Ea Ai Lourng of Cambodia said she would try her best. “It is the first time for me to attend the international event, although other teams get more experiences than I have, I wish I could make it great.”

“Take a deep breath and relax. Try your best and good luck on your test,” the team counselors encouraged the students before they went into the examination room.

“The test is as regular as what we expected it before, but it is still a challenge for us,” Japan’s Miyazaki Yoshinori said after the post test. “I have prepared it almost one year,” Tominaga Kohei added. “We just used what we have learned and skills we have trained to do our best for the following days,” Makino Yudai said.

Album - Written Test (Vincent)

On the buses to the destination, the mentors took the opportunity to catch some more sleep and when the buses finally arrived the destination, everyone looked refreshed without any signs of fatigue on their faces. As they concentrated on the guide’s presentation and explanation on the exhibits, they were all amazed at the exquisiteness and complication of the works.

During lunch time, Chinese food was served. To many mentors, eating with chopsticks was quite a new experience. Therefore, they had to ask one of the staffs for instructions to appropriately handle chopsticks. Before they knew it, they could handle their chopsticks pretty well after some practices.

Likewise, the students were also scheduled to visit the National Palace Museum in the afternoon. However, unlike the mentors’ buses which were full of teachers spending their time dozing off, the students’ buses were filled with their hearty laughs from all the corners. They took pictures, sang karaoke and played riddles to guess the museum’s art collection. The buses were in an uproar over the game.

Lim, Do Won, one of participants from Korea shared what he thought about the exhibits. He also bought the souvenir Jadeite Cabbage’s coaster. “I was fascinated with the history when I was a kid”, “you can find out the culture-related elements between Chinese and Korean and those are very attractive to me.”

This is the first time ever that IESO takes the results of the field test into account of the total scores. Therefore, a lot of discussions and opinions were raised, ranging from test details, safety issues, feasibility and etc. Though almost everyone only had a few hours of sleep, they still carefully examined and re-examined whether the stops of the field test correspond to the test items. All these efforts were made with every intention to have an elaborate practical test for the students. At the end of this visit, everyone had to climb up to the top of the test site to have an overview of the coastline. After walking for nearly 3 hours along the coast line and going up and down in the steep areas, “hot” and “exhausted” were what all mentors, observers and staffs felt.