Sunday, October 25, 2009

Alright everyone! As promised, here's my long awaited (I hope it is) post.


How should I start?


Ok, my trip to China was from the 04th Oct to the 17th Oct. It's a 14 days trip, with 11 days at Huairou and 3 days a Beijing city for R&R.


For day 1, we gathered at the airport as early as 0700hrs and took our 6h long flight to Beijing. Upon reaching, we took a 1h+ long bus ride to Huairou and then to the town we are residing in, Cha Wu.



In the plane



The plane we took


When we reached Cha Wu, it was already night time. We proceeded on for dinner with the Kindergarten's principal and a senior teacher. The dinner was really sumptuous! It was a +/-20 course meal, and most of us ate to our fill till we can barely walk properly.



Part of the "multi-courses" meal


We all resided in a dorm for the railway workers at Cha Wu. It was really great that we were at least given accommodation at somewhere near the kindergarten. Not only if it was by "关系" (relations) between the principal and the officials, we wouldn't even be allowed to live there. The rooms in the dorms are nice, and the toilets were very clean. Just one problem was that, there's no shower area in the dorm itself. We need to walk to an opposite dorm's shower house for shower. Furthermore, we were only permitted to bathe on even days (Tue, Thu and Sat). However, if we really need to bather badly during the odd days, it's still possible to bathe under ice cold water in the drom's toilet, using a water hose.



Me and my roommate, Marcus in our room. The cup noodles there cost about 80c sing. But it is quite salty and is not as tasty as our local cup noodles. The only thing great about it was that, there's a vacuum packed egg in it :]



See those solar panels on the building? Those are solar panels that heat up water for the shower house. I realized this only during the last day at Cha Wu.



The dorm we resided in



The town where the railway workers reside in. And that's also where the kindergarten is situated in



Living quarters of the railway workers





The kindergarten


As so, for the next few days from day 2 to day 5 (5th-8th Oct), we spent our days scraping, sanding and white-washing the mounted boards on the walls, so as to prepare them for our murals. If I was not wrong, we also started some parts of our murals.



From inside, Me, Timothy(My team leader) and Darren Chew (My other roommate) scraping the mounting board.



From left, Gary, Lin Keong (My bangla head :]), Gervissa, Me, Darren Cheonng and Timothy scraping the outer railings, preparing it for painting



The breakfast we had for those days


Oh ya, I forgot to include, on the 3rd day, Team 2, which consist of people from Temasek Poly, James Cook University (a private university) and some adult volunteers arrived.


On the 6th day (9th Oct), we all went out for our first R&R trip to the Great Wall of China and also an Orchard. The part of the Great Wall of China we went to was at Huairou. It's a forbidden zone, very little tourist, or rather trekkers can be seen there. However, the scenery there was superb!



Behind me, lies the Great wall of China





Magnificent isn't it?



On the Great Wall of China, we put off firecrackers. That was rather the first time in my life that I've heard and see a firecracker being put off with my bare ears and eyes.


After the tiring hike to the Great Wall of China, we went for lunch at a restaurant nearby and had a sumptuous meal. Next, we proceeded on to an Orchard.



A fish pond



Corns



Lettuce



If you were to look closely, there were actually 3 emus in the middle of the picture



Nice huh?


After our excursion, we returned to our dorm for a short break. After which, we proceeded on to the Kindergarten for our dinner.


After dinner, we had a special guest lecturer, Dong Feng from the University of Bei Jing delivering us a lecture on China's Urbanization. He was a rather interesting person.


Having been to Singapore for 6 years, he was rather familiar to stuff in Singapore. Several stuff he said about Singapore as compared to China were rather true. The lecture was mainly regarding the topic on rural-urban migration. These stuff reminds me of my Geography last year. However, it's just that they were from a first person point of view, delivered to me. To me, his lecture was very interesting, I've been listening attentively to it for the whole time. However, as of the rest, I could see a lot of them either dozing off or were doing their own stuff, such as playing with their phone, etc...


As of the weekends, during the 7th and 8th day, we were again, back to work; back to scraping, painting...



A 3 wheeled lorry I saw at the town


On the night of day 8, we had a cultural exchange session with the teachers and staffs of the kindergarten. It was really interesting to learn little by little of the different dialects of the different teachers who came from different parts of the neighboring provinces. And we had a fun filled night.



