1. Great wall. Went on our first school excursion to the great wall with SQ and 3 buses full of international students. Koreans, Japanese, Thais, Malaysians, Turks, Americans. The 2 of us were the only Singaporeans around. Went to visit a museum with tombs and olden artifacts, before a 18?-course lunch, looking at the tourist trapping shops and then making our way to climb the wall.

SQ and I decided to claim to climbed 1/3 of the entire wall, but in actual fact we have no idea how long the whole wall is susposed to be. The fact that we took more photos than strides, and more resting on the steps than moving up them, was another point to consider. Even the many old folks around who were climbing the great wall seemed to have so much more motivation.

Bus journey to the Great Wall was 0.0 with the tourguide speaking in incomprehensible English trying to give us a geography lesson, only to be laughed at and told by students in Chinese that they couldn’t understand his English. Bus journey back to school was horrible as there was a big traffic jam. Butts, legs, back, neck cramps that were worse than climbing the wall itself were shared sentiments.

1. Visited the Lama Temple one day when I wanted to go somewhere that closes early, (as it was early that day) and the lama temple was the only place I know that closes early and I’m sure I know how to get to. (because the train station is called Lama Temple) It requires an admission ticket to get in, and makes public announcements in two languages, aka its another tourist trap. -.-

Anyway it being a tourist trap has its pros: Photographs of the gods are not allowed (even though some angmohs still do take photographs), but photography on the grounds are allowed. Because so many angmohs and photographers are taking photos, it doesn’t feel so weird or disrespectful to take photos of all the typical scenes, ie the lighting of joss sticks, the bowing down to the gods.

After a while I figure that since I’m here, why not? So spent more money buying a packet of joss sticks. There were 3 bundles inside. Used one bundle for the alter at the entrance, and drew 3 sticks each time for all the other many alters after that. In the process staining my black camera, black jacket and hands with the yellowish-golden flakes that dropped off from the joss sticks.

Its pretty amusing to watch the foreigners at it. Most of them do not know how to use the joss sticks, and it was interesting how they came up with their own ways to use them. Some literally throw all the joss sticks in from a distance, some plunge the bundle in flame-first. 0.0 They had lots of fun throwing coins at this structure that apparently to many people is a “wishing well” thing, but has a sign that says do not throw coins. >.<>

1. Xiaozhu autograph session!

It was at a huge CD shop in a mall in WangFuJing. (think HMV-ish) Didn’t intended to go in the first place, was deliberating between exploring a random place, the autograph session, or back to school for a wushu fighting elective class. Made up my mind to go and see the crowds, and leave if the crowds are too crazy and I can’t see xiaozhu at all. Met SQ & Cheryl there, and got convinced into buying his Rashomon album (yes they release it in China damn late) and queuing up like the rest of the crazy fans there. The procedure was quite orderly, for what, I have no idea. The autograph session is split into 6 zones. The zone 1 people gets to go first etc. and guess what I was in zone 6 due to the last-minute buying of the album. & I was split up from SQ & Cheryl who were in zone 3. L

The event was stated to start at 6, but people were already queuing up at 4pm. I didn’t wanted to queue up, so went to explore the rest of the mall instead (finding relatively cheap Sony DSLRs), before joining the back of the queue at almost 6. The queue stretched all the way through the toilet corridors, down many flights of stairs into the carpark, and then surrounding the perimeters of the whole carpark. -.- Was seriously bored in the carpark, that I took out the lyrics sheet from the album and start reading them, that I observe the people around me (most were girls, there were guys too, most are young, about 3 years younger than me, some even came with their mums), that I played all the games in my phone. Felt so stupid, but legs couldn’t bring themselves to leave.

After an hour or so the queue finally started to move, and then it slowly moved into the record store, where shelves are all moves away to make space for all the people. The queue inside was surprisingly civilized. There was no clear barriers that indicate the queue, but nobody cut queue even though it was so easy to. Entertained myself by taking tons of photos of the crowds, and also by the extremely lame host. For example, there was a point of time when LuoZhiXiang wanted to go to the toilet, and everybody went crazy thinking that he might just leave. The host went “虽然你们都是小猪的老婆， 可是上厕所还是他一个人上比较好。”

He was cute, soooo cute, upclose. Cuter than on print and on screen. Its seriously his charm that swept so many girls away haha. Told him I was from Singapore, and he looked up at me. Hahahah. Sound so crazy now. Anyways, shook his hand and he signed the album, but there wasn’t any impression of it because I was so stunned by his “in your face” face’s cuteness, and the whole thing was over in split seconds.

