Beijing

 From 18 to 27 November 2012, I went to Beijing, China. It was a really memorable trip. My senior was right, you'll look back on it and say "I miss the trip and kids so much...".

18 November
At the airport was the time I first saw some of the people I was going to be with over the next 9-10 days. There were 5 Pei Hwa kids (1 P3, 1 P4 and 3 P5; and of which two are siblings), 1 De La Salle kid, and three "seniors", from Sec 2, 3 and 4. It was pretty awkward, and we started off trying to remember people's names and faces, especially when there were some siblings who look much alike. There was a mother and grandma who followed on the trip too.

During the midnight flight on SIA, I was in the middle of the two seniors. One of which I trained with on Saturdays (She's my roommate), and the other was a guy I never saw. SIA decided to wake us up from our sleep at 4.30am for breakfast, just when we were tired and about to sleep.

Quite a long school name.. Took me awhile to remember it.

For the rest of the day, we just visited the Olympic stadium, checked into the Beijing ShiChaHai Sports School (北京什刹海体育运动学校) and its hostel. We spent the afternoon catching up on our sleep. It was great.

The night lights. All that's missing is tranquility.

At night we went to some street near the school to walk around and just feel the atmosphere. The lake was brightly lighted, with many pubs that had their own live music each which slightly ruined the happiness. Just imagine how conflicting music sounds. I don't know why, but I felt this sudden surge of happiness when I saw the lake. In the midst of the chaotic and bustling streets of Beijing, there was a sense of calmness in the water. On our way, we bought candy floss (which is seriously huge), and we saw people trying to sell fried starfishes, seahorses, scorpions and other insects I can't identify. Apparently it's a norm there.

19 November
It's Day 1 of our Wushu training. In the morning we went to the hall at 8.30am. There's two full wushu carpets at that hall alone. If you count the other two wushu halls that makes... Eight carpets. Their carpet rolling skills aren't that perfect (neither is ours), but they have the space for that margin of error. We started our warm-up, and our coach came at 9am. She's nice to us, not like my impression of a typical china coach, which shouts at students and uses a cudgel/sword cover to make sure you kick or jump higher. Well I saw that coach later on the trip. We did an hour of basics (基本功), which is just kicking and jumping, followed by an hour of routines.

At 11am when morning training ended, it was time for lunch. We had about three hours to slack before going for afternoon training at 3-5.30pm. I spent my time sleeping more (aside from the 8-9 hours of sleep I get at night), watching TV, writing reflections or writing some math/science thing that came to my mind. Yes, I'm weird. 

Afternoon training was more fun, because we get to train with the Beijing kids. They are good, especially the 队长 and other big kids. There are girls from Indonesia and Russia, and the guys look 17-18, but are in fact only 14. Six of them can do no-handed cartwheel, which is pretty freaky. Their competitiveness and energy was really interesting. They shout abit during warm-ups and 基本功, which is meant to drive the energy for the training. In general, the whole afternoon training was doing 基本功.

The teacher that went with us decided to punish us with each sentence of English we spoke daily. After dinner, we had to climb up and down the stairs as punishment. Perfect timing for the punishment, right after 4 hours of training that pretty much killed our legs.

One of Singapore's table tennis players came from here

 That night, we took a stroll around the school. We found this on their "wall of fame", featuring students from the school that did well, which I found pretty funny. I don't know if it had any significant meaning, but 丁宁's name was next to it, which says champion instead of second.

20 November
The day went exactly the same, except that I didn't get punished (oh yes) and we didn't do anything in the evening. The only difference to the training was that my legs ached so badly. I couldn't even lift my right leg up, so I did all the kicks with my left leg, which was weird.

21 November

Reflection of bamboo trees on a wall

The start of a great journey full of ups and downs

It was a good break for us from training. We went to climb the Great Wall of China that day. We started from an entrance (慕田峪) where most tourists don't enter from. It took us 30 minutes to climb up to get to the Great Wall. We started at the 8th watch tower, and walked to the 15th one.

Failed jump shot of Hong Jiun (left) and Tze Sean (right)

At the 15th watch tower, we were able to climb up to the top of it. The view was amazing and breathtaking. Well it was breathtaking literally, considering how many steps there was to climb. We did some jump shots there. Up there, everyone closed our eyes and made a wish. We shouted out some of our wishes like some weirdos, and the Sec 2 guy shouted a confession of his love to some girl in Singapore. It was the most adorable thing to see a P5 kid lecturing a Sec 2 guy, about how he should not get involved in relationships. Somewhere along the way down, these Pei Hwa primary school kids started calling me 小妹妹, even though I'm at least 4 years older than them. I ended up calling two of them 哥哥 wow.

