After spending an entire week in Suzhou and visiting the famed 园林, I was desperate to get to shanghai. Tickets to shanghai were very limited since most people were rushing home at the end of the long weekend holidays. In the end bought the 66 yuan sleeper ticket instead of the 22 yuan hard seat ticket, I am THAT desperate to get out.
The ride to PVG was pleasant and picturesque though the I did not lie down on the sleeper bed which I suspect is infested with bed bugs (hopefully I am wrong!). Conversation was long and very much needed given the situation. managed to verabalise most thoughts and it was good to talk and listen.
As soon as we alighted from the train, it was business as usual for us. went to 南京路步行街, ventured into the shopping centres that we visited last year and ate the delicious 生煎包. Popped over to 新天地 to check out the Y-3 boutique only to find that it has relocated. So we settle for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant before taking another train back to Suzhou. The return trip was WORSE cos the air-conditioning was almost inexistent and people were seated shoulder-to-shoulder. At one of the stations, a mother and child sat opposite us, took out half a watermelon and happily helped themselves to it, LOL.
What irked me a little was "huh, we came here before meh?"
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Day 8: visiting another ancient town but with new company!!!
Caiyun and Jiali joined us from Shanghai for a day. Arrivin last night, we managed to get the teachers from ZhengHua to get a discounted rate for the hotel that they are putting up in. Took them to eat @ 洋洋 restaurant which is featured in Lonely Planet. Ordered some of the delicious food that we ate a few days ago so that they can share our joy, lol.
Some of the food that we ate for the second time.
The 串虾 that were easy to peel, sweet and fresh.
Looks like puke right. actually it's crab meat and crab roe on top of steamed egg in orange skin. think chawanmushi. a combination sweet (crab), salty (roe) and sweet & sour (orange)
After dinner, we played guides to the ladies and brought them to 李公堤。so told them what 陶老师 told us when he brought us there the previous day. Walked about 1km along the path that was lined with restaurants and pubs before we 打的 (i.e. took a cab) back to our hotel. instead of turning in which was our original plan, SY and I stayed up to work on our slides for our sharing when we return. then called u (sorry, woke u up) before turning in.
Brought the gurls to buy breakfast from our usual spot. That's me in the mandarin collar shirt. need to stop hunching :(
The ride to ANOTHER ancient town was long and bumpy but it was worth it because were was a house that was different from ALL the houses that we have seen in the many towns. the archi change from eastern to western from one section to another. So finally, there was a breath of fresh air from the usual lily ponds, willow trees, black-white-grey houses.
the very reason why i am slogging my life away :P
another photo next to yet another lotus pond. That's SY (you can finally put a face to that name now)
called QM in the afternoon to send her a lifebouy (due to the physical distance, only can manage a bouy la) since she was searching for lifeboat. Good to hear that the camp is doing great and the kids are learning something and enjoying themselves. well, we will have to wait and see if they can deliver @ APSIRE and the other activities.
slept all the way enroute to suzhou but din drool (heh heh)
the night was spent bringing the gurls to 观前街 for dinner and sight-seeing before they return to our room to look at ALL the photos that we have taken since last Sunday. Oh ya, i ate my first dumpling in China, and it is not as delicous as I imagined it to be :(
more friends are coming to visit tmr morning and think that next week will really fly past since we are going to visit nanjing and shanghai in between my lessons. want to visit the nanking massacre museum after reading about it and watching the 50th anniversary film about it. since i had used this incident to talk about total defence in my CE lessons, i think it would be good if i have visuals to improve on the lesson for the subsequent batches.
With the TAGs, 6-1 and many many more in the past, present and future, things are def looking up and off to a good start :P
Saturday, June 07, 2008
第七天：到处都是树，川，园林，桥和很多奇奇怪怪的食物
今天到了同里 and was greeted by the same sights and sounds that were characteristic of suzhou. the 8 places of interests found in Tong Li are actually the same - houses of the officials / the rich. Each house would have a least 3 "halls", a pond, some pavilions that were used for playing chess or practice drawing etc etc etc. After a while, I was jus walking for the sake of walking and secretly hoping that we would skip some of the 8 places of interests.
