Somewhere out there... I will find her.

Beijing (+18) CS and lessons

2008-01-03T21:52:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+18)

This morning I rushed down to the Voyage classroom to play CS (: Yep, we have become CS fanatics over 3 days lol. All 13 Isparkies now play CS (:

That aside, I DINT SLEEP IN CHINESE LESSONS TODAY YAY.

PE was okay... Just that there were too many people cramped in one court such that each person only got to touch the ball once or twice.

Mass jog today was stupid. They arranged everyone by height so I was somewhere in the 4th row.. What the hell la.

Physics was very easy to understand. Mr Su is a good teacher. (: And so is Mr Ang.

English presentation was screwed. Never mind. We were handicapped.

WOOTS MATH WAS OWNAGE FUN (: BINOMIAL THEOREM!

After I completed my math homework, I SPAMMED CS ALL THE WAY! :D

My AWP skills are imba. Lol. But still needs to be improved. It's great fun playing with such a huge group. I heard the huge group short circuited a few multi plugs and cracked up the Internet server lol.

We also went to this Japanese restaurant for dinner (:

Eel meat (:

Delicious.

Dahwei. AWP.

Oh yes, I promised you guys photos of Tian Wai Tian.

Beijing (+15,16,17)

2008-01-03T08:21:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+15, +16, +17)

Hi! These few days, the school has been locked up for the New Year holidays. (: I have been camping in the dormitory these few days, stoning and wasting my time away.

Now that I have access to Internet again, I will continue my blogging (:

AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! IT’S A BRAND NEW YEAR! (: LET’S GO 2008!

Here’s my New Year’s Resolution.

1. Msg 1.00
2. Increased involvement in S.B.
3. Breakdancing ability by end of year
4. Continue to gym actively
5. Join the family in Sunday Swimming
6. Abstain from gaming
7. Homework as first priority
8. Regular filing
9. 170 cm
10. Be involved in major events that allow bonding between students from other schools (E.g. exchanges, SLC etc…)
11. Take up responsibility in an SL project
12. Become more mature by the end of Sec 4.

(:

Today’s Chinese lessons were dead. As usual. Math and Physics were hell interesting! :D We learnt a lot in these lessons haha.

After school ended at 4:00pm, I went to play Counterstrike with the Highflyer Isparkies. All the way until dinner and after dinner (:

The free time is really used wrongly. LOL. Supposed to finish up my online lessons… Ah well.

:D I’m going to bed. It’s 12. (: And I just watched High School Musical and Lord of the Rings (Fellowship of the Ring) in CHINESE. WTH LOL.

Bye.

Dahwei. Resolve.

Beijing (+14) ZOO!

2008-01-02T22:24:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+14)

Sunday! I suggested visiting the zoo as an outing. 7 other Isparkies came along. (: We had breakfast at Macs, then took Bus 104 all the way to the Beijing zoo.

The entrance wasn’t exactly pretty. And the ticket costed me 15 Yuan. >< Great Panda exhibition hall.

Then we saw this super huge lake that’s all frozen, with hundreds of birds resting on it. Pretty scenery! (:

The Isparkies who went. Me. Shawn Koh. Bo Yan. Kah Hong. Shawn Teo. Jia Jie. Baifeng and Ryan.

Me and the mandarin ducks! :D

Lots of animals, but since it was the winter season, a lot of them were either hibernating or slacking in an indoors heated environment.

One pathetic tiger.

2 sleeping lions.

The most active animals. Wolves.

A super OWNAGE piece of rock that is in the shape of a majestic tiger. OMG! (:

The friendliest animals that allowed us to pat them.

A pregnant one. (:

The tall guy.

We paid 10 Yuan just to visit these pathetic penguins. ><

Panda indoor slippers and 1 Panda pencil case. For my sister of course. (:

After the zoo visit, Baifeng, Ryan and I met up with Xc. The rest took a bus back to Tie Shi Zi Fen. The four of us shopped at zoo plaza and Xidan shopping centre. But I didn’t buy anything LOL.

I was searching for gifts for my parents. I have officially COMPLETED my gift list! :D I have bought gifts for all my friends. All taken care of. YAY!

Now to focus on nice gifts for my parents (:

Dahwei. Panda.

Beijing (+13) New Year Party!

2008-01-01T20:14:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+13)

Woot! It’s the WEEKEND! (:

We had our class’s New Year 2008 Celebrations today. Every class had organized a party where they would just eat, drink, play and be merry!

Gao Yi (09) had lots of events planned for us. (: We had a dumplings folding session, where flour, dough, filling and water were placed before us.

My dumplings (:

Then we sent the whole lot of 200 dumplings to the kitchen for boiling.

The kitchen was wet, messy and strewn all over the floor was rotten veggies. Ew. The way they cooked the dumplings was quite weird as well. They used a huge shovel to stir the boiling pot. :D Omg.

We carried our boiling hot and cooked dumplings back to the class (:

Balloons, fluffy strips and a crazily doodled board :D

Half eaten sweets, papers and wrappers all thrown around. Aiya, it was a HUGE MESS la. BUT! We had LOTS OF FUN (:

And during the last hour of the party, we had many performances put up by the local students. Whee! Talented.

After the party, I gave Zi Han and Si Lü the cards that I made. Then XC, Russell, Ryan, Daniel and I went to Cheng Du Mei Shi for lunch.

We went to Wang Fu Jing to shop for the whole afternoon (: I bought a few souvenirs for the people back in Singapore. Yay.

An interesting Saturday out in the streets of Beijing! :D

Dahwei. Happy New Year.

Beijing (+12) SNOW! YAY!

2007-12-31T11:43:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+12)

Aw… Last day of Immersion, last weekday before Year 2008. Last school-day and last Friday of the Year. BUT IT WAS EXCITING! CAUSE…

THERE WAS SNOW. YES SNOW. SNOW WOOT SNOW FINALLY.

Although it was light snow, it was still SNOW! LIKE THE FIRST TIME I HAVE EVER SEEN SNOW HAHA (:

Pathetic as it is, it is SNOW! :D

We had Math for our first period of Immersion. Complex. As usual. Chinese Geography was sian. Mass jog was cancelled cause of the melting snow and wet ground. ): Chinese Lit lesson was dead. As … usual.

AIYA all the lessons are part of the routine already. The next time I blog, I wouldn’t mention lessons anymore. >< color="#ff9900">Higher Higher HIGHER Chinese) for Immersion. The Chinese teacher was so interesting! (:

I talked to Zi Han quite a bit today. I even got her handphone number!

Took a photo with my buddies during lunch today haha.

And Si Lü has this pen that unleashes COOL BLUE INK. I’m going to get that pen colour when I get back to Singapore. To add on to my Purple, Light Orange, Silky Black colour pens. (:

The afternoon lessons were sian. My Ih group had to present our “Causes of War” Powerpoint today, Ms Quah gave us a Volunteerism project and Mr Ang wasted 60% of the period talking crap lol.

