hey! here’s part 2! anw, about the link moat part in the prev part was actually cancelled at the last minute, no wonder I had no recollection of it! haha, good thing, if not i will be very sad that memory escaped me.
28 OCT Tuesday
woke up slightly later cos we were allowed to. today was different as there was no assembly and thus the shaoxing teachers gave us some leeway. they hold their assembly only on mon every week. no wonder the students are so robust during assembly cos it is only once a week and they give it their all then and then can slack for the rest of the days. haha.
we attended maths, science and music (again) lessons. for maths, it was pretty exciting as the students were given the opportunity to qiang da. and the questions were simple algebraic problems that were no match for me. haha. but I wondering whether the teacher had purposely downgraded the questions so as to not scare us. should be lah, cos shaoxing school had maths as one of the pet subjects, surely their maths standard wasn’t easy peasy.
next up was science. we were having class with students that were of lower standard. in singapore terms, maybe sec 2 or even sec1! maybe the underestimated singapore student’s ability in science. haiz, they think we stupid or what huh! we had to do some science experiment dealing with onion skin. yes the epidermis cells. this is what we did in sec one and they thought we never did… lol, good thing the teacher gave her presentation and instructions in Chinese, if not I might have dozed off. anw, I pity those pure bio students in our midst, they must have been so bored, but I guess they could show off their prowess in this simple activity.
this lesson was kind of horrid for me cos I was sitting beside some idiotic snobbish china student. (we had to pair up with one and sit in rows of four, like our science lab.) and I had to carry out the experiment with her and another pl-china student pair. I forgot who was in the other pair. anw, this snob of a china girl, spoke to me as though I was some stupid person, she enunciated every syllable of her speech and talked as if I was some dumb deaf idiot. anyway, maybe she saw my hearing aids, but who cares! I think im smarter than her lor… she asked me in super slow manner what is my name. I said hui xin and then I ask her hers and she said yu kuai (as in happiness in chinese). I think she was out to make fun of me cos I think I saw something else on her namecard. so be it, yu kuai the madwoman! then she asked me a few more questions, I answered painstakingly and some of her stupid china friends laughed… okay… whatever, sam ang and charissa in front of me told me to ignore her cos she was ‘making fun’ of me.. what the heck and then we started conversing in english, making sure that we spoke super fast so that those brainless china idiots couldn’t understand. after that, that snob went a little quiet for a while.
soon it was time to do the experiment. I discovered that my partner quite sucked at the experiment so I took the reigns. and she had no choice but to praise me for being so good at it. I was saying to myself, ‘of course, snobs don’t do well in life, AND Singaporean students are not to be look down at! what’s more, we are better than u china dorky simpletons and have better character even though we are so much more superior than u!’ I was so pissed. when the lesson was over, I was so happy… that stupid girl! I just had to remind myself that china has the good, the bad and ugly, I had just witnessed the bad and a little of the ugly (cos the girl wasn’t pretty at all!) I just have to be optimistic about the good!
after that, we had music. it was more of rhythm class as we played with drums and clapped rhythms. I saw that snob again and shunned her. yeah, so this class was quite easy for me as I knew music and knew how to read the different durations of the towgay (musical notes).
in the afternoon, we went to the lu xun memorial hall. we basically toured lu xun residence. it was kinda interesting yet frustrating at the same time. it was interesting cos I was smelling lu xun air and was viewing all his possessions. the kitchen, I remember, was really antique and had all the cool equipment. haha. but the tour was a little irritating as there were hordes of tourist there, but the worse were the locals, the shoved and pushed and always formed a human wall in front of us so that we poor pl girls couldn’t really catch a glimpse of the view. but keeping in mind about the good, the bad and the ugly, I reminded myself that the people there were mainly old folks, so I hope that this bad manners of theirs has been washed away in the next generation.
after lu xun, we went back to school to for the happy hour programme. basically it is like our cca kind of activities. we had a ‘gallery walk’ around the art room. we witnessed the art students in action. wow, I was mesmerized by the talent of the students, they were especially good at sketching irregular objects. their work was just in pencil shades, yet they reflected every detail and shadow. I wondered how long did they take to complete a piece of work, I guess it took them a few sessions to do so, wow, their effort is really remarkable.
we ended the gallery walk and proceeded to the calligraphy class. there awaited us students and we had to a take a place between 2 china students and then they will teach us calligraphy. since I had some experience last year during the enrichment classes, I was quite confident writing my name. though I managed to write decent looking characters, the problem was, the strokes were not deep enough and not well defined enough. so when the china friends taught me the thick stroke kind of calligraphy, I stumbled and never could do a good piece of work. and im glad that I had a pair of friendly and helpful teachers. they were more patient and had much better character than that snob earlier that day.
the calligraphy class ended and the teacher gave us each a breathtaking piece of calligraphy work done by the students themselves. it was a prize! we said goodbye, after which we assembled at the conference room where the parents of our buddies would could come to pick us up to our buddy’s home. I was darn nervous!!!!!!! argh, I still can rmb the feeling, my heart wanted to scream so bad! I was so scared of the homestay and so scared of how things would turn out at my buddy’s house. a few parents came and went, until there were about half of the no. of pl left, my buddy’s mom came. clad in black from top down she looked exactly like some high class tai tai/businesswomen, but she at the same time, she looked sooooooooooo freaking scary, u could pass her as a mafia’s woman. boy, I wanted to pee in my pants. why did my buddy’s mom look so different from her. lol.
anyway, my buddy said that she was cycling home and that meant I would sit in the car alone with her mom. I told myself, tahan 2 nights and then I will be liberated!!! of course, I had to be polite, so I introduced myself to mrs xu (xu is yi jia’s surname, so I shall call her mom mrs xu here, cos she’s to scary looking to be called mamma xu) and then she told me that she knew alr. anq, I could feel that she was trying to accommodate me well and be caring for me. and her car was as black jeep! why I was seeing everything black? is it some foreboding? and her jeep was super high, so high that my unstretchable jeans combined with my short legs made it hard to mount her jeep. the platform I could say was at my waist. so frigging high that I quite embarrassed myself by taking a little bit of time just to get up. in the car, we talked, but a little only. mrs xu asked me what I liked to eat and asked how many siblings I had. I said 2 older sisters and then she said, ‘oh. yi jia is the only child!’ I so much wanted to be smartly spontaneous and to inject a little of humour to break the ice by saying, ‘yeah, the one child policy, nvm! I can become yi jia’s sister these days.’ of course, nvr managed to put them in chinese words. n the last thing I wanted was to embarrass myself in front of this seemingly haughty woman, so I just smiled and said yes yes….. btw, the traffic conditions were terrifying. thank goodness mrs xu’s car was big, so many cars gave way to us. there even was a point of time when mrs xu’s jeep was the lone vehicle against the flow of traffic and was in the middle of 2 streams of the other cars going in opposite directions on both sides! it was an ugly sight, and not to mention, frightening too!
when we reached the house (it was like an apartment building, or large condo in sinagpore terms), I had to come down from the jeep so that mrs xu could park her car. when I was going down, my shoe got stuck in the underneath of the stupid seat. I so embarrassed myself! mrs xu was understanding and she said slowly slowy, and smiled. while mrs xu parked in her garage, yi jia came bounding back on her bic. when I entered the house, I realized that my buddy was somewhat wealthy. they had a homemaker, a mini gym, a juccuzi bath, a study room for her dad which had a piano, an attic that was dedicated to her dog (my buddy loves dogs and has a dog, but it was residing somewhere else, maybe she has another house!) and my buddy had 2 rooms conjoined together for her use. she gave a choice of which room I preferred. I choose the room which had red bed sheet and a red blanket on the bed. the other room had blue. i choose this way cos there wasn’t much of a difference between the 2 rooms and picked the one that looked more appealing to me. haha, I like red!
it was time for dinner. the dinner wasn’t great… was a little too salty. the homemaker was some old ah ma probably wanting to earn some money during her retirement years. I was much more comfortable with her as she smiled all the time, whereas mrs xu frequently stiff smile reminded me of some cold and ruthless mafia woman. lol, I dunno why I felt that way, maybe I had built a barrier against her since I first saw her. I was scared of her. but I really could feel her effort in trying to make me feel welcomed.
after dinner, mrs xu and yi jia planned to bring me around the lu xun place (which was just a stone’s throw from their house) but since I had visited it in the afternoon, we decided to take a walk about the periphery,
before going out, yi jia and I used the com for a while. there, I realized that she knew vitas and loved his shrill and falsetto voice! I loved that of him too! so we discovered a few od our common interests. I let her listen to coldplay’s viva la vida and she was quite surprised I liked this kind of songs, she had probably never heard them before.
yi jia and I talking about ourselves. i learnt that she liked music and loved dramas too. then she asked about me, about my family, hobbies and likes. there, she got so interested in me cos I had musical background and was quite ‘cool’ cos I was like an ‘all rounder’, knowing sports and music and loving maths and sciences. I told her that I knew how to play the piano, guitar, recorder and handbell (I doubt she had a clue what it was) to impress her, cos I wanted to make her hold me in some admiration to make up for my poor Chinese. n I succeeded, she was very interested in me after that and asked what grade I was in for piano, I said 8, and then she got all excited and insisted that I perform for her on piano when we got back. actually, she wanted to go back just then, so that she could hear me perform asap. lol, she was so eager. she told me that she had learnt piano when she was young but only for 1 month cos she was too busy and had not time given that she had to be in school till 5.
back at home, I played for her some of my exam pieces and then I played cannon in d. she was so happy and made me perform for her mom. haha, I made a few mistakes here and there cos I was so nervous performing before mrs xu. after that, I suggested dropping by at melodi’s buddy’s home. yi jia said it was a good idea and she said she would check if they were home. I thought she might phone them, instead, she went to her kitchen and shouted over. she reported that there was no reply, but we could try.
so along with mrs xu, yi jia and I went to melodi’s buddy’s (I forgot to ask her name) house which was just one block away. when we were at the door, it was opened and there was commotion inside. I thought whoa, maybe melodi’s buddy’s is so hospitable that she even invited her extended family to welcome melodi. instead, a shocker was in stall for us! after melodi’s buddy’s mother gave us ‘mittens’ to wea over our shoes to save us the trouble of taking them off. I realized to my horror that the teachers were visiting melodi’s buddy’s home! the teachers were both from pl and shaoxing combined, and the camera man was there too!!! I saw melodi and she looked a little traumatized by the attention. lol, she looked so cute, sitting beside mrs lee on the sofa while the teachers were bombarding her on how she was etc. lol! when I entered the house, I greeted the teachers and then fled to melodi for ‘solace’. lol, I nvr knew I was inviting myself into this situation by coming to the house. melodi and I conversed like long lost friends, thankful that we finally had someone to speak english to. melodi showed me her room and it was pretty much like mine, the same conjoined room story. lol, we were so excited being together and likewise, my buddy was with melodi’s buddy, chit chatting away. lol, and we hid from the limelight till the teachers commanded us out to eat fruit. I ate I grape and then poor melodi was presented something bigger although she was very full. it was something like an apple and she could not bite it even after a few attempts, thanks to her braces that forbade her open her mouth too widely. lol, it was a sight seeing her desperately trying to bite to no avail. after that, we had a group photo with the teachers on the sofa. the 2 pairs of buddies stood on the sofa, I rmb being a little conscious of the fact that I was still wearing my shoes, but realized that I was wearing mittens. lol.
