Day #3

Hello to all the readers out there(:

Today was a day packed with alot of activities, and it was the official first day at school - for lessons. It was a pretty tiring day for most of us, I think.

Firstly, lessons in the morning were on chinese history and chinese literature. Two subjects which I think most of us aren't well-versed in and two subjects which I personally found tough to study in my lower secondary days. (And we study them in english back in Singapore.)

Ok, maybe not literature, but I know myself - I can't do history for nuts. I personally dislike history and have totally zero interest in it. Also, my subject combination back in Singapore doesn't consist of the two subjects stated above.

Ok, don't start thinking that I slept through the lessons and etc., because I didn't. The teachers here are really good and I enjoyed the lessons this morning. For once, I actually remember stuff about history - just by listening to the teacher rattling on for 40 mins. Back in Singapore, history was an absolute chore to study (and that's lower sec history), but here in Beijing, Whoah. Perhaps I can actually do history :O

Literature to me was much more fun than history. Partly because I used to enjoy lit lessons in lower sec, and also because the teacher is Beijing's top teacher. Oh and she was top teacher for two years.

So after the two lessons conducted by the local teachers, it was Physics. Well, supposedly. Mr Ang brought us to the video conferencing room for a briefing on the activities for the whole week. We're visting the BJ zoo tomorrrow :D Man, I so wanna see the Pandas!(: I guess the others will blog about the zoo trip tomorrow (; Do check back.

And then after the briefing, we headed to the school's running track for Morning Exercise. 2 rounds around the track. And my, I really did feel very uncomfortable after jogging. My lungs felt cold because of the plentiful amount of cold air in the surroundings, which entered my thorax ): It's really COLD. I think my ears were nearly frozen at that point of time D:

Ok, perhaps I'm boring you out with these school stuff... So, here's a part of the post dedicated to our trip out of school today! :D

We went to this musuem today. It's a musuem which is full of information on how BJ is structured, how BJ looks like on the map and some stuff about the Olympics that took place right here in August.





Uh. These are pictures taken outside the entrance of the musuem. We were waiting to enter the musuem and so I took these two pictures(:


This is supposed to be a map of Gugong in BJ, but uh. The flash was on and so the lighting was a little off. And those two "things" are people in front of me :D


This is a 3-D map of BJ. I took this from the floor above.


This is a mini-3D model of the water cube(:


It can be opened by pressing a button, and it shows the inside of the water cube. Though I didn't capture the inside of the water cube... My apologies.


This would be an electronic book. You can move your hand across the pages and the book will flip. (There's a sensor)


This is an upright 3-D map of BJ. At least the parts near the Forbidden City.


This is another 3-D model of BJ... I know, they really love the BJ map.


This is the 3-D map shown in picture #4. Spot the Bird's Nest.


Ahah. Do you see it?


This is the floor's tiles. It has parts of the BJ map printed on each of the tiles, and they combine to form a giant map.


This is an artefact with a dragon printed on it. The lighting isn't the best, my apologies. Try to spot the dragon though(:


This is a mini-3D model of the houses they had last time.


From another angle... Ok, I know my photo taking skills aren't very good.


This is part of a very long painting.


Um, to me. This looks like a giant egg shell with a mini-3D model of the mountainous regions BJ.

Ok, so after the visit to the musuem, we went to this place with alot of shops there. And the buildings are very old too(; Didn't do much shopping though. Ok, didn't shop at all. Except that I bought some food. I like food(:


This is the entrance to the place.


Can you spot an old train engine? :D


Buildings.


Very nice sky.


Spot the two security guards/police/soldier.


This is a picture of an old alley I didn't go into.


This is my favourite picture of the day :D

Ok, I guess that's all for the day(:
Overall, today was a fun day :D

Signing off at negative,
Chin Ying Ting from Anglican High.

Welcome to a new group of High Flyers

Hi All
By the time you read my blog, you will notice that the girls are writing them. Well, I have the priviledge of hosting 7 girls and 2 guys from Anglican High School. These young people looked rather quiet when they first came. But so were the Hwa Chong boys. I hope that this new mix of people will create a dynamic that will foster good friendships.

According to the warden, the batch that just arrived seemed a lot quieter. Well I told all of them to stay in doors after 11pm. And no screaming along the corridors or talk loudly about some unpleasant stuff.

Today I brought this group to zoo plaza. I left the students of Anglican high with their teacher. I brought the rest to the shoe section at the basement. I still remember how Liki bought the "NIKE" shoe. So I told the new batch that I would give them 20 minutes to check out the prices and if they had difficulty bringing the prices down to call me. They took only 3 minutes and as I walked out of the area, I turned back and saw Yong Zhi, Clement, Yuting and Jeremy smiling at me. They walked out of the mall with me and told me they preferred to eat. So off we went to find a spot to eat. We sat there for a while and got back around three thirty to bring the rest home.

