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.Yours Truly, Raihanah Halim. .For Your Info. 19 ISD ite.bishan 2nd.yr.business.administration we.fumble.in.beijing HAIDA. JESSICA. RAIHANAH. SYAIDAH. ATIQAH. mandarin.channel
chinese.cuisine adventures.in.beijing
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Saturday, December 30, 2006    Home Sweet Home People! today, we were all given the chance to wake up abit later than usual. BUT! everybody woke up early instead.. why? SNow...snoww...SNOww.. Everybody got excited. jumped from my bed and look out of the window with my room mate, Mellissa. SO FUN! First time experiencing snow. i cannot believe it's snowing! China is crying!! coz we people are leaving!hehe~ Mr Chua,Faisal,Viki,Singh,Mellissa,Karmila and myself went for a "morning walk". we had lots of fun walking "under the snow"..hehe! Played "ice-skating" and took lots of pictures too. Beijing is so beautiful! Now, i don't feel like leaving. Can i get lost for a day?please...hehee!! Breakfast is on our own. I bought red dates cakes to bring back home; Singapore. Can't wait to see my family at Changi Airport..Counting the hours to reach singapore! hehe Ok, it's time for us to gather at the entrance of the guesthouse. We need to say goodbye. The tourbus will take us to the airport. The floor is slippery and we had a hard time carrying our luggages to the main street. The shop owner of the Muslim restaurant said goodbye to us. I'm very sad!!! AND the hairdressers from the salon waved at us! That's very sweet of them. We were pretty hungry when we reached the airport.I only have some cash left and it's not enough!!hehe~ and when we got to know that our flight has been delayed, gosh! i feel like having fever! frm 3:30 to 6:30! We got some food and at last, the plane arrived! We board the plane and this time round, i'm seating with KARMILA! best buddy.. We reached Changi Airport at about 1:30 am! it's HARI RAYA HAJI.wohoo~we said goodbye to each other...we hugged each other too! I saw my family members...gosh...i miss them all! Thank you to both teachers and all my wonderful friends.. this is such a great experience and i had lots of fun! Thank you for all the jokes, laughter, care etc.. Friday, December 29, 2006   OOO weee~ a walk to REMEMBER this is our last day in school. we performed. everybody is happy and sad. but i bet, everybody had lots of fun! the farewell party went on smoothly. Games, performances, food..superb! We were dismissed from the school itself.Most of us tooks pictures with the Beijing students as well as the teachers. We received presents from them and vice versa. Some of the students cried. Yes, they will miss us and we will miss them too. Though it's only two weeks of stay and friendship, i can see that everybody mingled very well. And it's very sad to see that know that we have to say goodbye. We will not know when we will get to meet them again but whatever it is, we wish them all the very best in life.We will miss everybody there. The school, teachers, lessons taught and many more. It's such a great experience and it's something that you cannot forget just like that. Our heart sank when we left the school. We made our way to our respective destinations. Some wants to do more shopping since this is so called our last day to shop while the rest went back to the guesthouse to get some rest. For all my friends in Beijing: I appreciate the friendship and i'll definitely miss you all! Thursday, December 28, 2006  Abacus or Calculator? it’s the 2nd last day of school. Had Chinese economy in the morning and we had lunch and then we had Abacus lesson for the first time.. well some of us struggle for the first time using abacus but overall it was fun and challenging as well coz it exercise how accurate you can be without using calculator like how some of us are so use to it. went back to the guesthouse were we had a briefing before we are allowed to roam the city again.We need to buy things for the Class 11 students in appreciation of them giving us a present during the Christmas party.Despite the strong winds, we went out to get something for our friends. Back at the conference room for debrief.Mr Chua told us that we need to put up a performance for tomorrow. It's kind of last minute but we know we can do it!i'm the victim! Mr Chua wants me to sing~ hehe Since we need to perform tomorrow, everybody gathered at MY room. There, we brainstormed and discussed on what to perform for tomorrow. After much consideration, we decided to have a sing-a-long