after that, the buddies suggested going over to yi jia’s house to play for a while. yi jia’s mom said okay, for an hour. yay! I was so excited and so was melodi. haha
at yi jia’s house, I played more piano for melodi and her buddy. my buddy was so excited to show off her talented buddy. I asked melodi whether she knew how to play the piano, she was a little embarrass and said no. she lamented that she did not have any talents besides maths and was very flustered whenever her buddy’s family asked her cos she knew that shaoxing was famous for music and the arts. haha, I had to console her a little. she added that it was an irony that her name’s melodi. and we laughed. btw, melodi’s taking the exact same combi as me and is going to 3A2! except for the higher Chinese part, she’s quite similar to me! and I realized that with melodi, I was more natural in conversing in Chinese with my buddy and melodi’s buddy. after that, we went to the attic where there was rusty metal swing which was actually for her dog but melodi and I sat on it. lol. I was having so much fun joking around with everyone.
later when everyone was a little tired. melodi and her buddy went home. then I went to shower and had some trouble with it. I couldn’t figure how to turn on the hot water, so I showered in cold water, and when I got out, I was a little chilled, but I survived. mrs xu noticed that I was cold and then she apologized to me for not adjusting the shower. lol, and then she said that she would do it the next day for me. haha. then I read my bible and went to sleep.
whoa! I’ve talked so much on one day! it was a really eventful day that’s why. so this shall be part 2! part three present the rest of the trip. or maybe a day or 2 if my posts are too long.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Whoopeedoo!
yay, dad has given me the green light! im going for both ks and ck camp! yipee! i hope that i will be able to make use of ks camp meet up with the people i miss so dearly! n for ck camp, i hope that it will be fun. im a little scared cos im in the comm n i half dont understand what's going on. but the messages from prof hanko makes me very excited!
then later dec, when da jie comes back, my family might go up north with auntie hannah, samuel and uncle steven! yay. but this is all a possibility, not confirmed. haha. :)
okay, i have watched the first episode of the little nyonya. it's not bad lah, but i hope things will get more exciting as the plot deepens! i love this kind of history. jap occupation and all. haha. :)
ps. survivor's getting better n better. i love it! randy's was so pathetic and sugar's getting sweeter. n ken... is learning to be a man! a smart one at that. yay, i love it!
then later dec, when da jie comes back, my family might go up north with auntie hannah, samuel and uncle steven! yay. but this is all a possibility, not confirmed. haha. :)
okay, i have watched the first episode of the little nyonya. it's not bad lah, but i hope things will get more exciting as the plot deepens! i love this kind of history. jap occupation and all. haha. :)
ps. survivor's getting better n better. i love it! randy's was so pathetic and sugar's getting sweeter. n ken... is learning to be a man! a smart one at that. yay, i love it!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Horriday!
holiday.. it's supposed to be free from any work!
i hate work!
i hate studying!
n im a bad steward!
anyway, i think im going to have a few good weeks! ks camp then ck camp! yay, i want to enjoy! i dun wan mrs chong's whatever homejoy.. or miss dong oh so cheem homework! im stressed. btw, it's out of the topic but there's this article that says that ppl who watch tv are generally the unhappy lot. :(((((( i dun care, im going to watch the little nyonya. :) they say it's singapore's parallel of jewel in the palace. it had better do justice for the excitement im in right now. tmr it premiers!
i hate work!
i hate studying!
n im a bad steward!
anyway, i think im going to have a few good weeks! ks camp then ck camp! yay, i want to enjoy! i dun wan mrs chong's whatever homejoy.. or miss dong oh so cheem homework! im stressed. btw, it's out of the topic but there's this article that says that ppl who watch tv are generally the unhappy lot. :(((((( i dun care, im going to watch the little nyonya. :) they say it's singapore's parallel of jewel in the palace. it had better do justice for the excitement im in right now. tmr it premiers!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Flash back
i just realized that i hadnt talked about a few things. firstly, the clique outing and class party on nov 10. i shall recount this very briskly. secondly, nat and mine 'outing' together. :) and lastly, my 'outing' with nadine and the prof. the prof i refering to is prof hanko, i revered figure in my church.
i met janice at kovan then we met up with sam and elyssa at ps outside auntie annes. went to pasta mania to eat a haiwaian pizza, it was very delicious. aniwae, janice and i were commenting on the self proclaimed number of pasta the restaurant had served, they boasted that they had 8 million plus in all their outlets, we were thinking that they could have just put up any number to please the customers.
subsequently, all of us went to buy tickets for the movie the coffin. harhar, a horror movie, the first one i would be watching! not counting the excerpts miss dong showed us for lit. yup, then since the movie started in 1hs time, we went shopping at carrefour for the dessert stuff for class party. and elyssa wanted to grab her david archuletta cd the time it was released but unfortunately it hadn't arrived. so we went macs, bought drinks to smuggle into the theatre by putting them inconspicuously into our bags. then got our popcorn and then went to the hall. the movie was okay lah. i was a little scared here and there cos horror movies always catch u when u are unsuspecting. though i didnt really enjoy the movie cos i was half the time figuring out what was happening (and i never managed to) but i definitely learnt what's the best thing to do when i watch a horror movie next time (though i doubt i would) i have to always anticipate what's next and the best time to do that is when everything is so quiet and still, that is the favourite time of the director's cos her/she would most likely succeed in frightening u badly if u do not be careful and fall into the trap of suspense. haha, actually i learnt a bit of this in lit, so im was very wary of every suspense in the movie, i guess that made me more prepared for the scary scenes. poor janice and sam (even though she's in the same lit class as me, i guess she's more fragile by nature) were screaming and yelping. janice even went to the extent of hiding behind the popcorn box, haha, then i was wondering why on earth did she pay 6 bucks to watch a still picture in front of her.
after the movie, elyssa finally got her david a cd and sam bought too. then we made our way to to kovan to buy diane's birthday present. n as tradition entailed us to trick her, we did and she ended up with the wrong company. the rest of the day pretty much sucked.
we got lost a little on the way to mrs wong's house cos elyssa rmbed 21b but there wasnt any 21b, instead it was 11b! so we were walking a little aimlessly and even asked a few not-so-eager-to-help passer bys. finally we got to the house after sam called sarah. n there was the start of all troubles. but im glad we've patched up.
last sun, my family and nat's decided to meet up for dinner! we were all sooooooooo bursting with excitement cos it had been years since the last time had dinner together. her family and mine had this tradition since young to meet up at each others' house alternatively for dinner every sun after church. that explains the strong ties i and erjie and dajie have with nat and her siblings (or sisters u can say. :) ) and our moms cooked the bestest food to savour. haha. however, when i was a bout p2 or somewhere thereabout, we discontinued this tradition, probably cos everyone was getting more and more busy and i think nichelle was born so it was hard to have this kind of visitations. :( so last sun was special cos we were meeting up once again, and this time of course with dear nichelle! buy, er jie and i were so excited that we wanted to bring our cam. sadly we only took 1 pic, at the restaurant.
we went to soup restaurant at changi airport. the wongs went first so they had a table ready by the time my family went in. i sat with nat and aunty wan teng (nat's mom). we ordered or rather, uncle chee choong and dad order our dishes. we had chicken meat with lettuce, fish dish and soup etc.... i forgot alr! haha. the food was not bad, but since i came out from china being pampered with all the chinese food, i somehow had expected more food, like the treatment in that i received in china, lots and lots of chinese food, unfortunately, i had to be brought back to earth, chinese food did not equal tonnes of food. :( haha. so i was a little disappointed cos the food wasn't a lot, but i guess i have to change that ridiculous idea of mine.
this the pic! but it's so dark, haiz. :( er jie, nicole (biggest sis), noelene (third sis), nichelle (the baby of the family), nat (the sec sis and of course, my best friend!) and me. im wearing my man u shirt! btw, for extra info, a man probably in his thirties, sitting at a neighbouring table was so captivated by the no. of girls my table held. lol, if only if dajie was around, that would have brought the tally to a perfect 7!
after dinner, while the adults were all praising prof hanko to the skies for his wonderful sermon that morning, all the kids went for our tour around the airport. it started with us going to the toilet. i accompanied nichelle and then nat decided to come along. on the way, nat felt naseaus and complain that we stomach was giving her a little problem. lol, then nichelle and i joked that she was preg. then we walked past a real pregnant lady and compared her with nat, lol, nat was unfortunately too thin to bear any resemblance. cos we were so happy go lucky, we were laughing our way to the toilet. there, the rest of the girls joined us. after each one of us had visited the toilet, we embarked on our self organized tour about the airport. boy! that night was absolute fun! and we bonded very well. i will just share the highlights.
as girls, we are most self concious about our weight, so we weighed ourselves on the luggage wighing scale, both individually and in total (the platform was wide enough to stage all of us). our total mass was 255kg! haha, we were crazy, but we were happy. we didnt care the stares we got from others and maybe the security officer couldnt be bothered by there few good for nothings.. lol. and er jie was a little too unhappy about her weight and kept complaining to us that she's fat... lol. then we explored the enormous lift that transported all the heavy trolleys and baggage. when er jie walked in, i was naughty enough to set the overweight 'alarm', of course, it was my noise but it was real enough to get er jie into a split second of shock. lol! she really thought that the lift despised her weight! everyone dropped in peals of laughter at the trick, er jie laughed too!
after that, we decided that we wanted to explore T3 since T2 was so boring. it would be my 2nd time there after departing for china there. i rmbed the interesting decors the ceiling had. i was excited, cos i had an 'advantage' over the others were entering for the first time. we hopped onto the skytrain and it brought us to T3! we were so away from our parents and they didnt know. at T3, we went to see the new crowne plaza. it was cool and high class, but the lift denied us access to the corridoor of the rooms. the security was strict and only by the presentation of the card was one allowed access to the corridoor and all the facilities. haiz, too high class that we kids could not even go and dream about going up. T3 also did not offer much except for shops. we planned to go budget terminal but instead caught the skytrain to go back to T2.
nic had a craving for ice with waffle and i too. we wanted to be merry and get fat. er jie was tempted too. so we went swensens but never had the cheek to order something cos we had not a penny on us. noelene called her mom to come but the adults, who were at macs, refused to bulge. so in the end, we had to be satified with fires and mac flurry from macs. then the event was brought to a close. oh man, it was so fun! :)
just yesterday, on sat, i went tennis with nadine. thanks to a few good games as mix doubles with isaac and xavier, her passion for tennis is revived! haha, now she can't wait to go back n play. after tennis, nad cam over to my house to help mum bake. we also looked at my pics on the com, had some good laughs. haha. then upon my invitation, she went with my family to the reformation day conference. prof hanko was the speaker and he spoke about the unconditional convenant of God. i hope nad understood a little, cos she said it was cheem. but im glad where prof was a little funny at times and nad did laugh, that meant that she was listening! i hope God will work in her heart so that she can become more sister in Christ. :)
after the rdc, my family and aunty ee fong brought prof out for dinner at pow sing restaurant. aunty ee fong is super funny, and prof too. u noe, prof's so tall that when he was walking to the table, his head could hit the ceiling beam that was so high for asians, good thing he bent a little to avoid it. he even joked a little when he said that his head could ring the bells (the christmas ornates hung at the beam). prof settle between aunty ee fong and dad, i was beside aunty ee fong and er jie beside me. when my dad gave prof the honour of ordeing some dishes, aunty ee fong made him order a few dishes by the pictures presented in the menu cos prof wasn't too familar what was nice. so said he could look at which art appealed to him and when he pointed at them, we would make sure it turned edible! lol! okay, so we had sweet and sour pork, fish, black pepper chicken, lotus root soup and veg. a simple fare but the food was great. anw, throughout the time together last night, prof was super cute and funny. i laughed so much! he's actually much different from his what his usual stern expression during preaching tells u. i once thought that he seldom smiled, what more joke, but he really prove me wrong.
at the end, my family and aunty ee fong had the opportunity to see his room at YMCA. it was more of a super comfy apartment. the room was very very nice and was like a sophiscated 2 room condo. the was even a sheltered swimming pool. btw, a fact to prove how tall he is, his shoe size is 13 to 14! that's twice my feet size! and most of his clothes are tailor made. lol, amazingly tall guy here, probably 2m ++. haha. and if u didnt noe, he's 78 alr, but still as fit as a 50 year old! haha, i really respect prof now!
