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!