Unfortunately, we visited ALL 8 of them and had lunch in between where we were served salted vegetables, fried egg and cold sour plum soup. Well, this spread was much better than the dinners we had for the past 2 nights where the dishes include deep-fried pig trotters, chilled pork belly (with an extra thick layer of fats), soup with coagulated duck blood and more pork belly. SY and I took a bite of the chilled pork belly. immdiately our eyes met in disgust and discretly spat it out. thereafter, the dish was off limits. However, we had to be polite and be respectful of our host. other than the chilled pork belly, i took the trotters, had a few pieces of the blood since we told the host "我们什么都吃" and SY was not inclined to touch any of those, lol.
the blood was not bad but i cant help thinking of how it was done.
our colleagues are enroute to suzhou now and we are currently waiting for their arrival so that we can go for dinner. I am famished!!!! We will have "edible" food at this dinner since we will be the ones ordering the spread. So no more oily and wierd cuisines for the time being.
Will be going on a 南巡 tour tmr and fall-in time is 7am!!! heard it takes 2 hours to reach the place.
selected pictures are posted in my albums on my facebook, so dun "whine" ya :P
Unfortunately, we visited ALL 8 of them and had lunch in between where we were served salted vegetables, fried egg and cold sour plum soup. Well, this spread was much better than the dinners we had for the past 2 nights where the dishes include deep-fried pig trotters, chilled pork belly (with an extra thick layer of fats), soup with coagulated duck blood and more pork belly. SY and I took a bite of the chilled pork belly. immdiately our eyes met in disgust and discretly spat it out. thereafter, the dish was off limits. However, we had to be polite and be respectful of our host. other than the chilled pork belly, i took the trotters, had a few pieces of the blood since we told the host "我们什么都吃" and SY was not inclined to touch any of those, lol.
the blood was not bad but i cant help thinking of how it was done.
our colleagues are enroute to suzhou now and we are currently waiting for their arrival so that we can go for dinner. I am famished!!!! We will have "edible" food at this dinner since we will be the ones ordering the spread. So no more oily and wierd cuisines for the time being.
Will be going on a 南巡 tour tmr and fall-in time is 7am!!! heard it takes 2 hours to reach the place.
selected pictures are posted in my albums on my facebook, so dun "whine" ya :P
Friday, June 06, 2008
Day ６: 上有天堂， 下有苏杭
the lesson has once again underwent a change so that it wont be too boring for me and the kids have more take-away from the lesson.
the highlight in school was that we finally get to witness the 835 to 845hr morning exercise. All the students were doing it properly. Tho we could tell that some were rather sianz, but they bothered to execute the moves albeit with much less gusto. while soon yeow was fliming them, i did a voice-over and said, "If it were our kids, they would standing with arms in akimbo."
the sights and gardens and hills and history were just beyond words. visited the china's answer to the leaning tower of pisa located at Tiger Hill, walked through a very old estate where original suzhou houses lined the narrow walkways and visited another pagodo and its surrounding gardens. it was a very fruitful trip especially when the teacher who accompanied us was an expert in 地方历史 and he was able to tell us more about the places we went.
it going to be 端午节了，可是到现在连一个粽子都还没吃到。 唯一卖粽子的店面看起来很不卫生，不敢买来吃。
the highlight in school was that we finally get to witness the 835 to 845hr morning exercise. All the students were doing it properly. Tho we could tell that some were rather sianz, but they bothered to execute the moves albeit with much less gusto. while soon yeow was fliming them, i did a voice-over and said, "If it were our kids, they would standing with arms in akimbo."
the sights and gardens and hills and history were just beyond words. visited the china's answer to the leaning tower of pisa located at Tiger Hill, walked through a very old estate where original suzhou houses lined the narrow walkways and visited another pagodo and its surrounding gardens. it was a very fruitful trip especially when the teacher who accompanied us was an expert in 地方历史 and he was able to tell us more about the places we went.
it going to be 端午节了，可是到现在连一个粽子都还没吃到。 唯一卖粽子的店面看起来很不卫生，不敢买来吃。
Thursday, June 05, 2008
第五天
今天终于可以睡到太阳晒到屁股。 我们也终于在永和豆浆店吃早餐。 Ok, i give up. As much as it is difficult for some of you read it, it is also very difficult for me to type in CL.
