The 1^st week of the 6 weeks of Beijing was come to an end, sadly. However, the week that just passed hasn’t been wasted; it has been more of a week of accustoming the body and habits to the Beijing style. In a nutshell, the places we visit were in chronological order: 北京机场，新华保险公司，北师大二附中，北京规划展览馆，前门大街

，北京动物园，天安门广场，故宫，景山公园。The 1^st week of lessons have also passed and I am enjoying the Beijing 6 weeks immersion life.

Definitely the life between the two cities are different, the way they behave to the simplest stuffs like how to cross the roads. I actually like the Beijing lifestyle; it suits my liking, after all “rules are meant to be broken, as long as you don’t get caught”. The prices in Beijing and in Singapore for most of the stuffs are …….. wow. Ten dumplings for less than 1 SGD, that’s very affordable. Furthermore, the locals are friendly, they smile, unlike the Singapore counterparts. I still remember the times back in Singapore when people are all stereotyping the Chinese people  as people who speak lousy English and barbaric. Well, when we are here, we are seriously losing out in terms of our command in Chinese. We shouldn’t judge people when we can’t experience their lives. Only when we live in China can we thoroughly understand the characteristics of the Chinese.

北京规划展览馆really had opened my mind to the various planning of a city structure. To think that the raffles town plan was good, Beijing’s ring road system is better. The way you see the Chinese present the city structure to us, really we know their facts right. Beijing is a magnificent city and really all the pictures you may see, they undermine the true feel of being there yourself. That place is like a one stop guide to Beijing structure, something that I think I would be proud to see and present to the tourist if I am a Chinese.

I shan’t talk much about the vendors at the bargainable areas, but just have to say that even though we would like to get the cheapest price for ourselves, we still have to let them earn some cash. When I see my dad bargaining at 红桥市场 I was wowed. Its like his negotiation skills in his business is thoroughly used in communicating with the vendors. He laughs about with them, like friends, strike up convos easily, I really wonder if I am able to do what my dad can do. Time to try to be more outgoing I guess, learn to talk to strangers. Like how he just talks to a random French man in the subway, I am baffled on how he manages to do that. I guess what my dad said has some facts, “bargaining has much similarity with negotiating with clients”. Just a personal opinion, 红桥市场vendors are much more friendlier than in Silk Street or the Zoo mart.

北京动物园 the animals there are “dead”. I had a work attachment in the Zoo before and animals can’t really be just locked up in a cage like what we see in the北京动物园. Singapore Zoo built specific enclosures to suit the animals’ original habitats and I don’t see that happening in北京动物园. The African animals living in a freakin’ cold climate, that’s wrong.

天安门广场，故宫，景山公园 pictures undermine the view when you are personally there. I’m not lying. I stand in the middle of天安门广场, I feel as though I am in a stadium, playing/performing/in the eyes of an audience, of more than millions. The feeling was overwhelming; of course very sportsman would like to play in the highest level. I wonder how that would feel like.

故宫, a PALACE BUILT for one person, the emperor. It is like what the f***, that place is crazy, it’s huge, it’s nice it rocks. But well we can conclude that the Chinese of the past really follow that strict hierarchical structure, with the emperor up there. Its not a bad thing, on the flipside its actually another ruling method that has its pros and cons.

1^st day:

We officially entered Beijing, through the Airport that was renovated for the Olympic Games. For the record, the airport is really big and I think that it is comparable with Singapore’s Airport. We even require a monorail like train to transport us from the arrival hall to the place to collect our luggage. As usual, the immigration checkpoint had a long queue. Mr Ang is very very “enthusiastic” and panicky. So we took a one hour trip to The Beijing Normal University, , and on the way we saw the Olympic Green, super cool. Checked into the Hostel. ROOM 9 with nick andre, nicholas teng, zi yao, yang xi, danny and myself. Rooom better than expected. Toilet much better than expected. Mattress blanklet-like. WIN. Settled down in class,

Dinner was nice. Beijing food is nice. 1^st dinner got drumstick. After dinner, bought the daily necessities from wu mart and bought sim card. Xiong opened the wrong door and almost went in to the girl’s room. Which is beside his room. DOTA people in housed. Slept.