session and dikir barat. Everybody agreed and so,we had rehearsals in the room itself. It was already 1am!we were still rehearsing and having fun.we can't wait to perform.hehe!Eveybody went back to their room at 2am sharp! tomorrow will be our last day in school...very sad though~ Wednesday, December 27, 2006   Shopping for the SHOPAHOLICS! woke up as per normal at 0645hrs.. Excited over today coz we are having half day school today. Yippie.. another shopping trip for all of us after breakfast, we quickly board our magic school bus and we all are now early for our first lesson that is Chinese knot. Today lesson is very difficult.Confusing!! We tried so hard but we ended up not getting the correct knot that it was suppose to be. Don't Give up!! Had lunch in school before the students joined us to the Wan Tong Wholesale Market. We took the subway again and good thing it wasn’t too pack like the other time when we were going to Silk Market. When we reach there we were given 2 hours to shop around the place. After that, we had our first experience taking the bus back to our guesthouse. it took us around 30 mins from the Wholesale Market to our guesthouse. And it cost 1 yuan each person no matter how far your journey is. We are able to roam around the place and had briefing at around 2130hrs.. we went to the lane behind KFC and had more shopping.. hehe.. never get bored nor tired at all.. We had our dinner at the usual Muslim stall near our guesthouse before going back to the guesthouse for our briefing.Everybody looked tired...instead of going straight to bed, i packed my things..put them into my luggage!!hehe~ Tuesday, December 26, 2006   Box-ing Day! It was morning and we all woke up for breakfast. All of a sudden, it blacked out again. But it was morning this time, and there wasn’t much hindrance. We left to school for Chinese Accounts again. Then it was lunch. The guys then proceeded to the basketball court after lunch for a game with the Beijing students. The girls played badminton! I cannot really comment on who was the better team. We can’t blame our guys anyway, the Beijing students play basketball during their break everyday. And you can imagine how good they are. A whole group of Beijing students approached to watch the game, very hilarious. We had Chinese note-counting lesson after that, and we learnt a new method to count cash, it was using four fingers to calculate 4 notes at a time. A faster method compared to the ones we learnt last week. It was back to our rest house after that and we had our individual free time to check out Beijing. Most of our friends went to the nearby salon to get their hair done! New hairstyle~they look fresh and got style!!Rebonding,higlighting,perming etc...and it's CHEAP! And it was back to the rest house for the briefing session and it was off to bed. Another day conquered. Monday, December 25, 2006   Ho Ho Ho...Merry Christmas! It is Christmas Day! Imagine Christmas day spent in Beijing, isn’t it absolutely wonderful! This is our 1st time celebrating Christmas in Beijing!so exciting! We had breakfast as usual, And off to school we were for Chinese Accounting. Chinese accounting was very boring, Half the class was asleep because they all stayed up last night for the countdown of Christmas. Lunch was next, followed by a mini Christmas party Class 11 of Chinese Finance and Economic School planned for us. We had a little picture taking session after that, and it was back to Chinese Economy. We returned back to the rest house after that and had our individual free time to continue exploring Beijing. We had to return to the rest house later at night for our own Christmas Party too. We had a gift exchange thing for each other; we bought gifts for one another without knowing who’ll be buying presents for us. It was very exciting. We had a lot of fun guessing who our presents were from. We were all back into our rooms and getting ready for sleep when it blacked out all of a sudden. All the rooms on the second floor blacked out, the girls rushed out from their rooms to check what happened. And we all ended up slacking on the first floor with the rest of our friends til Chong helped us fix the switch. Can't wait for tonight! Gifts Exchange! I wonder what i'll receive from my friend!!! And it was the end of Christmas, a very fun-filled day. Sunday, December 24, 2006    Tian' an Men Square,Forbidden City,Temple of Heaven & us... Mr Chua reminded us the day before that today will be the most tiring day for us. He hopes that everybody had a good