My Experience in Hanoi

Hi!! I am Deesha.
I am going to blog about my trip in vietnam.
The very beginning of the trip, i was feeling suoer nervous, because i was the only one from my class attending this trip.
However, i was glas that over the days, i started to make friends. Everyone were very friendly. Back to my experience. As it was my first time on a plane, i felt very excited. The fact that i could watch movies and hear songs. haha=)
when i reached vietnam, my first impression was '' hey this looks a bit like malaysia!''
the weather was cold yet there was sun. i found the people of vietnam very pleasent. the houses amazed me the most. only if i had a chance to see how it was like inside. what i loved the most about vietnam is that, everything is very natural. The best dat i enjoyed was on the junk at ha long bay. it was a dream come true experience. i had the best sleep on the junk too! i would rate the day to the orphanage the second best, because, the experience has reach out to my heart. though i did not cry, i felt that slight pinch of sadness in me. i am proud of the children there, because they seem to be coping well. overall, i am proud to say that i have gone for this trip. thnaks to everyone who made it possible, especially the teachers. God bless!

Chu Van Ann Trip

HELLO PEOPLE! It’s Wei Ling here and I’m gonna blog about the trip to Chu Van Ann.

When we first arrived, there were some kids playing in the court. They were quite young so when they started waving frantically at us, I thought it was perfectly normal. I think we all thought that the trip later was just going to be visiting the classes and playing the games we had planned for them, something like the Meiko visit to our school. So after our meeting with the principal and vice-principal, we were told to go out to the court where Mdm Chan would make a short speech about our school and present some gifts to them.



But little did we expect this:


It was like WOAH! There were so many students! We were seated in a straight line in the middle of all the other students, also seated in straight lines. It felt like we were a choo-choo train in the middle of all the other chu-chu trains (geddit geddit? Chu-Chu Trains as in Chu Van Ann Trains?).

So after Mdm Chan’s speech, we were told that they had planned games for us. We were quite shocked but we participated anyway. The first was tug-of-war. Eight of us were called up (including me I have no idea why. I’m strength-less) to battle 8 other girls from Chu Van Ann who were MUCH YOUNGER than us.

Round 1: They won. Round 2: WE WON. YAY! (I think they purposely let us!) Round 3: They won.

Here’s me not really contributing much (I know! I wasn’t even holding it properly! haha! and I looked kinda stupid too):



But we weren’t sore about it (even though they were much younger and smaller than us. Haha) It was quite fun actually. And even though we were on the losing side we still had a “TEAM SINGAPORE” cheering for us! And they were the Chu Van Ann students! (Gasp! What happened to the SAC girls?) They were like “GO SINGAPORE GO SINGAPORE!” or something along those lines. It was really encouraging to see strangers from a foreign land cheering us on!

And then, there was the traditional dance. I’m gonna try my best to explain it but I think it’s better to look at the pictures. It involved a few people holding sticks and hitting them to a certain rhythm, while the players had to get to the other side without getting their feet trapped. Something like that. I sucked at it and got my feet trapped quite a few times. OH WELL. That explains the picture.



And then came the MEET-AND-GREET SESSION. HA-DI-HA.

AT FIRST, we just went around having conversations and stuff. Like, for example, there was this girl telling me that she was going to come to Singapore to study in a few years time. So it was all normal and calm and everything UNTIL, they asked for our emails and autographs. THAT WAS WHEN IT ALL BECAME CRAZY.

Everyone was just pushing and shoving each other and it all became some race of WHO-GETS-THE-PEN-AND-PAPER-TO-THE-SINGAPOREAN-FIRST. It really gave me a taste of how it was like to be a celebrity for a day. But still, they were very polite and gracious in asking me for my email or autograph and that was very welcoming. So everything was going fine.

THAT WAS UNTIL I HAD THE WEIRDEST REQUEST IN MY FIFTEEN YEARS OF LIVING ON EARTH.

I was asked by this guy to SIGN ON THE BACK OF HIS SHIRT. O.M.G. I was soooooo shocked and at first I tried to pretend I didn’t know what he was saying because it just felt too weird. Then, I tried to come up with some lame excuse about him not having any shirt to wear anymore if I signed it. But finally, I thought WHY NOT?





After all that frenzy, it was time for the students to go back to the classrooms and for us to go for the school tour. While walking past the classrooms, I noticed that they had framed pictures of Ho Chi Minh inside every one of the classrooms. This tells me that the amount of respect that they had for him was like HUGE.We were told that many of these students learnt languages such as Russian or Japanese on top on their native language Vietnamese and English. This made me realise that we shouldn’t complain so much about our school life but try to be grateful that we have the chance to study. All in all, this trip to Chu Van Ann was a great experience and has given me a different perspective on life.

