finally after 2 hours, it was lunch. From our sheet which we had to read and understand before coming to the duty, it said lunch was provided. Guess what!? It ain't and we had to buy it ourselves. However our SJA organization was able to re-imburse, but it would take really long before we got our money back. We can say it was provided but it was all good because I got a jumbo italian hot dog. It was so tasty especially with a light breakfast and a long long day ahead of us. I was so thirsty though.

The next five hours passed by really slowly. However it ended soon enough and when it was the last ten minutes, one of our first-aiders said it would be funny if a serious case happened. And guess what, it happened. Just 2 minutes before the very last football game, an injury happened. A football player had hurt his ribs. Apparently he cracked 3 of his ribs just a week before and it was happening again. He could not get up or walk and we had to give him a stretcher. Then we had to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital. It was pretty intense but I was somewhat disappointed with the ambulance. It took them over 15 minutes to get here. A person would have died by then if it was a more serious injury but I learned that they prioritize it. No wonder they were so late.

That was it.. and now I am in big trouble because apparently, I listened to a lower-ranked officer than a higher-ranked officer. I should have listened to the higher-ranked officer because he was higher ranked for a reason and now I am in trouble.

First KTV day - Friday 6, 2010

[Here is a picture of Shirley Temple]

Well before today, I never knew that KTV meant and when I took the bus to Woodbine and Steeles, I found out it was a karaoke place. KTV meant karaoke? I kind of never knew that before or have I ever heard this term before either. Anyways I arrived at the place lost, dizzy, no sense of direction or where the place is. I was only at the bus stop at the intersection of Woodbine and Steeles. So, my only option was to call the one and only friend that I knew that was coming to KTV. Good thing she picked up, otherwise I would have been screwed trying to find this karaoke place. Yes all thanks to you. THANK YOU for leading me to this karaoke place.

So I go inside this place and guess what I see when I get into the room where our karaoke was. By the way, I was late already. All I see is one guy and a girl singing together. I sense something going on but I was wrong. All the people I meet are strangers and we start communicating pretty well. First of all, most of us were asians like chinese asians. But there is a little language barrier between mandarin and cantonese. Good thing I knew a little of each and it helped a lot to be able to read chinese. Although I was not familiar with the song, I was able to sing it but out of tune though. Actually, I don't listen to much songs so I was pretty bad at singing when it was with songs that I never heard before. I felt so bad trying to sing the songs in chinese and english too because I have not heard of the song and most of the time, I was guessing how to sing the songs. Also, my voice was not that good either.

But soon enough, it got to a few songs that I knew and I think I did pretty well singing them but to be honest, I ain't a singer and never will be. I am only a listener and I just sing well. Its just not my thing I guess.

But it was fun, making new friends, singing like I had no tomorrow. I went crazy with the microphone and it was fun. Well I was sure that I had fun and most of all, I found a nice drink. While we were karaoke (ing), we were allowed two free drinks and I decided to try Shirley Temple which a friend of mine decided to order. It was so good that I decided to order my second free drink as Shirley Temple again. It tasted different and so fresh!!!
After that we went to eat dinner at a restaurant closeby. The food was good and it was a good price considering that we were at a Japanese restaurant. I only had to pay $8 for a very big meal which included 36 pieces of maki and 18 pieces of sushi? I am not sure but I was not able to eat all of it but in total I only had to pay $8 which was a pretty good deal. I loved the rice and their seaweed. It was so good, I would always rip off the raw salmon and just eat the rice and seaweed. Yea I am kinda weird because I really dislike the taste of raw salmon.

Arrived home pretty late.

The Beginning of Challenge #3

Yea I haven't been doing much for the past few days. Catching up on homework, catching up on sleep, watching some MV's and eating real food!!!

Today was the start of our 3rd and final challenge. I still remember when I just started E3 just 2 months ago. Time passes by so fast and now its already almost at the end of E3. This will be our final challenge and I will make our team become #1. Not only will we be better than the rest of the teams but we will impress these Microsoft folks for this challenge.

