OELP reflections 2015

Day 1
Everyone was on cloud nine when the day arrived. The class arrived at the airport on time and we're ready to check in their luggage. After which, we were introduced to this pretty lady, Yuan Fang jie jie, who was going to be with us on this whole journey. We got our 7 day immersion to Yangzhou booklet and  our caps. We were ready to go.
After what seemed like a 6 hour journey, we finally reached Shanghai. "What a beautiful city! " I exclaimed. Upon arrival, we went to a restaurant to eat our dinner. We were surprised at the wide range of food that was before us. Some of the food was good,  but some were too oily. I noticed the difference of the food between Singapore and Shanghai. The food compared to ours was much more oily and salty. I did not quite like the oily nuggets. When I went to the toilet, I got a big shock. There was not a single toilet bowl for us to sit and do our business. What was worse was that the toilet was extremely dirty and smelly. Comparing this with out SG toilets, it was so much dirtier.
Ewwww.
We visited The Bund(外滩) and took many pictures. My group tried to complete the secret mission by taking a jump shot without teacher. I noticed that when we fished out our phones, many locals were staring attentively wide- eyed at our phones. It was obvious that they were trying to get those phones in their hands. How scary. We also took the cruise tour to Huangpu River(黄浦江). The scene was fascinating. The oriental Pearl tower stood out the most in the dark night sky. It was colorful and pleasing to the eyes. Looking at the tower, how I wish I could go up there now.
When the trip ended, it was almost 10pm. All of us were tired by the time we checked into the hotel. After a short debrief by our form teacher, Mr Christian Dela Cruz, we turned in. What an arduous day!

 

 
(Airplane view from inside)

(First dinner in Shanghai)





 
Day 2
Everyone woke up early in the morning, ready to take the bus to Yangzhou. All of us were groggy and sleepy. We took a quick breakfast and boarded the bus at around 7 in the morning.
Upon reaching Yangzhou, we saw many beautiful scenery which made all of us exclaim in surprise. However, there were many cars which caused a heavy traffic jam. Our first destination was Geyuan(个园). We saw the signboard outside Geyuan that showed"园个”。At first all of us started to say the name as “园个" but after the guide told us that sometimes they put the words upside down, we realized we got it all wrong. That was something really interesting that I had learnt on Day 2! The garden had a fascinating scenery. It had shelters and benches for people to rest. We could see that there were also many tourist there, visiting the place. All of us started to fish out out phones to take many pictures of the pretty flowers. In the middle of out tour, it started to rain and we had to hold our umbrella in one hand and hold our phones to take pictures with other. Although it was really wet, but the place was very interesting. The guide talked a lot about the history of the place which made me feel even more curious. It was about 11am when we finished touring the place. We went to a restaurant for dinner and we had a chance to taste the Yangzhou Chao Fan. It was absolutely delicious and nicer than anything I have ever tasted. The had a wide range of vegetables and eat which made us really full.
After which, we went to the Chinese Paper Cutting Museum(剪纸博物馆) to cut paper. We first visited the shops and saw many great works of art. There were nicely but out fans and thinly cut out pictures that could be sold up to 1200 Singapore dollars. After visiting the shop, our tour guide told us that there was another group up in the room cutting papers so we could not go there for the moment. Hence, they changed plans and took us to the Beijing- Hangzhou Grand Canal(京杭大运河). We took a boat ride along the Canal . Some of the scenery was almost the same, but the boat ride was quite comfortable. Many of us were probably too tired from all the long walks and started to doze of. After the ride, we went back to the paper cutting museum to cut paper. Each of us were given a Yangzhou scissors and some pictures to cut out. I got chose a pig out of the few pictures that I got to cut. We cut out the black parts and left out the white parts. When we were all cutting, I could see that every single elf us were all heads down, cutting and staring attentively at the paper that they were cutting. I have never see the class do something so quietly and carefully until today. We cut for two hours and went to have dinner.
After dinner, we went to a shopping mall to visit the super market. We were all split into our groups to go and take a look at the things they sell in the supermarket. My group and I started to find stuff
Ike the cheapest 10kg rice, and we observed how the cashiers treated the customers. We realized that the cashiers were all aged between 30-40 and some were not very friendly. We had to pay for our own plastic bags which were quite expensive. Many of us bought many cup noodles and many sweets to munch on.
We went to check into the hotel and had a short debrief by our form teacher before getting dismissed.
Today, I learnt that the goods that are sold in China would always be the cheapest because they want people to buy them. The have a lot of fresh meat and live seafood to choose from. China has also started to safe the earth by making plastic bags costly. They encourage people to bring their own recycling bags so as to not damage the earth. They also have a lot of museums for people to go and tour in android look at. There seem to be a lot of history hidden in China that they want people to know and remember of.

