Oelp reflection(ji-xuan)

Day 1:

The first day, we all gathered in changi airport terminal 3. We were all excited as we would be spending the next  6 to 7 days with our friends, however we were also scared as to how we will take care of ourselves . We ate our lunch on the plane and soon ,we landed in shanghai pudong airport. We collected our luggages and headed on the bus to dinner. We ate less compared to in singapore as we were still not used to the chinese food. We then went to our hotel and on the way, saw the beautiful night lights in shanghai .In the hotel, we had a debrief for the day and went to our allocated rooms where i tried to get organised and wondered how i should take care of myself for the rest of the trips and the problems i had to overcome .

Day 2:

Today we had few places to go to  and thus we were allowed to wake up slightly later. After breakfast, we headed off to Chenhuangmiao. Chenhuangmiao was a temple  at first but turned into a big tourist area with a lot of Chinese traditional items. the restaurants and food stalls were some of the best in Shanghai. However, one interesting point was that there was Starbucks in Chenhuangmiao. A traditional area with a modern coffee chain. there was a superstition that you must enter the door of the temple with you right foot first for good luck. The temple showed a lot of different deities and those that represent the different zodiacs as well. Next we went to Shanghai Book City. It was a seven storey book store with a lot of different types of books. Inside, they even stacked their books into different sculptures, making it more fun looking. Even though I did not buy any books, there was a huge variety of books in there that will appeal to book lovers. We also went  to the Bund and the French concession. The Bund had a nice scenery of the business industry of shanghai, with all the tall buildings for commercial purposes. 

Day 3:

This is the first day that we went to Shanghai Nanyang High School, and on the first day, we were late by half an hour. We felt very ashamed  because the teacher in charge of our visit was waiting in the busy road for our bus to arrive. We felt that we gave the school a bad impression by being late since this was the fifth year that RV has visited this school but our batch was the only one late. In the school, we were introduced to our buddies and more about the school's history. A physics teacher came to the room and asked us to build the tallest possible paper tower using a single piece of paper. After building the paper tower, we had to balance a ping pong ball on it and my pair's tower could withstand a golf ball's weight well . It was an interesting lesson, nothing like anything we have ever done in rv . After that,we left the school and we went to Haidilao for lunch and their service lived up to whatever review was given of them. Their service was very good and all the waiters greeted us with a smile even though we were students, allowed us to put our bags on the chairs of other table even though the table could have been used to accomodate more customers. . we then went to Shanghai urban planning hall for a while because they were closing. We saw a very detailed model of shanghai . The purpose of this place was for the planning of where new buildings eg shopping malls, office can be built at.

Day4:

We went to Shanghai Nanyang High School for the second day and this time, we left earlier but was still slightly late. This shows me that shanghai has unpredictable traffic. We went to take a look at their morning exercises and attended their lessons . After saying goodbye to our buddies, we went to Oriental Dreamworks. We were given a tour around their office and saw some sneak peaks of upcoming cartoon movies. We saw how much effort was needed to draw these objects, even if the object was just a small background display, they took very long and put a lot of detail in it. Artists could also listen to music or watch NBA to get inspiration.We then went to Fudan university and a ex senior from RV took us around the school and told us about how studying in Shanghai is like. The chinese students were very hardworking and went to classrooms to study right when they open at around 5am till late at night. I think i will not survive a life like that as it was too tiring.

Day 5:

We travelled from Shanghai to Hangzhou by bus and the bus ride took around 3 hours. After we reached and had lunch, we went to Zhejiang University. Zhejiang university is very big, and we needed to travel through the school by bus. The whole compound that we'vebeen to, had a library for each course (e.g medicine or business) and the library is very big. The whole school compound almost looked like a mini town whereby there are traffic lights and there are small shops along the roads. Even though the whole compound was huge, it was not the whole of Zhejiang University; it has altogether 5 compounds to make up the whole Zhejiang university. And zhejiang university still had parts of it to be completed

Day 6:

That day we went to 西湖，岳王庙，雷峰塔 and QingHeFang street. We first went to  and the tomb of YueFei was in it. The temple showed many information about YueFei and about the traitors that caused his death. The people that caused his death were made into statues and placed kneeling in front of YueFei for life. People used to spit on the statues , but now they arent allowed to do so. YueFei's two assistants were also honored by a smaller temple beside YueFei's. Next, we went to walk around west lake. West lake was beautiful and the lake surface was glistening in the sun and it showed the scenery of Hangzhou while we were on a boat around the lake. The trees by the side of the lake were very beautiful and the whole place was very peaceful, thus it is one of Hangzhou's most famous tourist attraction. We then climbed to the top of the Leifeng Pagoda. The top of the Leifeng Pagoda showed a very clear image of the entire west lake and the forests surrounding it. We could also see the famous buildings within the West Lake. QingHeFang street was an ancient street with a lot  of traditional items and food that are specialties in Hangzhou. 

Day 7:

We travelled back to Shanghai from Hangzhou and on the way back, we went to Qibao ancient street. There were a lot of people in there and the streets were quite narrow so we had to push around to catch up with the rest of the class. There were many cheap things sold there, as well as 臭豆腐 which had a  smell as we walked along the street. Next we went to tianzifang. Tianzifang was considered more of an artsy street as when we walked down we saw lot of art galleries and art related things. The items sold there are also quite modern and trendy. There were also quite a few shopping malls around that area. We then left the place and headed  to the airport where we boarded the plane and went back to Singapore. 

Even though the trip was over, all of us enjoyed ourselves and really bonded through the trip. We will never forget the trip down the next few years and we wikl miss this trip. this trip 让我大开眼界, saw alot of things outside singapore and certainly learnt alot about china. We were also forced to be responsible and take care of ourselves.