i am back from shanghai!

i am blacker, tanner, fatter [after all the oily foods] and better/worse [whichever you pick] than before.
i am back from shanghai!

the 16 day cip trip was good fun, lots of fun and laughter and love, and a whole new load of friends made. i mean, look, i miss my team already. especially people like laura, rachel, joyce, shiwei, nicole, dawny, ada, huiyi, yinpin, mich, derrick, jingyang, alvin, jacob. all the work, fun, teasing, laughter we've shared together. i miss especially the group of friends i hung out with most often, laura, roomies, huiyi and ada! the 6 of us went everywhere together! from xiangyang market, to swing cafe, to fuzhou lu, and to everywhere! love these buddies loads. i love the other girls too, shiwei nic mich yinpin and dawny! for the senseless bitching through out together, and having so much bimbotic fun together! and of course not forgetting the guys, thanks jingyang for chionging ktv all the way [i have this darned feeling it was due to the note i sent him. >.<], derrick for being the ugly duckling that we all love, alvin for being the team leader who cant stop reminding me about counting group strength when he has already done so, and jacob for sharing the love for lame jokes and cards/mahjong games [you're one hell of a good reader/player!]

i shall attempt to do this sequentially. but im tired. 
by the way, did i mention i fell sick during the trip and am still sick? yawns. im still down with flu and cough and sore throat whatever nots, all thanks to the greasy oily food, dry and polluted air, lack of proper sleep and rest, and nonstop ktv-ing despite me being in such a bad condition. but i must say everyone looked out for each other real good, like giving each other medication and making sure all of us are drinking enough, and having my team leader come down personally to my room to force stick a thermometer down my throat because i stubbornly refused to go up to his room to take my temp. >.<

DAY 1: 070606
gathered @ changi airport, checked in luggage and wandered around the transit area before getting on to the airplane. the flight was seriously boring, with my ears stuck to my samsung baby and fingers glued to my chinese wuxia novel. flight landed in shanghai and we were greeted by the goddamn bloody cooling air of shanghai, which was really very nice considering we were stuck in a stuffy airplane for 5 hours. it was only later, then we realised that the aircon was supposed to be manually switched on by ourselves! argh. and then we waited, waited and waited. finally got to ymca shangai at half past midnight, and still had a briefing to go for before retiring to our room for our first day snacking on cup noodles! i love my roomies - joyce and rachel!
at the same time, twas nice to receive bday smses from close friends at the strike of midnight. love you guys so so so muchie (:

DAY 2: 080606
MY BDAY! but i dint say so cuz i wanted to keep it a low key affair. but things were not meant to be! >.<
we started off the day by going down to 爱心学校 to recce and the kids there are sooo uber cute! lunch wasnt as bad as what we thought it would be, and we thoroughly explored the area, including the most important - toilet. it was visually alright, but stench - not ok at all. hahahaha. started work a little, by cleaning walls and scraping paper off the wall whilst some others were doing plastering and cementing. then headed back to ymca for a gut bursting 10 course welcome meal where the guys actually ditched us girls to finish up the food! *faints* me nic rod camy and jas went for a short walk around the area before we went on our evening R&R and that was where i saw true colours of our team members. was totally disgusted by 2, and comforted by one. i love my babe [guess which one hiaks]! then we went to the bund and it was a really good visit.
有点重游此地的感觉，回到了2000年的时间。同一个地下隧道，同一个外滩，同一个景色，但不同的伙伴。此刻此时好想念他们，那时伴随我度过2000年十二月的伙伴们。yy 我有想你喔！
then things happened. jas happened to ask when my bday was cuz she heard it was supposed to be somewhere during our trip, so i blurted out "er today?" in a small voice and then i got a resounding bday song in dual languages right on the bund! eeks. sho paiseh. HAHAHA. then shiwei came over to congrat me on my 20th, which i corrected her to make it my 21st. she looked amazingly shocked and ran away! >.< smelt smth fishy when my roomies came to tell me they'd be going back later, and told me to go back with the rest first. o.O then after we got back and i was on my way down going for debrief i bumped into shiwei and jingyang, and jingyang was holding onto a haagendiaz cake! they ran away [again!!] and hahaha my suspicions were confirmed. eeeks shoo paiseh again! LOL. had a mini celebration before debrief and i was so happy! thankew babes and hunks for all the efforts put in! huggies to everyone :)