rest. First, we went to Tian'an Men Square. It's where Mao Zhe Dong's body has been preserved. Before this, honestly, most of us thought that it's a shopping centre!you know.. Century Square...sounds like a name of a shopping centre..sorry~ We had to walk a distance to the place.Surprisingly, there were so many people there. There was an annoucement telling us that we are not allowed to bring anything inside except for some cash. Therefore, we had to leave our bags with our tour guide. We had to queue before we could enter the building. The queue is exactly like queuing for National Day tickets.Very long! I think those who took History in school will feel honoured when seeing HIS body. All this while, we have been hearing his name and reading about him..but here we are,getting the opportunity to see him CLOSE. It's a very nice place and people bought flowers to put in front of his statue.This is such a memorable experience~ Next, Forbidden City. Such a huge place! some of us got tired halfway. The strong winds made some of our toes and hands numb.We endured! We heard interesting stories regarding the Forbidden City. It's so historical~ We had lunch after that. Lunch was at a very popular restaurant. The waitress wore their traditional clothes and not forgetting the clogs!can u imagine carrying and serving food on clogs? fuh~interesting Temple of Heaven...yes, the atmosphere, the scenery do makes you somehow feel like you're in heaven. The place will look much better if there's snow. The trees especially. Took alot of pictures,more knowledge on the Temple of Heaven. We had to walk a distance to board our tour bus.Everybody looked tired.Some even took a short nap in the bus on our way back to the guesthouse! Mr Chua let us go out on our own once we reached the guesthouse but we need to be back by 8:30pm for debrief. Lots of things to share.. Everybody has already bought their CHRISTMAS presents..for tomorrow's gift exchange party..yaberdaberdoo! We agree to what people have been saying.."it takes a lot of time to acually understand the History of China". Saturday, December 23, 2006   T:G:I:S - Thank God it's Saturday! well, we have fieldtrips on every weekends. Today, we are going to the museum. From what i heard, it's only 1 year old. Very new! We were too early. We reached the museum before 9 and it has not opened.ehehe! waited for a few minutes before we get to enter and explore the museum. Our friends from China accompanied us and we started walking around, exploring . The artefacts and everything in the museum are very beautiful! Took alot of pictures there. Everybody was too excited and forgot to switch our camera flash off.we were warned by the person in charge.sorry~ We spent few hours there. Going around, looking at the displays, bought some snacks. After all the exploration, we went to the souvenir shop which is located at the basement of the 5-storey high museum. You can get many things there.. The customer service is good! Some friends bought Olympics stuff.hehe! you can actually find that everywhere in Beijing..the original ones of course. Mr Chua and some friends took the Olympics Brochure from the shop. Mr Chua can be the Olympics ambassador actually! he's so interested in the Olympics stuff~hehe! Khai & I tried the Hello Kitty ice cream.hehe! there's a gift in the cup too~ see! how interesting china's ice cream is! It costs 4 Y. yummy! it's vanilla.. All were exhausted. We went back to out guesthouse. Those who wants to go to the IT mall followed Mr Chua and James. The rest took their afternoon nap at their respective rooms~ We shop again and again..bought some souvenirs for family and friends.. My money is getting lesser and lesser...stop spending Hana!! phew~ Everybody is happy..and we had lots of fun today! Friday, December 22, 2006   We present to you... Oh well, before we could enter the dining room for breakfast, we could actually see everybody asking each other "eh, did you bring your thumbdrive?" hehe! That shows everybody is very serious about the presentation. We are all nervous especially us! Though this is not the first time presenting,the feeling is just different maybe because the audience is different. We had Chinese Economy lesson in the morning. Mr Chua was quite unhappy with some of us who busy discussing on the presentation and not paying attention in class. He went through what has been taught by Ms Liu XiaoHong. Before we make our way fo lunch, Mrs Yeo asked the group members to upload their presentation first. Then, she called out the group names