Today’s blogpost will be a bit brief because I really need the free time to do my Comprehension assignment (It’s graded what the hell.) and make 2 New Year cards for my Chinese buddies. (:

Actually from today onwards, there will be a significant decrease in blogpost length because:

1. I won’t be going to much attractions anymore ):

2. I need the time to do the work thrown at us ):

Sad la. School starts soon. ): BUT THE NEW YEAR 2008 IS COMING! HAHA! :D And tomorrow is the school’s annual New Year Celebrations cum Class Parties. We are invited!

Whee. I shall await the countdown. Will call back to my family of course. (:

Dahwei. New Year.

Beijing (+11) Tian Tan

2007-12-28T12:52:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+11)

Second last day of Immersion. Sian. ): Had better treasure the time left with the Chinese students in class. I made another new friend. Zhang Wen Da. (:

We had Math for our first period. COMPLEX >< But if one actually puts in the effort to understand the stuff being taught, it’s actually quite easy. The teacher was simply complicating things. Everything was abstract compared to the simplified version being taught in Hwa Chong.

(: We went back to Voyage’s classroom for Geography. The only thing I learnt during the lesson was about Great Pandas. LOL.

PE was volleyball again. Quite pwnage fun (: This time Russell and Daniel joined the Chinese students in the game.

Owned mass jog as usual. Was running in front of the pack :1

We went back to our Immersion classes after the exercise. Our class was having DnT.

:D Woodwork, innovation and craftsmanship. WICked. Although the Singaporeans were slacking throughout the period, we managed to pass time by doodling.

When we got back to our Gao Yi 09, we had a pleasant shock. Our class was staging a PLAY titled “Little Woman” and Zi Han was acting as well (: Many of the class members were involved. The costumes were AWESOME. Pretty.

After lunch, we went to Tian Tan for our outing! :D

But there wasn’t much to see at Tian Tan.

The few attractions were:

1. The Circular Hall (Qi Nian Dian)

2. The Echo wall

3. The Nine dragons stone (Jiu Long Bo)

The Ispark group of 13 was pretty exhausted after the trip. And quite disappointed as well. It wasn’t exactly impressive, nor was it culturally enriching. It was something like a walk-see-walk-sit trip. Quite boring. ><

When we got back to Beijing Shi Fan Da Er Fu Zhong, we went to Cheng Du Mei Shi (Heavenly City Food) for dinner. My order totally sucked. Fried rice with shredded meat SUX.

And after that, it was free time all the way until 11:30! (:

Not a very exciting day. And it is saddening to realize that tomorrow is the LAST DAY of Immersion. Sian.

Dahwei. More Immersion.

Beijing (+10) Keppel

2007-12-26T21:12:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+10)

It’s been 10 days. We have survived 1/3 of our journey. (: Hope the remaining journey will be full of surprises.

We were going to have lessons until 1:00pm, then we would be going out for ANOTHER OUTING :D

Chinese lessons were monotonous as usual. The class has gotten used to the deafenining silence. Apart from the teacher speaking of course. >< IMMERSION! YAY.

Zi Han was smsing under the table again. (:

We were going to have English :D HAHA! An eye-opener.

Jessie was our English teacher. She spoke excellent English with a Chinese accent. I was surprised at the standard of English here in Er Fu Zhong. Most of the students here had good vocabulary and can hold a reasonable conversation.

The lesson was simple and easy to understand, even though the Singaporean students could spot a lot of syntax errors. But it was extremely impressive. (:

Math was the complex one. The math teacher was old but quite knowledgeable. The lesson was pretty much a lot of derivations of Trigonometry. Although the Singaporeans had problems understanding the various weird symbols, most of us could still grasp a little. ._o

Probably only Bo Yan and I could understand the teacher. We could capture all the information that was presented before us. At least better than Zi Han, Shi Ruo and Si Lü. :D

Shi Ruo and Si Lü are another two girls that I met today. They are seated in front of us (:

YES 3 friends WOOT. :D

Lunch was quite good. Better than the canteen at least.

We were going to a Beijing workshop. In summary, it is a workshop about Keppel. KeppelLand, Beijing branch.

We were brought to a very stuffy room for our first lecture. We were seated on very uncomfortable stools, but we got through. (: Even though 80% of the people were sleeping or daydreaming, I was paying full attention. ><

My stool was quite shaky, so I couldn’t sleep or daydream properly. I was jotting down notes. Haha. The lecture was about the Keppel structure, property sales and the 3 secrets to Successful Property Sale.

The second part was a tour of “The Seasons” high-rise apartments. The place was spacious enough for snowball fights, skateboarding, ball games and lots of outdoor activities.

If there were fresh air instead of this polluted shit, if there were rushing water in creeks and if there were snow or the scent of spring, THIS PLACE WOULD BE A WONDERFUL PLACE TO LIVE IN! (:

But now, it looks barren, deserted and foggy. Quite dreadful. I believe it’s the winter season that’s causing the place to seem so lifeless.

The third part of our Keppel workshop was a lecture by the manager about the history of China property, the policies employed to retain reasonable property prices and the strategies of property sale.

Sadly, almost nobody was listening.

We got screwed by Mr Yap for destroying the reputation of Hwa Chong, for being a totally unattentive audience ):

But Keppel was still very generous, inviting the entire delegation of students to a very posh restaurant for dinner.

AND FINALLY! PEKING DUCK FOR THE FIRST TIME! :D

After the meal, XC and I suddenly had the inspiration for a masterpiece. (:

Guess what ingredients were used. LOL.

Dahwei. Keppel.

Beijing (+9) Why this?

2007-12-26T20:21:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+9)

YAY it’s Tuesday! :D Outing day Woot. I woke up today and bathed in hot steaming water. (:

We were going to TianJin for the entire day (: The bus trip to Tian Jin was about 3 hours long. I simply slept through the whole trip.

Our first destination was a KeppelLand residential estate that was up for show. We went into two showhouses with the tourguide leading us. She was pretty silent throughout the whole trip.

I thought the houses were beautiful but one must consider the proximity of the houses to civilisation, the cost of the classy furniture, the cost of upkeep and maintenance and the utility bills.

Perhaps it might not seem like a lot of money to rich Singaporeans, but I doubt many people in China would pay huge sums of money just to live in such luxury.

My personal opinion: The house is quite impractical to reside in. It is probably a high-end residential estate for the wealthy.

Here are some nice shots of the 2 houses. Beautiful design and classy furniture (: A treat for the eyes.

CSI! :D

Lunch was at some posh restaurant. :D

Our next stop was some museum showcasing all of Premier Zhou En Lai’s belongings and documents. It had many displays of artifacts and ancient scriptures. (:

I was smoking Pocky in the bus :D

The tour bus then brought us to this Chinese Village to shop. The village was selling swords, potteries, clothes and lots of other chinese items. I didn’t buy anything.
But I did try my bargaining skills again. I cut a pair of 55 Yuan sunglasses down to 10 Yuan (:

Then I didn’t buy it. LOL.