Note to self, 10 mins plus of overseas calls burst the 50 bucks sim.

2^nd day.

Took公车22 号 to前门 ,I was expecting to be squeezed like shit. But I o\ver expected, it was much spacious then expected. We walked to北京规划展览馆to see the past and present infrastructure planning of Beijing. Moreover, we looked into the olympics behind the scene planning of the designing of the Olympic green.   After that went to 前门大街 went to back alley. Ate the retardedly fat filled lamb kebab. OH, we passed by  北京旧火车站 when walking to the  北京规划展览馆.

AT NIGHT!. Xiong shits hard

3^rd Day:

Officially the 1^st day Beijing Satellite Campus Schooling for 6 weeks just started today.

The local teachers were very very friendly and nice. Their knowledge vastly surpass the Singapore teachers. I mean like well they are local teachers and they should know much more. But the way they express the knowledge, its just so fasinating to see the rich culture of China. Sure it may be rather boring at times, however, it still attracts most of my attention. Mr Ang, Mr Tan Ms Yeo and Ms Ong are all friendly teachers, I guess the side we see them in are the side we can’t really see when they are in Singapore as our official teachers. :D:D:D. We went to the菜市场after some lessons at 3.00pm. The image I had in my head after Mr Ang’s description of the area was that it will be really really icky and disgusting. However, it turned out that it was much much better than Singapore ones. Kinda nice place, you much activities between the owners, unlike most Singapore ones. So after the visit, we walked back to the dorms, played basketball and slept :D

4^th day:

Notes taken:

师傅，说句实话，如果您会亏本您就不会在这儿了。

Speak in good jest. Joke around. Go as low as you can. Observe the face.Don’t be too serious. If they ask you where you are, reply with an indirect answer . eg. 你认为我是从那儿来的。。。。。。。 我爹是从福建来的。

。went to 北京动物园。Saw the great pandas, and other animals weird to find African animals there though. Wonder how they actually adapt to the cold surroundings which is obviously unlike their original habitat’s temp. the underwater world is very lame.. no whales. Nothing much. Ate at mian ai mian, nice. Then went to 服装批发市场。Walked around with Edwin 1^st then ended \up with ernest. He bought his vans  while I bought my nike. We got kinda scammed but the auntie was nice. Although it may be a scam to trick us but well, it’s a good experience. They look at your shoes to offer you price and I learnt some tips from ms ong by during the night session. So well I shall take it as an investment. 

5^th Day

Burst the 2bd 50 yuan value.

The idea to mix the guys around with the girls worked lol. Now victor is the only class with tables that occupy both guys and girls. Interesting ya. And can see that people are getting along better.

At night, Ernest was fooling around with his “madow” anime adaptation. Rm 6 is nuts. He is like a gangster boos that jokes lolol. And the same night, placed redox tablets in the mouth directly. Wtf.

Fell sick

Day 6,

Went to 天安门广场 to sight see, saw the mao portrait and the flag in the first person view. The area was rather overwhelming its like standing in the middle of anfield stadium. I not very sure its just like being in front of a fucking huge audience and performing in front of them. Entered gu gong subsequently to see the palace that was built for the sole purpose of one guy, the emperor. freaking big and mazy. The emperor will have to find for a long time to go too the loo. The tour guide was nice, although m rang said she was a new person, but like when the china history info comes out from a china local, its like so convincing. And I infer the the empress was rather short, cause I whacked my head onto the ceiling of the corridor entrance while walking through the area built for the empress. What luck. So walked walked and walked, we ended up joking around with the tour guide and \eventually saying good bye. Then went to climb jing shan gong yuan. I thought It would be a mini kinabalu, But it turned out that 3 mins its all we need to own the hill. Not mountain. The scene there was breathtaking, you can see the ent\ire gu gong from up there, very nice, pictures just undermine the actual feeling of seeing it you’re your eyes. After that the group split up and I Went out with dad. We sat the tuck tuck (trishaw like vehicle) to eat at some lao Beijing store and went to hong qiao market. The vendors there are nice, even if you bargain they are still friendly even if you reject them they are still friendly to you. Unlike the zoo ones, use the hands of hell to pull you in. Bpught the I love bj and a couple of mao stuffs, one transformers autobots belt and 2 wallets. The belt + wallet cost bout 100 yuan while the 2^nd wallet cost 30 yuan. I felt scammed again.