Actors bored on set. Yes yes, back in olden China people had smart phones.

Sunset

 In the late afternoon, we visited some film training school. It's basically a place with an old china setting used for filming shows that need those. We heard people shouting and fighting while walking. I started off disturbed and scared because you can hear the victim moaning and being punched. Then I realised it was some fighting scene being filmed.

The moon

At 4pm, there was both the sun and moon. Two contrasting things that you don't usually see together. I looked at the people I was with in the trip and thought, What's the odds of knowing them? What's the odds of coming to Beijing? What if at that point of time I said "no" and never joined that Wushu place in the first place? I snapped myself out of those thoughts and continued walking. Sometimes I just need myself to wake myself up.

22 November

The Wushu hall with the springier and cooler carpet

It was Day 3 of training. My aches recovered (well mostly) and I was able to do wushu like normal again. During the break before afternoon training, we visited another wushu group and see them train. They're the youth elites of the school, 少年专业队. There were people from Russia and Ukraine training too. The were obviously very good, with everyone, being able to do no-handed cartwheel. Their coach was a world champion in sword, and of course, strict. She shouts at the kids to go faster, and swings a cudgel below their legs when jumping. If they get hit, it means they didn't jump high enough. I didn't really like the 队长 though.

That night, we went 王府井 to shop. It was boring, except for those things that we saw along the way. I don't mean to offend anyone, but those are funny. That night was really, really cold. Even with the 5 layers I wore, I was shivering. The wind slowed us down and blew my hoodie down countless times when going against us, and propelled us forward when it went with us. No matter how cold it was, it is always a good time to eat ice-cream. With one hand holding on to my hood, and the other holding the vanilla cone, I smiled as I enjoyed every bite of it :).

23 November
Another consecutive day of double training, and I was still able to survive and kick. In the afternoon before our second training of the day, I was bored so decided to walk around and explore the school. I saw the young elites outside at the track running. That day happened to be their physical training. They were running at a speed that I'll use to finish a 400m race. Then I realised they ran for 30 minutes wow. I went to the Basement where I saw the third wushu hall (I don't really understand the logic of having a hall in the basement), where the young elites (female team) were doing strength training too.

Actually that day, was our last afternoon training, and last time training with the Beijing people. Over the days I made friends with the Beijing people we trained with. One of the girls there hit her right hand too much during Wushu that it bled. I realised it is rather painful after getting that myself, but mine wasn't as bad. I learned that they train for many years, ranging from 4-7.

That night, we went to some place to shop again. Considering I can't even remember the name of that place, it wasn't that important. What was fun, though, was the ride there in Beijing's public transport. They also had the Ez-link card system. The only difference was that they have 3-4 doors on the bus so we weren't really sure which door to exit from.

24 November
After so many days in Beijing, we finally had our morning run. It was about -3 to 0 degrees in the morning, so we couldn't run at 6am like we were originally supposed to. We started our run at 8.30am to Jing Shan park. It was about 15 minutes of jogging before we couldn't take it. Breathing the cold air was just weird and we couldn't take the sudden coldness. At the park, we could see the view of the Forbidden City and Tian An Men square. It was pretty cool... Too bad I didn't bring my camera along (Who brings a camera along when jogging anyway?). The cool thing there was that in the morning, people do some loud shout to start their energy or something, like "HA" and "HU". Apparently it's perfectly normal as we saw and heard many along the way who did that. Then we tried it for ourselves, and we had many people staring at us. Awkward.

Someone in 专业队 with a cudgel

After coming back, we watched the elites of the school train. They're the older bunch of people training Wushu there. They don't do any international routines, simply because those are too easy for them, so they create their own routines, with many crazy jumps. This girl with the cudgel throws it up, do a forward roll, then stand up and catch it. The guy with the spear bent it like it was nothing. The guy with the sword did the jump twist perfectly. It was some jaw-dropping experience.

Then was when the primary school kids decided to explore my camera's functions. They loved the squeak sound my camera makes (finally people who can appreciate it) and played with the fish eye effect. Well they're already adorable enough and that effect just made everything funnier. We all had a good laugh.

Pandas looking creepily at us.

In the evening, we watched a kungfu performance put up by students in the school. Some pandas were walking around the theater before the performance, and we took pictures with them. Then we also punched (lightly of course) them in the stomach cheekily, and they whacked us back. The performance was great. We recognised some of the faces and routines we saw earlier today.

