ILYG 08 Day 2

I would love to say that Day 2 began pretty much the same way Day 1 began, but I would be lying. I woke up after the sun was already in the sky. Well, one can’t help a few guilty moments of sleeping in when the weather was so cold and the bed was so cosy, can one??

But anyways, we were to meet a Federation Square in the city at 0945 Hrs, so then we had to rush and managed to get there just in time. There was a peace ceremony there, where people from various faiths were selected to give a speech about their faith, and there were presentations of olive trees between the faiths. It was a two hour long ceremony, and we were also treated to the beautiful voice of Australian Idol, Natalie Gauci. She sang a Coldplay song, and a Malaysian Lasallian Convention Song, Man In The Mirror, which was originally sung by Michael Jackson =)

After the ceremony, we were all dispersing, and I just happened to see this one familiar face smiling back at me. It took me a minute to register the face, especially since it’s been two years since I last saw it. But you could bet that after I recognized the face, I was jumping up and down in excitement. It was my long lost buddy, Julian Tang!!! When we were in St Joe, we used to kid around, and he was even my co-emcee for the installation of the new prefects. My ever trustable and dependable friend. ^^ so of course I took some pictures with him. =)

Julian Tang =)

with Natalie Gauci

Dinner group

Lunch was at Malvern Town Hall, and I had my first taste of HAMburger..haha…there’s no HAMburger in Malaysia, so naturally I took it =p There were other choices of burgers as well, like chicken, beef, egg, turkey, etc..however, according to Brendan, ham is usually made out of beef (in the US), but if it IS made out of beef, then why is there a separate burger that’s labeled beef burger?? Sometimes, it is very confusing when everyone has different standards of classification…

But anyway, we had two sessions after that, one of which was an interview with the Brothers and how they got involved in the lasallian movement. There was also another sharing by the President of the International Commission of Youth Lasallians. In his sharing, he featured the IDOPP program that Malaysia initiated, and we were very proud, considering we were the smallest delegation there, and a major group such as the ICYL was interested in adopting our framework for the International Lasallian Day of Prayer for Peace =)

Dinner was next, which was also at the Malvern Town Hall. However, there was a long queue so then we were late in having our dinner and the night session was pulled back by a full hour. In the end, the night prayer was cancelled, and everyone went back after the sessions.

Brother Michael Broughton, who never fails to entertain me, and bring the story of La Salle to life.

Thus ends Day 2 of my stay in Melbourne. =p