and the order of presentation. wohoo~ we were the FIRST group to present!! It's something good actually. Get over and done with it ASAP. hehe! We had a quick lunch and off we went to the computer lab. Grabbed our " cotton shoe" and started going through the powerpoint slides.We practiced for a while and we went to the classroom to get everything prepared since we were the first to present. Students and teachers from both schools were sitting and watching! My group members were all excited and can't wait to present. Butterflies in everybody's stomachs! Everything went on smoothly and guess wat? we were their favourite group! we came in FIRST..hehehe!Congrats teamates! Good job done~ Everybody was tired and satisfied at the end of the day. Debrief once we reached the guesthouse and today, Mr Chua let us come back a bit later.9:30pm.. Phew~presentation is over...the next big thing: EXAM Thursday, December 21, 2006   1st Chinese Economy Lesson~ The day started with the normal routine of breakfast and the trip to school. We were early for school. The 1st lesson for the day was Chinese Economy. This one lesson that we have to struggle to understand what was going on. Thank God! The lecturer can speak English. After the lesson, Mr Chua went through the slides again. Lunch was delicious as usual. We heard pieces from Aderson on the piano. We find it nice having lunch accompanied by music. After lunch we went for our chinese handwriting or what we call Calligraphy lesson. We were excited to start. As soon as we saw the 8 strokes, the teacher gave us our paints and brushes. Like kindergarthen kids we all got estatic and got to "work". Trying our hands on the strokes. Again we had a great laugh just trying to 'soften' the wrist and moving to the momentum of the brush. Through the lesson all of us learnt our Chinese name. After school,we all got our free and easy time to go fing our dinner and shopping hours for the shopping kings and queens. The debrief was accompanied by the outrageous shopping and exploring stories by my friends. We like how we share stories and food that we find interesting on the streets at Bei Jing. 1 day to go~our presentation!! we gathered at atiqah's room again. We had a "rehearsal". We acted out the skit, go through the slides. This is to ensure that everything will run smoothly tomorrow! We packed the things needed for the presentation; scarfs,water bottle,pins etc. this is so exciting! We ensure that everybody espcially our group members have a good night rest.See you all tomorrow! Wednesday, December 20, 2006   Brrrrrr it's cold in here we woke up at a chilling -4 degree and we went to the dinning area for breakfast. We headed for school and the 1st lesson was chinese knots (lesson 2). As usual we got tied with confusion instead of the knots. we learnt to make dragonfly and mine looked as if my dragonfly got hit by a car. We had a good lunch as usual and i ate heartily. We waited for our Bei Jing Friends to accompany to the very famous Silk Market. I knew my friends had lots of fun there but I believe that im the only one that didnt really find the place interesting. Maybe because i couldnt get pass the customer service there. But it was an enriching experience seeing for my friends tested their bargaining skills. We meet at about 4.30pm and looking at how much they have bought, i guess they really enjoyed the trip. During the debrief, we shared the funny stories we had the about the shopping trip. We had those who sang to the shop owners to get a good bargain and those who got spam and bought 2 pairs of jeans at S$100. But we had a good laugh and it is all part and parcel of learning the culture in Bei Jing. All the shopaholics planned to go to the Silk Market again!hehe~Some of the things that we bought are such as handbags, polo t-shirts, boxers, wallets etc.In Singapore, you can't shop like we do here.. you can go BANKRUPT!wee~ Counting the days to our presentation. We want to make it simple but entertaining. We brainstormed, we laugh..we had fun! Goodnight Jess..Haida..Khai..Atiqah..Syasya..Hana..ZzzZZzzZ Tuesday, December 19, 2006   Chinese Accounting+Chinese Notes Counting= wohoo~ We had chinese pau+porridge and salted vegetables for breakfast. Mr Hai told us that we were slow as in taking our own sweet time to board the bus. alright, noted. we won't do it again in future.Reached school at 9am, our Accounting teacher, Ms Li Yanan is already waiting for us. wow! very punctual~ Two hours of accounting. Though Ms Li couldn't speak English that well, she made the effort to get everybody understand her lesson. We did some exercises on Accounting. interesting~Before making our way for luch, Mr Chua explained again what has been taught earlier. This is advantage for those students who don't understand Mandarin. Lunch was superb! since not all us can finish the amount of food given, we shared the lunch set instead. 