The finale was... Retarted. All the performers gathered on stage, with people in panda costumes in front. Suddenly, everyone started dancing to the most overused song ever. Just imagine... Pandas dancing to gangnam style haha. I broke out into uncontrollable laughter.

25 November

Hong Jiun, who I call 小弟弟.

It was another day of touring Beijing. I think over the days the primary school kids get more and more tired. Static was also starting to take effect on their hair haha. We had a buddy system where the older kid is paired with a smaller kid and we "take care" of them. Hong Jiun was my buddy and it was pretty fun.

Just a small part of the whole marathon

We went to Tian An Men square first. Usually tourists were able to walk on the actual square itself, but on that day there was some huge marathon. There were many police and soldiers on duty. Some of the runners had cute animal hats, like of pandas, elephants and dogs.

West (I think) entrance of the Forbidden City

 The Forbidden City is a really magnificent place. It's a complicated maze that you'll never find your way out of, not that those living in there could go out anyway. Some of the palaces are out of bound for tourists to enter, but they can stay outside and look in. There were so many people pushing to get a view of the emperor's chair or resting area (I don't know what's so interesting about it anyway). We couldn't see the small kids who got pushed to the front, so we started shouting their names until we found them.

Reflection of a Winter tree

For lunch we went to KFC. After getting some all shrimp burger, I laughed at my stupidity for buying shrimp from a place famous for its chicken. At the carpark waiting for the mini bus to bring us to our next stop, I saw this reflection I thought was rather interesting.

Our next stop was Tian Tan. It's a place where emperors used to go to make prayers for good harvest, weather, etc. The echo wall is pretty cool. You, supposedly, can shout into a wall, and someone at the other side can hear it. Due to the need for historical preservation, of course they're not letting us hooligans try it. The top of some part in Tian Tan has a center, the first circle is split into 9 parts, the second into 18 parts and so on. The 9th circle theoretically should have 81 parts, so out of boredom, I walked around the outer and counted the number of parts. True enough there were 81 parts.

On the bus ride back, which was about an hour, I was just listening to these primary school kids complaining about things that happen, and how upset they are about the possibility of the school getting rid of their Wushu cca. It was great to know that even small kids could strongly believe in something, and stood up for their beliefs. All they need now is a group trophy at the 2013 competition to prove themselves. I believe they can do it :).

Such a cute chopsticks holder

 At night, we finally had Peking duck. It was at a restaurant at the basement 2 of one of the school buildings (how funny). It tasted heavenly, and we even had a certificate and a number tag for the duck we ate.

26 November
It was our last training in the morning. Our last training was the first training for the Meridian JC team which just joined. We laughed at the thought of these newbies and how horribly they'll ache and suffer tomorrow. We cherished the last two hours of training in Beijing, and for our last greeting to our coach, we shouted and gave our all.

In the afternoon after lunch, we had sooo much free time, so we decided to walk along the same streets we did in the morning. I saw an ice-cream shop and got instantly attracted to it. I asked the rest of the group to wait for me for awhile while I went to buy ice-cream. It ended up with 6 other people buying ice-cream cones haha. I started having a stronger liking towards Vanilla. It's just looks plain and simple, but its tastes tells a different story. We saw a stamp shop along the way. It had a small statue of a young boy outside, and erm, basically one P5 kid tried to do something with it. Let's not go there.

 We had so much more free time that at 4pm, we decided to go back to the same old wushu hall, and watch their afternoon training. It was a time where I finally got the chance to video and take pictures of them. After looking through the videos I took, I realised I was pretty biased towards the older group, as I kept taking videos of them haha. This, I thought, is the coolest video I took there. I thought back, and I couldn't believe it was only a week ago that I knew these people. During their break, they talked to us like we were old friends, and asked us if we were coming again next year. Sitting here and typing this blog post, I realised I miss them. I can remember each of the big kids' facial expressions, smile and the way they do their jumps and kicks. Oh, and their accents are cute and funny too :).

I took this picture when we walked past it earlier in the day.

After our very last dinner there, we had more free time. Yelani, her mum and I went to the Starbucks right beside the school. I got some latte I think. When I got back to Singapore and did the conversion, I realised China's Starbucks coffee is slightly cheaper than Singapore's. I hogged their wifi for awhile, and weirdly, the first thing I did was check my email.