In fact, we were going to have dinner at some weird TianJin restaurant place. The basement were full of shops selling random items like keychains and magic rings.

I spotted 4 Olympics keychains which were pretty cool, so I haggled and bought them all for 9 Yuan. (Original price 12 Yuan, but too tired to bargain anymore)

Planning to give them to 4 softballers back in Singapore (:

Listened to my Mp3 and slept through the whole bus trip back to the dorm. Quite a disappointing day I suppose. I was expecting some kind of immersion or home-visit at Tianjin but the places that they brought us to were kind of pointless.

Quite bored after the whole thing, even though we got to venture out of Beijing (:

Didn’t spend much today. YAY. Saved so much money.

My gift-list is getting shorter. (: Only a few people left and I still have 3 weeks to get their gifts :D

Dahwei. Disappointed.

Beijing (+8) X-MAS EVE!

2007-12-26T06:55:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+8)

YAY IT’S CHRISTMAS EVE! :D

But before that, I’ve stuff to settle. Today’s the first day of Immersion for us in the Beijing classes. I was assigned to Gao Yi (09) – Sec 4, (09)

Stepping in, I could sense people staring in awe at the 9 aliens that had just entered the class. We were so different… The gap between us was so wide. It just didn’t feel quite right yet.

Ah well, we will get to know each other soon.

Self-Intro was quite lame. Everybody went up to say the same old thing.
“My name is bla-bla-bla”

So I decided to be a little special. Instead of the cliché sentence, I said:

“Good morning! (: I am Lim Dah Wei. Hope that I will get the chance to know some of you better! Thanks.”

I was seated beside a girl. Actually, there were like 35 girls and 3 boys in the class. (: Quite unbalanced, but who cares lol. Her name was Tang Zi Han.

We had a lesson on China Politics for the first period and then History for the second. And guess what, Er Fu Zhong may be renowned for their numerous academic accomplishments and prestigious accolades but they are NO DIFFERENT FROM HWA CHONG! :D

Smsing under the table, Rubiks cubing under the table, chionging undone homework and talking crap are common sights in this classroom. (: Exactly like Hwa Chong. But one main difference. There was nobody sleeping. :D

Both lessons were indeed interesting. I surprised Zi Han by solving the Rubik’s Cube. I think she has never managed to solve it herself. Haha. She thought it was kinda impressive that she was finally in possession of a COMPLETED RUBIK’S CUBE :D So she took photos of it.

And all this was done during class time. SHUANG! (: Just like home.

I’m quite satisfied with how things are going with the Immersion, especially cause I managed to befriend someone from BEIJING SHI FAN DA ER FU ZHONG :D

She’s the first first FIRST person I have interacted with since I arrived. Whee!

Lunch was DELIVERED to the classroom in packed boxes. While we were lunching, I managed to interact with Zi Han a little. I realized that the people here CAN speak and ARE ABLE TO understand ENGLISH.

(: Owned. Immersion was FUN! ♥

Geography was okay. I slept through Chinese Lit. ><>

-Litter

-Greeting the teacher

-5 minutes of wasted time

-Self Introduction

I chose Art for my elective class. It turned out to be a quite a scam. It wasn’t really Art. It was Calligraphy. So we learnt about the history of the Chinese characters and how evolution and the passing of time has affected the design of the characters. Interesting. (:

CCA was screwed. I was in the Dance Club. But nobody had a clue about where all the CCA venues were, so the teachers decided to slot in a last minute movie. Chariots of Fire. Awesome movie.

“Why do athletes race? For passion? For glory? For money? For pleasure? For the country? Or for God?”

THEN IT WAS X-MAS CELEBRATIONS! :D

I phoned my family in Singapore to wish them Merry Christmas and to them I’m doing really well here in Beijing. I tried phoning Wen Hao. He dint pick up. He smsed me instead.

Basically, I phoned all my friends. And you. But you didn’t pick up! ><>

Xmas celebrations. Photos speak for themselves. Quite a messy party, but it will probably be the best Beijing can offer. (95% of the people here don’t celebrate Christmas.) Merry Christmas!

Random scribbles on the board (:

Snicker bars.

Fruits.

Impromptu emcees. :D FAIL.

From left, Mr Yap Shinn, Ms Yeo, Mr Steven Su, Ms Quah and Mr Ang.

Birthday boy, Jerrold Au.

Singing the Bday song! (:

Saimeng, Qi En and Kai Li talking crap. :X

Baifeng being spastic as usual :D

Hong Guang and Shawn koh.

Ryan drinking his lemon juice (:

Who’s taller? :D

The Boss eating his snicker in ONE SHOT :D

Just being Cool. (: I think those sunglasses belonged to a teacher. WHO CARES HAHA.

MERRY X-MAS! HO HO HO. :D

Dahwei. Merry X-mas!

Beijing (+7) FREE DAY! (:

2007-12-23T20:01:00.001+08:00

Beijing (+7)

YAY! SUNDAY! And my laundry has dried since last night. Woots.

Breakfast was a Garfield bun for me. I then stoned around in my bed and napped till 9:45.

I went to school for my daily chatting with Mum&Dad. YAY! MY WEBCAM FINALLY CONNECTS! HAHA! :D

Everybody could see me do stupid stuff LOL. Like yawning, stretching and stripping off winter clothes. HAHA. So damned happy they can finally see me.

(:

The Isparkies (Russell, XC, Daniel, Jia Jie, Hong Guang, Shawn Koh, Sai Meng, Qi En and Kai Li) suggested that we should go to Xi Dan Shopping Square for lunch. We took Bus 22 there and got off to a rather sluggish start. We stoned around for about 15 minutes waiting for Baifeng to appear. ._o

We then decided to visit the Mian Ai Mian (Lovely Noodles) stall for lunch. I ordered Curry Roast Pork with Rice. (19 Yuan / $3.80) Daniel ordered a bottle of Sakae and A cuppa coffee. I couldn't smell anything la >< Blocked nose. Lol.

Our delegation grew smaller and smaller as more people got bored of the place. It was only XC, Russell, Daniel, Baifeng and I left.

We went over to Xi Dan Shopping Complex to check out the souvenir and accessories store. AND TELL YOU SOMETHING! (: IM A DAMNED PRO BARGAINER HAHA.

Item 1. Royal Flush Keychain. Original Price - 50 Yuan ($10)

Final price: 10 Yuan ($2)

Item 2. Trebleclef Keychain. Original price - 35 Yuan ($7)

Final price: 10 Yuan ($2)

Item 3. Clover Keychain. Original price - 25 Yuan for 1 ($5)

Final price: 12 Yuan for 2. ($2.40)

Item 4. Olympics Dolls. Original price - 65 Yuan for 5 ($15)

Final price: 10 Yuan for 5. ($2)

Total spent: 42 Yuan ($8.40)

HAHA PWNT. SHOPPING SPREE! :D The lady at the store even admitted that even though I was a "kid", I could bargain really well. She was kinda impressed that a kid could cut the price down by so much. (:

I am happy. ><><

10 Yuan. $2.

Total money spent today: 52 Yuan. ($10.40)

HAHA! GREAT FEELING. Now I'm going out to get a few items before I call it a day.

