It’s nearing 2 in the morning now.. Cramming in a last-minute post before I get busy all over again starting next Monday.. over the next few days until school reopens shall be endless video editing, ppt slides, music, pictures, rehearsals and all that for the oncoming investiture.. tsk tsk tsk.

Right.. back to the topic.

My new buddy Liying commented that kids over in China are somewhat similiar to Singapore’s when we shared whenever it comes to studying and school. They doze off, switch off and lala when the lessons gets on their nerves and bores them out of their guts. Very relative eh. Right.. I ever mentioned that every school day at 9.30am the whole school gathers for 广播操 right? Liying says that another reason for this is to prevent kids from sleeping in class also.. :P This is quite interesting how students can score so well in their tests and exams spite how they learn through the five days of serious observation.. Actually their studying methods are rather similiar to that of ours.. They talk in their own small groups, they discuss whenever the need calls for it, they joke, they laugh and everything we do.. Psst.. They also have ‘relationships’ and rumors, but since the school has this strict rule that they do not allow relationships AT ALL, they have to hide here and there.. A new friend from my row actually kena from the DM.. Had to write reflections and all.. Heh.. :P

What is interesting about Shangwen’s lessons is that they infuse this ‘第二课堂’ into their curriculum. Although they study for a whooping 8 hours one day, it does not simply study straight throughout.. I think it’s on every Wednesday that they have this. So all the students go for different things that interests them.. Like what I went for was Mathematical Geometry, Flower-making, Robotics, etc etc. This is very much funny.. It is called Mathematical Geometry in english but I think it isn’t.. Nothing to do with Maths at all. I was thinking, I want to see how hard the maths is in China when I already cannot do ’simple maths’ back home.. But in the end it was all about squares, circles and triangles.. AHHHH.. I was so uh-huh when I got to know.. Just in case you don’t know yet, I never passed Art for a long time already.. :P Uber shiok when the teacher was so motivating to keep saying “对的.. 你很聪明的..” whenever she went on her rounds.. How many teachers in Singapore actually praises that you are CLEVER in front of the whole class lor!! HAHAHAHAHA. Though I admit I fell asleep.. But I survived through the whole lesson.. I tried my best ya.. MINDSET OF EXCELLENCE!

Hmm.. Seems like long and it’s 7 days since we’ve came back already.. 2 weeks to a different life and I got a little bit of adapting-back to do.. Like how I have to keep reminding myself that the buses’ doors back here are on the left, not the right anymore.. that water from the tap is drinkable already, no more hussle about boiling this and that.. and of course the temperature’s a killer.. I miss China’s temperature.. hardly sweating at all (for shanghai and hangzhou at least.. i don’t know whether it is like that all the time for shaoxing?) and it’s not like super cold lor..

When I first put on the 红领巾 I was in all thoughts that it was ugly and disgusting, and it was a wonder how all China kids are able to live on with something like that.. But after coming to understand the rich meaning and culture behind it, I somewhat start to miss wearing it already.. grrr.. why huh!

K.. till then..

PinkyDreams & PinkyFlowers
:B-chan

Today is a wake-up-early day. The morning call at Xiao Shi Jie rang at 6:30 promptly but it went off after 3 rings. If you haven’t realised by now, the two occupants of 516 are simply dead logs when they sleep. However, yours truly is simply sensitive to vibrations and thank god that I set my phone alarm… if not, 后果将会不堪设想.

Neeways, after an oily breakfast at the ‘restaurant’ beside our hotel, we set off to do sight-seeing at the Shanghai Urban Development Center. It basically is a rough idea about how Shanghai developed from a urban city to a vibrant one it is today. We took many 欠扁 pictures. LOL. A pretty place I must say. When we saw a crowd near a machine, we went over and tried it too. It obviously cheats money is for the keen eye. Check out the video. It costs rmb3. At about 11:40, we went for brlunch. According to Xiao-zhang, all Shanghainese are used to having lunch as early as 11:30. As for us, if we have a meal at 11 already, it’s considered brunch eh. We call the restaurant ’second-floor’. It’s a very fast- paced, busy, noisy and crowded restaurant. The food’s so-so but the good thing’s that they serve 小笼包. I know there’s nothing big about eating 小笼包 but the thing is, eating it in Shanghai adds in the complete flavour. Haha. :p

After lunch, we continued our journey to the 东方明珠. A very astonishing building. Got up the building (in a lift of course) to 200+ floor but it was pretty misty (because of the bad air pollution level) hence resulting in a cannot-see-anything-much. Greatest experience though! The building’s a feat. Then, we had a half-an-hour free time. Jiale got the shades i’ve always been longing to get. I was VERY angry. LOL! Had an impromptu stroll and free time at 外滩. Like I’ve always liked 海风, this sea isn’t any exception.

