Of Airports and Naval Bases

Monday was a rather usual, boring day. Bernard, Chester and myself did manage to start on our RE experiment with moderate success. After that, went for NSW, then band. After band, it started raining heavily, but I had no choice except to go home on a half-flooded 55 bus. At night, went to Changi with my mother, who's seeing her former boss off. I am really impressed with Changi, especially with the view at night from what's left of the terminal 1 gallery. If only they hadn't shut down the other half of the gallery, I might have gotten more registrations. As it is, I only got a China Eastern A300-602R, B-2319, although a British Airways 747-436, various Qantas and China Airlines planes and a Finnair MD-11 were visible.

Tuesday was again boring, went for band, and again it started raining heavily after I left.

Today was Learning Journey day. Went to school, played cards a bit with Aaron Tan, Lin Xiang and Chester. Then went to assemble and boarded the bus for Tuas.

At Tuas, we attended a moderately interesting talk, then went for a tea break. Following that, we got to go on board the ships. Surprisingly, even though the wharf was less than 200m away walking distance we had to take a bus there. 4R was assigned ship 84, the Fearless class patrol ship, RSS Sovereignty. Surprisingly, she was captained by a woman. A rare sight, but getting increasingly more common. We toured the ship, viewing the various weapons systems, as well as the bridge. Following that, we went back to school for a makeup SS lesson. Again, it rained, and again I took a half flooded bus back home, after missing one or two thanks to hanging out with Chester and Eric.

PMDG!!!

Not much happening nowadays, so to pass the time, I decided to take the PMDG 747-400, aka the Queen of the Skies, for a spin. That addon is absolutely marvelous, although probably only die-hard flight enthusiasts would truly appreciate its beauty. Here are a few pics of the 747-400 in flight.


China Airlines B-18210 taking off from San Francisco


Cathay Pacific B-HOY over the Pacific


Malaysia Airlines 9M-MPB making an emergency turn out of some bad weather


Singapore Airlines 9V-SPF a few seconds after landing at Dubai

Transamerica

Recently, we got our hands on a new class activity - Transamerica. It is a highly addictive board game that Joel and myself decided to get for the class after trying it out. At the time, we thought that interest in the game would be limited, and at best a small group of people such as Bernard would like it. Little did we know... The game became a smash hit in a matter of two or three days, and now everyone in class is trying to play it. For the benefit of those who do not know of this game, it is a race to connect five American cities, chosen randomly. Cities include Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston and Phoenix, among others. You have to lay rails, either 1 or 2 a turn, to connect the five cities, and can mutually exploit each other's tracks. As boring as this may sound, it is highly addictive. People clamour to play during recess, lunch, before school, after school and when we have free periods, such as today, when our bio teacher forgot about his lesson. Sometimes it gets to the point where game slots are more precious than gold, or even almost as precious as CA marks. Good that our class seems to have found something other than the traditional cards to pass the time.