My Grey World

Jun200911

Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood. Photo by thisisbossi

White Night in St Petersburg (10 PM). Photo by Becky Sullivan.

I’M SO EXCITED.

Yup. Last year my choir SMU Chamber Choir went to Sopot, Poland to participate in a choir competition. (I know, I haven’t churned out the blogposts! Please search for my photo albums on facebook)

This year we decided to go even further : St Petersburg, Russia! This time to participate in Festa Musicale. Last year we had a choir from the Philippines as our “fellow Asians” but this year I heard that the choir will be the only choir from Asia. That’s gonna be cool

Photo by neiljs

Yes. Russia. The land of onion domes and vodka. And matryoshka. And blini. And so many others.

It’s not exactly a tourist destination, especially when their visa requirements are quite strict and tight (btw I got my visa for free, courtesy of the embassy. How nice!). But every stories I read just made me even more eager to see this very country. Mystic, magical, that’s how I picture it in my mind. Let’s see whether my prediction is correct.

Now before going, I have to pack (a lot of things), and later have to endure a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong flight. Okay so I depart from Singapore, 13-hour flight to Amsterdam, 6-hour long transit in Schiphol, and then another 3-hour flight to St Petersburg (and who knows how long will the bus ride to our place be).

Nevsky Prospekt at night, photo by Geir Halvorsen

We’ll be staying near Nevsky Prospekt, a big road in St Petersburg which I found out to be the St Petersburg’s Orchard Road. Since it’s June and it’s Summer, St Petersburg will experience what they call “White Nights”. Simply saying, there will be no night! The sun sets very late (as late as 11 PM) and rises very early (as early as 4.30 PM) and in between there’ll be no darkness. It’ll be very beautiful!

Ok I’m off to packing (and this year I’m not bringing my huge suitcase – no thanks). I leave you with beautiful pictures from St Petersburg I found on Flickr. Thanks to all the photographers! Awesome works

White Night in St Petersburg. Photo by Becky Sullivan

White Night in St Petersburg (10 PM). Photo by Becky Sullivan.

Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood. Photo by chillihead.

Church of St John Baptist at Chesme Palace. Photo by Dystopos.

Peter the Great's Winter Palace. Photo by Edwin Land.

Nov200814

Sylvia Giacinta

4

24th of May – The Opera in a Forest

I know it’s been so long! Nevertheless here’s my entry!

24th of May, the last day of our competition

It was the folk music category.. Songs that we sang:

Sohran Bushi (Japanese)
Xiao Huang Li Niao/小黄鹂鸟 (Mongolian folk song, sung in Mandarin)
Mamayog Akun (Philippines)
Dayung Sampan (Singapore, with melody adapted from a Chinese song)
Now I Walk in Beauty (Navajo traditional prayer, sung in English)

After the competition we have free time until the result announcement and closing ceremony. So we headed to Monte Cassino street to visit Krzywy Dom (sorry if I spelt it wrong!) a.k.a Crooked House.

It lives to its name, surely..

photo by Brocha

We ate at this cozy restaurant in the Crooked House.

Here’s what I ate!

Pieroghi (dumplings)

Yummmmmmmmmmm

This thing is called pieroghi (again, excuse me if I spelt it wrongly). Basically they’re dumplings, stuffed with different type of things and then smeared with different sauces! The one you saw above was filled with meat and smeared with creamy sauce.

And here’s another one!

pieroghi!

Yumz! This one was also stuffed with meat and some vegetables, and smeared with sour cream!

Okay if you’re wondering.. I did eat two portions of pieroghi!

The story was that.. I ordered for the 2nd one (the one with sour cream) but the waitress gave me the 1st one instead. Well honestly I was not sure that it’s the right one but she said that it’s the right one. So I ate it and halfway, she came to say sorry that it was mistaken, and brought another plate of pieroghi!

So kind of her, right?

Anyway, apparently our tour guide knows the owner of the restaurant and because of that.. She gave us..

me and honey vodka

Free shots of honey vodka! I know! I look damn happy with my vodka. It tastes delish! One of the choir member swore that her lost voice came back after the honey vodka. No kidding.

Other shots I took in the Crooked House was mainly shots of people (my friends, of course).

This is Jeremy..

Hehe.. The first “gloomy” photo is my favourite photo of the lot! He even used it for his profile picture once

This is George..

My other friends.. Jiaqi, Tracy, Jenevieve, and Dawn

The student conductor, Kenny.

Hehe.. He posed, ok!

After the food we walked around Sopot Pier once again before we took off to the Forest Opera (a.k.a Opera Lesna). It was a tiring walk, because we had to climb up a loooooooong trail.

So here I was, very tired (not sweaty coz it was cold and I couldn’t perspirate hahaha), in front of the gate!

And here’s a shot of what is inside!

This picture doesn’t do justice of how big it is.. Perhaps this photo I found in Flickr is more appropriate.

photo by elusja

The organizer gave out flags! Remember that we didn’t have our own flags? Apparently they made some for us! How sweet right??

But anyway, being a true Indonesian..

Mwahahahaha. Please don’t kill me, please. It’s just a joke

Photo by Krishna

Aaaaanyway.

The choir won Silver Diplomas for both of the two categories!

Photo by Krishna (or somebody holding Krishna’s camera)

In photo were the section leaders of the choir!

If you see that they’re holding some piece of paper, it was the train ticket! Now we had this train ticket competition thing there.. I’ll let this drawn explanation by choir mate Kevin paint the picture for you..

Aaaaanyway.

The choir from the Philippines, University of Philippines Singing Ambassadors (UPSA) won all the categories!

A photo with them!

After all the ceremony and stuff, guess what we did…

Get it?

Of course.. Paarrrrrtttaaaayyyyyy!!!! (DUH)

The food!

Photo by Krishna

Sausage sausage sausage! Have I told you Poland has the best sausage? Sausage sausage sausage!

And of course some dancing to the music by an awesome band!

photo by Krishna

Made some new friends.. here’s a photo of me with an Estonian girl!

And that was 24th of May! Was so tired and numb after dancing and everything! Haha!

See you on the 25th of May, the last day in Poland! (was so sad of leaving)

Jul200802

Sylvia Giacinta

0

Poland – 22nd of May – You Raise Me Up

I’m gonna try different kind of writing. Photos will be now inline with the pre-typed blogpost.

22nd of may

it was the opening ceremony! We were parading down the “hippest” and trendiest street in town, Monte Cassino. Think of it like Singapore’s Clarke Quay, maybe. Or maybe Holland V. Just some street that people will go to hang out and meet friends and all that.
So here is the picture, our choir parading down Monte Cassino!
yes, there's me inside :)
Oh ya, the choirs had their own flags..

But we didn’t! =( They gave us the Sopot flag instead…

(photo by Tracy Cao-the one in the picture below)

Every choir went up to the stage (just by the pier!) and performed one song. my choir performed “Dayung Sampan”, chosen because it has the word “Singapura” in it, despite the fact that the song was actually based on Chinese folk song melody.
I don’t have the picture of us performing =( nevertheless i will show you the stage!
mundus cantat stage
The MC (second from left) was damn hot… *swoon*
And somehow damn hot people will sound hot. Weird accent became hot. Mwahaha.
Ahem. Anyway.
Read more to continue =)
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