Day 26

Weather: Cold

Activity: Climbed Great Wall of China, Visit to Tian Ta

Once again, we woke up super early in the morning to start travelling on the road in order not to be caught in the jam. We were slightly “kiasu” today during breakfast and we packed some sandwich from the hotel so that we can eat in case anyone is hungry along the way.

Set off at around 7am and picked our tour guide up on the way. The driver had to rush because in Beijing, there are timings that drivers have to follow to be able to drive on the highway and the timings are determined by the car plate number. Maybe the Singapore government should implement this to smoothen the traffic instead of setting up so many ERP gantries.

After a few hours of bus ride, we finally reached the Great Wall of China! Started climbing up the wall at 9am and we were given 2 hours of free time. The weather was super cold and all of us were hopping around once we alight from the bus. Manage to climb up to the 4^th tower of the great wall. While we were at the starting point, it seems so easy to get from one point to the other, but when we get from one tower to the other, the difficulty level gets higher. So we should not judge a book by its cover.

Had our lunch and continued on our journey back to Tian Jin. It was a 2 and a half hour ride back and there was no toilet break in between. So some of them were so urgent and desperate for toilet that once we reach the hotel, the first thing they did was to rush to the toilet when we reach the hotel.

Went back to the hotel to have a short break and went to school for dinner. After that we met up with Lu Yang and Rau Jie to go to Tian Ta. It cost 80Yuan to go up to the tower, so we did not go up instead we all stay at the surrounding to take photos. All of us walked there so it took us about an hour to reach. Although it was a really long journey, but with everyone around, the journey didn’t seem bored at all, in fact I enjoyed myself a lot.

Day 25!

Weather: Raining and FREEZING COLD!

Activities: visited the Beijing Olympics stadium (鸟曹), Forbidden City (紫禁城), China national art theater (国家大剧院/巨蛋), 天安门广场， 大栅栏， 景泰蓝制造场， 北京特产购物中心

Judging from the number of places we have visited today, I think all of u can tell how tired all of us were when we reach the hotel. After a whole day of walking, my leg was aching badly by the time we had lunch because once we reach the Forbidden City, we have been walking all the way to our lunch destination because the Forbidden City, national art theater, 天安门广场 and the restaurant for lunch are near each other.

The first place we visited was the Beijing Olympics stadium and it was bigger than I’ve expected. When I was watching the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony on television, I thought it was just a normal stadium like our National Stadium, but I was wrong! It was so big and beautiful. Another thing I found out is that the Olympics swimming complex and acrobat complex was just beside the Bird Nest, and the swimming complex is special in its own ways. Why would I say that? That is because the water from the swimming complex is being purified and used for other purpose such as watering the plants. Not only that, the building is designed in such a way that maximum sunlight is able to reach the complex so that the amount of energy used to generate light for the complex can be lessen. The place was too cold and windy, so we only spend about half an hour there instead of the 1 hour of free time we were given.

We all board the bus and without fail, the driver was smoking on the bus, making the whole bus stink. The funny thing was that there was a “no smoking” sign on the bus. Due to this, we had to stop breathing for a moment when a board the bus.

Started travelling towards the Forbidden City and went to look at all the different buildings the emperor and empress stay, work and study. There are also small animal sculptures on the edge of the buildings, the more sculptures there are, the higher the ranking of the person staying or working in there. An example is that a room that a concubine lives in has 3 sculptures on the edge of the roof but the place where the emperor work has 11 sculptures on it. The Forbidden City was so big that it took us about 2 hours to visit all the places and reach the天安门.

Next we proceed on to the National art theatre to have a look. The building looks like a huge egg so the locals call it the 大巨蛋. On the building, there is a small “lake” surrounding it and the water doesn’t dry up during summer and doesn’t freeze during winter because they always keep the water moving. The theatre is like our esplanade just that it doesn’t have “durian torn” on it.

After the visit, we walked all the way back to 天安门广场 to take some photos before proceeding for lunch. The square is where they conduct their flag raising and lowering ceremony every morning and the time for flag raising and lowering is determined by the time the sun rise and sets, so every morning there would be people waking up early in the morning just to witness the flag raising ceremony.

