We got dressed up, and started heading for a shuttle bus to go from our hotel to Oracle Conference Center, where all the events take place.

View the complete gallery of pictures!

The ThinkQuest Live Chant

There were 4 tables setup in the lobby, separated by the first letter of participants’ first name, and about 30 laptop bags at each of them. (Man, I wish I took a picture of that – it looked awesome!) My mom got a t-shirt and a USB stick, and I got an awesome laptop bag (I later found out the price of it to be $100) with a jacket, a t-shirt and an USB inside. (Who was expecting “laptop?)

And behind the registration tables were the breakfast buffet line. To be very honest, the breakfast actually wasn’t so good – especially the scrambled eggs. Well, I enjoy all sorts of food anyway, it’s just that it could have done better.

Anyway, we picked up a plate of food and went inside the auditorium. The auditorium looks really grand, with Oracle posters all around. On the huge projected screens above show a Welcome Message – seriously, those ThinkQuest designs are so good that I don’t think anybody would get tired looking at them.

Soon later, Bernie Trilling, director of the ThinkQuest program I believe, opened with a short speech and introduction to the ThinkQuest Chant:

“When I say ThinkQuest you say Live, ThinkQuest ‘Live’, ThinkQuest ‘Live’…”

Then, following the usual presentation procedure, the staff team was introduced, and then Colleen Cassity, Executive Director of the Oracle Education Foundation, came to make a short speech. I couldn’t really remember what she said though… (pity me)

After that, Al Weis, who was called to be one of the founding fathers of the internet as well as the founder of ThinkQuest, came to make a speech as well, bringing his book “The Business of Changing Lives” (each of us got one, too). ” The line of asking him to sign the book was not long, but since Weis was so kind to talk to each of the participant individually, it took like half an hour – and finally I had to ask my mom to line up for me because I needed to join a preparation workshop for the ThinkQuest Showcase.

Sadly, the Showcase was quite different from that of last year’s (as seen from Mr. Galvin Sng’s Flickr pictures). We had 3 questions emailed to us about 2 weeks before the event, and all we had to do was to watch a video made for us about the website and answer those questions (as if we improvised). Well, it turns out, we did have to improvise. The host, Bernie, asked only one question that was on the email and basically we had to improvise the other two questions ourselves. I prepared for a question, but I couldn’t make use of the answer .

The video was very nicely made, and we got to see some comments from judges on it for the first time; so it was kind of interesting as well. (We kept on looking at the screen when the video played, when we should’ve maybe smiled in the audience ) Each team took about 5 minutes, and 16 teams took about one and a half hour.

After that finished, we started going on to a San Francisco Tour with a Tour Guide. We first went to the Twin Peaks, then to the deYoung museum, the “Thinker” statue for a group picture, the Golden Gate Bridge, LucasFilm Center (where George Lucas works on his films), and at last the Crooked Street, which is my favorite place of all the attractions.

And during the tour, I asked the tour guide for a good restaurant near Fisherman’s Wharf to try out Monday evening, when we each received $30 for a free dinner that we can choose ourselves. He recommended a restaurant called Scoma’s that he said offers a nice amount of food for a nice price. (Check out the next blogpost for how that went!)

A disappointing Surprise

The day then concluded with a rather ironic dinner at a Chinese restaurant called Yank Sing. I was like “WHAT? WE FLEW ALL THE WAY FROM HONG KONG TO EAT CHINESE?!” We arrived earlier than the other groups, and I saw some lion-dancing crew preparing themselves, and I was like… “wow”. I had a feeling immediately that I was going to be disappointed.

And  it turns out I was. A lady who seems to be the manager of the crew stood on the stage and told us meanings of each dish, and one of the things included how “fish” symbolizes “abundance”. I was like, wow, this is a perfect dinner to introduce San Francisco to first-time visitors. The lion-dance was in fact much worse than what you can see in streets of Hong Kong often. Well, sure there are a lot of people who haven’t seen this, but I just thought maybe a California dinner would be much more universal… and I believe last year they went to Hard Rock Cafe!

Perhaps it’s just money that’s the problem here. I’m not complaining though, or I think I’m not; I feel lucky enough to be able to join ThinkQuest Live already. I really do!

When we finally got back to our hotel, it was about 11pm. I still haven’t confirmed with the hotel about internet in our room, so I decided I will just sleep, so that I don’t waste $10 just to go online for a few minutes. It was certainly a busy day, but I know more is to come in the next days. I’m already looking forward to my Team Building workshop.

Check back this blog regularly for more photos and blogposts on the next days of the event!

View the complete gallery of pictures!

Trip to Airport

I couldn’t sleep until 1 last night, but still, I couldn’t sleep any longer past 7. I WAS (obviously) SO EXCITED. Like mentioned in the last post, our flight, AC8, is to be departed at 12:50.

We left our home at Shenzhen at 9 and start to head our way to the port to go to Hong Kong. Well, that technically shouldn’t be counted as part of the trip… I do that every morning anyway. Though, what’s different this time is that instead of taking the trains, we decided to take the taxi for a faster and much more convenient way of going to the airport. And with NT taxis, it only costed $230 + $60 (tunnel)! Sweet.