LOVES!weiling)

Orphanage Visit

HEY EVERYONE!
Alex D. here.Just wanted to blog about my orphanage visit experience:)

Well,at first it didn't really sink into me that we were visiting an orphanage for handicapped children or even adults until we were at the orphanage itself.We were welcomed by the vice director.She was very friendly and I felt comfortable around her. She led us to a classroom on the 2nd floor.It was pretty small compared to our classrooms. She told us about the history of the orphanage and about the children there. Most of them were mentally disabled and some were physically disabled. Slowly it started to sink into me that I would have to think of topics to talk to the children there.It was really difficult as we all didn't want to talk about stuff that they were sensitive about and the fact that they hardly understood English made it worse, but somehow we all managed to feel at ease when we met the children.A few of us cried and it reminded me of the blind and disabled children I met in Laos which probably were in a worse and more pitiful state.I think compared to the blind children in laos,their conditions were not as bad.

After touring around the school,we started work.some of us stayed at the classroom to build the library and the rest went to decorate the classroom on the 1st floor.we printed the photos we took with them on the spot. They were fasinated by the printer and some of the boys were helping Arin with the printing.I'm so proud of the library that we built for the children. It's good to know that we've left our mark at the orphanage and that's something i'm really proud of.

I think it was really hard for all of us to leave the orphanage.I was already very attached to this girl. We didn't really communicate but somehow I could feel this connection.I nearly cried when we were leaving.

I think that this was the most significant activity throughout this whole trip as it made me realise how much I've taken my abilities for granted. I really would love to go back and do more for this orphanage.

That's all I gotta say for now! See you girls in school next year!
Bye!
Take care!:)
Love,
Alexandria De Costa

Orphanage Visit

hello everyone ! it's vanessa anne here ! i am here to blog about my orphanage experience.

Honestly, i was pretty nervous when we reached the orphanage and sat inside the classroom because i really wasn't sure of what to expect and how i was going to approach the children at the orphanage. But when we were told that there were some of them who were our age and even older, i started to feel even more nervous because i was afraid that they would be more sensitive towards the things i say to them as it may trigger something in their minds or something.

When we went down into the classroom where almost all of them were seated at, I cried when they sang the " abc " song. It somehow moved me alot to hear them sing and i began to realise how lucky i was to have everything back in singapore.

When we started to mix around with them, i felt really happy knowing that we were all doing something good for them and we were actually helping them. Nicole, Ivy and I was playing with this small boy and he was taking many pictures with my camera.He was actually really good at taking pictures and i felt really happy seeing how much he was enjoying it. I enjoyed the whole experience over there as it was so overwhelming and moving. I felt really good about myself after the visit as i knew that i did something good for someone else. I'm glad to have experienced it :)





well thats about it ! and thank you everyone for making my trip a very memorable one (: see you guys in school ! take care

love,
vanessa anne

DAY 2 (continued!)

heyy everyone! 

the ride to Ha Long Bay was 4 hours, most of us slept on the way there. BUT halfway there, thank gosh there was a stop so we could get off our bums and walk around a little bit at the HANDICRAFT CENTRE! Mr. Loi told us a little bit about the handicraft centre before we arrived and this is the little that i know because i wasn't paying attention :D because the government did not want the disabled to be a burden to the society, they specially created courses i think, where they could learn how to make beautiful handicrafts and then sell it, which would help support them. they are also provided free housing, i think. anyway, so we arrived at the handicraft centre and WOW, the handicrafts we saw were gorgeous, especially the hand sewn designs on cloths, wallets and pouches. there were also, wooden crafts and jewellery boxes and others i can't really remember now. at the handicraft centre, there was this one man whom stood out, to me. he had only stumps for arms and one eye was blind AND YET, he was working at the cashier, helping another with dealing with customers. i really admire him for his perseverance. 

then once again we got onto the bus for another 2 more hours before we arrived at Ha Long Bay. then the only itinerary for the day was CAVE WALKING! i think the cave was called the Cave Of Surprise because the French, either found it by surprise or when they went in, they found it amazingly beautiful and huge. so yeah, there are 3 chambers in the cave with the biggest in the third chamber. oh and Mdm Frieda educated us a little bit about stalactites and stalagmites and how to remember them. stalactites with the C stands for Ceiling and stalagmites with the G stands for ground. and Mr Loi added on with his own way of remembering the difference, but i can't remember. hahah. so basically the cave walk was walk into the cave, walk up, see the view of the bay and walk back down again. and that's all for day 2! 

lovee Carrie :D

DAY 2-Morning

HELLO!!!
­we came down early today, a bit too early in fact, because we were late last night. HAHA. So that's why we're blogging. So anyways, last night in Kim Lien Hotel ­was pretty alright. They had nice channels and hot water. we watched hairspray and jimmy kimmel live! BUT it was really cold. So thank God for the nice bath. Today, we'll be going to Halong Bay, which is pretty far from here (about 4 hrs to get there). So, watch out for someone else posting about it!
loves bernadette and weiling:)

Photos for Day 1

hey hey!! joycelyn here. i have managed to put this pictures out in the blog so yay!!! :)
didnt managed to get all of your numbers, so add me in msn?
lyann-dolphin@hotmail.com



By the way, this is just day 1!!! haha:)

View Album

Get your own