Let's start from the top:
9th of Aug is the National Day for Singapore. Though we are so far from home, every singaporean still remembers that today is our nation's 44th birthday. Therefore, a gathering was held by the Singapore Society in La Trobe to celebrate our nation's birthday.
The event started at 1945hrs local time which included registration and a speech by the president of Singapore Society La Trobe aka SingSoc. Me and my friends did not RSVP for this event, therefore we had to pay 15bucks for this event which consisted of dinner and live telecast of the parade.
2000hrs: The start of the long awaited dinner. Everything was perfect... well, pretty good. Can't really expect too much here.
Main Course
Hainanese Chicken Rice (Freaking Awesome!)
Char Kway Teow (Not too Bad)
Chicken Satay (Good!)
Fried Carrot Cake (Absolutely Horrible!)
Spicy Chicken Wings (Looks pretty good but I have no idea if it tastes good cause I didn't take those)
Mixed Vegetable (Average)
Drinks
Bandung (Yuck!)
Teh Terik (Yummy!)
Water (Better than Bandung. Hate Bandung >.<)
Dessert
Chendol ( Me no eat. Friends say too much coconut milk)
Now, what's a National Day Parade without the goodie bags? Well, due to some unforeseen circumstances, instead of sending 70 goodie bags over, the sponsors of SingSoc only sent 20!! Thus, in order to be fair, the 20 goodie bags were given away in a lucky draw, and.... *drum roll* yours truly won one!!! HAHAHA
Events leading to it:
President of SingSoc: We will now be giving out the 1st 10 of the goodie bags. Get your no. out. (mine is 032).
Me to friends: Oh... Look at the skydivers. Wonder how is it they ever land right where they are supposed to. (Background calling of 1st no.)
Friend to me: Ya... Wonder what happens if they land in the water. (Background calling 2nd no.)
Me to friends: *Lol* Ya, maybe they'll swim back to the parade. (Background calling 3rd no.)
My action after that sentence: Back to my food. (Background calling 3rd no. again)
Me: while eating...(background went '032' '032'??)
And I was like "did she call 032? That number sounds so familiar..."
Me: Look at my number... "Shit, it's me!!!!"
My hand flew up and I was like shouting "ME!!!!!" Unbelievable, I actually got the bag. =D
A few numbers after mine, another of my friend got the bag too. Unbelievable. 2 out of 3 of us got the bag in the 1st round. Of course, we started exploring what the bag had. Vouchers etc.
My Pink NDP Bag (Like the Lime Green better though =p)
The Bag can be transformed into that as well. Cool!
Goodies inside the bag: Vouchers, sweet, tissues. There's the heart shape light as well.
Upclose with the Mr Bean stick. Suppose to use this and hit the 'Hand' thingy for sounds =)
After the 2nd round of bag lucky draw, another of my friend got the bag too. 3 of us! We went in together and we all walked out with the goodie bags. How lucky! I won an extra Merlion Keychain (Above) as well cause I answered a question correctly during the quiz. =)
The Singapore flag that came together with the bag, is standing tall and proud on my bookshelf.
At 8.22pm (Singapore time) we stood up to say the pledge. Watching the whole parade from a place that's so far away from home, just makes everyone feel like going home. Watching it from home and watching it from a place away from home is a totally different feeling. You may be thinking "What's new about this year parade? It's the same as the last one" but for us, watching it miles and miles away from home, our thoughts are "Omg, look at the soldiers. Look at our PM etc" Suddenly, this parade that we have been watching for years, or for many of us who can't even be bothered to watch it back home, it just seems like we are just beginning to really WATCH the parade for the 1st time.
NDP songs that you can't be bothered singing, were sung loudly here. National Anthem and pledge that you can't be bothered to stand up to at home, we proudly do the opposite here. Watching a parade from a place away from home just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. Looking at the background of where the parade was held, brought back fond memories. It's just so amazing how much you actually miss when you take things for granted and when you lose those things, and get to see it again, you start to look at it from a different perspective.
You may not understand the feeling of being away from home. You may not be able to fully comprehend the idea behind every NDP song. But for me, after watching the parade from foreign land, I totally understood now. I learnt that, even though my country is just a small, red dot, we speak singlish, we may not have the freedom to do certain things or behave certain ways and we may have limited land, but at the end of the day, that's home.
The grass always seem greener on the other side. But guess what, I'm standing from the other side and I'm telling you, maybe you should just take a look at the grass on your own side cause it's greener. Whatever I have over here, you have it over there. But you have something that I do not have, and that is the company of family and friends. This world is huge and it does have alot of things to explore. But at the end of the day, everyone of us, no matter where we are or what we do, at the end of the day, we'll just want to go home. For me, I found my home and I can't wait till I can go back home again. Have you?
Happy National Day.
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