I bummed into some other boys from Mr Chia's group and one of them wanted to buy a long sleeve sweater. So I told them I would demonstrate what is haggling. We picked a level, found a shop and the sweater he wanted and asked how much it was. Well it has "CONVERSE" printed on it. She was asking for 70 yuan. I told her that it was 38 yuan and we didn't even buy. I told her how about 35yuan. She was reluctant and it was close to four. Then she said okay. So that boy was happy with his buy. But of course if Jiaquan was here, he would bring it down by another dollar, right?

Later, I checked what others bought. Well, the same NIKE shoe the previous batch bought but only this time it has a green colour tick. And...Walter paid 120 yuan. To him, this is a good price. I think so too...since he likes it so much.

I asked them why they were not shopping, they told me there was nothing to shop for. Quite an interesting group, isn't it? But could this just be Zoo Plaza? What if I were to bring them to Xiu Shui Jie? What do you say?

While my High Flyers of October 2008 now misses Beijing, I am not missing it. How to miss something when you are in it? I miss home. An oxy moron? May be.
Esther off to bed...

My second day in Beijing

hello! I'm Lishan from Anglican High. Since ive been in Beijing, it has been cold..but tolerable. And the food is a tad too oily and salty for me... The shopping trip today was okay. Well, I didnt have anything to buy but it was fun following my friends to buy stuff. It's the start of lessons tomorrow! I'm rather excited about what's going to come like the shopping trips, lessons, excursions and much more which i don't know of.
Hope ill make some friends and learn alot from this valuable experience! =)

2nd Day @ bsc

It's the 2nd day and the weather is getting colder and colder. We still have around 40 days in Beijing, and this is just the beginning. Things are still fine so far, the school, the dormitory, the class, the classmates. Well, to be exact, I don't really know my classmates except for the Anglicans, but well, we still have 40 days and hope that the Anglicans and Hwa Chongs won't end up still, as strangers. But other than the very very cold weather here in Beijing, which I can't get used to, there's still one more thing, the food. Well, it takes time to adapt to a new environment, so, hopefully everything turns out well eventually.

Signing off,

Hui Min

Day 2 In Beijing!!

Hello!!! First time blogging here. :)
Yesterday's flight was kind of boring and i got a little sick during landing, but nevermind about that. When i stepped off the plane, i got really excited about the cold weather.
However, i cannot say i feel the same now. The temperature is still dropping and my fingers and nose are freezing. Super cold. I prefer Beijing's cold weather to Singapore's hot one though. It's less uncomfortable i guess. The dorms are okay, bigger than i expected, but the mattress is too thin, hard on my poor back. haha. everything else is okay, and after hearing all the horror stories about the dorm's toilet, i realised it actually wasn't that bad. At least we have toilet bowls. haha :) Can't get use to the breakfast here, but the other meals are fine. Went shopping today, experienced first hand the joys of taking the bus in Beijing. Now i know what sardines have been going through, packed in a teeny weeny space. Poor sardines. :) But it was actually quite fun, a whole new different experience. Looking forward to the rest of the trip, wonder what new experiences and surprises are in store!

Signing off,
Cindy

Complains and Compliments: 2nd day in BSC!

Complains I
The weather is really cold in the morning... That was my first impression of Beijing on my 2nd day in BSC... However, something else changed my perspective of Beijing BSC program. That's the FOOD! The breakfast isn't that fantastic. I guess it is just that i am not use to it. Firstly, the soya bean milk smell like it was burnt. That's one difference between the Singapore's soya bean milk and the Beijing's soya bean milk. Secondly, the food is slightly more salty and oily here than in Singapore. 

Compliments
Thw weather is really cold in the morning... That was my first impresion of Beijing on my 2nd day in BSC... However, on 2nd thoughts, i felt that the weather was pretty nice compare to Singapore which is so hot. It's like i am in an extremely cold air-con room. (GOOD FOR THOSE WHO ON THEIR AIR-CONS TO 18 DEGREES AND STILL FEEL IT IS HOT!)... Weather is one of the first compliments i have for Beijing and of course, BSC. The next compliment is the public transport. The public transport is really cheap compare to Singapore. It's only 40 cents yuan. WOW! 8 cents sing!? This 40 cents yuan takes you anywhere that particular bus can reach you do not have to pay any extra money! that's something you definitely wouldn't find in Singapore. For the pushing part on the bus i faced today i count that as adventuring since it is the culture here. I really find it amusing that although they were pushing, they were actually quite considerate. They move all the way to the back to let other passengers up on the bus. That's another trait that you probably can't find in Singapore since most people there enjoy having more space and tend to stop right in front of the exit and station themselves there, refusing to move any further. I have to comment about the shopping complex. The things there are real cheap compare to Singapore stuff and some is of good quality. =D HURRAY! WOW! =D

Complains II
haha=D but the shopping complex was slightly congested. which is probably part of the complain section.haha=D

By,
Joan Tan
Anglican High School
Beijing Satelite Campus 2008 Dec Batch
High Flyers (翱翔)

2nd Day In BSC

The weather is very cold here but it's still tolerable. The dorms were better than what i had expected in Singapore except of the very thin mattress. Meals here are much more different from Singapore which i would say i still can't get used to it. No comments about High Flyer yet because i have not interacted with my classmates. So far so good, i am enjoying myselves in beijing(: haha

signing off,
Shirley