DAY 3: 090606
1st official day of work! we also moved to a nearer hotel - 松江宾馆 and the hotel was much better than what we expected. nice proper beds for all 3 of us, together with a mini fridge, hot water for bathing and cooking out cup noodles, and world cup on the tv, what more can you expect? *wheee*
started mural sketching on the wall and my pencils were constantly sharpened by this super cute girl, whose name was xinling. :) she was darn sweet! had tons of fun painting the mural with ada, laura and shiwei - my mural team! later at night we explored the area around our hotel and stocked up on drinks, food and then we started a small little snack corner in our room! :)

DAY 4&5: 100606 & 110606
2 days of R&R was fun!!
day 4: we went to 乌镇, walked around in a big group of 13 [18 of us got split up] and had fun taking loads of pictures, and buying souvenirs. lunch was a greasy oily affair of 13-15 main dishes shared by 8 of us and we so couldnt finish everything. but lunch was like only 5 sgd per person given the horrific amount of food ordered? hehehe. went back to shanghai city after that and walked around abit more, had kfc for dinner and it is sooo much better than the kfc back here in sg!
came back to a night of mahjong-ing and bridge-ing in our room :) nice!
day 5 : went to xiangyang for nearly 4 hours odd and did major shopping there. major bargaining done and im darn pleased with my buys :) money well spent! then the 8 of us headed for yuyuan garden for lunch [ at 4pm] and we had the famous shanghai tangbao [the bigger version of xiaolongbao but instead you have a straw to suck the soup out from the bao]! teehee. walked around taking in the picturesque sights before going back to ymca shangha again :)
totally loved the days of R&R :)

DAY 6-7: 120606 - 130606
we went to the wushu sch with the tampines sec team instead of 爱心学校 because our school was closed due to the leadership congress thingy they had in shanghai city. so yea lor we tompang-ed along with tampines sec team and were allocated stuff to do, like whitewashing the walls and doing a mural painting. this was where the problem started. i shant delve much into the problem, but fact was i blew up at alvin because of mural issues, alvin tried damage control, and we managed to salvage the situation by doing a real simple but colourful mural painting. i have this darned feeling shuling felt it was too simple, the flowers and bumble bee [hey jingyang requested for it and he got it!] and butterflies and all. but heck, the kids loved it and i love it too!
at the same time, we learnt wushu on the 1st day and even had a mini competition amongst everyone to see who did well and our group won! made up of only girls yea hahahaha. :) the 3 days were really tiring but it felt good to be working our asses off for it was starting to feel like a R&R trip instead of an ISP trip hehe.
had a hand at teaching on the 1st day as well and i conducted a lesson in chinese. it was like GOODNESS me cuz the kids were rather rowdy and we were teaching them colours/english! twas fun though and we had fun playing games in class using english as a teaching element :)

DAY 8: 140606
official handing over at the wushu xuexiao!
there were wushu performances and the tampines sec team came up with alot of performances also. we all went totally wild with them during their last item when they did father abraham, it was downright funny la!then phototaking frenzy took place after the ceremony and the kids went wild by taking photos.
after leaving the school we had half a day of R&R AGAIN [see what i mean by this becoming alot like a r&r trip? >.<] another problem arose.
the guys actually ditched us 6 girls for another group of girls to leave us 6 girls wander around xiangyang w/o a guy! alvin as the team leader somemore, i really wonder if what shuling said at the beginning of the trip actually registered into their woodmade heads. seriously y'know. grrr. thank god nothing happened, if not i would have held them personally accountable to any thing that had happened. but i did some more shopping la! :D
we all went back to song jiang and had dinner. and then it was KTV!
it was at this haoledi place, and im telling you, their ktv places are like million times better than sg's kbox! seriously!! but ktv emotions that night was a mixed affair. on one hand it was fun singing songs together with fellow k-enthusiasts, and me wow-ing people with my voice [teehee thankew thankew for allowing my head to grow really big]. but on the other hand there were people who simply cannot sing and wrecked our moods for singing. NO LINK YOU KNOW. irritating. both shiwei and jingyang were rather irritated too. then on our way back from ktv-ing, me and shiwei were walking all the way in front, having a thorough heart2heart and it felt damn bloody good. at least there and then i knew i wasnt the only one. =X

DAY 9: 150606
fell sick today, kena-ed fever :| took 2 panadol extra and broke into a sweat, which means fever gone :) i think.
today was the 1st of 2 days at the old folks home, which we had a HUMONGOUS mural painting to complete in 2 days. it dint help matters that the 院长 was a totally biatch by demanding a super high standard for the mural, and stood there giving me stress. whenever she was around, i was doodling on the wall, i only drew after she stepped away >.<
after the day's work, we had a girls outing at the kfc near our hotel! and that was when i started falling sick. achy limbs and the tiredness just simply zapped the energy outta me. felt so cold on the outside yet i could feel heat radiating within me! ouch. =( took dual panadol extra and had a li' bitchfest after that. worked wonders hehe. =P

