Tuesday 9th

This morning we had the flag raising ceremony again, and the students from The Heights, GT College (Hong Kong) and Keio Shonan Fujisawa (Japan) had to get up in front of the entire school. I was told that I had to do a short speech on our trip and the experience so far....notice was given 5 minutes before which made me nervous. A students from each of the schools addressed the school, and then it was time to go to our sabbaticals. Bryan, Evan, Diane and Damon were in the MAGE sabbatical which discussed the links between science and religion (although I'm not really sure exactly what they were doing :P), Keenan and Courtney had debating, and Ethan, Aidan, Ben and myself were partaking in the 7th Hwa Chong Model ASEAN Summit, which disussed various issues affecting south-east asian countries. There were various rooms (i.e. environment, economics, peace and security etc.) and in those rooms were the chairs (people in charge) and delegates from 10 different countries (Singapore, Philippines, Brunei, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos). They created delegations and amendments, while we just sat there and observed. Ethan and I were with our Buddy in the Special Committee room, whilst Aidan and Ben were in the Peace and Security room. Ethan and I were told that it does get better :). We left our sabbaticals at 10am and headed back to the dorms to get ready to go to Sentosa Island. Sentosa is basically like a theme park, and was a lot of fun. We first went to have lunch, which ended up being Subway. The Japanese students were really happy to see a Subway, because it was something that was familiar to them. After lunch, we headed into the forest walk, and slowly made our way through to the beach. At the beach, Damon, Bryan, Jarret and myself decided to stay back and sit in the shade for a while, whilst the others went on to the water, and walked in it for a bit. Once the group came back together, we caught the tram to the 'Images of Singapore' exhibit. It was quite cool and the guide was really funny. The group had photos taken in a truck and then moved back to Subway for another rest in the cool air conditioning. After the rest, the Luge was our next activity. Everyone went down the hill in these go-kart like vehicles and had a great time. Once down the hill, the group got on the sky ride, which took us back up to the top, giving us a fabulous view of sentosa. Afterwards, we headed to the Merlion, and went all the way to the top where many, many photos were taken. The view, like so many other places in Singapore, was incredible. When we finally went back inside, we found this room with some lions heads, where we were meant to put in a coin that we were given when we walked in. Most people put their coins in, but some kept them as souveniers. We then headed down to the bottom, where you exit through the shop. In the shop we could collect the prize we got from putting the coin in the lions mouth. Everyone, even those who didn't put their coin in, got a fan. This fan was AMAZING, and became a huge saviour to all of us in the heat and humidity. Aidan, Ben, Darrel, Damon and myself all went ahead of the rest of the group and went down through a large water feature outside the shop. During this I was able to take many hilarious photos of Damon with the different water features. The others eventually came out of the shop and everyone headed to the final attraction of the night, "Songs Of The Sea". It was a show filled with incredible light and water affects, and some very corny songs. Damon, Aidan, Keenan, Jarret and myself sat separate from the others, because we got behind in the line and couldn't find them. It was then time to head back to the boarding school, but just before we departed Sentosa, Mr Roubanis decided to take some really cool pictures of everyone and also some of just our buddies. It was a really long day, but all everyone had a great time and would do it again any day :)