2 person to 1 set. For Chinese Economy lesson, we studied about practical Chinese note counting. Very interesting and that's everybody's first time on how to count the notes in single and four notes at one time.It was another new experience for us. Everybody got excited then the Beijing students demonstrated the way it should be. Goodness~they are like machines! It was free and easy from 3pm to 8.30pm where at 8.30pm we all had our debrief. Lights out after that but as for me and my group members, we gathered in Atiqah's+ Syasya's room to discuss on our group presentation..stresSsSsS! Monday, December 18, 2006    Monday Blues Rise and Shine at 6.30am. We woke up earlier today because we are going to school! For breakfast,as usual, we have the local food. Mode of transport to school: 2 vans + 1 car.Cool-ness~ Early in the morning, you can hear people horning..creating noise pollution! but i think they are used to it. whatever it is, we finally arrived! School starts at 9am. First impression is very important.So, judging by the entrance of the school, it was not that bad. BUT! when we stepped into the school, looking at the facilities available etc, wow! nice... We were ushered to the "dining room".There, we were introduced to the teachers and school management team. We had a very warm welcome. They actually decorate their board saying "Welcome to our school". That's very sweet. Not only that, we attended their morning assembly.It's different from what we always do in Singapore. Then, we were asked to come up to the stage where all the students and teachers got to see us. All of us were shy but then again, it's once a life time experience. hehe!We were back at the dining room. This time round, their students from Class 11 were there too.They introduced themselves and according to the teachers, we will get to meet them often.yay! We proceed to the classroom for the first lesson. First 2 hours, we were taught on Chinese Accounting. At 11.30 am, we made our way to the dining room for lunch.After lunch, we headed back to the classroom for Chinese Knot. (made friendship bands and dragonfly keychain). Though some of us are not the arty-fruity types of people, we still manage to complete both! School ends at 3pm.Boarded our respective "magic schoolbus" and off to the guesthouse. Short debrief session at the conference room.Free and easy till 8.30pm.All students and teachers were all at the conference room at 8:30 pm. Kudos!everybody is on time~ Mr Chua started telling us what will be happening on the next day and also recap what has been taught in school.Some of us shared some interesting experience looking for eating places etc. it's really fun! The debrief ended at about 9:15pm. Everybody went back to their respective rooms.Some had small gathering in their friend's room while the rest are asleep!wohoo~ Sunday, December 17, 2006   Are you a HERO? Rise and shine!! Thanks to Mr Chua who gave us a wake up knock. Plain fried dough, salted vegetables, porridge and half boiled egg not forgetting China’s purest Soya Bean Milk. For the non- Chinese students, this is our first time eating a Chinese style breakfast. Some of us just could not bear with the food served but as Mr Chua said, we have to ADAPT! Yes, we will.. On our way to the JADEWARE CITY, our tour guide some interesting ancient stories believed by the Chinese. Everybody paid attention though she speaks in Chinese. Good job Mr Chua for being our translator for the day! The introduction on jades was interesting. The staff who addresses us speaks good English. We did our first shopping there. We left for Ming Tombs after that. On our way there, some of us could actually see the different tombs which are located at different mountains. The weather was cold and windy. Friends from the tourism school, China, joined us for the fieldtrip. We interact with each other very well. Interestingly, we got to know that we have to cross over using our right leg when we enter the temple. It’s a form of respect. We learnt so much about the Ming Dynasty which made us interested to know more about China. Lunch was superb! It was at International RES TAURANT. Our stomachs have been misbehaving