At night, we made our way to the Beijing airport, as we enjoyed and reminisced our last few hours there. The boarding time was 11.35pm, where we entered on time, only to realise that the plane was schedules to leave at 1.20am.

You can never imagine what lies in that vast distance.

On the plane, after I got sick of trying to fall asleep, I started watching the comedy programmes like Big Bang Theory and Ted the movie. They were hilarious, and Ted is the most retarded and illogical movie I've ever watched.

And here, ends my Beijing trip. 

Subsequently, after the plane landed at 6.40am, I rushed home to dump my luggage, quickly changed, and rushed to school where I reached at 8.45am.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Today was my primary school's fiesta, where the current SAPS students (Or as I like to call them, kids) set up booths to raise yearly funds. Booths are also given to affiliated schools like St Pat's and St Theresa, and some students are invited back to help out. It was a huge event with many people participating, and the guest of honour was Dr Amy Koh.

As I left my house this morning, I thought to myself: Wait a minute, how do I walk to school...? I walked to the bus stop before taking a left turn down the familiar route. I looked at the bus stop. We took the bus every school morning back then, and we knew the timings that the bus would come like the back of our hands. I waited at the bus stop with the same few people every morning, kids of different levels. I remembered all their faces, but I had no clue what their name was, or who they were. It's something like an unexplainable, silent friendship.

I continued walking down the familiar route. Here, our old 6-1 gang will walk from school to the MRT. We talked about any random thing we can think of. I remember when we used to discuss diabolic plans to "make trouble" for the teachers after PSLE. We just ended up laughing a lot, and even though we were the top and supposedly most competitive class, our bond was there ;).

As I walked closer to school, I saw many people walking towards the school gate, and the loud cheers from inside the school. I recognised the same old security guard. I smiled to the him as I walked in, bearing in mind that he was that same guard who chased us out of school during the countless times we tried to go back in and see our teachers. Ahh, people don't change.

I walked towards the canteen, where I saw the familiar room (I think it's called E space?). For 3 months of our lives in P6, we spent every school day in school until 5pm (Which was late for primary school) to finish up our script and props for the Odyssey of the Mind competition in April 2009. We were allowed to enter that room and use the computers to do our scripting, while others admire in awe that we have access to it. It was a really fun experience, and although we got 5th, it was good for a school like us, considering the first 4 places were dominated by kids from schools who established their reputation.

I remember when we used to complain about the Band CCA next door. We could hear them practicing and repeating the same song daily, and we were sick of hearing it. But now, I miss those melodies.

At the canteen, I finally met people I knew. I saw Chin Fan, Russell and Hubert there. They brought along two of their SJI friends. How cool, all 4 guys are SJI prefects. Over time, many more people came and went. I really appreciate their efforts to come, especially when there's someone who's heading off to Sabah for some OBS trip in the afternoon.

Nevertheless, the same response I get when seeing an old friend is this: Wait, I thought you were taller?

Along the way through many stations and games, our group got bigger, adding Wei Quan, Wasi and Xavier in it. Although not all are in 6-1, we had "fond" memories with 6-2 too :).

Upon seeing St Pat's and St Theresa's booths, Russell shouted "Hey no fair, why don't we get a booth?. He's just this comedian who's super hyper and funny. It was today that I got to know that he's apparently the head prefect, and Hubert's the deputy head prefect. Wow.

I had a few rounds of games, challenging an old friend to basketball, hitting marbles into the containers, and catapult. I think we were pretty tied haha. I miss the nonsensical squabbles we had, and how we ended up laughing at every one of them. 

We spent some time looking at the school pond. It was beautiful, with many plants and fishes. What I enjoyed most was looking into the water, to see the reflection of the clouds above.

We camped in the carpark because we didn't know what else to do. We just stood there in a circle, just talking. Two of the guys brought DSLRs. Surprisingly, it's mostly the guys who camwhore haha. We hear cheers from the other side of the carpark, so decided to head there. Turns out, our 6-1 form teacher was about to get dunked. She was up on the chair shouting, come on, you can do better than that. Of course, she finally got dunked. Among the crowd, I spotted my old teacher, Ms Goh. After talking to her for awhile, she said, "Where's Ben Ben?". Haha, nicknames never get old.

With so many games my brother played, he went to redeem this huge yellow, fluffy duck. At first glance, Russell screamed, snatched it away, took out his phone and camwhored with it. We all started laughing, bringing back the old laughter we had 3 years back... It's that uncontrollable laughter where everyone sounds and looks retarded, but we just enjoyed ourselves.

Today was really insightful. It was a long time ago since I went back there.

