huehue so I was told I had to split my blog posts up so this is the previous post, same same but different.
Day to day activities
After we came back from Beijing it was mostly just classes, meetings and lazing around watching Netflix. I promise I’ll continue exercising and gymming soon I just need some time to laze around HAHA
June 2 was Joshua’s birthday (happy birthday Josh love you to the moon and back) and we spent the day doing very Singapore-ish activities like ice-skating, walking around a shopping mall and eating Genki sushi for dinner (how can sushi taste so different (a bad different) in China). This was the period where I was so sick of Chinese food so I just wanted a change of palette. We took a photo at some photo booth with some filters that is too embarrassing to show here so if we ever play Truth or Dare you can dare me to show you HAHA
This post’s 2 words to describe Hangzhou/China would be Taobao and scenic.
Taobao is everybody’s best friend here in China because you can pretty much Taobao everything here and it’s mostly cheaper than brick and mortar shops. Collection is also very convenient because the post office is right outside our hostel and you can just walk there and back in 5 minutes with all your goods. Here’s a list of items I have taobao-ed in the past 4 weeks HAHA
- wanglaoji herbal tea x2 cartons – this is like my favourite drink here. It tastes like grass jelly and it’s supposedly very cooling so you can drink a lot without getting heaty
- A table and some playing things (iykwim)
- Mass gainer – so I’ve been trying to gain weight but it’s hard even though I eat this everyday so I shall see how this goes HAHA
- Wireless mouse – for 6SGD only I get a pretty sleek mouse that doesn’t make annoying clicking sounds
- Havaianas slippers – because mine was breaking. Apparently it’s very easy to spot Singaporeans/Malaysians here in China because we’re the only people who wear slippers around
- Mosquito repellent – I put this in the balcony to keep mosquitoes out
- Wireless headphones – I returned this after 1 day because it wasn’t charging and it couldn’t compare to the airpods (which Dan lost)
- Airpods – I just felt very lost without it so I returned the wireless headphones and bought a new pair (which I will cherish very dearly HAHA)
These are just the items I bought and if you include what Dan has bought you can probably figure out why my room is kinda like the student lounge HAHA but yes Taobao is really convenient and it’s something I will definitely miss when I’m back in Singapore.
China is very scenic with all the mountain ranges and lakes and architecture you can find here and my very active friends have made it a point to find some trail that we can walk and (torture ourselves) and admire the scenery almost once a week. Despite how tiring it gets, it’s always worth it at the end of the hike. This week, we hiked this ancient trail called 徽杭古道 (read hui1hang3gu3dao4 you’re welcome) and the scenery was really (pardon my lack of vocabulary) dope. Besides just walking I was also busy scamming other hikers telling them that the next rest point was a 3km uphill hike away HAHAHAHA yes I know I’m evil. Also had a HTHT along the way which made the hike less miserable. Towards the end it started to rain and we whipped out our handy ponchos to shelter from the rain AND I got very sad because the last part of the hike was supposed to be the most scenic but all I could see was my hair plastered all over my eyes and face thank you rain you were great I really appreciate it.
CIP at Hushu special school
This week we went down to Hushu school twice for CIP and it was actually quite fun despite having to wake up early. During the first day, we taught the kids how to fold some paper aeroplanes and decorated it with them and ended with a paper aeroplane throwing competition… or so that was the plan HAHA I we didn’t really expect how hyperactive the kids can get during the session and we couldn’t get them under control. I also tried to fold a paper plane that was apparently the one which broke the world record for the furthest distance BUT all it did was just flop so somewhere somehow I did something wrong LOL towards the end we tried to get the kids to throw their planes and we distributed the prizes to the kids that were enthusiastic. The process was totally not rigged man I just gave the prizes to the kids that were nice HAHAHA ok it was quite funny at some point because we had 1 prize left and so I told the kids to show us their decorated planes and the nicest one will win the prize (legit winning criteria ok no bias here) and this very enthusiastic kid came up and showed me his plane which was amazingly empty like zero drawings and all. I was so stunned and I looked around not knowing what to say and I didn’t have the heart to reject him so I just ended up saying (in mandarin) “oh yeah let’s give it up for this kid with this simple and elegant paper plane – 简单就是美!!!” so yes the kid with the empty paper plane walked away with the prize I am so good at my job HAHAHA but yes that was the first day.
The second day was more fun – thank you Wesson for introducing the song which is definitely not stuck in my head now and also thanks Timothy for helping us choreo the dance steps. The session was supposed to last 3 hours and apparently we split into 2 groups to teach the kids the dance and somehow we didn’t milk the steps enough so we ended up having almost 1 hour of free time HAHA no pictures/videos here yet maybe next week when our resident photographer is less busy. So yes back to the free 1 hour we had to fill time so me Timo and Wesson ended up dancing anything is possible again (thank you Byte 1.0) which couldn’t fill up much time so I got arrowed to do wushu (unrehearsed somemore help). Yes the day couldn’t get any better HAHA I think this day was especially successful (definitely not because of me ok everybody gets credit) and everything went well (which was good enough already to be honest I have imagined ways how badly it could have turned out HAHA)
Week 4 was fun I guess, it was one of the more eventful weeks
