Yulong Snow Mountains and its vicinity

The sun has finally returned to LiJiang! It was abt 5 degrees in the morning and the kids were having much "smoking" while visiting the Dong Ba Cultural Village. After squeezing with the throngs of like-minded people, we made our way to the much-anticipated Snowy Mountains via cable car...


the yet-to-be-conquered Snow Mountain tho at 5000+ metres above sea level

used the exit that is second from the right to leave the village... and with relative ease.

Lijiang like Suzhou is a very beautiful place and a picture can speak volumes...


at the stairway, waiting for the cable car


with dirty laundry




phallic structure

am quite tired, hence the lack of words... will be visiting another primary school to help with building some simple facilities. hopefully, there will be more words tmr.

btw, told the kids to recall what they wished they had done at the first school and make that happen tmr when they visit the 2nd school.

last day at jin shan xiang xiao xue

With a ball in hand, a little boy throws it with all his might towards the hoop. While finding its way into the awaiting red ring, the ball left its mark on the collage of mud patches on the board. The school bell resonated through the school compound and echoed off the heavily-canopied mountain slopes. Like a herd of raging bulls, the children scampered back to their spartan classrooms for their passport to a better life. The inevitable parting took place right after the clementeens delivered their final lessons to the children. Falling in according to their levels, the mood turned sombre as the teachers and and students came forward to give speeches of thanks. Using a variety of antonyms, Lee Pin masterfully and skilfully delivered a speech of thanks for their warm hospitality. With his hands firmly planted in his pockets, Bi Li shuffled forward and shifted his weight uncomfortably while conveying his thoughts and feelings. Soon, a confident girl emerged from amongst the children and strut forwards with a notebook in hand...







Then chaos reigned. Daniel and a few others were swarmed as the dancing began. More pictures were taken as the end was approaching and people were making for lost time.










Tears were shed as the last hugs were exchanged. A teary-eyed WT and a few others bade farewell and made promises that they were unlikely to keep given the circumstances. As we left the school and children behind, what cannot be taken away are the memories that were deeply etched in our minds...

teaching and home visits

day began as usual and the kids are getting tired of the hotel breakfast le... the same goes for lunch and dinner cos altho we are eating at different restaurants, the kids hypothesised that all the cooks attend the same culinary school...

kids were dispatched into the classes to teach their prepared lessons. EL, Malay Language and Art & Craft were pretty well done tho their mandarin can be much better. the kids completed the thank you cards and thool for Art/Craft group was given instructions to follow up on them when we get back... After that was more basketball with the children.






giving away the biscuits and pencil cases

managed to take a short nap after lunch before returning to the school for home visits. it was a 20-min walk to one of the children's home and zach was complaining about the distance until i told him that that's what they do everyday. For a moment, his eyes gleaned over and stopped whining.

One of the girl's home that we visited is from a single-parent family. Her father met with an accident at his workplace when she was 3 months old and her grandfather was knocked down by a vehicle on 1 Oct 2008. As a result, the mother is supporting the 2 daughters. When we reached their home, the usual red couplets were evidently missing and replaced with white ones...




Not that I am expecting to be grieving or wear a frown for an eternity, I am impressed with their resilience. The 2 homes we visited stuffed us with tea, pumpkin seeds and freshly-plucked apples and pears... what I told our students at the debrief which they nodded in acquiescence was that these people here are happier than us Singaporeans who seemed to have everything...

sorry, no videos today :P

Li Jiang - Jin Xiang Shan Xiao Xue

managed to sleep in today cos we only need to be in the primary school at 9am... after the stern warning given, all the kids were having breakfast at the appointed time... yay... As we made our way on foot into the school, we could see 2 rows of little kids standing by the side of path and chanting, "Huan yin, huan yin, re lie huan yin..." and clapping and smiling and laughing... asked our kids how they felt about the welcome, emotions like embarrassed (cos we are not used to such treatments unlike u r some government official or celebrity), honoured (wah.... we are so important hor!!!) came up at the night debrief... many also said they are obligated to do a little more if possible. afterwhich, the kidz siimply swarmed us as the our students began photo-taking... the youngest student in the school aka Hong Dong Zhi... was such an angel at first sight and as he began to get comfortable with our students, he began to box and kick our clementeens... the rest of the little boys who were very n2 with taking photos when the basketball hoop arrived, our students got their hands dirty and began to put it together... the hoop costs SGD1032... i wonder if it cost so much in sgp... see the little devil in class...


clementeens were thrown into the deep end when informed that they are to go into class and give an introduction about singapore to the kids.... i must say they did a pretty good job and we really have to take them out of singapore to make them feel singaporean... how ironic...