(Famous Yangzhou Fried Rice)

(Geyuan Garden)

Day 3
We went to 树人中学 to have a school immersion. We noticed that all of them were wearing the same sweaters and windbreakers which seemed to be produced by the school. The only difference was that they wore shoes of different colors and shape, there seemed to not be any specific rule stating that you would have to wear white shoes like ours. How I envy them! We went to join a class for PE lessons. Their hall was not as big as ours but their compound was definitely bigger. The teacher let us do some warm up exercises and taught us some 武术. We learnt a series of moves but some of us still found not master it after some practice. I could catch the moves fast, however. We also showed them our 立化拳，and then we talked to some of the students. They seemed shy when we approached them but they were quite friendly. It was a bit awkward because none of us wanted speak up. We then visited their garden which they invested a lot in. Their garden was so big and wide and was almost the size our our school. They even had a waterfall. We took some pictures and then went to have our lunch at the canteen. They had two separate canteens, one for the teachers and another for the students. They did not have stalls like us to choose for, but it was like the old times where you would just take a plate and they will give you whatever they had. I like some of the meat but just felt that some were too oily.
After having our lunch,we went to their coffee house to have some hot coffee and to have a rest. We then went to the broadcast room to showcase our presentations done by 6 of our classmates and they also showed us some performances. Then, we went back to the hall to have some small matches with the China students and had a Basketball match. We competed with them and cheered on but we lost both the female and male matches.
We then left downtown for dinner.
At the end of the day, I could really feel the difference when I am in 树人中学 and when I am in River valley high. We could choose our own food that we liked and were able to go around freely. Even thought the school was really big, many of them had to line up in rows to the canteen and were not able to stay in the classrooms like us. I also realized how fortunate I was to have such clean toilets in my school. They had smelly and dirty toilets and did not even haves proper toilet own to sit on. They also did not have a good flushing system unlike us. Therefore, we must treasure what we have now!

(Shu Ren school)

(Picture at the garden)

Day 4
We went back to 树人中学, the part of the school where the place is not that developed. We met our arranged buddies and exchanged presents. I started talking to my buddy and we talked about our school life. I could sense that they were trying very hard to speak in English because they new that we often spoke English. That was quite thoughtful of them. I asked him about his school hours and found out that their school hours was from 7am to 6pm. What long school hours! That is like almost a whole day! We talked on for about 10 min. After that, they went back to their classrooms to have lessons and had a talk with the school principal and vice principal. We prepared some gifts for them and then they also prepared gifts for our teachers. We all introduced ourselves and my chairperson gave a short speech on how great his experience was in the school so far.
Then, we went to their broadcasting room to attend a Chinese culture talk about cutting papers(剪纸，编中国结) . I really had a great time there.
We then proceeded to the lecture theatre to see the performances that the China students have prepared. I thought that some were quite boring because they were reading many many poems that I could not understand and this was really new to me. My friends also told me that it was quite boring. Hehe.
We had lunch again in the canteen but this time, the food was served to us by some waitress. The cutlery were not in really clean but the food was quite good. They even served watermelons for us to eat.
We went back to the lecture theatre thereafter and both schools, 树人中学，立化中学showcased our performances. The lecture theatre was about then same size as ours but the stage was a little too small so our dance performance was a little messy. Sad to say, some of us even forgot our moves and ruined the whole thing. But, it was till a good experience performing on someone else's stage, to people who, we do not know at all.
I also got the chance to attend their painting lessons(书法). The teacher gave us a little bit of background knowledge on the types of 书法. He also told us that there were students training to be great Chinese painters. These painters guided us in writhing Chinese characters. Their words were really nice, the nicest I have ever seen. How could such a young student write such nice Chinese words with a brush? I really admire them.
Then, we bade goodbye to all the teachers and principals and headed out of the school to the book store, XinHua Book Store(新华书局). We had dinner and went back to the hotel to rest.
总之，我真的很佩服那些能写书法的人。他们这么小，还能坚持下去，变成一位这么优秀的书法家。他们也一天不抱怨地区上课，上到很晚才回家。我真的有很多很多东西要跟他们学习。他们那么迟回家，天天也要应付那么多的考试，真厉害！