1. Sim Card refill money
2. Garfield buns
3. A pair of gloves

(: Lala.

Dahwei. Bargained.

Beijing (+6) The Egg

2007-12-23T10:50:00.000+08:00

Beijing(+6)

Woot! The start of the weekend. Saturday. Normally BSC students have the weekend to venture out into Beijing on their own. But as of today, a full day tour was planned for us. I was quite excited! :D

Our first stop was the National Drama Centre of Beijing, a huge theatre twice the size of the Esplanade. It’s shaped as a half-egg and built upon a shallow lake. The reflection in the water completed the egg shape. What a cool design (:

But we weren’t allowed to go in because the opening ceremony was tonight and the entire area was cordoned off for security purposes.

We took a very long detour to our next destination, so on the way we saw something UBER CUTE. HAHA UBER UBER CUTE. REALLY CUTE, like the cutest thing in Beijing.

Little Red Riding Hood. HAHA CUTE :D

Like finally after 45 minutes, we reached the next hotspot.

Beiijing Gui Hua Guan.

The Beijing Architectural Museum showcased a lot of models of the city of Beijing and the buildings that have been erected. There were models of the Olympics stadiums and famous hotels as well.

Olympic Stadium

We then watched a 3D movie of The New Beijing. Paiseh, the music and the atmosphere made me sleep.

We went to Mian Ai Mian. (Lovely Noodles) for lunch. I ordered a spicy beef ramen and after the meal I could feel my body temperature increase. ._o Suddenly, everything felt warm (: (25 Yuan / $5)

Next stop! Lao She Cha Guan. Lao She Tea Restaurant.

On first look, the place looked as though it was some ordinary restaurant. But when we were finally seated, we saw how unique this place was.

The tea was of premium grade. The place was stuffy but quite conducive for a short nap or a game of Daidee. What we didn’t expect was the extremely hilarious and entertaining performances that were showcased.

Talent. Simply talented.

Here’s the programme.

1. Puppet show about Sun Wu Kong’s battle against the Little Red Devil. Quite interesting, especially the fighting scenes LOL. 3 stars.

2. A Tea performance by trained professionals. Quite similar to martial arts, just that instead of swords, the performers used teapots with extremely long spouts. It was stylish. They even had a name for every single tea-pouring stance. 4 stars.

3. A Chinese Orchestra performance. They played 1 folk song. For some reason everybody was just staring at the chio Erhu player on the extreme left. Despo huh.

I couldn’t really appreciate the music so I just kept drinking tea while countless of Hwa Chong students used their cameras and zoomed in right on her face. Wtf lol. 3 stars.

4. A Music opera. The lady singer was really high pitched and talented, but I doubt anyone could appreciate her singing. So many people falling asleep… ><>2 stars

5. An Acrobatic performance. THIS IS OWNAGE. The 2 girls must have trained yoga style since the age of 3… Their body is so flexible and their arms and limbs have the strength to support their entire weight! OWNED!!! :D

These girls will own at breakdance, though they probably wouldn’t sacrifice their gracefulness for B-Boy. 5 stars.

6. A Magic performance. This is classic. Most of her tricks are quite obvious, but the way she covers up is excellent. 3 stars.

7. A Comedy by two men. Funny. And quite lame. (: 3 stars.

8. Face-changing performance. OMG THIS IS HOLY SHIT! OWNAGE! :D I totally loved this. SO COOL! (: 5 stars.

After the performance, I proceeded to the Tea Shop to purchase some Oolong tea (18 Yuan / $3.60) for my Grandma. FINALLY. I FOUND THE PLACE TO BUY GOOD TEA. Lucky me! :D

Since it was free time after we came out from Lao She Tea Restaurant, the 13 Isparkies (Qi En and Kai Li lost again…) went to Xi Dan Shopping Square to do some night shopping and eat our dinner.

Shopping was crap. The place was so posh, everything was 10x my budget of 30 Yuan. 2 things that caught my eye.

1) A Royal Flush keychain. 15 Yuan, a little expensive ):
2) Acupuncture shoes, cheapest 500 Yuan / $100… What the hell…

Dinner was Spicy Grilled Beef Rice set + Regular Coke You must be thinking I must be crazy to eat Spicy beef all day. LOL. I am.

22 Yuan. ($4:50)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I went off to 77th Street shopping mall to check out the cheaper goods but I got separated from the Isparkies.

I was,

Alone.

Shit.

I combed the entire Xi Dan Shopping Complex from F8 to F1, floor by floor.
I waited outside the entrance for 15 mins. (Our supposed meeting point)

I gave up and walked to the bus stop, hoping to meet up with someone. I spent 30 minutes waiting at the bus stop in the stupid cold wind. Going to get a flu la wtf.

The 12th Bus 22 came and I took it back to Tie Shi Zi Men, Dorm Sweet Dorm.

I can’t believe it! I solo-ed the streets of Beijing by myself! In the cold and amongst thousands of strangers! HAHA! And I still managed to find my way safely back to the Dorm. Accomplishment.

But my $$$ is going down the drain. 108 Yuan – 25 Yuan – 18 Yuan – 24 Yuan =

41 Yuan.

Haiz. I am going to force myself to eat Canteen food le >< Lol. Okay goodnight! (: Dahwei. Tea.

Beijing (+5) The Forbidden City

2007-12-21T20:09:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+5)

108 Yuan. Let’s do it. I shall survive! :D

I am quite addicted to Jia Fei Bao. Garfield bun. It’s a bun with Garfield printed on it and the entire bun is filled with chocolate. Yum.

The Chinese lessons were as usual, quite dead. Everybody was thinking about something else, daydreaming, sleeping or playing with their laptops. I was daydreaming.

As usual, at 10:00am, we went down to the track for mass jog. I owned it again. :D
But the cold air is quite irritating la. Dries your throat like mad.

Physics practical was HELL COOL. :D Mr Su is so funny LOL. Enjoyed the practical. Slack but enriching.

Lunch was decent. I drank Pepsi. WOOT CHINA PEPSI TASTES JUST LIKE HOME! (:

Our sight-seeing destination today was the Forbidden City within TianAnMen gate.
I had high expectations of the place :D The big Mao Ze Dong photo.

We got there by bus and the first thing that caught everyone’s eye was the prominent and extremely huge photo of Mr. Mao.

We had 2 hours to tour the whole of the Forbidden City. The place was HUGE. HUGE. HUGE. It’s actually just a gigantic palace surrounded by uber tall walls. An emperor’s residence within an impregnable fortress.

