Flight date

Attended JPA's predeparture briefing just a few days ago. Both good and bad news were received.

Started my journey to Subang at 12.30pm but the bus moved only at 1.30pm. The journey was quite a smooth one with my HP protesting to me, malfunctioned throughout half of the journey. When I almost reached Pudu, Taylor's placement called and asked me whether I fill in the wrong info for VISA. Tried to call back home and ask my father to check and found that my phone has expired. So had to wait for someone to call and ask the person to reload for me.

Placement called at around 4pm and luckily Emily called at 4.15pm, so I quickly asked her to reload for me first, then called my father to check my info. In the end, it was the Australian side which made the mistake. So I happily continued my journey to Subang.

Arrived finally at Subang at around 5pm, saw a YP junior there, dont know his name, but found that his name is "Liang Jing" (mandarin translation) after that, ChinXiong was on his car too. After meeting with Emily they all, we checked into our hotel, Sun Inns, I stayed in a single room, RM70 per night, quite a pleasant room.

Then we went out to look for food, wanted to go to "Yuan teamboat" (recommended by Yang Hong) but then it was raining very heavily and we couldnt walk to the other side of Sunway Pyramid. No choice, we tried looking for a cab but unfortunately there wasnt one at that time.

So we decided to go back into S.P. to eat, in the end, we chose BBQ plaza, a place full of people. The food there taste normal, have to do the barbeque on your own, and the service wasnt so up to standard. After having dinner, we went to TGV for the movie "Legion". Sadly the movie didnt really impress me, the shooting skill was kinda normal, with not much of special effects plus the storyline was actually quite predictable where the hero and heroine save the day in the end, happy ending.

Ok, so we finished the movie at around 11.30pm and headed back to Sun Inns, I would recommend you to stay at Sun Inns if you ever visit Subang, it is just beside of S.P., quite convenient too. Set my alarm clock at 6am and started to feel sleepy at 12.30am. Had a sleepless night though.

Woke up the second morning with lots of vibration thanks to my handphone, partly because of Emily's call, plus my alarm clock was ringing, at 6.30!!! my goodness, I overslept!

So i spent the next five minutes rushing to prepare myself and stuffed everything into my bag. I was told that our taxi driver drove the others to the venue, without us... Sorry people, I had failed you all. But alas, Emily and the rest managed to ask Sun Inns to call for another taxi and we managed to arrive at the venue, INTEC at 7am.

The journey was around 25 minutes, with the taxi uncle driving at 110km/hr! I was sitting in the front sit and was freaked out by him. We lost our way when we entered Shah Alam and decided to go to Shah Alam's bus station first as Maou Yong said her friend told her that INTEC is just in front of the station, well the fierce looking yet friendly taxi driver took us to the venue finally after asking for directions. Paid 25 bucks and was very satisfied as the other taxi driver, which dumped us, charged for 35 bucks. So, it was a blessing in disguise.
Ok, so after arriving at INTEC, we walked a short distance to its main hall and found that only a few have arrived. So, we started having breakfast and chatted with our friends who were there already. Then, we went into the hall and took our blazer and long pants (RM 400 in total). After being asked to wear the blazer, we found our seats and the first rehearsal started. Its a bit lengthy up until here so I decided to cut this short.

So, after the guest of honour gave his speech, we started the briefing. Was told that our flight date will be on 14 Feb 2010, sad fact. The rest will fly on 7feb, 13 feb and 20 feb, differs from one university to another. Most NZ students have to go to Sydney first as there's no direct flight to NZ apart from Auckland.

After that, they tried to change our mood by giving out allowances to us. The allowances can be broken into three categories, namely M'sian riggits (RM), Australian dollars cash (AUD) and travellers cheques. Altogether the total amount, after converting AUD to RM was around RM18,000, quite a huge sum of money! But the joy didnt last long as we were told to hand RM400 to the officers as payments for the blazers and pants.

Then, the meeting ended with a speech by our caretaker or person in charge of Aussie and Nz students, Miss Rosmaini who reminded us about the rules and regulations that we need to adhere to. The speech was given after we handed in our documents (VISA, ori passport, borang keselamatan and JPA med checkup). I didnt get my VISA approved at the time so I couldnt hand in my passport as well, the problem was solved today's morning as Linn, who's going to KL will bring my passport and VISA along with her and hand them to JPA.

Ok, that's all for this post. Main info is that I'm flying on 14 Feb... What a sad CNY and Valentine's Day