i met janice at kovan then we met up with sam and elyssa at ps outside auntie annes. went to pasta mania to eat a haiwaian pizza, it was very delicious. aniwae, janice and i were commenting on the self proclaimed number of pasta the restaurant had served, they boasted that they had 8 million plus in all their outlets, we were thinking that they could have just put up any number to please the customers.
subsequently, all of us went to buy tickets for the movie the coffin. harhar, a horror movie, the first one i would be watching! not counting the excerpts miss dong showed us for lit. yup, then since the movie started in 1hs time, we went shopping at carrefour for the dessert stuff for class party. and elyssa wanted to grab her david archuletta cd the time it was released but unfortunately it hadn't arrived. so we went macs, bought drinks to smuggle into the theatre by putting them inconspicuously into our bags. then got our popcorn and then went to the hall. the movie was okay lah. i was a little scared here and there cos horror movies always catch u when u are unsuspecting. though i didnt really enjoy the movie cos i was half the time figuring out what was happening (and i never managed to) but i definitely learnt what's the best thing to do when i watch a horror movie next time (though i doubt i would) i have to always anticipate what's next and the best time to do that is when everything is so quiet and still, that is the favourite time of the director's cos her/she would most likely succeed in frightening u badly if u do not be careful and fall into the trap of suspense. haha, actually i learnt a bit of this in lit, so im was very wary of every suspense in the movie, i guess that made me more prepared for the scary scenes. poor janice and sam (even though she's in the same lit class as me, i guess she's more fragile by nature) were screaming and yelping. janice even went to the extent of hiding behind the popcorn box, haha, then i was wondering why on earth did she pay 6 bucks to watch a still picture in front of her.
after the movie, elyssa finally got her david a cd and sam bought too. then we made our way to to kovan to buy diane's birthday present. n as tradition entailed us to trick her, we did and she ended up with the wrong company. the rest of the day pretty much sucked.
we got lost a little on the way to mrs wong's house cos elyssa rmbed 21b but there wasnt any 21b, instead it was 11b! so we were walking a little aimlessly and even asked a few not-so-eager-to-help passer bys. finally we got to the house after sam called sarah. n there was the start of all troubles. but im glad we've patched up.
last sun, my family and nat's decided to meet up for dinner! we were all sooooooooo bursting with excitement cos it had been years since the last time had dinner together. her family and mine had this tradition since young to meet up at each others' house alternatively for dinner every sun after church. that explains the strong ties i and erjie and dajie have with nat and her siblings (or sisters u can say. :) ) and our moms cooked the bestest food to savour. haha. however, when i was a bout p2 or somewhere thereabout, we discontinued this tradition, probably cos everyone was getting more and more busy and i think nichelle was born so it was hard to have this kind of visitations. :( so last sun was special cos we were meeting up once again, and this time of course with dear nichelle! buy, er jie and i were so excited that we wanted to bring our cam. sadly we only took 1 pic, at the restaurant.
we went to soup restaurant at changi airport. the wongs went first so they had a table ready by the time my family went in. i sat with nat and aunty wan teng (nat's mom). we ordered or rather, uncle chee choong and dad order our dishes. we had chicken meat with lettuce, fish dish and soup etc.... i forgot alr! haha. the food was not bad, but since i came out from china being pampered with all the chinese food, i somehow had expected more food, like the treatment in that i received in china, lots and lots of chinese food, unfortunately, i had to be brought back to earth, chinese food did not equal tonnes of food. :( haha. so i was a little disappointed cos the food wasn't a lot, but i guess i have to change that ridiculous idea of mine.
this the pic! but it's so dark, haiz. :( er jie, nicole (biggest sis), noelene (third sis), nichelle (the baby of the family), nat (the sec sis and of course, my best friend!) and me. im wearing my man u shirt! btw, for extra info, a man probably in his thirties, sitting at a neighbouring table was so captivated by the no. of girls my table held. lol, if only if dajie was around, that would have brought the tally to a perfect 7!
after dinner, while the adults were all praising prof hanko to the skies for his wonderful sermon that morning, all the kids went for our tour around the airport. it started with us going to the toilet. i accompanied nichelle and then nat decided to come along. on the way, nat felt naseaus and complain that we stomach was giving her a little problem. lol, then nichelle and i joked that she was preg. then we walked past a real pregnant lady and compared her with nat, lol, nat was unfortunately too thin to bear any resemblance. cos we were so happy go lucky, we were laughing our way to the toilet. there, the rest of the girls joined us. after each one of us had visited the toilet, we embarked on our self organized tour about the airport. boy! that night was absolute fun! and we bonded very well. i will just share the highlights.
as girls, we are most self concious about our weight, so we weighed ourselves on the luggage wighing scale, both individually and in total (the platform was wide enough to stage all of us). our total mass was 255kg! haha, we were crazy, but we were happy. we didnt care the stares we got from others and maybe the security officer couldnt be bothered by there few good for nothings.. lol. and er jie was a little too unhappy about her weight and kept complaining to us that she's fat... lol. then we explored the enormous lift that transported all the heavy trolleys and baggage. when er jie walked in, i was naughty enough to set the overweight 'alarm', of course, it was my noise but it was real enough to get er jie into a split second of shock. lol! she really thought that the lift despised her weight! everyone dropped in peals of laughter at the trick, er jie laughed too!
after that, we decided that we wanted to explore T3 since T2 was so boring. it would be my 2nd time there after departing for china there. i rmbed the interesting decors the ceiling had. i was excited, cos i had an 'advantage' over the others were entering for the first time. we hopped onto the skytrain and it brought us to T3! we were so away from our parents and they didnt know. at T3, we went to see the new crowne plaza. it was cool and high class, but the lift denied us access to the corridoor of the rooms. the security was strict and only by the presentation of the card was one allowed access to the corridoor and all the facilities. haiz, too high class that we kids could not even go and dream about going up. T3 also did not offer much except for shops. we planned to go budget terminal but instead caught the skytrain to go back to T2.
nic had a craving for ice with waffle and i too. we wanted to be merry and get fat. er jie was tempted too. so we went swensens but never had the cheek to order something cos we had not a penny on us. noelene called her mom to come but the adults, who were at macs, refused to bulge. so in the end, we had to be satified with fires and mac flurry from macs. then the event was brought to a close. oh man, it was so fun! :)
just yesterday, on sat, i went tennis with nadine. thanks to a few good games as mix doubles with isaac and xavier, her passion for tennis is revived! haha, now she can't wait to go back n play. after tennis, nad cam over to my house to help mum bake. we also looked at my pics on the com, had some good laughs. haha. then upon my invitation, she went with my family to the reformation day conference. prof hanko was the speaker and he spoke about the unconditional convenant of God. i hope nad understood a little, cos she said it was cheem. but im glad where prof was a little funny at times and nad did laugh, that meant that she was listening! i hope God will work in her heart so that she can become more sister in Christ. :)
after the rdc, my family and aunty ee fong brought prof out for dinner at pow sing restaurant. aunty ee fong is super funny, and prof too. u noe, prof's so tall that when he was walking to the table, his head could hit the ceiling beam that was so high for asians, good thing he bent a little to avoid it. he even joked a little when he said that his head could ring the bells (the christmas ornates hung at the beam). prof settle between aunty ee fong and dad, i was beside aunty ee fong and er jie beside me. when my dad gave prof the honour of ordeing some dishes, aunty ee fong made him order a few dishes by the pictures presented in the menu cos prof wasn't too familar what was nice. so said he could look at which art appealed to him and when he pointed at them, we would make sure it turned edible! lol! okay, so we had sweet and sour pork, fish, black pepper chicken, lotus root soup and veg. a simple fare but the food was great. anw, throughout the time together last night, prof was super cute and funny. i laughed so much! he's actually much different from his what his usual stern expression during preaching tells u. i once thought that he seldom smiled, what more joke, but he really prove me wrong.
at the end, my family and aunty ee fong had the opportunity to see his room at YMCA. it was more of a super comfy apartment. the room was very very nice and was like a sophiscated 2 room condo. the was even a sheltered swimming pool. btw, a fact to prove how tall he is, his shoe size is 13 to 14! that's twice my feet size! and most of his clothes are tailor made. lol, amazingly tall guy here, probably 2m ++. haha. and if u didnt noe, he's 78 alr, but still as fit as a 50 year old! haha, i really respect prof now!
Monday, November 17, 2008
100th post! And China trip recount (Part 1)
this is my hundredth post! this blog is a century old (at least in terms of the no. of posts)! im glad i have kept faithful to this blog and not give up on it halfway. so this marks the stepping stone of the advancement of this blog. haha, i think i make this sound like such a big shot, haha, i must remind myself that there have been millions of people who have accomplished this before me. so no big deal. i actually wanted to compose a poem or something like that, but since it's not a big deal, i shall not do so.
alright, i have decided to devide my china trip recounts into parts, if not the post would be too trmendously long! so here's day 1 to day 4. haha, i think all the excitement has subsided, but nvm, this shall be a very good journal of sorts for me. and no, i have not gone beyond day 1 -4. :)
okay, warning. u are in for a ultra verbose post here. so hang on!
OCT 23, Thursday
I was pretty unsure about this trip. In the morning, I couldn’t believe that in a few hours time, I would be in the air, and I wasn’t even in the mood for the trip. this was due to some reasons, firstly, I felt that shariel and I were not as good friends as we once were, so that meant that I had to ‘look’ for another friends, a ‘special one’ for the trip. secondly, the teachers had a little bit of a bad impression of me. cos I had genuinely forgotten to turn up for an important briefing, but my excuse was that I was depressed due to some problems in school, but would anyone think it valid? furthermore, mrs lee, the principal was going, so that meant that I had to put on my best behavior for the trip.
I got to the airpot at 11pm, with dad and mom (er jie had exam the next day, so couldn’t accompany me. L) and because I didn’t attend the briefing, I was the only one who wasn’t wearing the PL jacket. so I quickly changed out. this was definitely not to best way to start a trip of 10 days, not knowing what I had missed out during the briefing. some more, shariel wasn’t very friendly at all, so I wasn’t roo keen to approach her. and oh, sherilyn went too, but I wasn’t in the same group as her, so I could not really interact with her. we all took a group photo and then ms goh our vp prayed for us. Then we waited to board the plane. mr lim, my blue group’s teacher-in-charge was ever competitive and wanted to to outwalk the red group even while heading to the inspection area. haha, he cheered me up a little.