Emperor's Throne

Our Ispark group got pretty bored after a while. The journey was long, but almost all the buildings that we saw looked the same. However, Russell, Baifeng, Hong Guang, Daniel and I made it to the final destination. The exit at the back of the Forbidden City, near the foot of the mountain. Most probably the retreat path that the Emperor had carved out for himself.

We had to turn back soon enough because we only had 45 minutes left till meeting time. We did some stupid stuff like take photos with a giant fire extinguisher pot and play around in the Hall of Bronze and House of Longevity.

House of Longevity, burnt down in a fire.

On our way back we also saw this huge path carved out of stone. Description says that the huge stone path was transported here by sprinkling water before the stone such that water freezes for the stone to slide across. Cool! :D

We were early. The rest of the Hwa Chong students weren’t back yet. So we spotted a troop of Chinese soldiers marching and ran in front of them like some mad Paparazzi and took lots of photos of the soldiers.

The Forbidden City was closing at 4:30pm. The few Isparkies that I met up with made a mad dash for the door, losing all contact of Mr Yap or Mr Ang and deserting the entire Hwa Chong delegation. We were on our own. Amidst 8000 chinese strangers.

We observed the Chinese flag lowering ceremony. The atmosphere was tense and everybody was dead serious. There was a sense of respect floating in the cold, still air. Once the procession was over, we finally managed to meet up with Mr Ang and the rest.

Then it was another mad rush for the Subway. Yay! First time experience in a Beijing subway train. And wtf, it aint cool.

It’s like 50 people trying to squeeze into a cabin with already 100 people inside. When the train door opened, the cabin already looked as though it couldn’t fit anymore. But defying the laws of physics, somehow, the rest of us managed to shove and push our damned way into the train.

I knew that in Beijing, it’s every man for himself. Survival of the fittest. I dint give a shit about whoever I was pushing. I knew that if I had slackened, somebody would have taken advantage of me. I squeezed into the cabin, not very comfortably anyway.

Mr Ang was close to me. He just told me to get use to it. And I knew I was going to. This is Beijing, a place where nobody wants to get left behind.

I wasn’t thinking properly I guess, I actually shouted: “Lai, rang yi rang!” (Hey, move aside!) out into the cabin, alerting all the passengers in front of me to give way.

And when they refused, I just pushed them till they lost their balance and squeezed through. :D Hell fun LOL.

Adrenaline pumped train ride! Lol. I was enjoying myself pushing around, but come to think of it, I am afraid a lady would not have enjoyed the intrusion of privacy. Everyone was practically leaning on each other. So, females do have some sort of disadvantage.

Dinner was at Macs with XC, Ryan, Daniel and Kh. And I met the two wushu guys. Now I know one of their names. You Jun. Lol. I swear that by the time I leave the BSC I will get to know 80% of the people here. :D

And it’s free time from 7:30 to 11:00. Lol! (:

I’m having fun! Haha. But it won’t be long till official lessons start. Haiz. Ah well, let’s go!

Dahwei. Adrenalined.

Beijing (+4) Summer Palace

2007-12-21T07:24:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+4)

The FIRST week is flying past. Guess what. I realize I am 890 Yuan poorer. LOL. I’m splurging a lot on souvenirs (370+ Yuan), tours (220 Yuan), a China Sim-card (108 Yuan) and food (About 192 Yuan).

I have made a personal oath. That I shall try to conserve as much as possible within a 108 Yuan budget for the next 5 days. (:

Today’s Geography lesson was about the Highlands of West China, where fold mountains and exotic animal species resided. Interesting videos were played. (:

Then we had PE!!! YAY I SO LOVE THIS (: My chosen sport was Volleyball, together with Russell, Daniel, the 2 Shawns, Kah Hong, Xuan Cheng, Baifeng, Hong Guang and Jiajie.

When we reached the court, we were shocked that we were supposed to play against the Chinese players. But care sia. Turned out, only Daniel and I mingled with the Chinese players. The rest of the Singapore students just played Monkey amongst themselves. Actually, I pang-sehed them.

I could pretty much own all the Chinese players on the court except for 1 guy on the other team.

:D

Then we had the daily mass jog. I TELL YOU THIS THING IS FUN :D. We ran only 3 rounds on the track (600m), but it was hell fun! (:

The only bad thing is that the weather is quite cold and the air was extremely dry, so Oxygen supply was effin low. People suffering from Asthma had a lot of attacks. I could pretty much own the 3 rounds as well (:

Chinese literature was very complex, as usual. The teacher actually reads so deep between the lines…. And I’m kinda struggling to catch up with her >< MR STEVEN SU WAS OUR PHYSICS TEACHER LOLOLOLOL. I think he was teaching us with Kindergarten-level explanations. Damned funny. Although all his descriptions were unclear, the way he presented himself was comical at times. We enjoyed his lesson. :D

Lunch was quite crap. -.- Everything tasted Sze Chuan… Spicy… Sour… I think my throat is dying from the heatiness.

AFTER LUNCH, OFF WE WERE TO SUMMER PALACE! :D

There’s only one word to describe it.

Scenic.

Basically I just tagged along with any random Isparkie till I toured all the hotspots in Summer Palace. The place is extremely huge, with a giant palace ground right in the middle.

HAHA! AND GUESS WHAT. THE LAKE WAS FROZEN SOLID. WOOT! We had tons and tons of fun skating and walking and jumping on ice! :D This was my first time treading on a frozen water body and I TOTALLY ENJOYED IT HAHA.

Poor Baifeng cracked the ice layer and fell into the wet mud. Ew. His shoe was drenched and the soles of his shoe sploshed with mud. EW.

Baifeng, Kh, XC, Sai Meng, Ryan and I trekked up the hilly path to the Palace tower. It was a rough road, but we survived. :D And we took some nice photos along the way.

The most scenic spot must be the Palace tower. The highest point in Summer Garden. The view up there is spectacular. It’s as though you could see the whole of Beijing.

I couldn’t bear to leave the place. So I went to the frozen lake again. There was a beautiful chrome in the sky, the sun setting ever so nonchalantly. The willows swaying gently in the breeze. Serenity. A perfect view.

And I made a wish as two shooting stars soared above us high up in the sky.

Russell and I decided to do take a crapped up shot before we left Summer Palace. The intended photo outcome was something like this….

But on our first try…. It was ….

LOL. :D

On the bus trip back, we stormed up the bus BEFORE the bus warden could board. So there was absolutely no way she could have checked who had tapped their Ez-link card and who hadn’t.

And the entire Hwa Chong delegation kopped about 45 of the bus seats, leaving very few for any other passenger. Very unusual for a bus at the TERMINAL to be so packed.

Then the fcking warden got pissed at us and kept screaming at us. The woman just continued blackmouthing and defaming Hwa Chong’s image and Singapore’s reputation as a whole. The way she rambled on and on for 1 whole hour made me want to punch the hell out of her bloody face. She just HAD to tell every single passenger about how “lousy” we Hwa Chong students were.