DAY 10: 160606
2nd day at oldfolks home and i was disappointed that i dint get much chance to interact with the old folks all thanks to mr alvin tan. grr.
twas at this point where i started to feel the extreme weight of mural painting on me. i cant do alot of what i'd wanna do, which is interaction, because as the unofficial mural painting i/c, i cant afford the time to walk away from the mural painting just to go interact, right? not that i dont trust my team, but i personally feel that its super irresponsible for the i/c to run off and have fun while his team members slog away. sigh, wasted opportunities i guess. =X nonetheless, i still had fun with my team and biatching with the girls =) however, i've lost my voice as well and alvin actually forced a thermometer down my throat after we got back to the hotel!! GAHHH. fine he was just doing his job >.<

DAY 11&12: 170606 - 180606
a whole series of events happened during these 2 days of R&R it became totally ridiculous la. there was eye candy too [shhhhh] ! but i guess this weekend was a truly good rest and relax, where our footsteps were much slower, and we took in the sights more. :)
day 11: we celebrated huiyi's bday at the stoke of midnight! niceeee! it took quite abit of acting and role playing to avoid getting her suspicions up and im glad we succeeded! :) then in the morning, due to the blockage on the roads, ymca couldnt charter a bus to bring us to the city area, so zhaobin brought us to take the public transport! coool! we took the bus, then the mrt to the oriental pearl tower, which was a li' pricey for everyone's liking, so we dint go up there. instead we went to take a boat ride along the huangpu river. we thought it was the old kokkok kinda bumboat, but it turned out to be the luxurious kind -_- so diaos. but we had fun at the deck taking in the sights, and taking poseur pictures as well lalala. had lunch at the nearby mall where me and laura shared teppanyaki and we ate frog's legs w/o realising we actually ordered frog's legs. =X headed back to raffles' city to pick up laura's cuzzie, shaun. then we went to the shanghai musuem [finally food for the brain!!] only to realise we had 1.5 hours left so it was CHIONG AH!! spent fruitful time alone at the calligraphy and chinese painting galleries :) had dinner at pizzahut [yes you read me right, we're all darn tired of dimsum and chinese food and all] and then shaun brought us to 书城 [ahh yippee i got to go to fuzhou lv all thanks to him! 爱死他了！] where we shopped to our hearts' content. 7 whole levels of books and entertainment, its like OMFG. :)
day 12: slept in late [hurray!] and then 18 of us squeezed into 2 vans and we headed back into the city again! hinthint: 42inch plasma tv [insider joke, ask me about it MUAHAHAHA] but of course i wasnt the main lead la. ;) instead, me and jingyang were having a lengthy talk about cars :) and jacob promised to teach me dota! hurray! alvin me and jacob ditched the rest to go buy computer games first, then met up with them at the basement for cds and dvds! friggin cheap i tell ya hehe. had lunch with the usual crowd at ichiban [nono not the one we know] and then we went to this special swing cafe whose seats are made out of swings [like you can really SWING wheeeee] and the company was great, coupled with good food! felt like heaven, really. and shaun came to join us, AGAIN! now no fear of not having guys around, cuz shaun is there lol. :) we went back to 书城 again and spent some more time there. adada got her dota stuff also! wanted to pick up mr albert, but we missed him and i bought a pack of collectible coke playing cards for sgd7 plus. i was debating whether to buy, and when i finally sneaked over to buy, there was a chorus of "NOOO"s behind me as i was paying >.< i cant help the gambling streak in me, im sorry!
and then it was back to cup noodles, mahjong and bridgey :)

DAY 13: 190606
finally work started back at 爱心学校 and it was darn bloody hawt! because of the sun, im darn black [yes like what wh mentioned before, bitumen. that phrase is permanently stuck in my head], but i guess twas fun, me taking care of the mural team, making sure they down water every now and then :)
then we went to ktv! wasnt fantastically fun because my nose was seriously blocked like mad and i was feeling rather uncomfortable =X