Continue walking and walking to the restaurant where we are going to have our lunch and finally we get to sit down. All of us grab the chance to sit down as much as possible because after lunch, we would be walking again. The next location was 大栅栏, but we didn’t do much there because we were only given 20 minutes of free time, so most of us spend the 20 minutes in the Starbucks café partly because it was raining too.

Next stop! 景泰蓝制造场. Over there, we get to see how metal vase are being made. The product may seem very simple but the procedures are very complicated and take a lot of patience. After viewing all their end products, we were given some time to buy the things we want and we saw this very interesting heat pack. It is a packed of liquid with a metal chip in it. If you flick the metal chip, the liquid will harden immediately and produce heat. The person said that the pack would cool off within 2 hours and return to its liquid form. All of us were so amazed by it and we bought it at the price of 30Yuan per pack. The next group of people bought it too but the person charged them 20Yuan per pack.

During lunch, Mr Tan told us a story about fairness and unfairness. In life, people want things to be fair because they are afraid that they would be at a loss, just like the incident where we bought the heat pack at a higher rate. We find it unfair because we had to pay more for the same product. However, if we were to put ourselves in the shop owner’s shoes, he is earning lesser by doing so and he is also at a loss. So life is unfair, so instead of thinking about the negative stuff, we should think on the bright side.

It started raining by the time we left the景泰蓝制造场, and that was the first rain that I experience in China. We were all hoping that it would snow. Next, we proceed on to 北京特产购物中心 where they sell lots of local delights and even famous Beijing roast duck. I feel that they are very smart by packing the roasted ducks in air tight bags so that people can bring it back for others to try. People can also keep one at home in case there is a sudden dinner or gathering, they can prepare this dish for the visitors. This way, the visitor would feel that the host has put in lots of effort in preparing while in fact it is just heating up the food.

After all the walking and shopping, we left the place and head for dinner and one of the restaurants near our hotel. Mr Chua, Thir, Alif and Jia Wei also joined us for dinner. While we were eating, there was a table of people keep staring at us so Mr Tan went forward and started performing some magic. The people there were so happy and excited. From all the small magic tricks Mr Tan performed, I learn that if by doing small little things can make everyone so happy, why not? There is no harm anyway.

In life, we should all give and take so that everyone will be happy J

Day 24

Weather: quite warm

Activity: Travelling to Beijing, visited Summer Palace and Tian Tan

Woke up super early in the morning and started our journey to Beijing. Maybe because all of us slept quite late last night and woke up too early in the morning, almost everyone was sleeping on the way. After about 2 hours of travelling, we finally reached our first stop which is the Summer Palace. It is a really big and beautiful place.

When we saw the map on how far we are going to walk, we were all so shocked because it looked SUPER FAR! However, as we walk, there are lots of interesting things that caught our attention and the journey didn’t seem that far after all. From this trip, I learnt some Chinese phrase too. One of it is from the small windows with paintings on them. We were curious why every window has different drawings, so the tour guide told us this: 一步一景，一步换景。 In the past, the emperor is very particular on what he see, so he insist that the scene from every window is different, hence resulting in the different drawings on the windows.

We also came across a huge stone called 败家石. It is a gift from the emperor to his mother, but the emperor’s mother believe that it is not a good stone because in order to get the stone into the emperor’s mother’s palace, they had to remove all the doors, so the emperor’s mother feel that the stone broke into their family. The tour guide also mentioned that if you are superstitious, it is better not to take photos of that.

Next we moved on to the art street which is 728m long. On the wall of the street, there are lots of different paintings on the ceiling and pillars of the street. After viewing all the arts, we made our way back to the entrance but on the way, Alif was not feeling well and started vomiting. What surprised me was that the tour guide didn’t seem to care much about it, instead she seemed quite pissed off because all of us are moving very slowly. This might be because their pay is fixed and if we delay, they are not paid for the extra timing, so it is like “no pay OT” to them. So we should speed up our actions for the next few days.