The surprising thing is, all the Hwa Chong students were too tired to argue with her. And a little stunned at the rudeness. So we just thought: “Stfu, noob.”

She’s just worried that with us cramping the bus, she can’t get any new passengers – So no income.

Well, when we finally reached our stop, we were so desperate to get off. And she HAD to wish us goodbye in a FCKING SARCASTIC WAY. Look, old woman. You spoil the image of Beijing.

Then I thought, one little black sheep in the entire herd couldn’t be that bad. I made myself forget about her. I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t be as petty as that bitch. And that was it.

All 13 Isparkies (besides Qi En & Kai Li) went to the uber classy Yumadun for a very sumptuous meal.

Baifeng and I were seated beside each other. Baifeng is quite sensible (: And he isn’t fussy about food.

But then, SOMEBODY just had to be so damned fussy. Can’t eat this, can’t eat that. Hate the smell of this, hate the taste of that. Can’t be sure of what that is, so don’t eat. This tastes weird, that tastes awful. Why the fck does someone have to be so damned fussy about the food? It isn’t that bad WHAT.

And telling people that the 82 Yuan that you had forked out was “Wasted”. Now that is the FCKING LAST STRAW. And I can assure you, the rest of the table are equally pissed at your spoiling the nice atmosphere with your cranky restrictions about food.

Just don’t follow us the next time we go out for dinner, alright? We don’t welcome your ethics.

Yeah, you heard me. YUMADUN cost us 82 Yuan each :D
About Singapore $17 for a wholesome, awesome, wondersome restaurant ala carte set meal. Every single dish was absolutely delicious! (: Except the ultra-spicy beef. >< color="#6600cc">We were high!

We even tipped the waitress with the 10 yuan that was supposedly Mr-Fussy’s change. (:

An eventful day of sightseeing. But I got a sneak peek to the ugly side of Beijing and the retarded attitude of some spoilt brat.

Quite excellent nevertheless! :D

Dahwei. Scenic yumadun.

Beijing (+3) SHOPPING AGAIN! (:

2007-12-20T07:59:00.000+08:00

Beijing (+3) xD

Facs chalet just ended. I don’t know what the hell the distance is doing to us. I’m starting to miss someone back in Singapore. I so wanna talk to her on msn once more. ): Never mind. We will get a chance.

Meanwhile, I don’t miss my family that much because… I spend at least 10 minutes on the phone with them and another 3 hours on msn :D

So we still keep in contact (:

YAY. I used this morning’s RP session to create a blogger account that China DOESN’T block.

Finally can blog about my thoughts. Don’t worry, pictures will come once photobucket bloody loads. ><

Geography lesson about Wu Han. Okay, interesting.

Chinese literature today was more exciting than the previous one. (: At least I understood some of the more complex and deeper things that were mentioned. Yes, chinese poetry is CHEEM. ><
I’m going to die when they start testing us on this stuff, even though I like poetry analysis. :D

Ms Yeo came in after lessons to give us a CQ workshop which taught us the various cognitive and affective skills that we required to survive in a culturally different society.

Then Mr Ang came in and gave us a brief introduction of the places that we would visit tomorrow. Then he showed us a Team Contract which stated the rules and regulations of the Beijing Satellite Campus. ._o

The Rules were drawn up by our pioneers, the first batch of immersion students that had already gone home. So we couldn’t complain about it :D

In the afternoon they brought us to The Golden Five-Star Wholesale Complex. Jing Wu Xing Pi Fa Shi Chang.

The place is TOO small for shopping.

I argued with this lady selling table tennis bat rubber. Fck man. She wanted to sell me the rubber for 360 Yuan (LOWEST price), an equivalent of Singapore $72.

Then when I tried to lower the price to 180 Yuan, she crapped at me and called me a greenhorn for not checking the market price. Okay la, you win. -.-

The lady told me Ma Lin used the same rubber that she was selling. I didn’t believe her. :D
Then XC and I met up again. He’s my shopping buddy. The both of us can cut the price down by A LOT. (:

We chanced upon this uber flashy and poser-ish shop that sold jeans, T-shirts and jackets. The articles of clothing were quite modern and punky so we decided to patronize it.

A pair of crumpler jeans with golden buttons and golden+maroon streaks caught our eye. A long purple and stylish belt and 3 gothic chains were strung round the back of the jeans, making it look even more stylish.

Set.

Her offer was 95 Yuan. (Belt and chains included) Deep inside I was like: “Go to hell la. Trying to scam foreign students.”

But then we spoke very fluent chinese with an artifical native accent and haggled with her such that the ENTIRE set cost only 65 Yuan.

We used a few bargaining tricks.

1. Speak fluent chinese so that the shop owner knows he/she cannot manipulate the language difference.

2. Ask the shop owner for a cheaper price. (Most of them will just crap and tell you it’s impossible because their material is “superior”)

3. Quote a price that is 40-50% of the original price.

4. If she disagrees, walk away. If she is despo for customers, she will shout at you to come back.

5. Keep insisting that the price you had quoted is the highest you will offer.

6. Give her fake information like: “My friend bought this at…” and “I saw something over there at that shop for…”

7. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, NEVER EVER GIVE AWAY THE SINGAPOREAN TOURIST IDENTITY.

You should win the shop owner in this case.

Xc and I also spotted a cool black jacket with white words scribbled all over it in stylish splashes. What came with the jacket was a green chinese qi-pao top, with a dragon sown onto the silk.

Quite poser I thought. I tried to haggle again. Then we experienced something worth laughing at.

“Excuse me, how much is that set of clothing, jacket and T-shirt?”

“Erm… that… is erm… erm… I see… I believe it’s… 95 Yuan.”

“WHAT 95 YUAN? BYE MAN. I’VE NO MONEY.”

“Oh SORRY! Sorry! I meant 85 Yuan!"

“OKAY BYE.”

“Okay wait wait wait, how much will you offer?”

“For this, I will offer… 30 Yuan.”

And actually, 30 Yuan is quite a reasonable price. I know where the clothing came from. It isn’t worth more than 20 Yuan. But the shop owner just kept arguing with us (Because she knew that her profit won’t be great if she sold it to us.)

We walked away. She gave up, knowing that she lost :D

Haha! Got another good bargain. I also purchased a Show Luo CD from the nearby DVD shop. 40 Yuan ($8) compared to the $20 in Singapore. (:

Alright, enough shopping. Baifeng, Ryan, XC, Bo Yan, KahHong and I decided to visit the Porridge shop for dinner. It cost each of us 26 Yuan ($5.20)

Then it was free time, gaming, msn and blogging all the way until 11:30 xD Haha. Still relatively slack! Tomorrow visiting some tourist attraction again. Gotta go sleep! Tata.

Dahwei. Feeling high while bargaining.

Beijing (+2) The Great Wall and more.

2007-12-19T19:27:00.000+08:00

HAHA, this morning was my bath slot. (: Clean body for once.