OCT 24, Friday
at the stroke of midnight to friday, i was on the plane, i sat at the window beside shariel, awake, exploring the cool facilities. unfortunately, i could not sacrifice my precious sleep and health for a movie or two, so most of the time, i was sleeping, excluding times when i was served food and when the annoying lights went on and off while the air stewardess were making their rounds. so i about only 4hs of sleep that night. when we reached the shanghai airport, i was still droopy. we collected our luggage and deposited them in a coach which would transport them to the shanghai hotel we would be residing in. we also met our tour guide for the whole trip, xiao yan.
then we were off to the maglev train station just nearby the airport. boy, i tell u, the experience was golly good! in the carriage, mr lim, the only physic teacher took the opportunity to explain to us the wonder of the train, that it rode on magnetism and was actually floating on a thin sheet of air that it removed the presence of friction, resulting in faster speeding for the train. it was really interesting! the train went up to 301km/h and took abt 7mins to bring us from the shanghai airport to its city, the distance easily being slightly larger than the width of singapore!
upon reaching the city, we had our maiden experience of the outside environment. the temperature was a cool 15 degrees celcius! I felt kinda weird having an air conditioned open space. haha. we headed for a xiaolongbao restaurant just below the station. there, we witnessed the first unpleasant situation. a male customer was fighting with the female restaurant manager. the fight was not only verbal, but physical too! the guy was roughly hitting the woman in the face while other customers and staff tried to calm them down. the interesting thing was that the woman was game, she was fighting back. i was wondering how on earth could the ppl express their unhappiness and anger in such an open way. in my 15 years of life, I can guarantee that I have not ever witness such a happening in my country, or maybe only 1 or 2 only. and in china, my very first experience with china Chinese was a fight! it was truly evidence that Singaporeans are cultured people. :) and im glad to say that that was the only fight that I saw in the land of china.
next, at the science centre in shanghai, we watched a 4D show! u noe what’s 4D? it is a 3D show that incorporates the other senses of touch, smell, besides the usual 2 of sound and sight. it was super cool! there were times when water was sprayed to give a more authentic feel as we were watching a pirate show, and there was a time when the seats dramatically plunge down a little when 2 pirates fell into a booby-trap. everyone screamed! haha, it was so sudden and unexpected.
after the show, we were given time to explore the 4 whole levels of the science centre. we had to go in groups of 4s for safety. I went with yun yun, shariel and jinting. the science centre was swell! it was a little of an amusement park combined with a learning centre. this made the learning oh so interesting! I shall not go so much into detail here, but what I meant by fun was that they games like archery to explain elasticity and boxing a bolster to test for reactivity etc.
then we headed for nanjinglu. we went to the most pedestrian friendly part of the shopping area. there I bought my beloved food! CHESTNUTS. and they were pretty palatable!
subsequently, we headed for dinner at a restaurant. before I start bragging about how good the dinner was, I shall first boast how our meals were like throughout the whole of the china trip. we went to restaurants for every meal. they were more or less good restaurants which served good food, if not decent ones. and we were fed with so much food each time that we became serial offenders of the law against wasting of food! everyday, I ate till my belly was bloated and so did everyone, but the table never seemed to be lacked of leftovers. boy! I could say that I have grown fatter over the days, so much pampering! but it was also at the restaurants that I discovering this very abhorrible problem of the Chinese men. they LOVEEEEE to smoke. >( even in air- conditioned places were there were the ‘no smoking’ signs. they would harm people around them with unwanted diseases in the future and pollute the air necessarily yet they smoke their lungs away as if the world was at their feet, I hate these detestable idiots! our tour guide xiao yan explained that it was culture, cos it was very cold and thus they smoked to warm their bodies. my foot, they must as well eat fire, since they are indirectly doing that while smoking… nevertheless, despite the smoke from smokers, I had generally had a good time with my group at the dinner table, with mr lim, my group teacher, cracking up us up with the jokes of his.
following dinner, we checked in the shanghai business hotel, otherwise called joyage. there was a com! but I didn’t know whether it was free to use, so I didn’t use. I watched tv and ate some of the delicious chestnuts. then went to sleep. day 1 of china trip came to a close.
OCT 25, Saturday
we had breakfast at the hotel, food was normal, with xiaolongbao again. then we went to the world famous madame tussauds wax museum. there, we saw many wax mannequins of many celebs. some of them were liuxiang, the Chinese hurdler who is a hero in the hearts of the china citizens for winning a gold in the 2004 olympics. although he was a flop in this year’s, I guess the Chinese don’t mind at all, cos the fact of him winning once was good enough for Chinese pride. furthermore, they had a few manikins of him at the museum, this shows how important and popular he still is. other stars include yao ming, the becks couple, movie characters like Charlie chaplin, james bond, and local singers. all in all, the tour impressed me greatly, the ability of the crafter of the mannequins is unquestionable, almost all had looked exactly like their respective personas. but I was a little disappointed at how limited the collection was, I was hoping to see some of my fav Korean stars, but I saw none. maybe, my next travel destination target is new york, where I believe has a much more wider variety.
afterwards, we ate lunch at some restaurant. when we finished, it started to drizzle. as u know, im hearing impaired and the device that I wear is unresistant to water, so it was super inconvenient for me to be out. furthermore, we were going for shopping, shopping in cheng huang miao, an open area with many many stalls. and no, the place isn’t what it’s name suggest, a temple, instead it is rows of shops that are all inside building structures that are in the shape of temples. yeah, so the name was probably derived from the architectural beauty of the shopping area.
at cheng huang miao, we moved in our usual fours, we went around and saw cool stuff like Chinese art and crafts. I bought a purse for my grandma, that was probably the first purchase I made during the trip. :) then we went to a chopsticks shop. there were so many chopsticks, and all in different prices. some were dirt cheap, other exquisite ones were a few hundreds of rmb. there were chopsticks with one’s surname imprinted, I was contemplating whether I should get 5 pairs for my family, but since it was about 20 plus a pair, no bargaining was allowed so I thought that I might be spending too much on just one item, so I dropped the idea. the next shop we went to was a shirt shop, thanks to the previous group of friends were haggled pretty much for us, I managed to a get a shirt for erjie at 40 rmb in contrast with it usual price of 80 rmb! haha, I was so glad. afterwards, while shariel and yun yun were searching for their pooh shop, we came upon a shop that did name printing in a rainbow of colours. it was very beautiful and I decided to get one bookmark for Samuel. actually, I had come across such business in Malaysia during the 2007 church camp. I got one scroll for myself and even one for Nadine. it was truly sensational art! after that, it was time to leave to go to the shanghai bookshop.
the bookshop swept me off my feet! the books were pretty cheap there, thanks to the keen competition among the shops in the area. the bookshop was a 7 storeys high, haha, I doubt singapore has a bookstore that can match up to this. even borders isn’t as big, but in shanghai, there was this street of bookstores that were a few floors high, all vying for customers, thus the strong competition and low prices. this was so although unfortunately, majority of the books were in Chinese. that was the only drawback. and the irony was that although we were in china, all the pl girls flocked around the foreign imported books section, that is, the english books. haha, I bought the choice there, a novel by Nicholas sparks at 65 rmb. that’s about S$13? I think it’s cheaper :) I wanted to buy brisingr, but I saw the price and felt that it could be cheaper with the small paperback version. so im waiting till it is released that way in singapore. also, I went to the cd store and bought 2 shows.
after all the shopping, I was quite tired, esp my legs. haha, and then we went for dinner. I forgot where, but it was definitely some high end restaurant with lots of good food. :) after dinner, we got a cruise along the shanghai bund. the boat was pretty much like some larger steamboat made of wood and it was of course run by motor. during the cruise, I remember that it w as raining and there was strong wind, so it was freaking cold! I had worn 2 layers of clothes and the pl jacket, but that was definitely not enough! I had to slip on another jacket and zipped up all the way. so much for the physical discomfort, I was rewarded with the dazzling sights along straits. much of the city was lit up and the scene was magnificent enough to keep the pl girls flashing their cameras away. on the banks, i saw the pearl oriental tower (the sky scraper that we visited on the last night) and all the buildings that make up what u could call the CDB of shanghai. after about 20 mins, most of the pl girls felt chilled, so we all made our way down to the more or less enclosed room, which had no need for air con, instead, only 2 thin spaces of openings were enough to keep us comfortable, not too cold nor warm. there, shariel, yun yun, jinting and I shared some jokes with each other to keep the excitement going. when it was close to the end of the journey, we went up again to have a last feel of the atmosphere on top of the boat. that brought the day’s activities to a close, we had our debrief in the coach cos it was getting very late. then we went to our rooms to catch valued rest.
OCT 26, Sunday
the Lord’s day! being a group representing a Christian school, traveling with the company of mainly Christian teachers, they made sure that we started the day with God. I quite appreciated that. :) we had singspiration in the coach and chen lao shi even gave exhortation and told us her life stories. we were so captivated by her charm in telling stories that the bus was all quiet while she spun her tale, which is a rare happening unless all of us are resting. haha, I knew chen lao shi talents in story telling before I came for this trip as she is my Chinese teacher and she nvr fails to keep my class enchanted by her stories, be they real or fictitious, but they were most life stories that had some morale of the story kind of thing. the stories she shared on the coach was about God’s faithfulness in protecting she and her family in many of life occasions. I really enjoyed them.
after exhortation, it was lesson time. these teachers are sure hardworking! they didn’t give us a chance to be too idle. mr lim taught us probability.. which is maths.. and I remember it best cos the lesson was in english. harhar… also, we had snatch quiz, by which we had to qiang da question on what we had learnt the previous 2 days.
after about 4 hours of travel, we had reached shaoxing. almost immediately after the toll gate, we saw a few cars waiting. guess what, in them was ma xiao zhang, the principal of jian gong school (the school we’re doing cultural immersion with) and her bevy of teachers. when our teachers got down the coach to greet them, they received bouquets of fresh flowers. whoa, the host are really hospitable! ma xiao zhang even embraced mrs lee with a warm hug. wow, they look just like little playmates. hehe.
we had lunch at the garden hotel of shelter bridge, the hotel that we were to put up at when we were in shao xing. the food was woah! so much food! this was where we had stacked plates of unfinished food. not that we wanted to waste them, but we ate to our filled and could not eat any further. what’s more is that the teachers got vip treatment, they went to the vip room and they were probably served 2 times the amount of what we got! the host are really models of congeniality.
following lunch, we went to ma shan farm. at first, I was unsure of what king of farm it would be. was it a fruit farm? an animal farm? but it wasn’t any of the two, it was a fish farm! and u noe what we were going to do. :) yes, we were going to fish. haha, I was really excited about fishing! I rmb the times when I was young, when I went to kelongs with my family and church friends, I had on one occasion caught a small fish with the help of my dad. it was a genuine sense of accomplishment when u caught a fish. hehe. but this time, there were too many fishers contending for fish that most of the fish were either caught or smart enough to keep to the middle of the pond, lest they be tempted by the bait. after waiting for a while, only 1 meagre fish was caught within the pl group, n that fish was unfortunately not mine. I was wondering whether the farm owners were cheats that pur only a few small fishes for us to catch, but I was proven wrong as there were some Chinese nationals, fishing n the same pool, who manage to hit jackpot a few times, and their fish were large ones, like those u see cooked in restaurants. maybe it was just the problem with our poor skill. later, mr lim said that the fish were all too full alr and did not bother about more food. so I was unsuccessful in my quest to catch one fish.
since we fished for about 1 hour, in the cold chilly wind and slight drizzle, we were quite hungry. good thing dinner came at 5. oh, and something I would like to add here, the sky gets dark at 5! thanks to the autumn season, so when I was in china, I always thought it is 9 when it was actually only 7. like china was 2hs slower than singapore time, but it is not, only the sky darkening earlier makes 9 in china feel like midnight to me, a singaporean.
yeah, back to the point, we were served a very scrumptious dinner by the farm people. oh, I think this was the first time we ate away from restaurants, but the food was shiok nevertheless! the farm people mostly cooked their produce, so they were fresh to the boot. and it was there where I tasted the best herbal chicken soup! it was soooooooooo nice that my table had the cheek to ask for second helping of soup! only to be quite disappointed that they gave us another kind of soup, a veg soup, but the taste was still fantastic. also, the prawns and fish rock and the mini lobsters were nice too. I guess im a very seafood person! oh btw, I introduced the lobster to Stephanie wong and to yun yun, and they both loved it. however, some at our table took a strong dislike to the lobster due to its appearance, they said it looked like cockroaches, haiz… they were missing good stuff! I must add that it was suspected that yun yun was allergic to the lobster cos the next day she was red on her ears and eyelids, haiz, I felt a little bad.
by the time we finished dinner, it was about 7, so we left for the hotel. the next day, we were to attend school! I was quite excited, at the same time nervous cos I was scared to meet my buddy and find out that everything wasn’t that good after all. and I was very uneasy about meeting her parents the day after next.