Was suppose to visit the 拙政园 and then the Suzhou Museum this morning since there is only one afternoon clas today. but found out that they were giving out free tickets to visit the Museum so we went there first instead.
Newly opened, it was also designed by the Chinese guy who designed the pyramids in front of the Louvre Musuem. So u can expect clean lines, simplicity etc . . . took many photos while inside. inside, see more trees, more ponds, more bridges ... ...
attended a CL lesson conducted by the vice-principal and i was among the 25 teachers who were seated at the back. ZzzZZzzZZz, they still use a very traditional style of teaching, i.e. teacher talk while teaching the poem “再别康桥”that was written by "徐志摩" spotted some kids dozing off while he went on and on about the imagery, personification, and emotions of the author.
the one and only lesson was great today. had this gurl who had very weak and underdeveoped bones so she is immobile (you must be mouthing the name of the disorder right not) but she is a great gurl who participated actively in class. So far, this is them most responsive class and the kids have no qualms with using adjectives like "sexy", "handsome" and "pretty" to describe themselves. changed the tail end of the lesson plan since they have the habit of coming up to the front of the class and do presentation. It was a breath of fresh air for me since this is the 6th time i am delivering this lesson (there's still 10 more).
gonna visit the suzhou industrial park tonight with a teacher from the school. hopefully,it will be more interesting than yesterday's visit to “网师园”where there was a series of "i-cannot-understand" performances. Then we bumped into a group of CHIJ St Nicholas' Primary School girls who were also touring this garden. The screaming teachers were having a hard controlling the girls, lol.
周末快到了。 我们将会到同里，虎丘，盘门， 一丝厂，浙江去走走。
Was suppose to visit the 拙政园 and then the Suzhou Museum this morning since there is only one afternoon clas today. but found out that they were giving out free tickets to visit the Museum so we went there first instead.
Newly opened, it was also designed by the Chinese guy who designed the pyramids in front of the Louvre Musuem. So u can expect clean lines, simplicity etc . . . took many photos while inside. inside, see more trees, more ponds, more bridges ... ...
attended a CL lesson conducted by the vice-principal and i was among the 25 teachers who were seated at the back. ZzzZZzzZZz, they still use a very traditional style of teaching, i.e. teacher talk while teaching the poem “再别康桥”that was written by "徐志摩" spotted some kids dozing off while he went on and on about the imagery, personification, and emotions of the author.
the one and only lesson was great today. had this gurl who had very weak and underdeveoped bones so she is immobile (you must be mouthing the name of the disorder right not) but she is a great gurl who participated actively in class. So far, this is them most responsive class and the kids have no qualms with using adjectives like "sexy", "handsome" and "pretty" to describe themselves. changed the tail end of the lesson plan since they have the habit of coming up to the front of the class and do presentation. It was a breath of fresh air for me since this is the 6th time i am delivering this lesson (there's still 10 more).
gonna visit the suzhou industrial park tonight with a teacher from the school. hopefully,it will be more interesting than yesterday's visit to “网师园”where there was a series of "i-cannot-understand" performances. Then we bumped into a group of CHIJ St Nicholas' Primary School girls who were also touring this garden. The screaming teachers were having a hard controlling the girls, lol.
