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Karaoke Competition+Lunch+Steamboat&Stayover at Nat's Place!
- Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Firstly, I'm gonna blog about the karaoke competition that our group had last Friday!Ha..I think most of us skipped classes just for that..the idea of a ktv competition was set off by Mabel, Chris and Dan a while back and this idea was finally actualized last Friday! There were a few categories:
1)The solo category (for slow and fast chinese/canto songs and another song done in another language eg. English)
2)The duet category (both same-sex and opposite-sex groupings)and lastly,
3)The group category (the guys versus the girls)
And the contestants were....
Yanxiang...He was pretty good in the solo categories...but won particular admiration from me for singing a Hokkien song for the category of song in another language apart from what you usually sing..However he was unprepared for his duets with Joe and Mabel!Totally screwed it up..ha...
Joe...His singing was rather mediocre the whole time..think it was because he was the first in each category and he was really nervous!Therefore he did not stand out that much as I expected him to..sadly not fulfilling his potential as king of Canto pop..But great effort was exhibited in his duet with Christine. They displayed great partnership and harmony in their singing...
Daniel...This guy was really daring at the com..He chose extremely difficult songs to sing at this competition which really ruined his chances of winning as he could not reach the high notes and was out of tune most of the times. He was also really soft, thus he lost out a lot on resonance..But he sang pretty well for his duet with Chee Kian and his fast song of "Qing Fei De Yi" so he kinda redeemed himself with that...
Chee Kian..he stole the limelight with most of his songs...He's got quite a good voice(perhaps of his choir background) and the judges were really impressed with his overall singing..I especially loved his song "Ni Bu Zai" by Lee Hom. But he did not perform as well for the English song "Stay the same" as he sounded totally out of tune especially with the high notes. English songs are definitely not his forte!
Now for the girl contestants...
Christine...She was generally good overall..but I particularly liked her voice for her solo songs as well as her duet with Joe...hit the high notes perfectly which was really commendable..I think I could never do that man..ha...She took this competitions pretty seriously and practised real hard with Joe for their duet so for that, she and Joe totally rock!!=)
Cass....I've been ktv with her once only but I noticed that she always gets someone to sing along with her.So I've never really heard her voice loud and clear before till that day..Her voice was really sweet and crisp esp for the song "yuan fang".Nat even commented that Cass's singing gave her goosebumps..She should have more confidence in herself I guess...cos she definitely can sing better than me!haha...
and finally the last contestant was Mabel...This girl in everyone's mind was touted to be the winner for the solo categories cos she is a really good singer esp for sun yan zi's songs I think...I really love her voice..uniquely wonderful...ha..but think she was too stressed out by the competition cos the rest prepared for this com and even chose their songs beforehand and practised them while Mabel did not..so she looked really nervous at the start as well..and the songs she chose did not exhibit her wide vocal range..
Of course there were 3 distinguished judges for this competition...and they were...*drum roll*...Natalia, Selena and me!Selena even prepared score sheets for each category as well as prizes and certificates for the winners.
The judges hard at work...by the end of the competition, we were completely exhausted cos we had to pay attention to every singer and every song..so now we know how American Idol judges feel during their judging...totally drained out...
And the winners were....
1) Solo Category (First Slow Song): Chee Kian
2) Solo Category (Second Slow Song): Chee Kian Again!
3) Solo Category (Fast Song): Mabel and Yanxiang
4) Solo Category (Foreign language Song): Yanxiang
5) Duet Category (Boy&Girl): Christine and Joe
6) Duet Category (Boy&Boy/Girl&Girl): Chee Kian and Daniel
7) Group Category (All boys/All girls): All boys
The Duet(mixed)Winners who sang "Guang Dao Zhi Lian" by Karen Mok and Zhang Hong Liang...
The Group Winners who sang "Jie Kou" by Jay Chou...
I think we the judges did a great job for this competition..Everyone had a good time
and I think no one was extremely unhappy about the results and stuff..ha...so yeah...After karaoke, we went for dinner and then headed to Nat's place!
We played cranium and silly card games the whole night till we slept, which was about 6am..crazy man..ha..All 10 of us slept either in the living room, in the basement or in Nat's room..I slept on Nat's bed..super comfy..=)
We woke up about 12plus the next day.. which left us only a few hours before the sun set..We went for lunch at a nearby place that Nat recommended which sold really good chicken rice..Been long since I had that man..ha..We had to wait 20 minutes for the rice to cook and we really didn't mind that at all..Gotta admit that chicken rice never tasted so good..The owners are Singaporeans I think..all the rice and chicken were swiped up quickly by the 9 of us..Joe on the other hand ordered chicken laksa which was passed round the table..pretty shiok too!
Then I had peach flush bubble tea with Nat cos we were early for Mass.Been a long time since I had bubble tea too and it also tasted quite good, with pearls and jellies in it..The rest headed down to Metrotown to get food stuff for our steamboat later that evening. It was the first time I sat with the church choir and sang for Mass and I kinda liked it..I also stayed on for her Christmas concert practice after that and we practised the song "Mary's Boy Child". I really miss CSS caroling practices with all the different parts for the sopranos, altos, tenors and basses. Really like how the blending of different tones sound..Sadly I can't make it for caroling this year since I will be away...sigh...
Met up with the rest after Mass and we headed back to Nat's place for our big steamboat party!They bought lots of food like chicken, beef, pork, many kinds of fishballs and veggies, sausages, tofu, crabstick etc...Everyone did their part in either setting up the table and the stove or washing the ingredients and soon after we were all ready for the steamboat party to begin...
Loads of meat and and other miscellaneous...
3 kinds of veggies and mushrooms...
It was a very exciting steamboat experience cos Nat's dining table was rather small so all 10 of us stood around the table and the minute the soup with all its ingredients boiled, we all kinda snatched up all the food in it..ha..We only had like one big ladle so whoever had that was able to scoop up the most food..hehe..There was also this particular position where someone had to stand behind a small table of soya and chilli sauces so that person could not really reach the food in the hot pot. So every 5 minutes or so, everyone would have to move 5 steps to the left and so the whole lot of us would rotate...so that everyone would have the chance to stand in that unfortunate position..ha...It was my first time having steamboat standing up man..haha..really funny...
Waiting for the soup to boil...
Putting ingredients into the soup...
Everyone ready to attack the food in the hot pot!
The unfortunate position behind the small table of sauces...
The guys!
The gals!
Greedily feasting on good food..Everyone ate till they were stuffed cos we bought quite alot of food..but luckily there was not much wastage...good good..
I must say last weekend was a blast..totally did not do any work at all man..ha...and it left me feeling tired for the next few days..but oh well, I am on exchange right? Should enjoy while I am still here...and also to all my friends still having exams and yet still reading my blog...Jia you alright?
raeanchiq penned her thoughts @ 5:00 PM
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