for the past few hours and so, this is so called our FEAST! As the saying goes “ If you visit China but has not climbed the GREAT WALL of CHINA, you’re not a HERO!” Here we are at Great Wall of China. Everybody is excited. We get to meet the locals. They way they speak and sell things. Though some maybe rough, we managed to get thru. We were given about an hour to climb and explore the area on our own. Pretty interesting and we are not surprised that it’s one of the wonders of the world. Though we were exhausted, we feel satisfied and officially, we are all HEROS! Since tea is popular among the Chinese, we are brought to DR TEA. Interesting name, interesting techniques of drinking tea. We were very pleased with the tea demonstrators. She demonstrates well and all of us got to try four different types of tea with different specialty. From there, we got to know about Pee-Pee Boy! We headed to the supermarket which is located near to our guesthouse. We rushed to supermarket to grab some snacks and drinks since it closes at 8:30 pm. Dinner was on our own. All of us except for Jessica, we had dinner at KFC. Jessica had hers at one of the Muslim restaurants. We gathered in front of the KFC at 9 pm. We walked back to our guesthouse and went up to the conference room for debrief. We shared our experiences and congrats to those who managed to climb GREAT WALL! Lights out! Good Night, Don’t let the mosquitoes bite! Saturday, December 16, 2006  HUGS & KISSES The day has finally arrived. One by one gathered not only us, but also our loved ones. Parents were asked to gather for a briefing by respective teachers in charge. Soon enough, it’s time to check in our baggage. ANXIETY- that’s the feeling everybody felt at that moment. But SA DLY, Karnika and Aderson could not join us due to their unsuccessful VISA applications. Time passes very fast. Each of us made our way to the immigration entrance. WAIT! Before we could do that, family members bid us farewell. Tears began to flow on our cheeks and the feeling of letting them go is unbearable! Everybody was emotional till we board the plane; CA 958. Me, Syasya and Atiqah sat on the same row; next to each other. The rest were on their respective seats. The flight transit was at Xiamen Airport. We were asked to leave the plane for about 20 minutes. We board the plane and were surprised to see new faces on the plane. Now, we headed to Beijing International Airport. The lunch set was pretty upsetting. For the Muslims, we had Fish. Not really fish, but fishballs with tomato sauce! Should not complain, we have to adapt. The turbulence shocked everybody especially those who are still asleep. Finally, we reached Beijing. Everybody puts on their respective winter clothes. Going down the stairs from aeroplane was thrilling and “chilling”. We were against the strong wind and was amazed that the temperature hits -9 degrees. Since this is our first time experiencing winter, the feeling is great! “Smoke” comes out from each and everyone’s mouth once we start talking. Cool-ness! All the cam-whores began to take pictures despite the strong wind. Excellent! We had a very warm welcome at the airport and we headed to our guesthouse with our tour bus soon after that. We gathered at the dining room before we were brought to our respective rooms. There, we were introduced to the two VVIPS- Mr Hai(Chief Village) and James (Representative from Beijing Finance & Economy School). Our stomachs are growling. “ an ANGRY man is a HUNGRY man”. Steamboat for everyone! Thanks for the treat! Explored some shops nearby and back to the guesthouse. Have a good night rest everybody~ snores..zZZzzZZZzz GREAT WALL OF CHINA… here we come!!! Friday, December 15, 2006  Collaboration between ITE West and ITE Central Before we go for our experiential learning in Beijing, we had two briefings. Both briefings were held in ITE Bishan. Friends from ITE Clementi came over to join us. The briefings are beneficial. Basically our lecturers help us to prepare ourselves for the trip. Be it personal care or school needs. Not only we get sufficient information on the trip itself, we also get the opportunity to get to know more friends. Mr Erick Chua planned a bonding session for us. We got excited and we got positive response from the ‘participants’. After all the preparations and effort that has been put in, everybody looked forward for 16 DECEMBER 2006! We appreciate all the arrangements and planning by ITE. We hope that this trip will be a successful and fruitful one for all of us. Cheerios! |