周末快到了。 我们将会到同里，虎丘，盘门， 一丝厂，浙江去走走。
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Day 4
cannot follow the sec 1 chinese language lesson that i observed today in terms of the vocabulary and evaluating the questions and answers. what i know is the poems used in the lesson were very effective at stirring up the nationalistic feelings in the children. The chinese language teacher read the poems with gusto (coupled with appropriate hand gestures) and she expected the students to read it the same way. A boy was made to read it again because it didnt sound like "你爱我们的祖国”。
this is what is lacking in our EL teaching (or for that matter, in all subjects)since we have the liberty to choose our texts i.e. infusing national education into our teaching and learning. we can talk and discuss until the cows come home about infusing NE into our lesson but if the teacher does not believe in it or do not pretend to like it, the intended outcomes will not be met. haiz.
spent the afternoon cooped up in the hotel doing up the term 3 paper 2 so that i can hand it over to TC. then did the ASPIRE document so that i can arrow the others to fill in their ACTIVE and BRIGHT sections, heh heh. hopefully, they can keep to the deadlines and i will be to get the necessary stuff prepared for the back-to-school meeting on 17 June. Life when i get back is going to be so hectic - school starting, oral one-to-one, N level orals, moving my stuff back, picking up the pieces, move forward, and get healthy :P
havent ran since i reached suzhou so training for my half-marathon has come to a standstill O.o (dave is running 10km every now and then le). but i have been diligent in push-ups and crunches tho the space available in the hotel room is limited. looks like i have to up the ante when i get back.
the people here will be bringing us to visit the gardens and watch some performances tonight. hopefully, the dinner that is provided is hassle-free so that we dun have to “敬酒”repeatedly.
till then ... ...
Army of 1 (for now; physically la)
this is what is lacking in our EL teaching (or for that matter, in all subjects)since we have the liberty to choose our texts i.e. infusing national education into our teaching and learning. we can talk and discuss until the cows come home about infusing NE into our lesson but if the teacher does not believe in it or do not pretend to like it, the intended outcomes will not be met. haiz.
spent the afternoon cooped up in the hotel doing up the term 3 paper 2 so that i can hand it over to TC. then did the ASPIRE document so that i can arrow the others to fill in their ACTIVE and BRIGHT sections, heh heh. hopefully, they can keep to the deadlines and i will be to get the necessary stuff prepared for the back-to-school meeting on 17 June. Life when i get back is going to be so hectic - school starting, oral one-to-one, N level orals, moving my stuff back, picking up the pieces, move forward, and get healthy :P
havent ran since i reached suzhou so training for my half-marathon has come to a standstill O.o (dave is running 10km every now and then le). but i have been diligent in push-ups and crunches tho the space available in the hotel room is limited. looks like i have to up the ante when i get back.
the people here will be bringing us to visit the gardens and watch some performances tonight. hopefully, the dinner that is provided is hassle-free so that we dun have to “敬酒”repeatedly.
till then ... ...
Army of 1 (for now; physically la)
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Day 3
had severe pain on my lower back where my right kidney is in the morning. maybe my low threshold for pain made it seem worse off but i seriously think that on a scale of 1 to 10, the pain was definitely worth an 8. not sure what was the cause of it, but when i was printing my notes for the lesson, the pain subsided and i went off to sit in Soon Yeow's lesson.
did a short film of him while in action and took some photos for him so that we have something to share with the staff. afterwhich, it was my turn to do my thing with the students. had 2 classes today. the first was great, had about 4 teachers observing my class, taking photos and video taping my lesson. kids were responsive and managed to deliver my newly improved lesson plan. the vocab was easier for them as i have placed the Chinese equivalent next to them. I also had to give some instructions in Chinese to faciltate the flow of the lesson.
Apparently, this is a common practice for all the EL teachers in this school. They also do a lot of chorus reading that NIE frowns upon and the teachers use commands like, "repeat 1,2" and at the count of "1,2"the kids repeat the word that the teacher pronounced. then there is another command that makes them read the list of words twice in quick succession. all of them opened their mouths and REALLY read, unlike the kids back home.
so after observing the Xu Lao Shi's lesson that demonstrated the commands, I used them in my next lesson so at least the kids know how to pronounce the zodiac signs. it was wierd at first cos they behaved almost like robots. no lag time between instruction and action.
however, in this second lesson of the day, where only soon yeow is around in the class, the kids were a little more talkative, rowdy and difficult to control; but they are not as troublesome as those at home. kids are kids afterall, when their own teachers arn't around, the horns reveal themselves.