DAY 14: 200606
finished mural painting today! so proud of ourselves hehe :) the sun was friggin hot as usual but we came prepared with sunblock for the face and the body, and i was even armed with shades until shuling reminded me i wont wanna get white circles around my eyes so i took off my shades in the end. thank goodness alvin dint force us to play a team game together under the friggin hot sun, or else i would have killed him, seriously.
at night after debrief, we went to eat 小龙虾 under derrick's reccomendation! phwoah it was super nice! me and jingyang shared 3斤 [thats about 1.8kg] of mini lobsters and we cleared them all! the 12 of us finished 15 斤 in total, so we cleared like 20% of it =p and it tasted particularly good with beer! it was tsingdao that was offered at the restaurant. after that i was in a drinking mood, so me and shiwei hopped over to jingyang's room to have a coupla drinks [cfm sure have alcohol in their room =P ] while waiting for derrick who never appeared in the end. 3 of us finished 2 bottles of tsingdao and 4 cans of kirin, while talking about the team in general. coool huh. and i was feeling a li' tipsy i guess. drank alot more than what i usually drink >.< so much more that i felt tingy at my fingertips and i kept examining it to see if my fingers were swelling. aye but i wasnt as bad as shiwei yea yea? hehehe.

DAY 15: 210606
last day at 爱心学校 :( we had the official handing over ceremony, with us singapore delegates performing 3 songs and a story telling. we told the story of ugly duckling, where i did the chinese translation! hehe. and derrick was the ugly duckling, our tall scrawny ugly duckling hahaha. =P the atmosphere was good, and i managed to do abit of filming for mr albert, catching alvin reading joyce's speech on film, and the kids' performance. there was a touching farewell as we said our goodbyes to the kids whom we have grown close to ever since the beginning of the trip. for me, there was this little girl called xinling.

remember i mentioned her in day 3?
yes she was the girl who was constantly by the mural everytime we were painting and she would never fail to offer her help, much more than some of my fellow team mates. i'd let her try her hand at the wall, making sure she dint catch paint on her hands or clothes, and in return, she always hangs around, keeping us sane and company at the same time. that particular parting, she asked a favour of me, to make her a star as she saw us making stars out of boredom before the ceremony started. by then we had already cleared up and there was no spare pieces of papers left. i was searching the boxes hastily, hoping to find scrapes of paper to make stars. in the end i cut paper out from the teaching materials left behind >.< and made a green star for me. she started tearing as we were about to board the bus. joyce caught her emotions on the camera. i couldnt bring myself to cry, but the sadness within me was felt. for once, i interacted despite being in the mural team, and i touched someone with my painting, my company, my little star.
可爱的xinling,我会永远记得你的真，你的可爱，你的关怀，你的照顾。
要记得快乐地过着自己的生活，珍惜生活里的每一天。
我们所拥有的回忆，永不磨灭，好不好？
i left her these words in parting. and hope she'll remember it, for as long as she can. :)

after that, was debrief. and then... *drumsroll* LAST NIGHT OF KTV-ING!
this time round, it was wild. i have never had such a wild ktv session EVER. k-ing with my team members are FUN FUN AND MORE FUN! imagine 10 aged 20ish people, jumping on the leathery seats as though they were high on ecstasy and not giving a damn about looks and all. it was goddamn shiok la! i can still remember, jingyang chose 张震岳's 自由, he was holding onto one mike, i was holding onto the other, and derrick the last one. we sang our hearts out, and then jingyang shouted "derrick!" we all auto let derrick have his solo part, then it was the chorus, then jingyang shouted "weina!" so i sang my solo part, then it was the chorus and he did his own solo! it was like WOOOW uber high! we danced to the really funky fast old songs like from 草蜢 and 郭富城's 对你爱爱爱不完 and many of the mayday's songs! it was really so high, i think nothing can beat that one last night's ktv experience. really. people always think you cant have much fun with too big a crowd for ktv. well think again, cuz with 10 power k-sters, you can have TOO MUCH FUN which was damn bloody good! too bad more than half of us ko-ed by 3am so we made our way back to the hotel for a few hours rest before...

DAY 16: 220606
we woke up to macs brekkie! laura gave me morning call, and we called the rest of the rooms. in the end there were 6 of us headed down to macs for our last brekkie at 松江. there was me laura joyce huiyi ada and alvin. brekkie was nice as we munched our way through hotcakes and big breakfasts and burgers alike. china macs' milkshakes are gooood!
then it was more or less homeward bound as we moved from hotel to ymca to airport and then to the plane where i slept most of my way through.
and then at 9pm, we hit sg.

back home!


i miss the good ol' days when we were there.
all the fun and experience we've shared, all the close buddies we've found through the trip, i hope we'll be able to maintain and keep the relationship going. for those who were close to me during the trip, thanks for keeping me company and making me feel less of an extra. not that i was feeling homesick, but y'all know, the feeling of being amidst most year ones.. its the same feeling ada had initially, and i guess we all feel it to a certain extent, no matter who we are and who we came with. im just glad we broke all boundaries possible and had the maximum amount of fun ever.

cheers to uni-y shanghai isp 2006!