Monday, June 16, 2008

First Official Day of Slacking

Woke up at 12 noon. Thanks to watching the clash between Turkey and Czech Republic earlier in the morning at 2:45am to 4:30am. It was the most dramatic reversal of fate of footballing history, I thought. With only 15 mins to a final place in the quarter-finals, and at 2-0 lead for the Czechs, Turkey managed to find a goal and even an equaliser at the 87th min. To make it even more unbelievable, the very same person, Nihat Kahveci, scored his second goal, Turkey's third goal, within two mins, to crash the Czechs out of the Euro 2008. And Petr Cech, the Czech goal-keeper, was to blame for this blasphemous exit for his team, thanks to a grave blunder which should never have happened. Must be a very big blow for the goal-keeper, as his club, Chelsea had just lost the EPL, CL, at second placing, and now this early exit from the Euro. Like people always say, 球是圆的. You never know what will happen until the final whistle is blown. And I'm definitely gonna get a heart attack if I were to bet on this match. Bet on Czech Republic to win? Heartache at the end. Bet on Turkey to win? Heart-stopping last 15 minutes like going on a roller-coaster ride. I may not survive at the end of the match with all the twists and turns if I had betted on any of these two teams. Match of the competition, for now. There may be more unbelievable matches up ahead. Now that Turkey is into the last 8, with several players booked, including their goal-keeper Volkan! And I forgot to mention that with all their subs used, Turkey had no choice but to get Tuncay to replace as the goal-keeper! How dramatic could it be?

14th June 2008, Saturday

We (Jiahao, Peiyi, Peyyong, Siying and me) visited 2902 Gallery for the exhibition which was ending soon. Nothing much this time. Then we went to Suntec and walked around looking for a red T-shirt so that I can wear it to the stadium for the night's World Cup qualifiers. I gave up searching for a nice red T-shirt and therefore we went to the PC Show as planned. Nothing much also. Plenty of people though, as expected. And guess who we met along the way? We saw, Soo Khim and his gf, Zhibin and gf (Jeannie), Tat Yeong, even San San. It was just my last day the day before and I get to meet my ex-colleagues once again? Hahaha. We then went for dinner at Ministry of Food @ Marina Square. Pretty nice Japanese dinner.


Then we headed down to National Stadium, which was to be the last time we see it as it is now. Peiyi couldn't join us cos she had to visit the hospital. After that last match against Saudi Arabia, the National Stadium will make way for a newer and modern successor. We chose a seat right in the middle, overlooking both sides of the pitch. This game proved to be a rather boring match, with nothing for the Singaporean fans to cheer about. The previous qualifier was way better, even though it was a rather disappointing score of 7-3. At least we had three goals to celebrate. This time, there was not much fanfare or huge support from the crowds. The match finally ended with a 2-0 scoreline, of course Singapore not benefiting from it. We took pictures of the stadium for the last time, and even managed to take a picture with our mascot.




Saw Lye Heng and gf, as well as Da-niu, after the match was over. They all still looked the same. So we then walked Kallang MRT station. Along the way saw Huiru and bf. Finally saw how her bf looked like. LOL.

So we then took the train to Tampines, where we settled at the McDonald's at the bus interchange. We grabbed seats at the side, which provided a good view of the large plasma TV mounted on the wall. We managed to get Yaokun to join us for the night. Then we waited for the match to begin, between Spain and Sweden. Very exciting match. David Villa finished as top-scorer once again, having scored the decisive goal against Sweden to make it 2-1. We even stayed on for the match between Greece and Russia. This time Guus Hiddink's men did Russia proud, by scoring the only goal in the game to make the defending champions have an early exit from this tournament. By the end of the night/morning, we were pretty tired already, but I still walked home from the interchange. Peyyong and Yaokun ALSO walked home! Steady liao loh LOL! But I think Peyyong took a cab after they reach Bedok Reservoir. I don't think anyone would wanna walk from Bedok Reservoir area to Bedok Camp area eh?