After the summer palace, we also went to the place called Tian Ta. It is a place where the emperor prays for good harvest for his people and fortune to his country. At the place, we saw a group of people who look like Singaporeans but we were not sure, so all of us were staring at each other. The other group started singing the national anthem and that was when we confirmed our thought. Not only are they Singaporeans, they are also Ngee Ann students! Just that they are from Business studies. We took a photo for memory purpose and we headed in different ways. Just a few steps away, we saw their lecturer and she turns out to know who Mr Tan is. We started talking for some time and started heading in different ways because we had a schedule to follow.

Other than all this things, some other observation while on the road. I feel that they have really good business ideas because they even have petrol stations in the middle of the highway, knowing that that is the place prone to jams. Not only petrol stations, there are also people riding on motorbike to sell food because of the jams too.

I feel that Beijing is a really interesting place and hope tomorrow will be even more interesting!

Day 23!

Weather: quite cooling

Activity: APPG Final Test & Mr Tan’s Birthday celebration!

EVERYTHING SEEMS SO SMOOTH TODAY! Finally get to connect to the VPN and FINALLY APPG is OVER!!! We can finally relax a little and do some SHOPPING! BUT! Not forgetting our IS! Got to start thinking of ideas on how to do the IS project! Just hope that everything would go on smoothly, so would the Beijing trip tomorrow!

Before the test, all of us were so hardworking, sitting down quietly trying to get as much information into our head as possible. While the rest were studying, I went back to the hotel to get something and saw the uncle selling Tianjin Xiao Ma Hua which was something we wanted to buy for a long long time but the uncle was always not there. So when I saw the stall, I quickly went over to buy some. I asked the uncle what was the price and he said half a kilogram cost 9Yuan. Without even thinking about how much how a kilogram would be I just bought it until I saw the amount the uncle was scooping. It was a bag full of the cookie and at that moment, I was so shocked and the first thought was how am I going to finish that. I thought it would be embarrassing if were to tell the uncle that I only wan half of it, so I just took everything.

Initially I thought that only Felicia and I liked the cookie, but surprisingly when I brought it up to class, everyone liked it a lot and they finished half the pack with a short period of time. Don’t know why but I just felt so happy to see all of them eating so happily. Maybe because that helped them relive some of the stress they were facing.

In the evening, we met up with Fu Fong for dinner. Before heading for dinner, she brought us to a concert held in school. That was a really interesting experience because we get to see their concert hall and the difference between their concert hall and Ngee Ann’s convention centre is that Ngee Ann’s CC is a lot bigger! Their concert hall’s seats are of the same level, unlike what we have in Ngee Ann where there is a gradient to the seats. So we should be fortunate of what we have and treasure them!

I also noticed that over here, when we order food like hotplate rice or even glass bottled drinks, they will keep a deposit of 1Yuan with them. Once you return them the hotplate or bottle to them, they would refund the money back to you. Although 1 yuan is nothing to us, but maybe to some of the students I meant a lot. Other than the money issue, it also encourages students to return the plates themselves which is a good habit because the cleaners cleaning up the place would not be so tired.

After that, we went the bakery to collect the HUGE cake we ordered for Mr Tan’s birthday, at the same time taking the opportunity to thank Mr Chua for teaching us APPG. When we saw the box, all of our jaw dropped. It was the biggest cake I’ve ever seen.

We hurried back to the hotel and Fu Fong suggested that we go to the buddy café for the celebration so we all headed there first. She talked to the boss and he also agreed to it very quickly. I felt really guilty during the celebration because not only did they loan us the place without any extra charges, we did not order much things from them too. At the same time, we made a mess in the café causing Fu Fong to clean up the mess we made. I wanted to help her clean up but she insists that she will do it and asked me to join the rest.

During the celebration Aijing accidentally hit her head against the edge of the table and all of us panic for a moment. When they asked around to see if anyone have zumbak and no one has it, immediately Chia Chun ran to the pharmacy to buy some medication for head injuries and he ran back. He is a really good friend! Thumbs up!! Hope Aijing will get better and hope Mr Tan enjoyed his advance birthday celebration!

Day 22

Weather: pretty warm in the afternoon

Activity: APPG Revision

Today was mainly on the APPG revision so we were in school most of the time. The weather was quite good so we decided to play basketball in school during lunch, so some of us went on playing and some went other places.