But the effin toilet was so damned fragrant I wanted to get the hell out quickly la. -.- There was absolutely no place to hang your dry clothes, besides the hanger which DANGLES RIGHT ABOVE THE TOILET BOWL.

I bathed (shampoo and soap and steaming water), brushed my teeth, made my hair and got changed into 4 layers of long johns in about 15 mins. Then we realized today was Tuesday, a free day which we could GO OUT to choose whatever we wanted to eat. (Like at Macs..)

Oh yes by the way, whenever we exhale right now, there’s condensation and it looks as though we’ve got “Ice Breath” or “Frosty Breath”, whatever Qi En wants to call it.

After a screwed-up and wasted Tuesday morning, we went up the tour bus.

Okay I seriously feel abit paiseh. Here’s the story. 95% of the Voyage tour bus group completely DAOED the tour guide who was rambling about Chinese history and dozed off. I was one of them anyway. :D And I gotta admit, the remaining 5% are awake because they were seated right in front of the tour guide.

“Xiao peng you men, ni men dui Zhong Guo de li shi you xing qu ma?”
-Entire bus dao-

Even though I struggled within myself to acknowledge his question, nothing came out of me. Nothing.

I slept all the way to the Great Wall. AND THE SCENERY THERE IS AWESOME! :D

Mountain valleys surrounded by mystical fog and covered in lush, green trees. Absolutely PRETTY. Stunningly artistic I must say. This is a 100x better than the stuff you find in chinese paintings. This is The Great Wall.

I partnered up with Melvin and trekked up the Great wall. We covered at least 1km (horizontal distance) and passed by about 5 Guard Towers. We finally reached the tourist hotspot at 888m above sea level.

The hot spot was the famous Mao Ze Dong stone which read: “You ain’t a hero till you’ve climbed the Great Wall.”

I paid 25 Yuan ($5) to enter the cordoned off area with the majestic stone. Then took a few pics with it. The best picture was selected and imprinted onto my “Certificate”, which proclaimed and acknowledged me as a HERO. :D As usual, I signed my uber classy signature above the sentence: “Name of the Hero”

I also chanced upon a store which was selling keychains. Melvin and I almost got scammed of 20 Yuan, but we managed to convince the store owner to sell it to us at a“Student price” of 15 Yuan.

So we took the photo with the scenery and the store owners somehow placed it into the keychain. Then we were so damned happy we walked further down the Great Wall and we saw stores that were selling the exact same keychain shit for 15 Yuan. HENG.

Total amount spent at the Great Wall: 45 Yuan ($9)

As usual, another one of my very close friends got scammed of something which was 15x cheaper than what he had bought it for.

He bought a rather ancient jade ornament of the Great Wall for 15 Yuan ($3). Then when we were walking back to the tour bus, another Chinese lady came up to us with a huge bag of the exact same ornaments.

She went up to that friend of mine and said: “1 for 1 Yuan. (20 cents)”

Deep down inside, I told myself to never believe anymore of the prices offered to me by random shop owners. I firmly believe that ALL the prices are fcking scammish.

Next stop was a luxurious lunch at a certain restaurant. We had 11 dishes (HOLY CRAP :D) and we couldn’t finish everything even with 12 people.

Oh yes, we found lots of fun in ripping apart the table cloth LOL. :D

Then off we were to the Tomb of the Emperors (Of the Ming Dynasty of China). Again we daoed the tour guide on the bus and just slept for the whole journey. Ding Lin Tomb, which was underground. It was pretty amazing, how such a huge tomb could have been dug out by ancient Chinese. Everything inside had a gothic chinese look that spelt eeriness.

I hate it when the stupid kylins start staring at me. And btw, there’s at least 1000 Yuan on the ground near the tomb of the Emperor. 1000 Yuan worth of offerings by tourists. Baifeng and I contributed to the dead emperor’s pocket money as well. :D

The Isparkies were lagging behind quite bad because we stopped every 10 feet to take 1 photo. "Path of Immortals”, Shen Lu.

The temperature at Shen Lu was freezing. I think it was dropping to sub-zero temperatures. However, we were not afraid of tiny setbacks like this because the SCENERY IS EFFIN COOL AS WELL.

Just imagine a Korean drama, with tall pine and willow trees caressing the path with their soft leaves. The path was very long, straight and had no end in sight. And there was white snow along the sides of the path. Totally dreamy and romantic.

I would have loved to be there at 6:00am before dawn, amidst the morning fog, together with my dream girl. I think we would have held hands and walked down the path. :D Okay wtf stop dreaming.

I was camwhoring like crazy because I was searching for nice landscape photos to be used as my desktop background (:

The bus trip back to school was yet again, awfully silent. I believe the tour guide gave up. He dint utter a word.

Actually, the only times I ever listened to him throughout the whole trip was when he told us to “GATHER!” So, I feel damned paiseh again.

I had dinner at some Shui Jiao (Wanton) shop. SUPER SUPER CHEAP. Like 4 wushu guys (XC included) and I split the cost amongst 5 people, we ended up paying only S$3.00. HAHA and we were all full like hell.

Oh yes, Beijing people are super unhygienic when it comes to dealing with phlegm. They just randomly spit. So walking along the path, you see random pools of jelly. O_O

Nothing much to do already (: Free time to 11:30, Whee! Tomorrow’s full day at school. Fun. ><>

Beijing (+1) SHOPPING! (:

2007-12-19T19:04:00.000+08:00

WOOTS. Beijing (+1)

Finally get to use the wireless Internet here! xD I tried to open blackle.com, hotmail and wordpress. I tell you, the internet here is freaking shaky. I had to refresh at least 10 times to load a page properly.

But I did abuse the Internet abit, spam msn :D

I had a WEBCAM convo with JiaWei! (: He watch me strip off all my winter clothing… (It’s HOT inside the classroom.)

I talked to BoonYang and the people in the HighFlyer classroom. Oh did I tell you? The entire batch of BSC students are split into 2 classes, Voyage (CoOl Name :D) and HighFlyer. Im in Voyage with only 2 Isparkies. >

ARSENAL 1:0 CHELSEA THANKS TO WILLIAM GALLAS HAHA. YAY! :D

We then had 2 periods of lessons. 1 period of Physical Geography and another period of Chinese Literature. By the 2nd period I was dozing off every 5 mins even though I tried to keep myself awake. Wth. Paiseh arh laoshi. ><>Pau that looks like a crumpled up towel tastes like a crumpled up towel.

Stripping a banana such that there are 4 pieces of dangling skin means you are pro.

Whatever you don’t finish now goes into your dinner. Shit yeah.

And after that… YAY EXCURSION TO ZOO PLAZA, LIKE BESIDE THE BEIJING ZOO. ALL HYPED UP! :D Because I was going to meet Dean Goh there, a buddy whom I met in Rakion. His ign is Galatian :D and he’s my clanmate haha.