27 OCT, Monday
had to wake up at 645. ate breakfast at 7 and then at 730, travel to school and reach at 740. it was quite a rush I rmb. we took about 10 mins to get to school, so we were on time. at the school gates, there was the school band waiting to give us a resounding welcome when our coach drove in. whoa, I felt so important at that point of time. :) and what’s more interesting was that there was camera man video our every move. later I found out that he was from the tv station and along with him, there was a news interviewer and we would be on the news on tv! wow, they really treated us like esteemed guest.
the teachers in charge escorted us to a mini conference room where local snacks, water and pomelo were served and ready for consumption. very very hospitable. at about 8 sharp, it was time for the grand assembly. the pl entourage had the honour of standing in front of the whole school during the flag raising ceremony. boy, it was darn grand! they had this every monday and there where real boy and girl scouts marching into the parade, and there were even flag barriers and the flag was sooo big that if I were a china national, looking at the flag itself made me proud of my country. the flag (the cloth part) alone was supported by a rod and when it was brought onto the rostrum, 2 boy scouts were required to mount the flag. there was a commander to get everyone in attention and the china national anthem blasted throughout the whole field. the china national anthem is nothing as beautiful as ours, but it definitely sounds more majestic and the students really honour their flag. the bad point was that there were no lyrics to the anthem. and the pledge, wow, the students shouted their pledge as one, it was like a roar! being there made me really honour china too, that was the amazing spirit there. I was so awed by their patriotism and was wishing with my heart that pl could be like this too. after the flag raising, a guy, who is probably the student head, gave us a welcome message. and then the student body get us an overwhelming round of applause as if we where some Olympic winners. lol. then without further ado, they all jogged back to their classrooms. although their compound was big and there were 3000 over students, they managed to clear the grounds by 3 mins! so amazing! they are really disciplined and pl has lots to learn from them.
after assembly, we proceeded to another room were we received our official welcome message by ma xiao zhang and mrs lee gave her address. then we got paired up with aour china buddies. my buddy was xu yi jia. a supper bubbly girl, and very understanding too. I really thank God for a nice buddy. then we separated ways and went for lessons. the first lesson we attended was the Chinese lesson. it wasn’t much of a real language lesson, but it incorporated much more interesting topics. led by students (my buddy and her friend), they shared with us about the substantial number of bridges located in their province. according to their data, it was a whooping 100, 000 over bridges. while they asked us Singaporean students to guess, the numbers lingered about 50 to 100, who knew that there were so many bridges in shao xing! later, when they touched on a singapore bridge to garner our interest, to our horror, it was some bridge that we did not know. so when they asked us questions, Valerie wang represented us and told the class of about 30 china students and us that this bridge is still in construction and there was no proper name for it yet. however, I knew that it was some marina bay bridge, but never dared to open my mouth. then my bubbly buddy happily chattered in Chinese that the pic in their presentation was some immaterialized future bridge. everyone laughed. but to us Singaporean students, we were scared of the china students’ eagerness to know more!
the next class up for us was pe! I was really excited about pe cos it was probably the only subject that needn’t much talking, just body actions would do. haha, but it was a little disappointing for me as we did taiji and learn how to spin a Chinese yo yo and do a few tricks with it. we lined up in 2 rows and then the male pe teacher started instructing us on the taiji moves. they were too slow for my liking, I was hoping for active sports like badminton or table tennis, or volleyball even. taiji put me off cos it was soooo slow and boring and furthermore, I think I heard this from my mum that it has some connotations with Buddhism… so I wasn’t quite interested. next was the yo yo thingy. lol, it looked so easy but for me, it was quite a feat to muster the skill. we were paired with a china student who taught us how to spin the yo yo. and what’s worse was that I was paired with a left hander, thus it was really hard for my to learn well as my left hand wasn’t as nimble. then after much wasted time and not even grasping the first skill, I finally asked my buddy to try to teach me with her right hand, and she couldn’t! lol, she must have finally realized the frustration for using one’s inferior arm to control the yo yo, so she begged her right hander friend to teach me, that was when I managed to pick up the basics. however, it was soon time to call it a day, so I never went past the basics, and watching davina and dora perform tricks fit for experts in front of the class, I couldn’t help but feel even more disappointed, with the pe session and in myself.
after pe, we had music. shao xing is a very cultural place, and it places music and arts as one of its general aptitudes. truly, the students in the jian gong school have amazing talents, they can act, sing, perform opera or anything related. and im unsure whether every lesson is like that, but the lesson was sure interesting and enjoyable, unlike our’s back in pl.
lunch followed up after music lesson, we met our buddies and ste in the cafeteria. Samantha ang’s buddy and mine were best pals, so we ended up sitting together. interestingly, it was more of the conversations between sam and I and yi jia and her friend. so I spoke little Chinese!
at 1, we broke school. the unfortunate jian gong students have to stay in school everyday till 5! that’s torturous! but in turn, they get only 3 years of secondary education. and they have lots of breaks in between their lessons, thus are very relaxed, unlike we singapore students having to scurry from class to class all the time.
okay, back to the point, we went for a cruise down the gorgeous east lake! we sat 3 people in a sampan like boat with a paddler. I sat with shariel and yun yun, n we were clicking our cameras away. the place was just too picturesque! we even had the opportunity to enter a cave with high majestic rocks on all four corners, and when we shouted, our voices were echoed. very cool!
the boat ride lasted for 10 mins, after which, we alighted at the river side, there, the scenery was as breath-taking as the scenery when we were on the boat. so shariel, yun yun, jin ting and I requested to take a few pics with the different teachers, they all happily obliged. at that place, a small business was being run too. and things there were pretty exquisite and thus I bought 4 melon topped wooden pens for each of the members of my clique, as an object of clique identity. the irony was that I didn’t get one for myself. hmmm.. is that some negative foreboding? I hope not! the shop also sold calligraphy fans at a sound price of 20 rmb. it was almost too good to be true. wanted to get one for my dad and mom, but embarrassingly was unsure of their Chinese names. and there was insufficient time to contact them to find out, so I ditched the idea. instead, I bought for Natalie and noelene each a key chain with had their names inscribed on a grain of rice in a miniature version of a test tube which was inserted into a globule of oil that enlarged the names. it was impressive art.
later, after everyone had bought their share of coveted items, it was time for us to makan. subsequently, we went for another cruise along the link moat. oh no, I can’t really remember this event! L but nevermind, it must have been uninteresting that’s why I forgot, so it’s okay.
when we got back to the hotel, the teachers debriefed us and we had a surprise birthday celebration. it was mr lim’s birthday! haha. we had a cake that had this cool candle, which was in the manner of a lily blossom. we did not know what on earth it was until wang lao shi (who obviously knew cos I think this candle is pretty common in china) lighted it n it gloriously opened to reveal even smaller and delicate candles inside of it. haha, it almost seemed as beautiful as the real thing blossoming. so we sang the birthday song, in Chinese and english. everyone had a piece of cake and the day was brought to an end.
stay tuned for the next part. it will take time, definitely!
alright, i have decided to devide my china trip recounts into parts, if not the post would be too trmendously long! so here's day 1 to day 4. haha, i think all the excitement has subsided, but nvm, this shall be a very good journal of sorts for me. and no, i have not gone beyond day 1 -4. :)
okay, warning. u are in for a ultra verbose post here. so hang on!
OCT 23, Thursday
I was pretty unsure about this trip. In the morning, I couldn’t believe that in a few hours time, I would be in the air, and I wasn’t even in the mood for the trip. this was due to some reasons, firstly, I felt that shariel and I were not as good friends as we once were, so that meant that I had to ‘look’ for another friends, a ‘special one’ for the trip. secondly, the teachers had a little bit of a bad impression of me. cos I had genuinely forgotten to turn up for an important briefing, but my excuse was that I was depressed due to some problems in school, but would anyone think it valid? furthermore, mrs lee, the principal was going, so that meant that I had to put on my best behavior for the trip.
I got to the airpot at 11pm, with dad and mom (er jie had exam the next day, so couldn’t accompany me. L) and because I didn’t attend the briefing, I was the only one who wasn’t wearing the PL jacket. so I quickly changed out. this was definitely not to best way to start a trip of 10 days, not knowing what I had missed out during the briefing. some more, shariel wasn’t very friendly at all, so I wasn’t roo keen to approach her. and oh, sherilyn went too, but I wasn’t in the same group as her, so I could not really interact with her. we all took a group photo and then ms goh our vp prayed for us. Then we waited to board the plane. mr lim, my blue group’s teacher-in-charge was ever competitive and wanted to to outwalk the red group even while heading to the inspection area. haha, he cheered me up a little.
OCT 24, Friday
at the stroke of midnight to friday, i was on the plane, i sat at the window beside shariel, awake, exploring the cool facilities. unfortunately, i could not sacrifice my precious sleep and health for a movie or two, so most of the time, i was sleeping, excluding times when i was served food and when the annoying lights went on and off while the air stewardess were making their rounds. so i about only 4hs of sleep that night. when we reached the shanghai airport, i was still droopy. we collected our luggage and deposited them in a coach which would transport them to the shanghai hotel we would be residing in. we also met our tour guide for the whole trip, xiao yan.
then we were off to the maglev train station just nearby the airport. boy, i tell u, the experience was golly good! in the carriage, mr lim, the only physic teacher took the opportunity to explain to us the wonder of the train, that it rode on magnetism and was actually floating on a thin sheet of air that it removed the presence of friction, resulting in faster speeding for the train. it was really interesting! the train went up to 301km/h and took abt 7mins to bring us from the shanghai airport to its city, the distance easily being slightly larger than the width of singapore!
upon reaching the city, we had our maiden experience of the outside environment. the temperature was a cool 15 degrees celcius! I felt kinda weird having an air conditioned open space. haha. we headed for a xiaolongbao restaurant just below the station. there, we witnessed the first unpleasant situation. a male customer was fighting with the female restaurant manager. the fight was not only verbal, but physical too! the guy was roughly hitting the woman in the face while other customers and staff tried to calm them down. the interesting thing was that the woman was game, she was fighting back. i was wondering how on earth could the ppl express their unhappiness and anger in such an open way. in my 15 years of life, I can guarantee that I have not ever witness such a happening in my country, or maybe only 1 or 2 only. and in china, my very first experience with china Chinese was a fight! it was truly evidence that Singaporeans are cultured people. :) and im glad to say that that was the only fight that I saw in the land of china.
next, at the science centre in shanghai, we watched a 4D show! u noe what’s 4D? it is a 3D show that incorporates the other senses of touch, smell, besides the usual 2 of sound and sight. it was super cool! there were times when water was sprayed to give a more authentic feel as we were watching a pirate show, and there was a time when the seats dramatically plunge down a little when 2 pirates fell into a booby-trap. everyone screamed! haha, it was so sudden and unexpected.
after the show, we were given time to explore the 4 whole levels of the science centre. we had to go in groups of 4s for safety. I went with yun yun, shariel and jinting. the science centre was swell! it was a little of an amusement park combined with a learning centre. this made the learning oh so interesting! I shall not go so much into detail here, but what I meant by fun was that they games like archery to explain elasticity and boxing a bolster to test for reactivity etc.
then we headed for nanjinglu. we went to the most pedestrian friendly part of the shopping area. there I bought my beloved food! CHESTNUTS. and they were pretty palatable!
subsequently, we headed for dinner at a restaurant. before I start bragging about how good the dinner was, I shall first boast how our meals were like throughout the whole of the china trip. we went to restaurants for every meal. they were more or less good restaurants which served good food, if not decent ones. and we were fed with so much food each time that we became serial offenders of the law against wasting of food! everyday, I ate till my belly was bloated and so did everyone, but the table never seemed to be lacked of leftovers. boy! I could say that I have grown fatter over the days, so much pampering! but it was also at the restaurants that I discovering this very abhorrible problem of the Chinese men. they LOVEEEEE to smoke. >( even in air- conditioned places were there were the ‘no smoking’ signs. they would harm people around them with unwanted diseases in the future and pollute the air necessarily yet they smoke their lungs away as if the world was at their feet, I hate these detestable idiots! our tour guide xiao yan explained that it was culture, cos it was very cold and thus they smoked to warm their bodies. my foot, they must as well eat fire, since they are indirectly doing that while smoking… nevertheless, despite the smoke from smokers, I had generally had a good time with my group at the dinner table, with mr lim, my group teacher, cracking up us up with the jokes of his.
following dinner, we checked in the shanghai business hotel, otherwise called joyage. there was a com! but I didn’t know whether it was free to use, so I didn’t use. I watched tv and ate some of the delicious chestnuts. then went to sleep. day 1 of china trip came to a close.