I was simply too excited to rush to the Air Canada counter, where there were absolutely nobody waiting in the queue, and forgot to take pictures of it . Our seats were booked by the travel agents before hand, and they were… alright, I guess. Check-in was very easy. Well, at least on our part it was. We didn’t have to do anything other than putting the luggage on the conveyor, but there seemed to be some issues with my passport that the AC staff went made at least 3 calls about it. Meh, as long as I get my boarding pass, I’m fine with the extra time it took. I asked the staff if the plane was full, and he replied with a “no” – I literally shouted out “yes!”. Well, in whispering voice I did.

After then, we went to the security zone immediately. Everything worked as usual, so there wasn’t really any much to tell. By the time we finished everything, it was only 11:15a.m. – one and a half ahour till depart time. “I’m hungry, so let’s go eat.” (Surprised?)

My mom, a typical Hong Kong “see-lai”(housewife), wasn’t hungry for expensive food, so she just ate some Cafe de Coral. I, on the other hand, decided to start acting American and have some Burger King. (Right, like you don’t already do that everyday already) I saw some internet kiosks across the food court and decided to go update my Twitter status and what not, and my mom went to do some “shopping” – you know how moms would go look at products without buying? Yeah.

The Perfect Flight… almost

By the time we reached the gate, there is a queue already for boarding. Definitely not a long one compared to some other flights next to us, so I was glad for that.

Boarding was again quick, and we found our lovely seats with a TV IN FRONT OF US(!) soon. What really impressed me was how the entertainment system already ready for us to watch when we board. The system never stopped even after we landed! It also had a quite user-friendly interface and it is easy to choose what to watch. The only downside of this system is that it is quite unresponsive, but still tolerable. The movies collection had about 50 movies… pretty decent, too. The UI is quite user-friendly. Generally, I myself find that the last 30 minutes of a flight is most painful – you won’t be able to listen to music, the engine is super loud at that time, and your ears go crazy. However, I don’t think I felt any of that during this particular flight because I just kept on watching movies. Good job!

Another thing I liked was that mood lighting. It really set apart the aircraft that we were on from all other. Sometimes you’ve got to wonder how such a small change in coloring the light can make passengers feel so much better. In addition, the seat pitch (gap between my seat and the one in front of me) was huge compared to other airlines. Normally I can easily bump the seat in front of me especially when I twist my legs on other airlines (especially Air China), but it seems I can easily twist all I want with this plane.

The boarding process was short in that soon after we sat in our seats, the door has already closed. There were plenty of seats left in the cabin, but I was too slow to find an entire row to lie flat on. They were all gone by the first 10 minutes of cruising altitude. Well, no worries, the seat itself is very comfortable with movable headrest and the great pitch anyway.

As you have probably guessed, I immediately started watching movies as soon as I sat down. The first one I watched was Taking of Pelham 123. I have been wanting to watch this for such a long time, but then I found out I am glad I didn’t pay to watch it in cinema. I think the story is good, but too many unnecessary scenes in the middle stretching the movie.

As soon as the plane climbed into cruising altitude, the attendants started serving drinks and snacks. Pretty efficient, I  thought. The snacks doesn’t really look good – but it is actually REALLY good. I asked for one more after finishing, and the lady gave me two, while smiling and saying “Growing boy, huh?”

Then soon later, they served a lunch during the movie. The whole airplane suddenly smelled like chicken and beef. It looked nice, and was of enough amount as well. The taste was just standard airline quality, though – nothing special.

Well, after finishing the meal and the movie, I take a look at the map and found myself to be over Japan. Nice, just 10 more hours to go now. I browsed through the collection and found My Sister’s Keeper. Hmm, I have heard some good reviews about that, let’s try it. Turns out, the reviews were true, and I did end up crying over Kate’s death. ( :’( ) And when I stopped crying, which is like 10 seconds later, I found out we are on… well… where is this? Somewhere over the Pacific? There are attendants passing down the corridor every about 30 minutes to pass out water – really thoughtful  for them.

After that, I thought it is best to “balance” out the sad mood with Ice Age 3. And during the movie was played, the attendants served a light meal with a box of sandwich, cookie and fruit with a cup of disgusting American cup noodles. It has almost no taste at all! Aw, I wish it had been like those Japanese ones that British Airways had last time I traveled with them to London.

I became quite tired after Ice Age 3 ended. After a brief nap of 1 hour, I tried to wake up and watch Transformers 2, but could find no energy in myself to do so. I tried to sleep more, but soon the breakfast arrived. And man, it was the best meal of the trip! With eggs, a piece of ham and hash brown, the breakfast sure did wake me up, and by the time we got to Vancouver, I was fully awake already even though it was 3a.m. in the morning.

The landing was very smooth. Well, not that I can notice anything since I’m paying my full attention at the TV screen in front of me anyway.

