26 Aug 2008

Arrival Of Our Table Tennis Stars!

Wanted to meet Jing Junhong & Li Jiawei after the Sydney 2000 & Athen 2004 Games, but I had strict parental control then, so had to miss the chances. =(

Finally, this year…

^The banners.

^Supporters waiting outside belt 41 for their arrival.

…I got to meet Li Jiawei, Feng Tianwei and Wang Yuegu when they arrived from Beijing 2008 Games! Woots! So excited, that I wanted to go early to chop places, but seemed like Dajie & I reached toooooo early! =X The arrival hall was pretty empty until 2pm when crowds started streaming in. We got a supposedly good spot, if not for the crazy media who pushed their way through like nobody’s business.

^Tao Li was there too.

Didn’t really manage to take any pictures inside the airport until they walked along the sheltered walkway outside to the Hippo bus. Expecting the crazy media to block me again, I decided to be thick-skinned and climb up the lamp post to get a better view. Yes, I got a good view of LJW, but damn…I forgot to lower the ISO, to the pictures turned out ‘bleached’. Argh! That STTA president even stared at me with her bloody fierce eyes when I was standing up there. Xia dao wo le~~~ =_=

As usual, LJW’s bo chup us most of the time, whereas FTW was the one entertaining us while on the bus…which is why I realized I took more FTW’s pics than LJW. 80% of the pictures with LJW in it, I see chao bin lah! And almost all the pictures of her has the STTA president behind smiling and waving. So extra… =.=

^Pointing at someone somewhere behind me.

^What with her doing this ‘pose’? Haha!

Someone threw the teddy bear, and another threw the flowers, then FTW followed suit. She even pretended to throw her medal to us then show that “nah, just kidding” face. LOL!

^Posing with her medal.

^Pretending to throw the medal to us. LOL!

^Look at WYG’s face! So LOL!

^WYG being funny again. Haha!

Dajie, Eve, Joselyn and I then headed down to Raffles City for the celebration, where it was as crowded as the airport. Took their poster and got more Singapore & Team Singapore flags along the way.

Skipping the boring parts, the athletes finally made their way to City Square at about 5.30pm. Not very interesting…I guess they were all very tired without any rest once they touched down in Singapore.

^Tianwei stayed on the stage to give special thanks to her coach, Liu Guodong.

After the event ended, we tried to track where they were heading to to leave the place. In the end, they took the escalator down, and the rest of us (Aud especially) shouted to them. I was busy trying to snap pictures of them, and missed out when they waving back to us! OMG! =(

^Down the escalator.

We tried the faster way to get down to the ground floor, because the lift was full and the escalator was very crowded with supporters, by running down from the 3rd storey via staircase. Hiong! Once at the ground floor, Aud swing opened the door to the lobby of Swiss Hotel, only to get stares from the police. Haha… I also got stared because kaypoh me went inside to take a look. T_T

Waited outside the lobby, and the media started coming out. Therefore we guessed that it would be the most possible place where the table tennis players would come out from, until one of the reporters shouted, “table tennis, here!” and directed everyone to go to the other exit.

Indeed, they were already on the bus. Couldn’t see any 3 of them though, so we tried waving to the coach. No matter how we tried, we couldn’t get his attention, so Aud passed me her flag and told me to wave to him. I took and waved it VERY FRANTICALLY as I was standing ‘nearest’ to him, and the rest of them went, “OMG! BEE!”, unbelieving I would do that. Haha! But anyway, he didn’t respond lah. =.=

Shortly, they were called to come out for interviews, which were done by the road side. I feared for the safety of some of the reporters. =.= The interviews were freakin’ long…before they finally went back to the bus without looking at us. =( But at least the coach waved back when leaving. Haha…

Woots! It’s so tiring chasing people like that…but it’s all worthwhile. Hee… =)

^The poster.

More in Facebook. =)