Our 3rd challenge was from Microsoft but before we got to start our challenge, we had to get to their headquarters which was located at Mississauga. It took over an hour for us to arrive there because of the traffic and we also got lost as well. The Microsoft headquarters were not that big actually and we were led to a conference room which could hold around 50 people? And this person, Joey Devilla, a developer evangelist from Microsoft is our presenter for our E3 Challenge. He was a very funny guy and he even said that he was a better presenter than the guy who was supposed to be presenting today. Someone else was supposed to be presenting today but this person was on vacation so he was their back-up. Throughout the presentation, he related everything to his own life and told many funny stories as well. Instead of those long, boring lectures where the presenter always kept reading off the slide and presented in a monotone. This person had so many things to talk about. First off, we learned about who he was. He had been working as a computer programmer and had been working in another company prior to Microsoft. This company had lived and died in the internet. Because of the financial crisis in 2008, his company was one of many others that had to closed down but their company did not immediately close down after the crisis. He was getting paid to sit on his bum for 6 months before the company had told him that this was not going to work and fired him. However just after 2 weeks of getting fired, he was able to land a job at Microsoft even during the financial crisis where many people were dying to find a job. It was all thanks to his blog and his social network who had gained the interest of many people and helped him in finding a job. To this date, he says that he still receives phone calls that want to hire him. Although he has found a nice job at Microsoft, he says it feels good that many people still phone him. Another thing I found out from Microsoft is that there are rooms for people to relax and game on the 2nd floor. I don't mean a room with a couch and a TV but a gaming room where there is an xbox and people can actually play the xbox during their breaks. How lucky is that?

A very funny story that he told was about a competition to win the opportunity to design the xbox 360. Apparently before the present day design of the xbox 360, the xbox 360 was a big black box which had the word XBOX 360. It was not appealing and it was downright ugly. No one had wanted to buy this gaming console and the controllers were massive and it did not fit on your hands. So, the competition had narrowed down to three competitors. A company from Kelloggs, a company from Nike and a snowboarding company. This sounded so random, I mean a company that designs cereal boxes would design the case for the xbox 360? Then it got even more weird, a company that designs shoes would design the xbox 360. Well this Joey guy was present as they presented their ideas to the xbox 360 company. This is what happened, Kelloggs and Nike had went up with a powerpoint presentation and presented their ideas very well. Then a representative from the snowboarding company came up to the stage with a black marker and a cardboard paper box. What was he thinking? Bringing up a black marker and a cardboard paper box for a multi-million contract. Well I guess you would have guessed the winner. Either the Kelloggs or the Nike company right? Well I should just continue telling the story, this representative got up on stage and wore the cardboard paper box and said, "this is how the xbox 360 looks". Then he took it off and threw it down. "BUT!, this is how we want it to look" and he starts drawing on the whiteboard with his marker. Guess who won the contract? The snowboarding company!!! and so if you look at the xbox360, it looks like a snowboard.
I hope this story was good because I really liked it. It was one of the things that had really stuck out from the presentation as well.

Another funny part was, when he was presenting the structure of our challenge, we had to incorporate a guerilla event/competition. However we didn't know what this was and one of our E3er's asked the question to Joey. Joey couldn't think of an example at that time. But after 3 minutes he said, "Here's an example, lets say a bunch of people walk in a bar handing out free samples of milk. This would be a guerilla event because it is something out of the ordinary. It is something that people would never think of, but at the same time, its a very good marketing way to promote your product" I was like WOW, although his example seemed insane, it was relevant and we could understand what he meant.

So what is our challenge? Well, our challenge is to find some way to promote this product, the windows phone 7 to post secondary students which are aged around 18-21. Quite a challenging challenge eh? Well we had better get started because we would need to present this idea in 2 weeks time. We got to play around with the new phone for a bit and try things out such as the touch pad, the touch keyboard and the applications. It is very different from the Iphone and it was still a prototype. There are only 6 of these phones in Canada right now and I was able to put my hands on it and feel how it was like.