Some incidents happened what made the teachers quite unhappy because some of our friends went to the salon during lesson time, in the end they came back rather late. Mr Chua was very disappointed because from all his OIP experience, they are the first group of students who missed lesson. Due to this incident, the teachers started getting serious and stressed on the rules and regulations that we had agreed on before leaving for this trip which most of us have forgotten. What the teachers said was right. If they just let the matter go this time, some of us might do it again. Although nothing happened to them this time, but it might not always be so lucky all the time. We have to understand that it is the teachers’ responsibility to make sure that we are all safe in China. I also learnt that when we are out of our comfort zone, not only do we have to look out of ourselves, we also have to look out for others, and take good care of others because when we assume that everything will be alight and we step over the line, we might not only put ourselves in danger, but also the others. We should not pin point anyone for this incident, instead we should all learn from others mistakes and not offend them again.

During the lesson, Mr Chua also shared some learning points with us because some of we worried for the final test tomorrow and I find them very true. When we are in china, APPG is a just a skill that we have to learn and go through, but the most important things that we have to learn here are the life skills that can’t be learn from a book. Not only that, score is not everything. Failing a test doesn’t mean you fail in your life, you cannot be disappointed in yourself and give up everything, instead you pick yourself up and work extra hard to cover up what you missed.

Good luck to everyone taking the final quiz tomorrow!

Day 21

Weather: Cold

Yesterday we were all busy with the IS project on the wine factory, so I didn’t have the time to blog. Will post the video our group made. Although it is just a 5 minutes video, but the hard work behind it is a lot. Like what the Chinese always say, 台上十分钟, 台下十年功. We faced some problems such as the laptop shutting down before we get to save it, at the same time racing against time.

Today we had a whole day of APPG and I finally cleared all of my doubts. Have to keep practicing so that I would not forget. After the lab test I realize that I am not very good APPG so I must work even harder! 2 more days before the final exam so I should do my very best now!

Went to Zi Yuan Can Ting for dinner today and all the waitress seems to have recognized us because they all seem so happy when we walked in. I also realize that the food in the restaurant seems very cheap to us, but it is rather expensive to the locals. Like what Mr Tan and Mr Chua said, we have to think like how the locals are thinking; their 1yuan is like our 1SGD and we should not always convert to Singapore dollars, thinking that it is very cheap.

So for those who are running low on cash, we should change out mindset and start living a budget life!

Day 19

Weather: Cooling

Activity: self study, hair salon

Had a good sleep last night and woke up at 10am when we were supposed to meet in the lobby at 9.30am to study for APPG. Felicia and I quickly washed up and went down to study for APPG. Manage to finish lab 6 and start on tutorial 7.

Liu li came to our hotel to meet us for lunch because she said that the food sold in the hostel is very nice so we decided to give it a try. Once we step into the canteen, it felt so familiar and a sense of home. It feels like our ngee ann canteen and the food is really nice too.

After lunch, Felicia, Yi Wen and I went to liu li’s hostel to take a look. The hostel is totally not what I expected. It is like a 5 room flat in Singapore. There are only 2 toilets in an apartment with 11 people sharing. There are 4 different kinds of room in an apartment, 2 of it are shared by four people, 1 shared between two people and 1 room for one person. The room shared by 4 people is smaller than our hotel room and there are 4 people staying in it. In the small room there are 4 double decker beds and each person is entitled to one. The top would be where they will sleep while the bottom is their study table and some shelves for their books.

After looking at the standard of living environment, I feel that we should be grateful that the condition of we are staying in is really good. We should think of the positive things instead of pondering and complaining of what we don’t have.

Headed back to the hotel to study till around 6 and all of us headed to the salon near our hotel. Some of us got new hairstyles. Felicia and Weiling perm their hair, Wee Hong and Yi Wen cut their hair, Rachael and Eugene dyed their hair. At first all of them were worried that after doing our hair all of them would look like people in china but we were all wrong because the outcome were all quite good.

Tomorrow will be another day of mugging! Jiayou!