The next lesson observation was an eye-opener. apparently, the observation culture is so strong in this school that each teacher has a book to record and reflect on all the lessons that they have observed for each academic year. For a first year teacher, they have to complete 20 (!!!) observations and pen them their learning for submission. As you gain more experience, the number of observations per year decreases. When we arrived at the classroom for the lesson ob, there were 2 stacks of plastic chairs outside the class. When the bell signaled the start of the lesson, there were 16 (!!!!) teachers seated at the back of the classroom observing the EL lesson conducted by this pretty EL teacher who looks like Renee Liu (Liu Ruo Ying). There was even video taping.
So the lesson went on and all 16 of us took notes of the good, bad and ugly. Thereafter we had to adjourned to a meeting where teachers who do not have lessons come together with Liu Ruo Ying and share our findings. All was done in the spirit of professionalism. i shudder at the thought of our teachers going thru this, picture all the defensive walls being erected when comments and feedback are shared.
day in school ended abt 330pm for us. so we went back to hotel to change and get out of the district that we have trapped in for the past few days. Went to the shopping area in suzhou and it was quite ok. finally bought my nike sandals so that i dun have to wear my birkie after playing tennis, a t-shirt from izzue.com, and added another polo-t to my Y3 collection (yay!).
dinner was finally NOT chinese food. had the brazilian churrasheria (yes, wrong spelling) but u get what is it.
did a short film of him while in action and took some photos for him so that we have something to share with the staff. afterwhich, it was my turn to do my thing with the students. had 2 classes today. the first was great, had about 4 teachers observing my class, taking photos and video taping my lesson. kids were responsive and managed to deliver my newly improved lesson plan. the vocab was easier for them as i have placed the Chinese equivalent next to them. I also had to give some instructions in Chinese to faciltate the flow of the lesson.
Apparently, this is a common practice for all the EL teachers in this school. They also do a lot of chorus reading that NIE frowns upon and the teachers use commands like, "repeat 1,2" and at the count of "1,2"the kids repeat the word that the teacher pronounced. then there is another command that makes them read the list of words twice in quick succession. all of them opened their mouths and REALLY read, unlike the kids back home.
so after observing the Xu Lao Shi's lesson that demonstrated the commands, I used them in my next lesson so at least the kids know how to pronounce the zodiac signs. it was wierd at first cos they behaved almost like robots. no lag time between instruction and action.
however, in this second lesson of the day, where only soon yeow is around in the class, the kids were a little more talkative, rowdy and difficult to control; but they are not as troublesome as those at home. kids are kids afterall, when their own teachers arn't around, the horns reveal themselves.
The next lesson observation was an eye-opener. apparently, the observation culture is so strong in this school that each teacher has a book to record and reflect on all the lessons that they have observed for each academic year. For a first year teacher, they have to complete 20 (!!!) observations and pen them their learning for submission. As you gain more experience, the number of observations per year decreases. When we arrived at the classroom for the lesson ob, there were 2 stacks of plastic chairs outside the class. When the bell signaled the start of the lesson, there were 16 (!!!!) teachers seated at the back of the classroom observing the EL lesson conducted by this pretty EL teacher who looks like Renee Liu (Liu Ruo Ying). There was even video taping.
So the lesson went on and all 16 of us took notes of the good, bad and ugly. Thereafter we had to adjourned to a meeting where teachers who do not have lessons come together with Liu Ruo Ying and share our findings. All was done in the spirit of professionalism. i shudder at the thought of our teachers going thru this, picture all the defensive walls being erected when comments and feedback are shared.
day in school ended abt 330pm for us. so we went back to hotel to change and get out of the district that we have trapped in for the past few days. Went to the shopping area in suzhou and it was quite ok. finally bought my nike sandals so that i dun have to wear my birkie after playing tennis, a t-shirt from izzue.com, and added another polo-t to my Y3 collection (yay!).
dinner was finally NOT chinese food. had the brazilian churrasheria (yes, wrong spelling) but u get what is it.
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