Shopping at 正大广场. EEEK!!!! YAYNESS LA! Initially wanted to catch a show with mr tan, but there weren’t any nice shows at all, so we went shopping at super market. mr tan is super a pro at this. :)
and he’s extra nice, paid for all the things first. dinner at our favourite place so far. quiet. nobody. just like we’ve booked the entire place. the food’s pleasing too. appetising and the ambience says it all. took a ferry that oversees the whole 外滩. superb experience. must have tramatized the whole ferry with our choir. lol. figured out the sums at night, and realised that no matter how we pay mrtan he’s still lugi of a few rmb. sorry!

shangwen tomorrow. must sleep!

ohwell, that was rather redundant wasn’t it.

goodnities!

All the <3
Chanstaaaar

After 3 months of drinks-selling, car-washing, thanking, smiling, money-counting, feeling the blues, packing, rehearsing, jumping about, buying last-minute necessities, dong-dong-hee-ing, stressing, hair-pulling, frowning, sulking etc etc…

WE ARE IN SHANGHAI!!

Yes please do scream at your own comfort now!

The day started off with the very typical kiasu Singaporeans- Jiale, Jiale’s dad and Jiale’s dad’s car, Jiale’s mum, Yu Qi, Serene and yours truly; who reached the airport at like 7am. The flight’s at 10:10 = check-in at 8-9 neeways :P
 

So we were extra early. The school bus was snailing to the airport and no other Woodlander was in sight except for miss chew and miss tan who came in early for some nice spicy local breakfast. At about 8:30 or so, the school bus arrived and the kee-siao-ing started.. say woo-hoo lor! We were shouting Shanghai like nobody’s business when the photo-taking started.. heee! oya, some tehpeng for you? :P

oleh!! so we checked-in about close to 9. heeeeeee! there was great frenzy because we had some 10 sembawang primary school kids whom we very quickly made friends and blended into with. took pictures, laughed at some little jokes too tough to decipher, crapped, laughed and jumped about.. Also, we were reminded to speak the Queen’s english over mandrain as far as possible so that our malay friends will enjoy the trip equally. there’s no need to mention but everybody was in the best of the greatest spirits… Leaving behind the fact that there would still be a week of Shangwen Middle High.. hiak hiak..

The boarding area was when many of us whiled away time, visiting to answer nature’s call, talking, calling… Heh but not a few of us, who diligently whipped out laptops and started to blog about that morning already! so it was another 1/2 hour filling up departure cards, checking others’ seat numbers, soaked in the good atmosphere of excitement and fun.. :)

Lucky me got a pretty window
seat after anticipating for
2398109380912830 years.. It’s always a pleasure to feel clouds underneath you just before your eyes.. I don’t know about the rest but that’s for the me who seldom travels..
 

It was a 5-hour morning flight so we had lunch on board.. A good point was that the turbulence wasn’t very bad at all.. Just so very mild, the meal was enjoyable.. Great music by the ears, the perfect scenery outside of your window, feeling not realistic at all, and of course friends on the same flight.. plus, some fine dining. Oya, very coincidentally (or not!), the whole stretch, including the next 6 over there, of our row chose chicken over potato, unrehearsed! :)

Hmm.. after lunch was a drowsy 20 minutes for me.. that’s what the
ideal holiday sounds like eh? so i slept for a little bit before i woke up, to start playing games all over again :) so i tried to access this mario game, which i thought had a big capacity to have to load for so long that i left for the washroom (which by many came and cut the queue for like about 10mins). after i came back it was still loading so i stared into the outside but after that it told me that loading failed. grumble..

Interlude: The sky makes me think about many things, many incidents and many people that I couldn’t help but feel a little teary.. it doesn’t have to be inside a plane that i feel so, even when i stand on proper ground and look up, i think about all these.. It just comes to me naturally.
 

Nevermind about all those things… we touched down at about 3pm! It feels different already. A something that was very distinctive was the temperature.. It isn’t cold but chilly, and there was very mild but choking smoke-smell that was definitely more than irritating.

nway, that’s our tour guide on the right. He’s Zhang but tells us to address him as Xiao-zhang.. one very nice guy.

After which, we headed over to our first stop-over, Xiao Shi Jie Hotel where we clearly knew we would be lodging for the next 7 days.. all the first impression was that it was just another small, hot and budget hotel in a small alley on some street in the district.. in this picture you may not clearly see but the guys were helping the bus driver to unload the many luggages..

We located our rooms and rested for while before going for dinner at a local Thai restaurant were we had our first local dinner.  

… 2.5/5 stars.

At night, I tried to access wordpress, blogspot, wretch, livejournal and everywhere that blogs were involved but I just couldn’t. It only struck to me then that blogs are not allowed in parts of china, and shanghai being one of them. I forgot where i read it off before that shanghai do not allow blogs but it just slipped off my mind completely.

but anyway, it was a nice good night.

great souls,
malichan

p/s: for more candid/group pictures, please access www.photobucket.com/j-adore and navigate on the left side-bars… :)