Li Jiang I

cold cold cold...

waking at 0415hr and having to take the very dry breakfast cos ur body needs it is no laughing matter...

the view that greets you when u step out of Lijiang airport (which only has 1 luggage belt)...

in Lijiang, the fat and the tanned are considered the pretty and handsome ones, so for once in my life i am not considered pretty nor handsome (stop rolling your eyes).

Our hotel ...

visited the Lijiang Ancient Town which is a World Heritage Site and i expected to be like those in Suzhou but no no no... it is a huge "shopping" plaza with 6000+ shops selling more or less the same things situated in an ancient town...

At the wheel monument (aka the Head) of the Ancient Town...

As the day wore on, my patience was stretched to its limit cos the kids couldnt exihibit punctuality. They were late for all the meetings and gave the ultimatum at the night debrief... privileges will be withdrawn if latecoming happens again and that means no sightseeing at all on our "day off". Thereafter, we spent the evening planning for the lessons that the students will deliver for the primary school kids...

Kunming

the flight to kunming on silkair was akin to taking one on jetstar. there was no inflight entertainment at all. not even flight information!!! some of the kidz were exceptionally excited abt taking a plane and commented that when the plane makes a u-turn, the left wing will fold down while the right wing will fold up =.=

as the plane careened down the run-way, they were craning their necks to look out of the window and went ga-ga over the brief sense of weightlessness. inflight food has never been something worth looking forward to and on silkair, it is not a surprise. the ice-cream served was aptly named. It was nearly impossible to scoop it with the plastic spoon as it was so hard, leaving deep impressions on our fingers ... and to think we were expecting ben and jerry's...

the view outside

As the plane was making its descent ... ...



the airbus 319 with no inflight entertainment...

Kids were overwhelmed with excitement when transferring to the hotel and as a result, paid no attention to the tour guide. stepped in cos i couldnt stand their behaviour. as i was telling the dos and donts like the precautions to be taken since we are at abt 2000m above sea level and crossing roads, the coach suddenly e-braked and I fell forward. right bum aching till today as a result, and when i recovered from the fall, used the unfortunate incident to reinforced the importance of safety. think that was a very good demonstration for them. had an early night cos we need to be up at 0415hr (ZOMG!) for the transfer to Lijiang...

a greedy cat from Egypt has (more or less) liberated me ...

my 4th batch has been sent to fight the fight that i have been preparing them for and i must say when the team went to view the paper at 1430hr, we were relieved that we have drilled them correctly and aptly for the paper. the one-word ("greed"...ZOMG, how easy can it get) was st8forward and most of the work in their portfolio could be used...

my gut feel that it will still be a proposal to the principal was right on the spot and thankfully, the last few practices that i gave them dealt with the more or less the same context... and in the words of sek teng "just spam the parents can do this, the teachers can do that and the sponsors can provide this and that".

All in all, it has proven to be a manageable paper for most of my kids. for those who decided to stay at home and study by yourself, i'm sorry that you were left out of the final preparation phase... I hope you were able to do it as well as those came for class... and for those who had diligently read all the compre passages, the cats from Egypt is something that is not new in the O levels. so the golden rule - do what i say - still holds.

now that the paper and the "cheating of money" (which i vehemently deny) is over and done with, and with news of the classes that i would be taking next year, it's back to the drawing board to see how things can be done better. perhaps i'd check my pigeon hole more often, diligently update the sign-in-out book, and smile more.

will be leaving for yunnan for ocip on tues so wont be ard when its mummy's berfday. as a result, the whole family with wati included (her's on 25 Oct) went for a nice buffet dinner on daddy's berfday... i really hope that our students can appreciate the intention of bringing them for this OCIP and bring some joy to the kids.. they have asked for a basketball rack and hoop to be provided and some simple conversational lessons to be conducted. am just glad that things that i had intended to accomplish is coming to fruition and hey, it was not as daunting as it seemed but of course, it's not an OMS, i had 2 colleagues to help out. if not for them, i would have less time to help my sec 4 and 5 at this critical period.

guess we need to periodically take stock and count our lucky stars. For me, we have just counted it yesterday... and yes, i do have one BIG lucky star.