Meet the President of Singapore

On the second day of the new year, I went to visit the president house, which is located in orchard road ,with a friend of mine. The name of the president house is istana, which means “palace”in malay. The istana building and its ground are open to public only on five days a year, lunar new year, deepavali,hari raya puasa, labor day and national day.
When we arrived at the groud in front of the gate, we saw a lot of people queuing for tickets. The queue was in zigzag pattern, since there were too many people to queue in a line. It looked like the ground in train station in china. We had no choice and queued for almost an hour for the tickets. The ticket was free to local people, but foreigners had to pay one dollar per person. We showed our student cards and paid two dollars. Then we got the tickets. But we couldn’t go in directly, because we had to be checked first. After all, it was the president house. Safe was no doubt the most important thing.
Unexpectedly, we saw a casual crowd when we entered. We didn’t know what happened. Then some one said that the president Nathan was here. Then we squeezed in the crowd and saw the president Nathan in an open electrical car. He is a little black and in a green loose comfortable clothes. He smiled to us. Many people took photos of him. A bodyguard stood beside him with sunglasses. After a while, the car went out of the crowd and sped into the grounds. The crowd was dismissed.
We walked on a big ground full of green grass. What impressed me most were that it was a really big place and the scenery is really beautiful. There are lakes and small rivers. There are many kinds of trees and flowers. There are some golf holes. We walked and walked and met another crowed. Then the president came. His car fell behind of us because we had taken a shortcut unknowingly. The president sat down with his family and watched a Chinese music concert performed by Singapore students, who I thought were in primary school.
We watched for a while and carried on walking. We met the president again and I waved my hand to him, then he smiled to me. Finally, the istana is in front of us. We paid two dollars and visited the palace. It is a magnificent western architecture. Maybe it was built in British colonial days. There were many artifacts and art works from many different countries. To my surprise, I found a painting from NUS hanging on the wall.
When we got out of the building, the president reached the gate of the istana and sat down with his family. Again they watched another performance. Then some journalist interviewed the president. After that, he shook hands with people, including my friend. Unfortunately, he didn’t shake hands with me.
After that, we walked back and saw a Japanese gun on display in the istana compound.
What a magic day!