Went to find Cheryl & SQ at the carpark after that. Was super confused when they told me to come to the carpark, before realizing that there were many other girls in the carpark, trying to find Xiaozhu’s car. Fanclub people and a few groups of other followers. Pretty exciting to follow them around the carpark, and being amused at their screams at every white big car they come across. Begging the security guards and hotel people were in the game too. Gave up after a while, had dinner at Ajisen Ramen (which is so much cheaper than Singapore’s), before heading home, still high from the event.

1. April Fool’s! At least it wasn’t boring. Was suggesting stupid tricks and jokes to CXY (who is about to sleep) when victim #1 Joy came online. I started off typing an absurdly ridiculous sentence on skype, which she believed! The story went more and more elaborate, made-up as it goes along, and Joy insists on skyping us. Xinyi (haha cannot sleep now) & I couldn’t stop laughing. The joke went on for almost an hour before we convinced her to call Tiffy, and all 5 of us were on Tiffy’s end yelling Happy April Fools to her. Joy is awesome. XD

Another joke was Tiffy knocking on ZY’s door in the middle of the night, which failed because he was too deep asleep, but the rest of us heard it. Haha damn stupid.

The next morning, we were pwned by the teacher in Media Management class, because the teacher did not even turn up at all! -.- While waiting for the teacher to show up, (while the rest of the class left one by one), ZY was doing his “punishment” writing for drama class. Kidnapped a piece of his writings, he couldn’t find it anywhere and was a little irritated to find out that its Aprils Fool, oops. Joke fail.

Pwned by myself after that, for boarding the wrong train on the way back to school, and not being able to find the classroom, because apparently the teacher was screening a video and the lights were off. -.-

And I guess, that was Aprils 1^ST.

2d1n

1. 2D1N class outing

Ponned Writing for TV/Film class on Friday to joined Tiffy’s CR classmates on their class qingming break trip, time flew by on the bus ride there, the class was so united, playing games like Truth or Dare, and sing-a-long sessions. Our first stop was this beautiful scenic area, with beautiful mountains and lakes. Then it was to the farm residential area, where we stayed at for the night. It is so cosy, with a courtyard and bedrooms surrounding it. The beds are so soft, there were pretty floral prints everywhere and a thick comfortable blanket. Its like going to a chalet, groups of people started playing cardgames, mahjong tables are set up, some singing and dancing away in the KTV room, and others merely nua-ing and watching television in their rooms. After a while, Tiffy, SQ & I went to explore and climb the nearby mountains. Feels great to be “standing at the top of the world~” –sings-

Dinner was home-cooked food by the farmers, which is pretty much zi-char with 30 people surrounding 2 tables. There wasn’t enough space, so eventually we ate standing up and moved around the table to get the dishes we want. After dinner was campfire night! It was awesome sitting around the campfire in the cold, eating bbq meat skewers and chicken wings, and drinking beer. The class’s really great fun and united, playing orientation-like games and games that involved the whole class, like doing this thing where you stand in a circle and hold on to the person in front of you and step “ left-left-right-right-front-front-back” before breaking up to from groups, and those that doesn’t have a group gets forfeited. They also played the game where everyone held hands, gets tangled up and tries to untangle themselves, and we taught them games like the “em-chi-chi-tuki-tuki-tongka” game. More KTV singing/cards-mahjong-playing after that. Conclude that they listen to the same music as we Singaporeans do, Jay Chou, Amei, Liang Jing Ru, Chen Yi Xun, Stef Sun, Wang Fei..they even sang English songs like “My heart will go on” and songs by the Carpenters.

Next morning, we visited the Canyons, which is quite touristy again, with signboards everywhere and attractions such as walking on a tightrope, flying fox, and boat rides. (reminds me of com252 part about tourism and authenticity.) Lunch was massive sharing of junk food by everyone, everybody just go around offering food to everybody. Visited the Karst Cave after that, a place where they show all the preserving of rocks structures that forms pictures and tell a story through natural processes. Another touristy place, but the structures are really amazing. (: Then it was time to go home, and to leave this bunch of fun-loving class, whom we might never meet again. L ohwells, the trip was an amazing experience with awesome people!