The Finale: 4o1 Chalet (Day 3)

When midnight came and most of the girls went up to the bedroom to sleep, Quan Ming decided to stack the mahjong tiles on the table against the wall to make the words "NHSS". Thanks to the reflective nature of the table, pictures of the tiles looked like the "NHSS" was on the horizon, reflected in the water. After a while, Kegan and I took them down and we played mahjong till late.

Eventually the people on the ground floor decided to sleep too, switching off the lights. I took up a spot at the base of the stairs where I could lean back against the wall and cuddle up with my bag. It took some time for me, but as what happened last year, I fell asleep soon.

I woke up at around 5am. The lights were on and people were walking around packing stuff. The original plan was to go to Wild Wild Wet on Day 3, but most of the people decided to go home early in the morning of Day 3. At around 8am, Kegan, Yan Chen, Delia, Aileen, Kuan Yee and me went out to Downtown East's Old Day Kopitiam to have breakfast (chicken porridge and Milo for me). After that, we lazed around Downtown East as WWW only opened at 10am. We went back to the chalet when Yan Chen said she had to go back too, and after she left Kegan, Aileen and Delia went up to the bedroom to sleep while Kuan Yee and I stayed awake watching a show on TCM on the ground floor.

At five minutes to ten I called those sleeping awake. After gathering our stuff, the five of us walked out to WWW. I took some time gathering enough money to store in the complimentary Funkey card I got on check-in and we admitted into the theme park later. The fun began after we got changed and stuffed our belongings into two lockers.

We warmed up in the Shiok River first. After one round, we got out and went to the top of the tallest tower to take the family water slide, Ular-lah. That was in itself a prelude to Slide Up, easily the most challenging ride in the theme park, where two guests at a time slide down a steep slope and up another slope on the other side and continue until there is no more momentum (just like a Viking ship). I took the ride with Aileen and I felt like either flying out or burning a hole into the spot of the float I was on. Later I had to go up again and take another ride with a boy who was below 12 years of age. This time I was more well prepared, and I actually enjoyed it.

After that challenging ride, Kegan and I volunteered to try out the Waterworks, two water slides. I volunteered to ride the covered one, while Kegan tried the uncovered. The covered purple tube was really dark inside and you could not see anything in there until you're reaching the exit. After this one I took the open one and found it as fun as the closed one. All in all, I loved both, but more for the closed tube.

After another go at Ular-lah, we went to the Children's Playground (not outside the theme park, but in the theme park) and had lots of fun. We also headed to the Tsunami, a man-made wave pool, where we had fun playing with the powerful waves and trying to block them with every part of our bodies (including our behinds - that's unhygienic, but who cares?). After renting a float, we had more rounds of fun (literally) when each of us took a ride on the float along the Shiok River (and me getting overturned at the end by Kegan).

Soon it was past 1, and Delia announced that she had to return to school for a camp she was in charge of (or something to that effect). We took out our stuff from the lockers and got ourselves lunch from the KFC in the theme park after taking a few pictures on Delia's camera. My Zinger burger took a long time to be ready, but after the meal it was back to our usual selves...not immediately though. I went three rounds along the Shiok River while the other three suntanned on the deck chairs. On the first round I said hello to each of them; on the second round they all seemed to be sleeping; on the third round they were gone with our belongings still lying on the deck chairs. I figured they either went into the Children's Playground or into the Shiok River behind me. I took the float with me up onto shore and did not wait long on the deck chairs when the three of them appeared, and I passed the float to them.

I joined them later (our belongings were in a way looked after by the lifeguard standing directly opposite them) and we had even more fun in the river. The grand finale to the day was another ride down the Waterworks before we returned the float, returned to the chalet to bathe and officially checked out of the chalet. Compared to last year, we left more stuff behind this time, some of which were uncooked potatoes, a tub of margarine which was almost full, the radio Wee Cheng got at the NJC Open House, a roll of kitchen towels and some towels. It was a feeling I couldn't describe as I left the chalet. We were all tired, but we had lots of fun (and those who didn't come to WWW should feel regretful).

On the MRT ride home I had a problem of leaking plastic bags which created a pool of water on the MRT floor and got some attention. It was only almost when I alighted at Jurong East Interchange to transfer to another train that I realised I brought back the extra garbage bags from the chalet.

Happy things aside, I was most unpleased to come back home to face the same situation as last year: coming home to hear my parents' queries about my money and then raising their voices about my money. I know it's hard to earn money, but why couldn't they let me take a break? Brrr....