OCT 25, Saturday
we had breakfast at the hotel, food was normal, with xiaolongbao again. then we went to the world famous madame tussauds wax museum. there, we saw many wax mannequins of many celebs. some of them were liuxiang, the Chinese hurdler who is a hero in the hearts of the china citizens for winning a gold in the 2004 olympics. although he was a flop in this year’s, I guess the Chinese don’t mind at all, cos the fact of him winning once was good enough for Chinese pride. furthermore, they had a few manikins of him at the museum, this shows how important and popular he still is. other stars include yao ming, the becks couple, movie characters like Charlie chaplin, james bond, and local singers. all in all, the tour impressed me greatly, the ability of the crafter of the mannequins is unquestionable, almost all had looked exactly like their respective personas. but I was a little disappointed at how limited the collection was, I was hoping to see some of my fav Korean stars, but I saw none. maybe, my next travel destination target is new york, where I believe has a much more wider variety.
afterwards, we ate lunch at some restaurant. when we finished, it started to drizzle. as u know, im hearing impaired and the device that I wear is unresistant to water, so it was super inconvenient for me to be out. furthermore, we were going for shopping, shopping in cheng huang miao, an open area with many many stalls. and no, the place isn’t what it’s name suggest, a temple, instead it is rows of shops that are all inside building structures that are in the shape of temples. yeah, so the name was probably derived from the architectural beauty of the shopping area.
at cheng huang miao, we moved in our usual fours, we went around and saw cool stuff like Chinese art and crafts. I bought a purse for my grandma, that was probably the first purchase I made during the trip. :) then we went to a chopsticks shop. there were so many chopsticks, and all in different prices. some were dirt cheap, other exquisite ones were a few hundreds of rmb. there were chopsticks with one’s surname imprinted, I was contemplating whether I should get 5 pairs for my family, but since it was about 20 plus a pair, no bargaining was allowed so I thought that I might be spending too much on just one item, so I dropped the idea. the next shop we went to was a shirt shop, thanks to the previous group of friends were haggled pretty much for us, I managed to a get a shirt for erjie at 40 rmb in contrast with it usual price of 80 rmb! haha, I was so glad. afterwards, while shariel and yun yun were searching for their pooh shop, we came upon a shop that did name printing in a rainbow of colours. it was very beautiful and I decided to get one bookmark for Samuel. actually, I had come across such business in Malaysia during the 2007 church camp. I got one scroll for myself and even one for Nadine. it was truly sensational art! after that, it was time to leave to go to the shanghai bookshop.
the bookshop swept me off my feet! the books were pretty cheap there, thanks to the keen competition among the shops in the area. the bookshop was a 7 storeys high, haha, I doubt singapore has a bookstore that can match up to this. even borders isn’t as big, but in shanghai, there was this street of bookstores that were a few floors high, all vying for customers, thus the strong competition and low prices. this was so although unfortunately, majority of the books were in Chinese. that was the only drawback. and the irony was that although we were in china, all the pl girls flocked around the foreign imported books section, that is, the english books. haha, I bought the choice there, a novel by Nicholas sparks at 65 rmb. that’s about S$13? I think it’s cheaper :) I wanted to buy brisingr, but I saw the price and felt that it could be cheaper with the small paperback version. so im waiting till it is released that way in singapore. also, I went to the cd store and bought 2 shows.
after all the shopping, I was quite tired, esp my legs. haha, and then we went for dinner. I forgot where, but it was definitely some high end restaurant with lots of good food. :) after dinner, we got a cruise along the shanghai bund. the boat was pretty much like some larger steamboat made of wood and it was of course run by motor. during the cruise, I remember that it w as raining and there was strong wind, so it was freaking cold! I had worn 2 layers of clothes and the pl jacket, but that was definitely not enough! I had to slip on another jacket and zipped up all the way. so much for the physical discomfort, I was rewarded with the dazzling sights along straits. much of the city was lit up and the scene was magnificent enough to keep the pl girls flashing their cameras away. on the banks, i saw the pearl oriental tower (the sky scraper that we visited on the last night) and all the buildings that make up what u could call the CDB of shanghai. after about 20 mins, most of the pl girls felt chilled, so we all made our way down to the more or less enclosed room, which had no need for air con, instead, only 2 thin spaces of openings were enough to keep us comfortable, not too cold nor warm. there, shariel, yun yun, jinting and I shared some jokes with each other to keep the excitement going. when it was close to the end of the journey, we went up again to have a last feel of the atmosphere on top of the boat. that brought the day’s activities to a close, we had our debrief in the coach cos it was getting very late. then we went to our rooms to catch valued rest.
OCT 26, Sunday
the Lord’s day! being a group representing a Christian school, traveling with the company of mainly Christian teachers, they made sure that we started the day with God. I quite appreciated that. :) we had singspiration in the coach and chen lao shi even gave exhortation and told us her life stories. we were so captivated by her charm in telling stories that the bus was all quiet while she spun her tale, which is a rare happening unless all of us are resting. haha, I knew chen lao shi talents in story telling before I came for this trip as she is my Chinese teacher and she nvr fails to keep my class enchanted by her stories, be they real or fictitious, but they were most life stories that had some morale of the story kind of thing. the stories she shared on the coach was about God’s faithfulness in protecting she and her family in many of life occasions. I really enjoyed them.
after exhortation, it was lesson time. these teachers are sure hardworking! they didn’t give us a chance to be too idle. mr lim taught us probability.. which is maths.. and I remember it best cos the lesson was in english. harhar… also, we had snatch quiz, by which we had to qiang da question on what we had learnt the previous 2 days.
after about 4 hours of travel, we had reached shaoxing. almost immediately after the toll gate, we saw a few cars waiting. guess what, in them was ma xiao zhang, the principal of jian gong school (the school we’re doing cultural immersion with) and her bevy of teachers. when our teachers got down the coach to greet them, they received bouquets of fresh flowers. whoa, the host are really hospitable! ma xiao zhang even embraced mrs lee with a warm hug. wow, they look just like little playmates. hehe.
we had lunch at the garden hotel of shelter bridge, the hotel that we were to put up at when we were in shao xing. the food was woah! so much food! this was where we had stacked plates of unfinished food. not that we wanted to waste them, but we ate to our filled and could not eat any further. what’s more is that the teachers got vip treatment, they went to the vip room and they were probably served 2 times the amount of what we got! the host are really models of congeniality.
following lunch, we went to ma shan farm. at first, I was unsure of what king of farm it would be. was it a fruit farm? an animal farm? but it wasn’t any of the two, it was a fish farm! and u noe what we were going to do. :) yes, we were going to fish. haha, I was really excited about fishing! I rmb the times when I was young, when I went to kelongs with my family and church friends, I had on one occasion caught a small fish with the help of my dad. it was a genuine sense of accomplishment when u caught a fish. hehe. but this time, there were too many fishers contending for fish that most of the fish were either caught or smart enough to keep to the middle of the pond, lest they be tempted by the bait. after waiting for a while, only 1 meagre fish was caught within the pl group, n that fish was unfortunately not mine. I was wondering whether the farm owners were cheats that pur only a few small fishes for us to catch, but I was proven wrong as there were some Chinese nationals, fishing n the same pool, who manage to hit jackpot a few times, and their fish were large ones, like those u see cooked in restaurants. maybe it was just the problem with our poor skill. later, mr lim said that the fish were all too full alr and did not bother about more food. so I was unsuccessful in my quest to catch one fish.
since we fished for about 1 hour, in the cold chilly wind and slight drizzle, we were quite hungry. good thing dinner came at 5. oh, and something I would like to add here, the sky gets dark at 5! thanks to the autumn season, so when I was in china, I always thought it is 9 when it was actually only 7. like china was 2hs slower than singapore time, but it is not, only the sky darkening earlier makes 9 in china feel like midnight to me, a singaporean.
yeah, back to the point, we were served a very scrumptious dinner by the farm people. oh, I think this was the first time we ate away from restaurants, but the food was shiok nevertheless! the farm people mostly cooked their produce, so they were fresh to the boot. and it was there where I tasted the best herbal chicken soup! it was soooooooooo nice that my table had the cheek to ask for second helping of soup! only to be quite disappointed that they gave us another kind of soup, a veg soup, but the taste was still fantastic. also, the prawns and fish rock and the mini lobsters were nice too. I guess im a very seafood person! oh btw, I introduced the lobster to Stephanie wong and to yun yun, and they both loved it. however, some at our table took a strong dislike to the lobster due to its appearance, they said it looked like cockroaches, haiz… they were missing good stuff! I must add that it was suspected that yun yun was allergic to the lobster cos the next day she was red on her ears and eyelids, haiz, I felt a little bad.
by the time we finished dinner, it was about 7, so we left for the hotel. the next day, we were to attend school! I was quite excited, at the same time nervous cos I was scared to meet my buddy and find out that everything wasn’t that good after all. and I was very uneasy about meeting her parents the day after next.
27 OCT, Monday
had to wake up at 645. ate breakfast at 7 and then at 730, travel to school and reach at 740. it was quite a rush I rmb. we took about 10 mins to get to school, so we were on time. at the school gates, there was the school band waiting to give us a resounding welcome when our coach drove in. whoa, I felt so important at that point of time. :) and what’s more interesting was that there was camera man video our every move. later I found out that he was from the tv station and along with him, there was a news interviewer and we would be on the news on tv! wow, they really treated us like esteemed guest.
the teachers in charge escorted us to a mini conference room where local snacks, water and pomelo were served and ready for consumption. very very hospitable. at about 8 sharp, it was time for the grand assembly. the pl entourage had the honour of standing in front of the whole school during the flag raising ceremony. boy, it was darn grand! they had this every monday and there where real boy and girl scouts marching into the parade, and there were even flag barriers and the flag was sooo big that if I were a china national, looking at the flag itself made me proud of my country. the flag (the cloth part) alone was supported by a rod and when it was brought onto the rostrum, 2 boy scouts were required to mount the flag. there was a commander to get everyone in attention and the china national anthem blasted throughout the whole field. the china national anthem is nothing as beautiful as ours, but it definitely sounds more majestic and the students really honour their flag. the bad point was that there were no lyrics to the anthem. and the pledge, wow, the students shouted their pledge as one, it was like a roar! being there made me really honour china too, that was the amazing spirit there. I was so awed by their patriotism and was wishing with my heart that pl could be like this too. after the flag raising, a guy, who is probably the student head, gave us a welcome message. and then the student body get us an overwhelming round of applause as if we where some Olympic winners. lol. then without further ado, they all jogged back to their classrooms. although their compound was big and there were 3000 over students, they managed to clear the grounds by 3 mins! so amazing! they are really disciplined and pl has lots to learn from them.