And that concluded our Microsoft E3 Challenge #3 Session. My carride back home was really smooth and it took only 30 minutes compared to the one and a half hour before. Our car was really low on fuel and at some time, I was a little worried that we would end up on the middle of the highway without gas. I would see cars wooshing by on both sides of the car and maybe, we would end up dead if one careless driver did not see us. That was the only part when I felt kind of scared.

Beach Bonzanza

Finally, I could have a little fun after my hike. As I left my house to go to Woodbine Beach, I met some of my friends at a street meat stand and we went together. I did not know them very well though but we got along. The beach was big!!! the sand stretched really far from the shore and it was really busy! There were people playing beach volleyball, swimming (very little) because it was cold and dirty, picnicing, playing on the playgrounds, playing frisbee and eating. I decided to play frisbee because I was not good at volleyball. My throws were pretty bad, it was always flying too far or too high for people to see it. Sometimes, it would even hit people on the sidewalk which was pretty bad. But I got better which made me feel good. Someone suggested an idea of throwing people into the water and I joined in. We literally, picked people off the ground and walked them into the cold and dirty water. Then we threw them in and drenched them. It was fun but you get wet yourself too. I was wet, sandy and dirty after that. It felt disgusting. No wonder so little people liked swimming there. Then the party was over and people started packing up and going.

However, there was an after party. I joined up with a few friends and we were just there to eat, eat and eat. There was so much food there, chips, soda, rice, noodles, chicken wings, salad, watermelon, honey melon, pizza and carrot sticks. And then there was the award ceremony, which was very long and I should not have been there. All the awards were for people who organized the Night It Up event and not for the E3 people. I should have just kept eating. While eating, we played push-up poker. Our maximum limit was 50 push-ups which was quite a lot. So in one of the hands I got a Jack and 5. The flop was Jack, Jack and Five. I was like wow, I just got a full house! So we kept betting up to 50 and as we showed our hands. The flop was Jack, Jack, Five, Nine, King. I was shocked when someone had Jack and a King. And so many of us lost and did 50 push-ups.

It was a fun night and definitely worth it with the delicious food!!

Practice Hike Day 2

Yesterday's hike was deadly. It was something extraordinary because who would love to hike for 12 hours which a heavy pack and constant elevation. I would have gladly left and went back home if only the bus was there. However all of us decided to continue despite all the hardships and whining.

Sometimes, I don't understand why people whine. It doesn't make the situation better but instead it makes it even worse. First off, you are not helping yourself by whining. Your just wasting your breathe and energy. Second off, it would be better if you just concentrate on getting through this obstacle than whining. Lastly, you are annoying other people around you as you whine. So whining is useless, it would be better off if you just shut up and keep walking. Just tell yourself that you can do it and miracles happen.

During our sleep, we had to elevate feet up. I have yet to find out the reason why to that. I think it has something to do with all the hiking and stuff.

Although we were super tired, we all got up to start filtering water because all our water was depleted. The water that we were pumping from was from the lake which had tons of bugs and the water was brown. After pumping it, the water was yellow and there was stuff in it. Eww but it didn't taste weird. I decided to put tons of nestea powder to cover up the taste. However in exchange for the taste, I would become more and more thirsty. Oh well, I thought it was a good exchange. It took us 3 hours before we reached our bus stop where we got picked up and sent to home. I was looking forward to it the whole time we were hiking. Today's hike was like 1/4 of the difficulty of yesterday's hike.

Also, we took a shortcut along the road which was pretty awesome. Some people didn't like the rocks on the road and preferred the grassy trails. But I didn't like the trails because it kept going up and down which was pretty annoying.

As we arrived at the campsite, we were early by like 3 hours and we waited for the other teams to arrive. While waiting, we played poker, big two and talked. One of the people fell asleep and her back was really dirty with soil and bits of leaves. Our counsellor decided to play a prank on her. He wrote, "Help the needy" on a piece of paper and put it beside her. It looked exactly like how people were on the streets in downtown. Many of us took pictures and laughed but she was asleep so she had no idea what we were doing. We did many more signs such as "Life is ruff", etc. When she woke up, she had a confused look as we all laughed at her.