This was a trip down memory lane, reminiscence of the old times, reliving the old memories, and creating new ones.

Crescit Eundo, Growing as we advance.

 

Quiet Moments in Life

Think about it: When was the last time you had a quiet moment in life? A moment without industrialisation, noise pollution, or even people.

As I went home from school today on 6 November, it was about 4pm so I was pretty early. Instead of taking the usual turn to the left where I'm swayed by the huge crowd, I decided to the right. Because I was just bored.

I realised another side of the MRT station I never saw. It was quiet, and pretty empty. Just a few mindless souls walking around. I followed suite, and crossed the road. Subconsciously, I stopped my tracks, turned around, and crossed the same road again. Why? I don't know. The Little Guilin just attracted me.

I took my time to walk down these familiar tracks. I felt like I was back in my childhood days. I stretched out my arms to balance myself while walking, even though I know I don't need that help. Ahh, it was great pretending to be back in my childhood. 

I stared at the familiar huge rocks, and took a deep breath of cold air. I decided to sit on the short wall separating the walkway from the lake. I remember when I was young, my brother and I sat there (even closer to the water). I guess that when we're young, we don't fear anything. We stared at the turtles in the water. We threw crumbs of bread into the water to see ripples form and turtles fighting for food. And today, I was back there reminiscing those moments. There was a slight drizzle so I had the privilege to see ripples collide, and insects skipping on the delicate surface of the water.

The water was greenish. I could see the clear reflection of the huge rocks, which we used to call 'caves', in the water, as well as the thick and dark clouds approaching. I looked into the far distance and saw some turning. How I wish I had some boat so I could see what else was there. The scenery was breath-taking.

As I walked out I decided to hear 苏打绿 Soda Green's 小时候. It almost put me to tears :).

Instead of going home, I decided to walk more. I let my subconscious self lead me through the destined path. I walked under this familiar walkway sheltered by the MRT tracks. I looked at the designs on the ground and thought "Was it really 5 years ago that I saw this?". I looked at the open area where we used to play badminton. The house nearby always had some small windmill which we always admired. Where did it go? 

I continued walking. I doubted myself for awhile. I actually I thought I was lost. I just continued walking and somehow found a familiar path to take. I soon found a place I missed so dearly. The basketball court, where we used to be amazed at all those big kids who were able to score. The playground, where we used to play funny games there to keep ourselves entertained. The slope, where I learned how to ride a 2-wheeled bicycle. The drain, where I once feared for the safety of kids who entered it. And the building across the road, my home. My journey came to an end.

I love it how one decision in life just makes a progression to the next, and somehow, all of these choices are destined. Well that's what I like to believe in.

I miss those quiet moments in life. I miss those childhood memories. I miss Life.

苏打绿 Soda Green

On 19th October, I went for Soda Green's concert at the Max Pavilion. It was a really great experience. Honestly, I never expected myself to have so much fun.

The whole concert lasted a whooping 3 and a half hours, filled with laughter, sadness, and occasional silences. 青峰, the lead singer of the band, was amazing at singing, hitting all the high notes without any difficulty, and showing no signs of fatigue along the way. I can't exactly remember the sequence of songs, but these are the few songs that left the impression on me:

喜欢寂寞: Well firstly the song itself is nice. Secondly, everyone around me could sing it by hard and it was heartwarming :).

当我们一起走过: It basically means "Walk Together", which is the whole theme of their new album and the concert. Walk Together, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what we're feeling.
有多少苦痛有你和我一起度過，一起承受
有多少快乐有你和我一起享受，一起感动

有时候: 青峰 wrote this song for his dad. It's about innocence in Youth and reminiscence of his childhood. It's when something happens that you realise your mistakes. I miss my childhood. I miss those family moments.
我要爬上你的肩膀，我要眺望你的远窗

你被写在我的歌里: It's that typical sweet duet that just makes you smile when you hear it, no matter how down you are. It's funny how 青峰 bullied Jia Kai by making him sing the high-pitched ending haha ^^.

My favourite part was when he was singing out the song requests. For some apparent reason he "hates" the song 小宇宙 and refused to sing it, stating he has a list of songs he dislikes to sing and that came first haha. He ended up singing the lalala part of it and said "小宇宙还满好唱的". He also made countless jokes that made me laugh so hard. I haven't enjoyed myself like that for a long time.

There was also a part where he made it a point to walk through each aisle. I got to see him up close and it was just cool. It's an enjoyable experience I'll never forget :).