After the long anticipation and waiting, the day finally arrived. Woke up at 4.45am and left the house at 5.30am, then both Mum and Dad sent me downstairs where Uncle Patrick was waiting for me. Glyn and Chris were the first to reach the airport. Then came Prem. Jusri had already text me, saying that he will be late for 30mins. I called Dollah and he was still at home, but he told me he would reached in 10 minutes, and true to his words, he really reached in 10 minutes! Whow! That's near!After checking-in our luggage, Chris, Glyn and I ate our breakfast at Kopitiam. We finally check-in at 7.30am. Strolling inside Terminal 3, we went to Fifa shop, and I bought two notebooks while Chris was in the toilet. Couldn't find where he was, I went straight to be boarding gate and there was a long queue for us to clear our hand luggage. Suddenly, I realised the Canadian swimming team as well as the US swimmers were on the same flight with us. Tried in vain to find Michael Phelps.
Jusri sat alone in the upper deck while we were in the lower deck. I watched Kungfu Panda and The Other Boylene Girl. I couldn't finish the second movie, was near the end, I hoped I can finish the show during the return flight. Dessert for lunch was a cornetto ice-cream. There goes my diet. The CTO kept talking to Prem, and then Prem pretended to be sleeping, and he really slept for real later. Dollah and I could hear his snores! Hahaha. To think he told me he wanted to watch a movie while on the plane. Hahahaha.
Its amazing how something as big as the A380 can fly. We stood outside the boarding gate for quite some time before we proceed to collect our luggage, still amazed by how the A380 can fly. I started to adapt to reading Chinese words as we walked, reading the advertisements and instructions, that were all in Chinese character. Everybody was rushing to checkout, and I thought to myself, there should be an express lane for the Olympic people.
Hunting for the express Olympic lane carefully, I located the special Olympic counter and had our accreditation passes validated there, saving us the time to queue with the others. We had to take LRT to another place to collect our luggage. On board the LRT, Chris was surprised to see Ge Minghui on board. We pretended to be taking photo of Prem and Dollah, but was in fact, taking photo of Ge Minghui. Our first and many stars to come in the days that follow.
The athletes who were on the same flight with us were well taken care of. Their team managers passed bottled water around for them while waiting for our luggage. Did Team Singapore has such treatment? After collecting our luggage, we called the driver and the editor. It took a long time before they finally found us. But we ended up going round and round the airport waiting for the CNA crew. Chris keep saying he wants to talk to the CTO, explaining that having a chat with the CTO could be his big break.
Finally arriving at the Media Village, the journey was smooth and uneventful, thanks to the Olympic lane, we check-in to our rooms and rested at apartment. I had a shower, and we took a walk around the Media Village. We recced the place and found out where the gym and pool was. Maybe I could go for a swim tomorrow morning. Having skipped his lunch on the plane, Chris and I had our dinner at Restaurant 1. Two dishes and two portions of rice, and it cost us RMB 100. Whow! That's too steep! We have to find somewhere cheaper. Met Dollah while we walked back to our apartments. Spoke to the driver over the phone, and we were to meet them at IBC while they collect equipment.
Language was the main problem between us. It takes us a couple of time before our message could be get across. The driver couldn't park his car in the IBC, so we had to be coolie - me, chris, dollah and the editor shifted the equipment and setup the editor “suite”. Prem was nowhere to be found. Jusri checked the equipment and realised we had two boom mikes instead of handheld, and there was no lip mike on the equipment list. We requested for the boom mikes to be changed, and we borrowed a lip mic from RTM, the spare Chartered brought for them.As Dollah and Prem haven't had their dinner, we requested the driver (Ma Shifu) to bring us to some halal restaurant for food. He kept saying he would bring us to a Qing Zhen place to eat, but Chris said not Qing Zheng (steamed). As long as there is no pork, we can go. In the end, I said just let him bring us, if it's not right, we can always go to another place.
Ma Shifu brought us to a restaurant selling Xin Jiang food. It's already 11.30pm! There are Arabic scriptures spread throughout the place. On the menu, we realised that they actually served a whole goat roasted. Whow! We placed our orders and watched the workers moved a fridge downstairs. And we realised Qing Zhen (清真), is the Chinese termed for Halal. Not steamed (清蒸), as Chris thought it was. It's recce venues time tomorrow. Hope the weather will be good. Chris paid for this meal. We said we would leave the Peking Duck to Prem, in the days to come.