The bus was like an hour late and we had a pit stop at MacDonalds. Many of us were treated to the $1 soft drink while others decided to buy the McFlurry. I got the $1 but my drink tasted like diet coke. It was disgusting and it felt like trash. I was stupid to get an extra large drink too. I fell asleep on the bus and dreamed about her. That was pretty much it for my day.

Practice Hike Day 1

Today I was somewhat fully rested with a few hours of sleep and last minute packing up. I was totally not ready for today's journey and I am sure most of my teammates agree with me. We were totally not ready for this.. I mean TOTALLY. Completely beyond my imagination and should be considered insane! We met up at 6:45 but the school bus was late for like 45 minutes. So we left at like 7:30 but that was not it, our bus ride was 3 hours long because we were going to Frontenac Provincial Park.

Although it sounds kind of okay, yea-sure thing. I officially hate this park after the hike. We arrive at the park at around 10:30/11:00AM and we start walking. Since we were fresh off the bus, we parked pretty fast. At around 4km/hr which was pretty good considering we had a heavy backpack about 20-30 pounds? In the backpack, there was water, sleeping bag, tent, food, clothes and miscellaneous stuff to survive. After walking for like 2 hours, we started getting tired already! But we had only walked like 4 kilometers in that 2 hours which meant we were walking at around 2km/hr. Do you know why we walked so slow? The main reason was because of all the elevation. We walked up and down so many hills, and bigger hills and bigger hills and even mountains. There were rocks everywhere and bridges at the bottom of the hills. The trail of this hike was like this. We would climb up a hill and then walk down the hill to the bottom. Usually at the bottom, there is a small river and we would usually cross the bridge and then climb up another hill. This went on for like A LONG LONG TIME. Not only that, if you walked along the bridges, they were so wobbly! It was only a plank of wood and it wasn't even the good kind of wood because of all the erosion. As you walk on the bridge, it feels like its gonna break apart and let you fall into the river. However we came across some nice bridges too. While we were hiking, it was hard to notice the landscape because you were always concentrated on the trail. There would always be some kind of loose rock, loose branch or even roots that would trip you. Many of our teammates got a sprained ankle from this and I was one of them. My ankle was in pain the whole time I was hiking and I tried not to put weight on it. So I decided to burrow a walking stick to minimize the pressure on my legs. It worked for awhile and the recovery was pretty fast and I was back to normal soon enough. We were able to look at the scenery as we reached a look-out point or at the top of a mountain. There, we would see everything to the end of the horizon and it was all trees and hills. We would usually take long rests and eat our meals there which was pretty awesome because of the cool breezes and warm sunshine. But to be honest, the trail was endless and as we finished going up a big hill, another hill comes and we would have to climb another one. It was both tiring and boring. We hiked for like 12 hours from 11AM to 10:30PM. Many of us ran out of water on the way and we had to burrow our teammates. Good thing I brought soda because it was refreshing but it made you even more thirsty though.

On the way, we had to walk past a really wet trail and unfortunately, I missteped and my foot got submerged into the water. So I was walking with a wet shoe the whole way.

We were supposed to walk 22 km today but as we walked to 12km it was already 5PM which was a pretty bad sign. We knew for a fact that either we reach our destination before sunset or we would have to hike in the dark. Or even better yet, we would camp on the trail. But noo... we decided to continue walking even in the dark with flashlights and everything. Every once and then, we would trip on something and it felt like forever before we finally reached our campsite. We were supposed to follow a trail map but at the end, we gave up on looking at the map and just kept following signs which led to our campsite.

One of the groups were not so lucky and they got lost. They were behind us for like an hour and had to hike in the dark for more than an hour. Imagine hiking in the night, which weird sounds and only you and your partners on the trail. It is pitch black and you can barely see anything with a flashlight. All you can hope for is that the campsite is nearby and that your almost there.

But another group had arrived at the campsite just after the sunset so they did not need to hike in the dark.

Some interesting stuff that I saw was a really yellow river (looked like clay or poo)

P.S. I hate hiking up hills and elevation.