See, the way the tables were arranged really looked as if that its a business conference or something. This really shows the seriousness of our host


On the 12th Oct, Mon, 9th day, we went to a national park. On our way there, the rear axle of the minibus we boarded broke on the way. It was rather fortunate of us that the bus was not maneuvering at high speed, and was able to safely pull over to a halt by the roadside. Else, I suppose, I'd most probably be dead by now.



Look properly, the axle actually broke!


We were transferred to another bus and proceeded on to the national park...


Our objective of that trip was to climb up the mountain for our goal, which is a waterfall.


Despite the fact that the way up was rather tiring, there were several superb scenery to see.













Stairway to heaven?



What a big millipede!


After a long long long hike up, the small group of mine finally reached the waterfall. However, all of us were rather disappointed when we saw the waterfall. As it was rather pathetic looking. It was not as magnificent as what we thought...



Well, here's the pathetic waterfall all of us anticipated for throughout the hike.


All of us stopped there to rest. Some went up the waterfall to draw some water, and I too, went up to get some water. After collecting a full bottle of water, it was rather unlucky of me to loose my balance and grip halfway when descending and dropped my bottle into the plunge pool. At that moment, I was like,"FUCK! CHEE BYE! KNN! @*#&$)%&#%*%&^@...!"


I was really thankful that Darren Cheong actually came over to help me retrieve my bottle, however, after helping me, something worse happened to him. Some shit from some fucker who shitted by the waterfall got stained onto his pants. It was damn gross and smelly! Hence, feeling bad, I offered to wash his pants for him after we got back to the dorms.


We had lunch after that and next, we proceeded on to Huairou city to visit a reservoir.



Well, the reservoir was mainly just a coast. But there were quite a few interesting things there.



Meow meow...



Captured sea animals sold by roadside vendors. The irony was, these animals were to be freed in the reservoir once purchased


We went to a nearby shopping center to shop after that and off to a nearby KFC for dinner.



Jing Bei Shopping Mall



Arsenal shop which sell mainly sports apparel with Arsenal's logo and designs on it.



The school kids there



KFC!!! The chicken there tasted very different from those in Singapore and what's better, they had double zinger burger and egg tarts sold as dessert.


After dinner, we went back to our dorms to rest and ended our day 9.


On the 10th day, we went back to work; with our usual scraping and painting...



The sunset of day 10


On that night, we had our 2nd cultural exchange session with the teachers. We shared about Islamic beliefs and Hinduism to the teachers and after that, we had a fun filled time putting off fire crackers and FIREWORKS!!!


On day 11, it's finally the last day of work for us, which was the final painting job of painting the less corroded parts of the older playground. However, before working, a small observation of the kids were arranged for us during their lesson time. That was like our first time, throughout the whole trip, being able to at least interact with the kids. Reason being was that, due to widespread of the H1N1 influenza, we were initially not allowed to interact with the kids at all. And hence, interacting with the kids was rather a big thing!



Cute huh?



The kids lining up for their next activity


Actually by day 10, all the murals we painted were also done. And here they are...



These were designed by our team member, Roliah. Its basically designed according to the nursery rhyme, Old MacDonald.















This particular set of 3 were drawn according to the story of, The Ugly Duckling.



I colored the little maroon house at the top left of this piece. Really hard man!









As of the last 3 murals, they were mainly made up of stuff copied from the textbooks used for teaching the kids. So it was kinda like a free drawing to us



This is my favorite piece. As I spent the most efforts in painting this. The girl together with the bike was painted by me. And it was not at all easy when it comes to the toning and stuff of the bike and the girl's clothes



Well, as of this, I contributed to it by drawning those bubbles, corals and the seaweeds :] nothing much though


After finishing our work and final touches. We spent our time playing with the kids at the newly constructed playground. Seeing the innocence of those kids really reminded me of my childhood memories.



A bunch of adults playing with small kids



Candid shot


At about evening time, we packed our stuff and went on a small excursion to a few farms.


At the first stop, we went to a dragon fruit farm to harvest and purchase some fresh dragon fruit.



Dragon fruits were planted in those cylindrical shaped structures



These are dragon fruit plants with ripe dragon fruit (in pink) on it. I didn't even know that its plant actually looks like that





Well, the dragon fruits were very sweet and tasty... After that, we went on to the principal friend's farm. Its really a very big farm full of vegetables such as corns, carrots, radish, etc...