AND the worst thing is that I saw a replica of my shoes, and they offered 100 yuan straight. Haiz, I bargained to 100 yuan and they offered to  100 yuan straight.  That kinda show how noob I was. But I got some name cards, shal go back to buy shoes and stuffs when the group goes there :D:D. Took the subway to the station close by the dorm with dad and met some Netherlands guy who works in france but got shifted to Australia and to Beijing. Wow eh. I see how my dad is so pro. And strike up convos so easily, and bargain is like in born within him. Walked back to the dorms with dad, intro him to mao mao and maomao treated dad to one yang rou chuan. Cool eh. They were like talking so easily, I need that type of skills man. Saw him off m=into the taxi and I guess the next time I meet him would be at the airport . At the dorm after ern and co. came back. Apparently yang xi talked to some 19 year old girl. The nafter a while she smsed the guys. I heard she ran down the bus when the guys reached their stop to xchange numbers. Cool right.

Day 7,

Went to xiu shui jie. Saw lots of stuffs I want to buy. But come to think about it I hesitated cos I decided to bbuy them later the trip. Maybe like 4^th week.

Oh ya. It snowed today, 1^st November 2009. Earlier thaan expected by most. Kinda cool while irritating. Cause snow really makes walking troublesome. But experiencing snow is cool.

Notes taken:

师傅，说句实话，如果您会亏本您就不会在这儿了。

Speak in good jest. Joke around. Go as low as you can. Observe the face.Don’t be too serious. If they ask you where you are, reply with an indirect answer . eg. 你认为我是从那儿来的。。。。。。。 我爹是从福建来的。

wait for the sunday. MORE updates and pics.

It as aways been there. EOYs coming. people starting to choing mug. mug until like some gay.

but i dont understand mugging. like choing mugging. like ok now i stay up till 1 am to review / revise some parts i'm blur at.

but like wtf. people. mug b4 sch. mug after sch. mug till 3am to get gd grades. wth . its like stupid .

ok studying is ok. periodically. its good. but if you choing mug for the sake of the exam it becomes pointless.

mug to learn not to ace the exam and show off. 

NDP09 Theme Song - What do you see? (English)

Composition & Lyrics by Electrico

Verse 1:

There’s a jewel on the ocean,

a gem upon the sea

Where the future is an open book

A land of destiny

We could set our sights into the wind and sail the seven seas

or climb the highest mountain top as long as we believe

What do you see? What do you see?

Chorus:

See the moon and the stars, look how far we have come

Look around at our faces, they shine brightly in the sun

With our hopes and dreams, imagine what tomorrow it may bring

What do you see? What do you see?

Verse 2:

Now the time has come to reach out,

To open up to see

That we stand together in this land

Cos we are family

As thoughts of reaching to the sky are carried on a dream

With hearts and minds united, our dreams we will achieve

What do you see? What do you see?

Chorus 2:

See the moon and the stars, look how far we have come

Look around at our faces, they shine brightly in the sun

With our hopes and dreams, imagine what tomorrow it may bring

What do you see…

Bridge:

What do you see when life makes you take on a mountain

You’ll see that nothing’s gonna stand in your way

Together we can share

The strength of a million

and the courage of a million more

Chorus End:

See the moon and the stars, look how far we have come

Look around at our faces, they shine brightly in the sun

With our hopes and dreams, imagine what tomorrow it may bring

Cos the sky’s the only limit when you’re not afraid to dream

What do you see? What do you see..

Singapore's artiste are really improving . YES!