The plane was on block at around 9:30a.m.. And in conclusion, I had a really nice experience in this flight, and it did leave me a strong impression… to be broken on Friday… when I take AC8 from YVR to HKG. (Read more about it in a later blogpost)

World’s Second Best Airport… a portion of it

The airport of YVR has shocked me already when I placed my first foot into the building. The design of it is truly amazing – You can easily see that everything here is professionally designed – placement of lights hanging over the roof, signage, etc. It is also extremely easy to find what I am looking for – the clear signage stating whether I am arriving in Canada or transiting to the World or USA helped us a lot when we passed through the airport. A really friendly old man was standing in front of the entrance to US customs to remind us what forms are needed to be filled.

But then of course, every “good-feeling” can be ruined by the US customs. It took us 45 minutes alone to pass through the customs and it was during a non-peak hour. There were only like 5 families waiting to go into USA via Canada, and yet it still took that long. I wonder how long it is going to take during peak hour? By the time we got out

Our next flight is AC562 to San Francisco and it originally departs at 2:15p.m. When I checked, it seems to be delayed by an hour into 3:20p.m., which means I needed to stay in the airport for a total of 6 hours. Great, customs helped me spend the 45 minutes away, 5:15 to go.

Well, we kind of expected it anyway. After passing the customs, we found a Starbucks and ordered 2 cups of Venti coffee and a muffin for my mom (that’s right, it’s not for me) – she was unconscious enough to choose congee instead of eggs breakfast, and so she was kind of hungry by the time we are in Vancouver. We thought there were a lot of shops here in the airport… and there were, in the International Terminal (non-US flights) where it’s separated by a piece of glass from the US flights terminal. (So close… yet so far…) We spent only 30 minutes to walk through the whole terminal looking for interesting shops, then 20 minutes to do so again. And by the time we finished walking around the airport for 3 rounds, it was only 11:30.

But what could we do? My mom simply decided to sleep in the waiting lounge and I tried to find people who were awake at 2a.m. in HK – but of course, no one was. In the end, I end up sitting there lonely trying to beat some miniclip games. What a wonderful life I have.

Then, we ate some more Burger King and ordered some really disgusting Chicken Tenders – they were so deeply fried that there is no more taste in them. At least I enjoyed the burger, so I guess it’s okay.

The estimated boarding time was 2:40p.m., but the plane didn’t arrive until 5 minutes after. I’ve just got to applaud to the efficiency of the AC staff – they were able to clean and let us board the cabin in 10 minutes! Everybody hurried on the cabin and we were ready to go at around 3.

The Best Narrow-Body Jet ever!

AC562 was a flight powered by Embarcado E90 – an one-aisle air  craft with 2-2 seat configuration. I have never flown such a plane before, so I was very excited even before the trip to try these ones out. The seat pitch appeared to be even bigger than that of AC8′s, and it is truly comfortable. To my surprise, there were also headrest screens on the back of these small jets, operating in the same way as those of the wide-body jets. Bravo!

The really skillful AC pilot, wanting to compensate for the delay time, sped up (I think) to decrease flying time from 2:17 to 1:30 only. When we arrived at San Francisco, it was only 4:30, which was exactly the estimated arrival of the non-delayed plane!

By the way – what Bridge is that in the photo in the right?

Arriving at San Francisco and Dinner

After picking up the luggage (which, by the way, were shipped directly from Hong Kong without us having to do anything in Vancouver), we went outside to look for the SuperShuttle vans that we were supposed to ride to the hotel. Both my mom and I were in our summer attire – short sleeves and pants. We were totally unaware of SF’s current 13`C degree weather! We quickly pulled out our winter clothes from the suitcase and put it on just so we don’t freeze to death. The SuperShuttles were far away from where we got our luggage, but not exactly hard to find.

We didn’t have to wait very long to get on a shuttle, because there were at least 2 ThinkQuest winners families waiting in the van already to go to the same hotel. However, there was a severe traffic jam on Highway 101 and took us about 45 minutes to get to the hotel, Sofitel San Francisco Bay, which was only about 15 miles away.

There was a clear ThinkQuest sign at our hotel entrance. The lady at Sofitel was French and when we went up to the counter, she was like “Bonjour…….. *insert French words here*”. Her English has a strong French accent, but was very polite and friendly. During check-in, I saw my Singaporean teammates for the first time, and I didn’t know what to say. A greeting of “Hi…” from each of us were immediately followed by a period of awkward silence.

So it did take sometime for us to get familiarize with each other, but it worked quite well. We went to a pizza restaurant right after, and man it was good! We ordered 4 different kinds of pizzas, and I liked the potato one the best. Yes, you heard it right. It was made with a bunch of potatoes, bacon, and onion. Oh I wish they had a branch in Hong Kong.

We then went to a nearby Supermarket, Nob Hill Market I believe it’s called, and bought a bunch of “supplies” including a HUGE pack of Lays chips. In fact, it’s so huge it lasted 4 days between me and my mom. We bought about $30 of things, then we went back to the hotel.

The room was terribly nice (although there were reviews on the internet stating the otherwise) with a really comfortable bed and some nice furniture. We didn’t do much after arriving – I mean, how can we? We fell onto the bed almost immediately after the shower, preparing to wake up the next day at 6:30 to register in the event early.

And yes – that concludes the zeroth day of the trip. First day starts tomorrow! Stay tuned for the next blogpost!