Children of The Corn



A even bigger and heavier radish was harvested, however, I do not have a photo of it.


After the farm visit, we went to a restaurant for a farewell dinner and once again ate to our fill.







The next day, it was our last day at Cha Wu. We started our day by visiting the nearby train station. That was also know as the source of all the noises(horns from the trains) at night that barred us from sleeping properly during those days.



Cha Wu Station



That's indeed a big ass train station!


After that, we went back to the kindergarten for breakfast and our final interactions with the kids. My group did a art lesson with the junior group(class of 3 years old kids). It was kinda heartwarming to see the innocent look of the kids doing their stuff. I was just wondering if I was like that back then when I was young...



Mr Chew in action...


Next, we had a few group photos at the playground before we bade farewell from the kindergarten. And lastly our last lunch at the kindergarten, before we return to our dorms to get out stuff and depart from Cha Wu.



Group photo with everyone. (sorry for the lousy quality. I don't own a scanner)



Kitchen staff, 王园长, me, another teacher(sorry that I forgot their names)


For our departure from the kindergarten, some of us broke down and cried. I was too, sad that we had to leave after having served there for such a long time. Such feelings was kind of like a De-ja-vu to me when my team at Cambodia back then in 2006 was leaving the Methodist school at Phnom Penh...


After our departure from Cha Wu, we took a 2hrs long bus ride into Bei Jing city. And that marks the start of our 2 day R&R. Our first stop was at the "Temple of Heaven". That temple was built in the Ming dynasty for the royalties to worship the gods. However, in present day, its converted into a park, opened to public.



Temple of Heaven



Old people playing cards



Trademark building for the Temple of Heaven. Its the temple for the God of Harvest



Marcus, Roliah, Darren Chew, Lin Keong, Ee Von and Me






A group of people 'Jamming' in the China way



Shadow of The Day



Finally found a China flag to add into my collection of flags


Next we went to check in to our hotel. On our way, I saw several unique looking buildings. And when I say several, its really so much that I got confused what exactly that building was built for.

That's actually a 'pair' of shopping centers, such unique building can be seen literally everywhere in Beijing


After checking in, we went to a nearby steamboat restaurant for our 重庆麻辣(Chongqin extra spicy) steamboat dinner.



Beijing Spice Girls, the name is already intimidating enough


In Singapore, I've too, eaten 重庆麻辣火锅. But this one I ate was real terror! We had 2 types of soup bases, one was the extra spicy chili oil soup base and the other was the chicken broth. The chicken broth was just like the normal steamboat we usually eat. But the chili oil base... woah ho! Real terror! Its so damn freaking spicy that it scratches my throat, incapacitate my tongue and burns my lips. Most people at my table totally couldn't take it. While what I did was to tolerate with it and was in fact kinda enjoying the spicy sensation in the end. I've never tried anything so extreme before!


After dinner, we took a bus to a nearby shopping center for foot reflexology. Up till then, I've never been to any of sort foot reflexology or body massage services before and was kind of nervous that it will hurt a lot...



In the public bus...



Its the first time for all of us


After the reflexology, I felt totally refreshed. However, MY BALLS HURTS! There was one procedure where my left and right thighs were flexed to the left and right respectively. That made my thighs squeeze my balls and it was really painful!


Next, as there was no more bus services, we walked back to our hotel and had a good night's rest.


At the 13th day, I woke up early with my team leader, Timothy together with Kristeen and my other team leader, Jesslyn to get breakfast for the team from a nearby diner. And next, we set off to the Tienanmen Square and also our visit to the Forbidden city.

CCTV building. Unique architecture huh?



Tienanmen Square



Entrance to the Forbidden City


For our tour in the Forbidden City, I personally felt that it was rather boring. But those stories from our tour guide made things more interesting for us. Basically, for those who are really so 'mountain tortoise' to not know what on earth is the Forbidden City, its basically the palace where the royalties such as the emperor, empress, prince, princess, etc... lived in during ancient times. I suppose pictures speaks more than words, so for this part, it'd be just pictures and captions...