after assembly, we proceeded to another room were we received our official welcome message by ma xiao zhang and mrs lee gave her address. then we got paired up with aour china buddies. my buddy was xu yi jia. a supper bubbly girl, and very understanding too. I really thank God for a nice buddy. then we separated ways and went for lessons. the first lesson we attended was the Chinese lesson. it wasn’t much of a real language lesson, but it incorporated much more interesting topics. led by students (my buddy and her friend), they shared with us about the substantial number of bridges located in their province. according to their data, it was a whooping 100, 000 over bridges. while they asked us Singaporean students to guess, the numbers lingered about 50 to 100, who knew that there were so many bridges in shao xing! later, when they touched on a singapore bridge to garner our interest, to our horror, it was some bridge that we did not know. so when they asked us questions, Valerie wang represented us and told the class of about 30 china students and us that this bridge is still in construction and there was no proper name for it yet. however, I knew that it was some marina bay bridge, but never dared to open my mouth. then my bubbly buddy happily chattered in Chinese that the pic in their presentation was some immaterialized future bridge. everyone laughed. but to us Singaporean students, we were scared of the china students’ eagerness to know more!
the next class up for us was pe! I was really excited about pe cos it was probably the only subject that needn’t much talking, just body actions would do. haha, but it was a little disappointing for me as we did taiji and learn how to spin a Chinese yo yo and do a few tricks with it. we lined up in 2 rows and then the male pe teacher started instructing us on the taiji moves. they were too slow for my liking, I was hoping for active sports like badminton or table tennis, or volleyball even. taiji put me off cos it was soooo slow and boring and furthermore, I think I heard this from my mum that it has some connotations with Buddhism… so I wasn’t quite interested. next was the yo yo thingy. lol, it looked so easy but for me, it was quite a feat to muster the skill. we were paired with a china student who taught us how to spin the yo yo. and what’s worse was that I was paired with a left hander, thus it was really hard for my to learn well as my left hand wasn’t as nimble. then after much wasted time and not even grasping the first skill, I finally asked my buddy to try to teach me with her right hand, and she couldn’t! lol, she must have finally realized the frustration for using one’s inferior arm to control the yo yo, so she begged her right hander friend to teach me, that was when I managed to pick up the basics. however, it was soon time to call it a day, so I never went past the basics, and watching davina and dora perform tricks fit for experts in front of the class, I couldn’t help but feel even more disappointed, with the pe session and in myself.
after pe, we had music. shao xing is a very cultural place, and it places music and arts as one of its general aptitudes. truly, the students in the jian gong school have amazing talents, they can act, sing, perform opera or anything related. and im unsure whether every lesson is like that, but the lesson was sure interesting and enjoyable, unlike our’s back in pl.
lunch followed up after music lesson, we met our buddies and ste in the cafeteria. Samantha ang’s buddy and mine were best pals, so we ended up sitting together. interestingly, it was more of the conversations between sam and I and yi jia and her friend. so I spoke little Chinese!
at 1, we broke school. the unfortunate jian gong students have to stay in school everyday till 5! that’s torturous! but in turn, they get only 3 years of secondary education. and they have lots of breaks in between their lessons, thus are very relaxed, unlike we singapore students having to scurry from class to class all the time.
okay, back to the point, we went for a cruise down the gorgeous east lake! we sat 3 people in a sampan like boat with a paddler. I sat with shariel and yun yun, n we were clicking our cameras away. the place was just too picturesque! we even had the opportunity to enter a cave with high majestic rocks on all four corners, and when we shouted, our voices were echoed. very cool!
the boat ride lasted for 10 mins, after which, we alighted at the river side, there, the scenery was as breath-taking as the scenery when we were on the boat. so shariel, yun yun, jin ting and I requested to take a few pics with the different teachers, they all happily obliged. at that place, a small business was being run too. and things there were pretty exquisite and thus I bought 4 melon topped wooden pens for each of the members of my clique, as an object of clique identity. the irony was that I didn’t get one for myself. hmmm.. is that some negative foreboding? I hope not! the shop also sold calligraphy fans at a sound price of 20 rmb. it was almost too good to be true. wanted to get one for my dad and mom, but embarrassingly was unsure of their Chinese names. and there was insufficient time to contact them to find out, so I ditched the idea. instead, I bought for Natalie and noelene each a key chain with had their names inscribed on a grain of rice in a miniature version of a test tube which was inserted into a globule of oil that enlarged the names. it was impressive art.
later, after everyone had bought their share of coveted items, it was time for us to makan. subsequently, we went for another cruise along the link moat. oh no, I can’t really remember this event! L but nevermind, it must have been uninteresting that’s why I forgot, so it’s okay.
when we got back to the hotel, the teachers debriefed us and we had a surprise birthday celebration. it was mr lim’s birthday! haha. we had a cake that had this cool candle, which was in the manner of a lily blossom. we did not know what on earth it was until wang lao shi (who obviously knew cos I think this candle is pretty common in china) lighted it n it gloriously opened to reveal even smaller and delicate candles inside of it. haha, it almost seemed as beautiful as the real thing blossoming. so we sang the birthday song, in Chinese and english. everyone had a piece of cake and the day was brought to an end.
stay tuned for the next part. it will take time, definitely!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Watch this
this is cool. im not very familiar with all the songs here, but this is definitely cool to ppl how noe all the songs.
norwegian recycling - how six songs collide
norwegian recycling - how six songs collide
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Yay, im liberated!
:) im happy. cos today i went to natalie's house to play sims 2!! my characters are sooo cool and they are falling in very much in love and making babies! i wish my life was like sims 2, cos with me as the mastermind, i wouldn't allow IDIOTS to sabotage my life and make me sad. and to that someone, if u think im a pathetic little weakling that doesn't have the strength and power to retaliate to idiots who think they are sooo above me.. u are totally wrong, cos i can be extremely vicious by nature, but since God teaches me to love my enemies, i shall try to love them, even if it was against my will. i will try. a side note to someone out there, i think u are really un-commonsensical and cowardly to say what u dared to say to me. please learn one word. f-o-r-g-i-v-e. no one is perfect, and who noes, u might do something even worse to someone else one day, and what would u hope in return? forgiveness's the word. okay, i better not say more, i must restrain myself from going out of control.
oh boy, i have seriously side tracked from sims. but to all my dear friends who were concerned about what happedned to me during the beautiful mess (the title of the episode given by elyssa in her blog) and afraid if im suicidal, thank God, im no longer feeling that way. im happy. :) thanks for ur concerns, i LOVE u all A LOT!
and thanks a billion nat for letting me play sims 2! i love u for that too!
oh boy, i have seriously side tracked from sims. but to all my dear friends who were concerned about what happedned to me during the beautiful mess (the title of the episode given by elyssa in her blog) and afraid if im suicidal, thank God, im no longer feeling that way. im happy. :) thanks for ur concerns, i LOVE u all A LOT!
and thanks a billion nat for letting me play sims 2! i love u for that too!
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Rock Climbing (featuring CK)
yay! this sat, i went for ck and it was rock climbing. it was super fun! it was my 2nd time rcing since the first time when i was P5, at P5 camp. haha, that's so long ago, but i reached the top when i was P5, so this time, i told myself to do the same.
we rced at safra yishun club. the name is something like that.. yeah, so when we got there, we had to fill up a form. it was sort of a medical background reveal all kind of form, i guess the management was making sure that they would not be held responsible for any casualties should the person adamantly rced even though he/she knew he/she was not in the right physical form. after that, we paid 5 bucks each (isaac paid for us first then we paid him at the end). it's actually 10 bucks, but since claudia knew someone from inside, we got half the price! :) thanks claudia!
next, we went to the gymnasium of sorts where there were rock climbing walls as walls. so we first-timers and unfamiliarist could try out and practice first. the floor was actually padded cushion, so that if we fell, we did not fall to injury, instead, to cushion. i climbed a fair bit a then even got game enough to race with nat. lol, but i lost. my excuse: the 'rocks' on my side were much smaller and grip unfriendly, also, i had shorter limbs, so i could not reach for the ceiling as easily. okay, i realised that i should change the word 'excuse' to 'excuses'. well, i think humans are very good at making excuses whenn they don't do well. yay, im human... lol. finally, i felt brave enough to try the ones outside. u shall see how scary looking the rcing walls were. they were a good 5 storeys high walls.
claudia went first. she tried some tricky wall, but she passed it as if it was nothing. i think she really inspired us to rock climb and finish it. btw, she's level 2 in rcing, that's the highest level, if im not wrong, so we had some professional help here. ;) after claudia, nat felt so spunky that she went next, but doing a less challenging one. she did well and reached the top before long. :) good job nat! then more and more of us became intrepid souls and gave our best. look out for the pics on those who reached the top. i didnt take all done, but great effort everyone! :)
anyway, at the end of it all, the group went for dinner near north point. uncle john aka uncle fai chong treated us to dinner! see the pics below, all of us were so happy! :) (too bad nat couldn't join us. :( )
setting off. :) both of us wearing contacts
2 pairs of sisters. :)
er jie the belayer. she learnt her skills when she was in rgs. so good!
yeah, nat has conquered the wall!
following conquerors. elias and isa!
whoo, im going up (haha, i realised it is a sister act, we are almost in the same pose!)
n up
and i've finally reached! poor erjie, used up some of her energy belaying others before, now she was quite tired
my dearest belayer, claudia, waiting so patiently. whoa, she looks so relaxed here, thank goodness she did not drop me!
yay, we've both reached! i waited for erjie, see i so nice!
taking pic. i was probably scared out of my wits cos of the height i was at, im terrified of heights!
noelene, me, erjie in our rock climbing 'underwear'. the proper term: harness...
elisa and i. she belayed my sis and got rewarded with a huge blister on her right hand. ouch! she has o's this week! i pity her! thanks elisa, but i doubt she will read this. :(
another belaying skill?
erjie the belayer. (with my 'crush' in the background, lol only nat and noelene will understand this ;) )
the little girl at the rocks!
sisters! but i wished i had sat properly. if not it will so nice! both of us wearing blue!
here're the walls for u! 5 storey worth of climbing. the middle's a terror, we witness some NS guy climbing it and he was shrieking in pain with each pull up the top section. unfortunately, he nvr got to the top, he kept falling... so sad for him
dinner! looks like some reunion dinner! okay lemme intro the the ppl here. starting from me in a clockwise direction, me - jemima - tze yan - ivan - boaz - uncle fai chong - claudia - bernice - iva - isa. :) boaz and claudia are siblings and uncle fai chong their dad. iva and isa are sisters. erjie was taking the pic, so she isn't in. :(
btw, im not giving up on my china trip recount, though it will take super long! stay tuned, (if u are patient enough!)
setting off. :) both of us wearing contacts
2 pairs of sisters. :)
the 'gymnasium' cool huh! im the spiderwoman in the plug my guitar shirt. yeah, cca shirt..
three church best friends. nat, lisa, noelene. im surrounded by the wong sisters
erjie trying out rock climbing. she's probably thinking: it's no sweat, im cool..
didnt take a pic of claudia, so nat's the first for my cam. nat rciing, sweetie iva belaying her. i bet iva didnt sweat much, nat's light as an ant, nope not a feather.. im not so cliche
er jie the belayer. she learnt her skills when she was in rgs. so good!
yeah, nat has conquered the wall!
following conquerors. elias and isa!
erjie and i. whoa, i was a huge feat! i sweated throughout! i took about 5 mins to finish the wall... :( tsk, so lousy
whoo, im going up (haha, i realised it is a sister act, we are almost in the same pose!)
n up
and i've finally reached! poor erjie, used up some of her energy belaying others before, now she was quite tired
my dearest belayer, claudia, waiting so patiently. whoa, she looks so relaxed here, thank goodness she did not drop me!
yay, we've both reached! i waited for erjie, see i so nice!
taking pic. i was probably scared out of my wits cos of the height i was at, im terrified of heights!
