We started off the week at IBM by wrapping up our projects and submitting the relevant reports. By Tuesday, we completed all submissions and it was our last official day at work.
Wednesday morning was exciting as I went to Downtown Toronto to take part in a Capture-the-Flag (CTF) competition. A CTF is basically a series of Cyber Security challenges, and you get points by solving the various challenges. This event was hosted by Trend Micro so I got to visit their Canadian Office!
After a long battle, my team emerge as the champion! It was a really great opportunity to be able to participate in this competition and to add on this CTF was my first CTF overseas.
Thereafter, I visited Eaton Centre in the evening. I took a quick stroll around and also visited the largest Christmas Tree in Canada.
On the eve before we flew back to Singapore the host treated us to a sumptuous hotpot at home.
On Friday, we bade farewell to the host and our first stopover was in San Francisco in the United States.
We also took a short walk around the terminal and admired the various artworks around the terminal.
After a short 4 hours stopover, we continue on our journey to Hong Kong, followed by Singapore. Singapore Airlines also had direct flights to Singapore from San Francisco but we thought it may be too long a flight so we opted for a stopover in Hong Kong. The stopover in Hong Kong was only a short one of about 1 hour.
After travelling for about 30 hours, we finally landed at Singapore Changi Airport.
Overall, it has been a memorable 3 months of internship over at IBM in Canada. We worked hard and definitely played hard too. We visited many landmarks, cities and met so many people along the way too! I also learnt many life skills throughout this journey, such as sourcing for our own accommodation, planning our flight routes and learning to live independently. If there was such an opportunity in the future, I would gladly take it up!