First Day Whoop Whoop!

so.... After a 20 hour journey from the UK and Cyprus the Cadet representatives for the UK Air Training Cadet Corps have arrived in Singapore! Diana Pitts, Matt Medland and the escort Keith Gilchrist. arriving on the 25th at 1515hrs we travellled to Amoy Que camp and had a tour and ice-breakers with the Indian cadets that arrived at the same time.
6 or so hours sleep and a 8 hour time difference we are not exactly refreshed but the first day excitement allows us to run on adrenalin!
we woke up 6 o-clock to iron and prep our best uniforms for the 7 o-clock breakfast and then 8 o-clock brief. Opening up the doors of our billets at sunrise we walked into what feels like a wall of moisture and heat, thank goodness we packed deoderant. Cadets from Hong Kong, Australia, USA, India and Canada make up our group of 16 some of them arriving in the early hours of this morning, they are already appearing to be a cracking bunch!
finishing a breakfast of warm rice cakes, chicken and chilli sauce we attended the brief. it was long yet informal with a good booklet to accompany. When it was finished we were to catch a bus to Chengi Air base for a half an hour flight in a Fokker 50, little did we know we are catching the end of the monsoon season so the rain poured down for 10 or so minutes! watching a very amusing safety brief from the pilots we walked out in file to the aeroplane. First of all Matt was to sit in the cockpit after a couple of the Indian cadets has a go and then it was my turn. I was invited to sit the longest and sat in a seat beside the Captain for the landing, it was fantastic! I thanked them for their kindness with a collection a pin badges of RAF Aircraft a key ring and a squadron badge from my home squadron.
we had a lunch back at Amoy Que camp, noodles, chicken and spicey sauce and then we were asked if we would like to explore the local city. after a so called "15 minute" walk we arrived at the city an hour later (singaporean time we now call it, which will make us forever late!) . The city was very very busy, 95% of the population live in sky rise tower block apartments, we witnessed all of them on our Fokker flight there are hardly any free standing houses here.
this time of year is the singapore sales, good news for the shoppers of the group, i myself have not yet bought anything except flip flops as i had a blister from new shoes on our "15 minute walk" ;)
me and matt are sat here working on our presentation for the IACE presentation evening and soon will be going for a night snack of suprise buns and then an early night if we are not having a shin dig with the other cadets into the wee hours!!
message again tommorrow, night everyone!!