Dean was there on holiday, so he brought us around the place. XC hopped on as well. So our trio went around blasting all the pathetic bargains (: Dean owns.

He really saved our money and life. He could cut the price by more than 50% because he knew all the shop owners O_O So everything was bloody cheap.

I bought:
1 black jacket with gold and purple celtic designs (65 Yuan / $15)
1 pair of crumpled, baggy jeans with brown, black and gold gladius designs
(60 Yuan / $12)
1 golden belt studded with aluminium beads (Free)
1 bandana with black swirly designs (10 Yuan / $2)
1 pair of
FCKING POSER AND COOL SHOES THAT TOTALLY PWN ADIDAS ONES
(55 Yuan / $11)
1 black skinny tie covered with white skulls (10 Yuan / $2)

Total: 200 Yuan. S$40.00.

Thanx Dean. Really couldn’t have survived without a tour guide / seasoned Beijing shopper / pro haggler. You really made our day. Me and XC’s. Thanx a lot lot lot.

We thanked Dean and split up with him. This will probably be my last time seeing him in Beijing ): Our HwaChong BSC group rejoined and took Bus 104 back to the BSC.

P.s. A very good friend of mine got scammed real bad at the Zoo Plaza.

220 Yuan ($44.00) for a pair of shoes. Totally got bullied by the shop owners… His 1 pair of shoes cost more than all the items that I bought.

Feel kinda sorry for him, so innocent and naïve. =/ Guess who?

To tell you the truth, dinner was shit. Leftovers from lunch. And there wasn’t any rice left when I got there wth. So I bought 1 cup of instant noodles and ate it in Room 6 together with the DOTA and Daidee gang.

During my free period 7:00pm to 8:00pm, I chatted with my family back in Singapore. The webcam connection sucked my ass, so we relied pretty much on mikes to communicate.

Yay! Good to see that everybody is fine. :D I’m alright here don’t worry. I’m starting to enjoy the freeze.

At around 8pm, Mr Ang brought us to Wu-Mart to get our supplies for our room.

My room bought:
Air fresheners (For the effin fragrant toilet)
Coffee mate, creamers and sugarLaundry powderUtensils

:D

Well prepared for the 1 month stay haha. And pssst. I smuggled my laptop into the dorm, but hopefully I don’t get caught for the next 1 month, if not I can’t blog le wtf.
-.-

YAY TOMORROW I’M VISITING THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. A WONDER OF THE WORLD! :D

I’m going to take awesome pics, I hope (:

Alright, night. I’m on low profile right now with an illegal item ><

Dahwei. Enjoying.

A Strange New Land. Beijing (+0)

2007-12-19T08:05:00.000+08:00

I slept for 3 hours. LOL. Definitely not enough for a traveller. I spent at least 2 hours turning about in bed, being excited and all… wondering what would happen once I reached Beijing. And thanks to all who wished me bon voyage! (:

Terminal 2. Row 1.A group of anxiously waiting teenagers huddling together and listening to a very impromptu briefing. They hastily collected their tags and boarding passes, then rushed off to the check-in point. The entire process was messy and full of chaos. >

Roommates: Qi En and Kai Li. My parents met their parents. Okay then Qi En’s grandma came up to me and proclaimed herself my greatest fan. -.-

LOOK. Ispark Nite depended on us. It depended very much on the emcees to hype up the atmosphere right! So, I did my job. Actually, I think I did TOO GOOD a job.

XYZ’s parents praised me before Adelaide 2007. (I don’t deserve it!)

Kevin Cheng said I did a great job. (Not really for a first try at emceeing ><)

Benjy Ng thanked me for doing him a huge favour. (No problem. Ispark Nite was my event as well.)

AND NOW EVERYWHERE I GO PARENTS COME UP TO ME: HEY DUDE I LOVED UR EMCEEING YOU PROFESSIONAL SHIT. O_O

THEN MY PARENTS WILL EAVESDROP AND GO: DAHWEI WHY DIDN’T YOU INVITE US.

THEN I WILL GO: AHHHHHHHH.

Okay back to BSC stuff.

Cheers to a wonderful plane flight filled with Mp3 music, Battleships and Super mario. I napped to make up for lost sleep (:

The stupid checkout wasted 1 hour of the entire delegation’s time… The queue moved so freaking slow. I was the LAST Hwa Chong Sec 4 to be checked-out. Honour!

Long time no see, Ms Quah. HI AGAIN. Ever since Literature iHE, I haven’t really seen her in 5 months. And she came up to us and told us to put on our thick polar bear suits. Or freeze.

I carried a 16kg huge luggage, a 7kg hand-carry luggage and a 2kg laptop bag filled with valuables. I was expecting some kind of a freezing hurricane to blow me off my feet. Disappointment.

The temperature just felt like 5 aircons at full blast. Shuang. Like totally refreshing! :D I loved the weather. It didn’t even feel like 4pm in the afternoon.. (5 degrees Celsius btw)

Can’t wait to see SNOW. AND TOUCH IT. AND FONDLE IT. AND THROW IT. We were driven off to the BSC by bus. The trip was about 30 mins. On first look, the school does look rather unimpressive. But venturing further into the dorms we realize that hey, it isn’t so bad! It reminded me of boarding school, haha. (:

And guess what, the room allocations.

Room 6 – Baifeng, Xuan Cheng, Shawn Koh, Bo Yan, Ryan, Kah Hong

Room 10 – Russell, Hong Guang, Shawn Teo, Jia Jie, Daniel, Sai Meng

Room 15 – Dahwei, Qi En, Kai Li.

Okay so what if I’m separated from the other 80% of the Isparkies. IM GONNA MAKE NEW FRIENDS WITH MY NEW ORTUS ROOMMATES :D

Melvin. You Jie. Wai Chiew. I might not know you guys now, but I’m guessing you will be excellent roomates! (:

Dinner was simple.

1. Spicy cabbage
2. Cai Xin
3. Chicken Drumstick
4. Rice
5. Shredded Egg soup
6. Apple

If I were to name the best dish, I would say the apple. :D

Walking out in the cold, HanYong (Whom I hadn’t seen in 2 months) showed us around the campus.

Science block… Library… Art block etc… We weren’t paying much attention until he showed us … THE FROZEN POND.
(:

This thing is magical. The entire pond is frozen with a layer of ice. Frozen solid. But Baifeng HAD, he just HAD to go try to step on the ice.
*Crack*
*Baifeng’s foot gets drenched*
*Baifeng sinks*
*Baifeng clings helplessly to HanYong, who luckily, doesn’t fall in as well*

“Shit.”

Then all of us were like praising Baifeng for his bravery and pioneering spirit. :D

My hands were numb from the cold, my skin was freaking dry, my frostbitten ears hurt and I felt frozen. BRRRR CHILLY.

The sky is dark. So damned dark already. The sun sets at 5:30pm. I feel like sleeping even though it’s only 9:00pm. HAHA.

My adventure is just about to begin.

Dahwei. Prelude.