going down! big butt i have... :(
belayer and conqueror
noelene, me, erjie in our rock climbing 'underwear'. the proper term: harness...
jump! i was too fast and spoilt the pic. :(
elisa and i. she belayed my sis and got rewarded with a huge blister on her right hand. ouch! she has o's this week! i pity her! thanks elisa, but i doubt she will read this. :(
yay! uncle fai chong the paradigm of fitness even during older ages. what i mean is that he isn't as young, but he managed to complete the daunting trail upwards. btw, he's a grandfather alr!
another belaying skill?
erjie the belayer. (with my 'crush' in the background, lol only nat and noelene will understand this ;) )
the little girl at the rocks!
sisters! but i wished i had sat properly. if not it will so nice! both of us wearing blue!
here're the walls for u! 5 storey worth of climbing. the middle's a terror, we witness some NS guy climbing it and he was shrieking in pain with each pull up the top section. unfortunately, he nvr got to the top, he kept falling... so sad for him
dinner! looks like some reunion dinner! okay lemme intro the the ppl here. starting from me in a clockwise direction, me - jemima - tze yan - ivan - boaz - uncle fai chong - claudia - bernice - iva - isa. :) boaz and claudia are siblings and uncle fai chong their dad. iva and isa are sisters. erjie was taking the pic, so she isn't in. :(
okie dokie, i gtg!
btw, im not giving up on my china trip recount, though it will take super long! stay tuned, (if u are patient enough!)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
China (pics first)
here are the pics. this one's for u nat! :) treasure my effort! i took 5hs! and i can't imagine how much longer i will take to post in words!
maglev train. learn the chinese...
the outside of the train, not a very professional pic...
i tought this was a cute fire extinguisher box (as it is stated in the pic). haha
at the 4D show. had to wear that special glasses. lol, i look weird cos of my flat nose!
trying out archery. outof 3 tries only one shot within the circles, another went too high, the other went too low. lol, im so lousy, but not but for 3 tries. i had tried archery a few times in the past, but nvr practised
i thougt this chair is cute! i wouldn't mind having it in my house, but with cushions please!
a large omega watch outside some mall, acting as a clock
it's not very clear, but can u see the signs under the expressway? it was kind of confusing at first, then my buddy explained to me why it is so. she said the the 2 arrows on the right were a different junction from the one on the extreme left. so t he road was like an inverted F. 
caught a roti prata man! a rare sight! spotting an indian in china was so rare that he was the only dark skinned soul i had seen (apart from south african tourist), what more, he could speak fluent chinese!
at lu xun's native residence. (this guys loves to smoke too, something that makes me less admire him)
the zhou family greeting hall, where they attend to guest. zhou family is another term for lu xun's famliy. his surname was zhou, lu xun was his pen name only
lu xun, the great writer. once alive, long gone.
outside the shanghai airport
maglev train. learn the chinese...
max speed! 301km/h!
the outside of the train, not a very professional pic...
xiaolongbao! shanghai is crazy abt it, served it almost every restaurant we went. youtiao was freaking oily!
i tought this was a cute fire extinguisher box (as it is stated in the pic). haha
at the 4D show. had to wear that special glasses. lol, i look weird cos of my flat nose!
trying out archery. outof 3 tries only one shot within the circles, another went too high, the other went too low. lol, im so lousy, but not but for 3 tries. i had tried archery a few times in the past, but nvr practised
in a cool magic room where the floor was slanted at an angle and we had to lean 45 degrees backwards in order to feel stable. if we stood upright, we would feel like falling over and slam into the wall in front.
the professional explanation
at the entrance stood liu xiang with the country flag. this demonstrates how the china people treasure their olympic hero.
madame tussauds wax museum!
with the guy i derived my previos nickname in school. presenting to u, mr albert einstein.
with one of my fav actors and comedians! charlie chaplin!
nic tse.
a large omega watch outside some mall, acting as a clock
blur... the oriental peearl tower. taken when on the cruise along the shanghai bund. i still remember shivering in the cold! it was raining and there was strong wind.
it's not very clear, but can u see the signs under the expressway? it was kind of confusing at first, then my buddy explained to me why it is so. she said the the 2 arrows on the right were a different junction from the one on the extreme left. so t he road was like an inverted F.
fishing at ma shan farm. caught none! but it was fun!
look! so much food! till the waitress had to stack plates up in order to have space for more plates!
nice cliff! really nice scenary!
yun yun and shariel who were sitting opposite me in the sampan like boat
in a cave with a hollow ceiling! very cool place, had achoes when u spoke.
me, chen lao shi (my funny chinese teacher), jinting
with wu lao shi, the all time fav in our school
with mr lim, the wackiest and lamest joker. my a maths teacher for this year too.
me and nice scenary! and the air was cool and shiok!
jiangong school in shaoxing. they was pretty hospitable! had a red banner to 're lie huan ying' us
their school definitely has more green then ours and the compound is much bigger
the students ride bics to school. reminds me of the jap high school dramas i have watched, like 1 litre of tears!
their field and basketball courts. their field is the full 400m field and is where they hold their assembly. they also have about 3 basketball courts, an indoor sports hall, and table tennis tables etc. so much more then what our school offers. well singapore=shortage of land too.
the supre talented art students. :)
the last look of the school. in the bus and it was raining.
one night at shaoxing, we celebrated mr lim's birthday. the teachers!
mr lim and his cake. i felt like caking him, but was aware of the dire consequences! so i of course didnt!
caught a roti prata man! a rare sight! spotting an indian in china was so rare that he was the only dark skinned soul i had seen (apart from south african tourist), what more, he could speak fluent chinese!
at lu xun's native residence. (this guys loves to smoke too, something that makes me less admire him)
the zhou family greeting hall, where they attend to guest. zhou family is another term for lu xun's famliy. his surname was zhou, lu xun was his pen name only
lu xun, the great writer. once alive, long gone.
sherilyn trying to imitate the expression displayed in the pic
ditto
ditto
me, doing a poor job. and im disgusted by it. :(
at my buddy's house. her name's yi jia. and i taught her to play pachelbel's canon in D. she was so eager to learn it after i performed for her. :) she learned super fast! and common interestin using the com and watching tv. we watched meteor garden! and surprise! she knows vitas and loves him too! i guess he's more popular in china. :)
ke yan inscribed in stone. ke yan is one of the most scenic places i have ever come across!
mr lim is extra!!!!! no u see him...
now u dont! what happened to him? haha, i shooed him away and he obeyed to me! no lah, i just omitted him from the pic lah, im not so disrespectful.
claimed to be the best stone under the sky. okay, i can accept that.
a hugh buddha carved from a rock. it was very magnificant! u can compare its size to the people. and there was a bird resting on its right index finger. a cute sight.
friends n i on the path fit for a wedding ailse! 
at yue fei's mauseleum. i liked this hero the day i read about him when i was young. his story is just too tragic!
a effigy of him, he looks rather grand!
the leifeng pagoda of the legend of madam white snake.
isnt this beautiful? these rows flowers greeted us on both sides in the flower garden
this is so splendid! furthermore, there were a few squirrels scurrying about, making this place seem so picturesque
oh! this waterfall is gorgeous!
does thsi look like candy? well it is! a very cool looking one too!
tea bushes on a hill. a hill provides the favourable conditions for growing tea leaves.
cha
a weaving cloth object. so ancient!
i like the reflection!
along the old canal at suzhou.
the hotel at suzhou. the toilet had glass walls! good thing there were screens!
i found this display of flowers soooo beautiful and unresistable, so i had to take a pic
evidence of the legend of the stone cuting sword comes true in my eyes
this is a pagoda that was preserved since its time. :)
at the foot of the hill
the majestic oriental pearl tower
in the OPT, nothing to see lah
claimed to be the best stone under the sky. okay, i can accept that.
a hugh buddha carved from a rock. it was very magnificant! u can compare its size to the people. and there was a bird resting on its right index finger. a cute sight.
white- happy. black- sad.
the 3 beauties, plus sara jane (the extra, haha) see the beautiful overhanging interlocked shade of pink leaved trees above them!
friends n i on the path fit for a wedding ailse!
human pyramid, from bottom - wye syn-wang lao shi-mr lim-sara jane. i guess mr lim wasn't too happy, being shorter than sara jane.
i wouldn't mind having a house like this by the lake. but modern of course!
mr lim, the china version of stamford raffles? haha, far from it!
yun yun n i in a boat
yun yun n i in a boat
the disgustingly bitter cup of wine that each one of us had for free. i took a sip and gave up on the rest. although it was famous shaoxing wine
pic with the heroes of war
friendship made during the trip, or rather, friendship strengthened
unglam of the shaosxing teachers. can u believe it?! the woman inside the sedan is the oh so sophisicated principal of jiangong school. it was the day she showed her panties and i happened to take it down. too bad, i didnt feel like deleting the pic. well, i can use it to blackmail her next time. no lah, just jkjk.
sheen yih and i. :)
my group! the blue group is the best!
yun yun's super unglam! i secretly took it. she sits behind me, so one time, i whipped up my cam in time to snap this priceless pic!
shairel and i, partners in coach and roommates in hotel
shairel and i, partners in coach and roommates in hotel
this i forgot where, but mr lim paid to ring this bell and wish us some good fortune in our studies. oh so nice of him..
see, man are differentiated by their smoking habbits. how idiotic! these are toilet signs btw
see, man are differentiated by their smoking habbits. how idiotic! these are toilet signs btw
outside a restaurant in hangzhou, a valuabble one in a life time pic with the principal
the teachers! they look so youthful!
the teachers! they look so youthful!
alas, time to say adios! last pic with my buddy and her friend
at yue fei's mauseleum. i liked this hero the day i read about him when i was young. his story is just too tragic!
a effigy of him, he looks rather grand!
the leifeng pagoda of the legend of madam white snake.
isnt this beautiful? these rows flowers greeted us on both sides in the flower garden
this is so splendid! furthermore, there were a few squirrels scurrying about, making this place seem so picturesque
a nice pond with many and much red fish. we had a chance to feed them when mr lim bought some fish food. :)
i find this place nice. :)
the brilliant cultural show we watched in hangzhou.
ahha, gotcha mr lim! his tongue is stuck out! and the soldier is cool! makes the place seem like it was really in the song era.
there was even this impirial edict pasted on walls to make the place even more authentic.
clarissa, she owed me a pic, so she payed back. :) a bubbly girl she is.
sherilyn and i. :)
sherilyn and i. :)
oh! this waterfall is gorgeous!
does thsi look like candy? well it is! a very cool looking one too!
a worker at the mei jia wu tea plantation. he was drying tea leaves in a hot wok
a cute tea pot! a large one though!
tea bushes on a hill. a hill provides the favourable conditions for growing tea leaves.
cha
a wardrobe
a typical bedroom
a dressing table! anybody want? well, the mirror's evenr tarnished!
a weaving cloth object. so ancient!
chicks! along with chicks, many more animals were seen, mainly dogs.
this dog is sooo adorable! it cos be a star in a movie!
a fluffy flur ball! my friends mistook it for a cat! haha
i would like to own a big dog like this one when i grow up! :)
i like the reflection!
friends
along the old canal at suzhou.
the hotel at suzhou. the toilet had glass walls! good thing there were screens!
at the tiger till park!
again, i like the trees here, but what's mr lim's head doing there...
i found this display of flowers soooo beautiful and unresistable, so i had to take a pic
evidence of the legend of the stone cuting sword comes true in my eyes
this is a pagoda that was preserved since its time. :)
at the foot of the hill
the majestic oriental pearl tower
in the OPT, nothing to see lah
the view from the OPT. i guess the black building's the financial trade centre
im feeling quite dead now. so long and tedious! anyway, im sick with sore throat now. it sucks!
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