Soldiers marching with their ultra solid slow march




Us, walking on the 'Dragon's Vein' That's the straight road where only the Emperor or Scholars or the Empress were allowed to walk on









If you noticed, all structures in the palace looks similar. That's why its somehow boring to keep taking photos of the buildings in the palace



Our tour guide explaining the plan of the palace



According to our guide, this is the only remaining authentic throne in the palace


After our tour in the Forbidden City, we climbed up a hill opposite to the Forbidden City. Over there, the full view of the forbidden city can be seen, and it was magnificent!



This is certainly more interesting than touring around the palace


We went for lunch after that at a nearby eatery and then to "Slik Street" Market to shop.



On our way to Silk Street, I saw this unique looking building, its the China National Offshore Oil Corporation's building


Silk Street is indeed a totally crappy place to shop at. Initially, my impression of Silk Street is a 'pasar malam' type of shopping where you can find those cheap and nice brandless stuff(which I always wear). But I was wrong, its actually a big assed shopping center full of overpriced pirated goods. Its like the folks there literally sell those fake goods at the price of the real ones. Just for an instance, my team leader, Timothy thorn his bag, hence, he wanted to buy a new simple and cheap bad to store his stuff. When he told the store keeper that he wanted to buy a new bag, the store keeper immediately took a fake Tumi bag for him. She claimed that its genuine leather and was trying to charge him 1840RMB for it. That's freaking +/-S$368! Who would spend so much for fake goods?! Initially we rejected her and decided to walk away, but that c**t just refuses to let us off. She was like desperately pulling tight onto Timothy's arm. Seeing her f'ed up attitude, I got kinda furious and was like saying with raised voice in madarin,"What my friend over here wanted is just a SIMPLE bag to put his stuff. He don't need such an expensive bag!" to her.


After a while a few others in our group came and was like trying to bargain further for him. In the end, the bag was still purchased at 200 RMB, which is still kinda overpriced to me. Seeing such f'ed up people there, I was kinda totally discouraged to buy anything there. In the end, what I got was just a new belt for 80RMB, a book titled, "Quotations From Chairman Mou"(the little red book) as a souvenir and 300++RMB worth of goodies to eat. While others blew quite a lot of money on those overpriced fake goods. Some even blew 1K+RMB for those stuff!



The name of this place can be deceiving


After shopping at that f'ed up place, we went to Lao She Tea House, 老舍茶馆, for a cultural performance with stuff such as Sze Chuan face changing, 四川变脸, acrobat, Chinese Oprah, etc... Somehow, I felt that it was not worth it spending 200+RMB for those stuff, as they were basically stuff that I've seen even in Singapore. But what's done is done... Else, we could have put better use to those money.



Lao She Tea House



The woman on the left was playing bowls and cups as her instrument



Sorry, I can't take any photos during the performances. So what I could do was to only take a photo of the hall





We went to buy KFC for dinner after that and went back to our hotel for a good night's rest.


The next day which was the last day, we woke up early for our small free and easy. All of us traveled in small groups and started off with breakfast at a restaurant near our hotel. Next, we just simply roam about the place for some last minute shopping and then went back to our hotel to check out. After that, we proceeded on to the airport for our flight back.



Beijing International Airport






I met Kok Wei from SP Rotaract club at the airport. He was returning from his Overseas Industrial Training Program (OITP) and took the same flight as me.


And so, that marks the end of our trip.


Here are some funny signs I saw there...



I took this on the first day at the airport... So does the lift stop at 1F?



I took this at the steamboat restaurant at the 12th day... So is the place going to be covered by landslide anytime or what...?

DISCLAIMER

This blog was made for me to drown all my sorrows and thoughts openly to every single soul out there reading. And I'll try my best to confine explicit contents here and not to the world out there...

Anybody who is uncomfortable with it can just simply leave this web!

And it's best if you visit this blog using Mozilla Firefox, as there are still some unfixed bugs when viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer

MY PROFILE

Name --> Joel (duh!)
B day -->21/06
Blood Type -->B+
Ht. -->176cm
Wt. -->75kg
Live In --> Sims Drive (Geylang West)
Studying In --> Singapore Polytechnic
School --> School of Mechanical & Aeronautical Engineering
Course --> Aeronautical Engineering
Level --> Year 2
Class --> DARE/FT/2A/06

MEANING BEHIND MY NAME

Joel, he that wills or commands.
(Adapted from...Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary.)
But I dont believe in this...my name came about as I was born in the month of June...lol

BLOG RULES

#1 No spamming in my cBox
#2 No racist remarks in cBox or comments
#3 Vulguraties allowed everywhere
#4 Stop reading the post, if it discomforts you
#5 Do not promote porn sites, mass downloading sites or some other girly sites
#6 Do not insult my parents; no playing of parents name
#7 Bear with the lousy quality of song played, it will be improved until I found a better track uploader
#8 Do not promote religious stuff
#9 Do not play Gay or Lesbian here
#10 Last rule, leave ur blog address after reading for me to link

I LIKE...