(Picture with buddies)

Day 5
我们差不多八点就出发了。到哪里去呢？原来是瘦西湖！那里人山人海，几乎不能呼吸呢！那里也有很多游客，跟我们一样，向参观这个地方。导游带了我们进去，介绍给我们这里的美景，也跟我们提到了一座非常特别的桥。那座桥是因为二十四个美女而造成的。有一个人看到了这二十四位美女，就想建一座桥，让每一个人记的他们。那座桥的两边各有二十四个楼梯，桥的身高是二十四公分，真的很特别。我们的班刚刚好有二十四个女孩，所以我们每一位站在一个楼梯，拍个照片。很有创意吧！那里也有很多艘船，让人有机会自己驾船。我很想家的，但是因为导游没安排，所以我们没机会驾船。真的好可惜啊！我们看到了不同的景色，也拍了很多行照片。的确，那里的景色很美！过后，我们吃了午餐，然后到了朱自清故居的地方。他的屋子虽小，但是那里很不同。他的家有很多小房间，而有人把他居住的一部分建成了一个小博物馆，让别人更了解他。到了那里，我对他有更深的了解，也知道他所付出的一切。之后，我们到了东关街，买了很多东西。我们每一个人追喜欢的是去购物！我们集合的时候，每一位都拿着一包一包的东西，有些人还买了鞋子呢！吃了晚餐后，我们回到了饭店。

(Residence of Zhu Zi Qing)

 

(Picture at the local market in Yangzhou)

Day 6
Today, we woke up early in the morning to travel back to Shanghai. All of us were really unwilling to go back because Yangzhou was just too beautiful. When we reached Shanghai, we visited the 田子坊. There were many shops for people to go to and for people to shop. There were also small eateries for people to eat and rest in. I spotted a Starbucks and went in. To my surprise, the food was much more expensive than in Singapore. The prices were exuberant. Me and my friends bought many things like toys and postcards. We then headed for the restaurant that was near 田子坊.we ate heartily and then went to the Shanghai Science and technology museum. There were many animals exhibited that looked really real. We even watched a 4D movie.then, we went to the famous Oriental Pearl tower. We took a class photo at the entrance. We had to queue for a long time before we could take the lift to the top of the tower. It was really beautiful from the top of the tower. We even stepped on the glass and looked down. We also visited the Old French concession and Chenghuang Miao(城隍庙).

(Oreintal Peral Tower)

(Animal's World 3D)

Day 7
Today was our last day of the trip.
 We visited the Shanghai Museum and the Qibao Ancient Town. We actually planned to got to the Shanghai Urban Planning centre because of change of plans but then when we went there, we realized that the place was closed on Mondays. We were quite disappointed because we did not get to go to the Planning Centre.
我们依依不舍地上飞机回新加坡。我们都很感谢导游和跟我们一起的远方姐姐。真是个难忘的一次！真希望我还有机会一起和同学去国外旅游。

这个旅游后，我发现中国和新加坡有很多不同的地方。关于教育，经济，和别的方面跟我们新加坡很不一样。