Veep Ivy Feepit

Saturday, 12 April 2008

From this:

to this:

It was snowing in London on Sunday! And then the next day, I was on a plane to Doha, Qatar to do the entrance exam for Doha College. My flight on Qatar Airways flight 6 was at 10.50am so I woke up at 6am, ate breakfast and set off to train station at 7.25am. Me and my mum went on the 7.40am train and arrived just before 8am at Heathrow Airport Terminal 3. We went to check-in, sat down somewhere to wait for the gate to open (I was on the phone with Twishy- lol and after that reading Twilight to pass the time). Soon the gate opened and we went in to wait and saw Jennifer's family waiting as well, cos they were also going to Doha with the same reasons as me. Uncle Hii was going to Doha on business.
Me and my mum got some horrible seats in the middle aisle. Seats 36F & G. Ugh. At least it was an aisle seat. No windows. The food was actually quite nice. Except I never eat the bread they give. I hate it!!
I watched I am Legend again, and listened to some music while reading.

When we arrived at around 6pm, we got into the bus (in Doha they don't have those tunnel-y things that you walk through to go into Arrivals..haha tunnel-y things! we had to go down using these car-stairs and then into the bus). After we got off the bus and into the Arrivals terminal, there was a lady there waiting for us, holding a sign with me and my mum's names. She led us to this waiting area, while she did our visas. I wasn't quite sure what she was doing. I just knew she was putting something to make us allowed into the country. After that she brought us to the baggage reclaim. She could speak Mandarin as well, so she could communicate with us properly. After that we went into the area where you see tonnes of people waiting for their families or friends. We looked for Four Seasons people and they led us to the car. It was a Mercedes! Woohoo!! I want that type of car. No actually there's this sports car that is really cool..Aston Martin V12 Vanquish! Ok I'm straying away from the subject.

The Four Seasons hotel is really nice. About 20 mins drive from the airport. The hotel is really pretty on the inside and so posh! haha..we checked in and got a room number at 1628! On the 16th floor! That was cool.....This picture was take on the last day, but from the view at the back of the hotel. I didn't take any of the front.

They have 17 floors all together so we're assuming that the one below that is ours. I knew the windows in our room were shaped like that, and I knew how the view was so I'm 90% certain that's our room.

This is the bedroom! My bed is the one with the black jacket sprawled across it... The TV had Internet, but it was really hard to online because there was no proper mouse, you had to use this knob thing that you push to move the mouse around. So I only checked emails.

This is the hallway to our room.

This is the view from out the window!!! so nice!!

This view is out the other window. That building in the distance shaped like a pyramid is the Sheraton Hotel.

This is a 5 star hotel!!! And so of course, the food have to be really excellent. On Tuesday, we had breakfast, lunch and dinner there. Nowhere else to eat. I had spring rolls and kebbeh for lunch, with ice lemon drink.

Heheh...the spring rolls were already gone by then.

Dinner was really really nice!!!! Prawns and fish, with rosemary baked potatoes and vegetables at the side. Delicious!!! I also had Pepsi. Yum!

Food over. Now time for events. After we reached the hotel room, I took a bath..and it was interrupted when we had to go down to dinner with Uncle Hii and Uncle Jerry's family. There was no talk on the kids table at all. So quiet! By the time we got upstairs, it was already around 9-10pm..i think. So I tried out the Internet and went to sleep at 11.30pm. I woke up at 2am, needing water. So dry! and hot. I couldn't get to sleep till 2.30am. It was hot! My mum said I slept-talked! AHHH!

I woke up at 6am, got ready and went to breakfast at 6.30am. Ate, went up to the room and then waited outside for the driver to take us to Doha College at 7.30am. Reached Doha College at 8am. Waited for half an hour and the test started at 8.30am. Technically, 8.45am. The lady was explaining things to us and we had to fill in information. There was another boy who was trying for Year 9 as well. The rest were trying for Year 7 & 8, including Jennifer. The test lasted to 11am, with breaks in between. Quiet breaks. Those people were way too shy to talk. Only me and that boy called Mark talked. A bit.
After the test ended, we went back to the hotel. Had that lunch, and then went back up to room. I read Twilight to pass the time.. while mum took a nap. At 2.30pm we went downstairs to go on the tour of Doha. A lady called Karen brought us around the city. Here are some pics:

This is the sports arena: Sport City.

Doha Golf Club

The Lagoon in construction- there are lots of constructions all over Doha!!

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the distance.

After that I quit taking pictures cos I was tired. Soon I fell asleep and when I woke up we were at the hotel already! It was 5pm so we went back up to the room and lazed around. We went down and had dinner at around 7pm (refer to dinner food above!!).

Wednesday morning

It was the same routine, except this time we went to the Nine Pearls compound to see the housing where we might live in August. We saw a house that was type C, with 4 bedrooms. We were planning to see all three types A B and C, but we had to go to Park House English School to submit my latest report at 9am.
When we got to the school, the Head of Secondary viewed my report, and she said I didn't need to do a entrance exam, that I could enter if I wanted to. She interviewed me, I'm guessing to see my social skills? And then after that we had some extra time, so we asked for a tour around the school, and we met the same guy from Doha College! Mark and his mum was there as well, and his dad was also here for the same reason as my dad. So same tour and then after that we had to leave. Off back to the housing, to House no. 24 Whale Street. (haha! there's whale street, elephant street, fish street, boar street, cloud street etc..weird eh?) This was Aunty Mary's house!

This is the door to Aunty Mary's house.

The rest of the compound.

The whole day just passed, mostly in silence for me. I didn't understand Hokkien anyway so I couldn't really join in the conversations. We had lunch at the house, eatingg takeaway KFC. Dinner was at a Thai restaurant. After that, Uncle Fung sent us back to the hotel, and off to sleep!

Thursday morning

Same routine, but later, at around 8am. We went to the airport at 10.30am, checked in, waited and boarded plane. This time the seats were WORSE! We sat in the middle of the aisle, wedged in between two strangers! AHHHHHHH! And the man sitting next to me was annoying! Kept trying to talk to me. Out of boredom I guess, but who told him that he couldn't watch a movie on his personal TV? So weird.
I watched The Golden Compass.

After that, took train and got home. Sleep sleep sleep....

Overall I really liked Doha, and I'm quite excited to go back there! I have no idea why I like the deserty area and the hot weather: i just like it. It's good, cos I have to get used to it soon!

VEEPIVYFEEPIT

Labels: Holidays, Outings, Qatar

she told the story ... 05:49