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September 04, 2007
Yesterday I asked Gene to accompany me to the Army Open House. I wanted to ride in the tanks, do some live firing and do the flying-fox and rappelling activities. Although he didn't want to go, he was so sweet and agreed to take me.
We got there at about 11.30am and there was already a ton of people. Our first stop was the main area near the entrance which they called "Hardware Land". *rolls eyes* There we saw the new leopard tank, the Chinook and Apache helicopters. We were allowed to walk through the Chinook and as we were walking through, a boy some places behind us started remarking, "So smelly, so smelly..." Cuz it did kinda stink a little and in retort, his sister went, "So smelly, so smelly. Next time your army how?" Hahaha
Also, Gene showed me which tanks he works with and explained to me what he does. Yeah... I hope there's never a war. So anyway, I got really hungry because I didn't eat much for breakfast so we headed over to "Yummy Land" *rolls eyes again* to get something to eat. I didn't bother to queue for the army rations sampling so we headed to the muslim food stall to buy food. As we sat down to eat, Gene said that he couldn't believe I made him come back during his holidays to eat army food. =P
Then as we finished eating, it started to rain. DAMN IT. And it rain and it rain and it rain and didn't stop raining. So I didn't get to do anything I wanted to do because of the extremely long queues and the cancellation of the many outdoor activities. Though I did get to fire the SAR 21 assault rifle in an indoor combat simulation. But it wasn't fun! *pouts* It was just a kneel, aim and shoot thing. Though they did teach us how to reload the rifle.
Then to get out of the rain, we went to an indoor exhibition of the whole army experience. At a mock up of an army bunk, a young boy was posing for a picture with some army gear on. As his dad was taking the photo, his mom said, "See, next time you have to fold your own blanket. So you better start now." Hahaha.... Poor kid. And also in the exhibition, was the CB leaf. Haha. Gene picked it up and showed me exactly why it was called that.
Overall, it was not a very good day. There were too many kids, too much queuing and of course the rain had to ruin it all.
Gene said that if I was so interested to do all the shooting and riding in tanks and stuff, I should sign-on. Then I could do all that as many times as I liked.
So I did.
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Some photos from the day:
13:17