Mainly metal and rock stuff
My Family
My Dad
My Mom
My Friends
Cars
Meaow meaow...cats
987 FM
Eating
Sleeping
Slacking
Post exams period
Camp Craft
Guitars
Drums
Pool (the one played with balls and cue)
Jogging

I HATE...

Hypocrites
Fucking sluts
Proud people
Untrue People
Smokers
Druggies
Irritating Songs
China Whores
Pre-exams period
EMO shit
Mushroom

I WISH TO LEARN AND MASTER...

Drums
Hokkien
Teo Chew
Tamil
Boxing
Automobile Mechanics

MY WANTS LIST

1. World Peace

2. Everybody to love each other

3. Good results...

4. A 2.5" external harddisk

5. A new phone, as mine's malfunctioning now (Achieved)

6. A personal DIY desktop (Don't really need one now, since I have my laptop already)

7. A few new T shirts

8. A new canvass belt (Achieved)

9. A new trucker cap (Achieved)

10. A Crumpler Bag

11. A brain that works like a hard disk with infinite disk space

12. A Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX( if possible) after I get my driving license

13. An electric guitar (Achieved)
14. An amplifier (Achieved)

15. A drum kit

16. A pair of drum sticks

IT'S HISTORY

October 2006
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010
March 2010
July 2010

GO TO...

Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy's Frontgal's Official Website) ENTER
Crystal ENTER
Clare ENTER
Dawn (Low) ENTER
Dora ENTER
Ee Lin ENTER
Eileen ENTER
Germin ENTER
Gina ENTER
Grace (Goh) ENTER
Grace (Tang) ENTER
Jeslin ENTER
Jia Min (P) ENTER
Jing Yi (Kwong) ENTER
Jing Yi (Leong) ENTER
Jun Tian ENTER
Katherine ENTER
Kin Ing ENTER
Rachel ENTER
Roliah ENTER
Sandra ENTER
Saran ENTER
Sharon ENTER
Shan Ting ENTER
Shirlyn ENTER
Stella Tan JJ ENTER
Xiu Ping ENTER
"伊蚊" ENTER
Yun Wen ENTER
Alson ENTER
Bennie ENTER
Boon Teck ENTER
Chester Bennington (LinkinPark's Frontman's Official Site) ENTER
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Faizal ENTER
Falmi ENTER
Hong Siang ENTER
Hsi Yuan ENTER
Jeremy ENTER
Jin Xuan ENTER
Joash ENTER
Jonathan ENTER
Jun Jie ENTER
Keith ENTER
Kian Wah ENTER
Marcus ENTER
Mark ENTER
Nigel ENTER
Oliver ENTER
Qomaru ENTER
Rahim ENTER
Seng Hong ENTER
Shi Chin ENTER
Terence ENTER
Ting Wei ENTER
Yeow Dong ENTER
Yi Kun ENTER
Yip Han ENTER
Wee Chuan ENTER
Zheng Hou ENTER
My Friendster site ENTER
Arch Enemy's Official Site ENTER
auto-otaku.com... Great Tuner Fan ENTER
chordie.com...compilations of chords, tabs from major sites ENTER
D1 GP Team Orange's official site ENTER
Damn Cool Pics ENTER
dictionary.com ENTER
driftattack.tv ENTER
eBay.com.sg ENTER
Edmunds dot com...Reviews for cars ENTER
Funnyjunk.com ENTER
GSM Arena.com ENTER
hardwarezone.com ENTER
LinkinPark's official site ENTER
mobile9.com ENTER
shift-lock.net...Drifters site ENTER
speedhunters.com ENTER
thatvideosite.com ENTER
The F2-1 2006 class blog ENTER
The new F2-1 2006 class blog ENTER
ultimate-guitar.com... Guitar tabs, chords...etc ENTER
Yahoo sg auctions ENTER

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