A Country I Have Visited
I still remember the trip to Alpine, Japan. It was from ninth to the sixteenth of June this year. The whole journey took seven hours. While I was on the aeroplane, there was some turbulence. I was frightened as the aeroplane started shaking violently and I thought that we might not make it to Japan. My parents assured me that it was only a turbulence. Once the shaking stopped, I heaved a sign of relief.
When we reached the airport in Japan,we immediately met up with the tour guide,Yu Ren. After that, he told us that we could have our breakfast as our flight was a night flight from 11 pm to 6 am. I dashed off to find a Japanese food stall. I then found a ramen shop and found a vacant table to sit at. I then slurped the ramen noodles so loudly that people nearby looked at me disapprovingly. I was flushed with embarrassment.
The few tourist attractions there were the steep Suicide Cliffs, the rest stop at nearly half of Mount Fuji and the interesting Snow Wall which was high up in the snow-capped mountains that it took an hour's ride up.
The Suicide Cliffs were not within my expectations, because it did not look like people had committed suicide there. However, I noticed that the cliffs were steep and high. There were hawks flying above us in all directions. I was comforted by Yu Ren, our tour guide.He said the hawks were harmless if you did not mess with them.
The rest stop near half of Mount Fuji was scary but fun. I looked down the mountain and I immediately stood back. It was very high in the mountains. There were a lot of people there shopping at the gift shop, taking photographs of the scenery and eating hot and hearty meals.
The last and most interesting tourist attraction was the Snow Wall. The ride took an hour to get up. As I looked around, we were surrounded by snow-capped mountains. As we stepped out of the bus, we immediately went to take photographs at the Snow Wall. The snow was so white that it was hurting my eye. My mother then dug into her handbag and gave me a pair of sunglasses to put on. I wore them and my eyes did not hurt anymore.
On the last day of the tour, we were on our own. We had a free day in Tokyo to shop. I was awed by the shops in the streets in Tokyo. There were games, toys, books and food. All the things were to my satisfaction. But there was a problem, we could not speak Japanese! I then used my handy Japanese Dictionary on my Nintendo DS to translate for us from English to Japanese. At the end of the day, we were all holding a lot of shopping bags of items we had bought.
The best part of my trip was the stay in the hotels. They had nice comfy beds to sleep on, were air-conditioned and had televisions. Luckily, Yu Ren told us that we could watch the FIFA World Cup 2010. I was excited.
When we were boarding our plane back to Singapore, my heart was still reluctant to leave Japan. How I wish I could go back there again in December. It was an enjoyable holiday indeed !
Written By Danny Lee Hao Jun from 5 Endurance
My Trips Abroad
I visited three countries, France, Switzerland and Italy, during the June holidays. I went with my family---my father, mother and sister.
I got there by plane and the journey took twelve hours. It was summer there but it was quite cold in France and Switzerland, but hot in Italy. The day was long and the sky was only dark at 9.30pm. I like it in Switzerland because we took a train up two mountains and saw snow.
One of them was Mount Jungfrau which was the top of Europe and the other mountain was Mt Titlis. We took the train up Mt Jungfrau, while we took three cable cars up Mt Titlis. The first one was a normal one which could only take six people while the second one was one that could take up to eighty people. The third one could also take up to eighty people, but it can turn 360 degrees while going up. I played with snow on top of the mountains.
I saw two of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Pisa Tower in Rome. I would like to go back to Switzerland again.
Jeremy Lee En (5 Endurance)
My Trip To Spain
I visited Spain on 11 December 2009. My family and I took a cruise ship named Super Star Virgo to that place. The journey took us eleven days! The climate was very hot when we were in the midst of the ocean.It was very cold when we reached Spain. I was shaking like a leaf. We encountered a thunderstorm while we were sleeping in the cruise ship. I was scared when I heard the rumbling of the thunder and the flashing of the lightning. I saw many fishes, dolphins and whales. Eleven days later, we finally reached Spain. The ticket to Spain cost us about $8000 each.
When we reached Spain, we went to our hotel first which was far from the port. The hotel was called Pornamens. I did not know what it meant in Spanish.
In Spain we had lots of fun. We went to a few amusement parks and shopping malls.We enjoyed playing and buying things a lot.Later the next day, I witnessed a robbery. I was shocked! There was a young man who tried to steal someone’s bag. I immediately called the police, who caught the robber. I was rewarded for my brave action. The owner gave me a few pasita [their money]. I enjoyed my holidays a lot!
Roneil Bhatia
5 Endurance/2010
