Day 52 Tuesday 9th of June

52 the magic number to our trip. 52 days ends the whole of this immersion program at both Dalian and Beijing. I dont know why but i still personally like Dalian and misses it too. The food, the weather, the people, the lifestyle there is simply pleasant and slow, which is good sometimes i think. One will get to ponder more when they slows down and take time to think. I was exposed to alot of chinese culture and their lifestyles. This was truly a very good experience in my life, 52 days of my life in China. And now back to Singapore, our home. =D

Day 51 Monday 8th of June

Oh man....rain.....it was raining hard in the morning when we are heading out to the very popular architecture now, The Olympic Stadium, The Bird Nest. We were all so excited to see the architecture and stuff but however I was quite disappointed with the overall impression i had on the bird nest. It is especially the workmanship of this place which is like not more than a year old and it already feels like it has been there for 3 years. The interior looks so small that i was wondering am I at the right place? I was stunned as i think our Singapore Stadium looks bigger than the bird nest. Was it the television or photos that are playing tricks to our eyes?

We then head on to The Water Cube, which looks much fresher and clean. I can say the structures of the water cube was cool and architecturly pleasing to the eyes.

We then went on for some shopping at a shopping center. We expected ourselves to shop alot here at Beijing but there wasnt much to shop though. We wanted to buy more gifts but didnt get to find stuff to our likings. But it was quite scary how people there could speak English, which means we must try to keep our own comments to ourselves. =P

Day 50 Sunday 7th of June

Whoo! Everybody says, if you went to China but you did not go to Great Wall of China, you are not considered to have gone to China. So, Sunday morning, we embarked on the journey to The Great Wall of China! I was so excited to go there ad step onto the stones. It was a spectacular scenery although the sky was abit misty. I just continued walking and climbing up the steep steps and slopes up to where my body can take me to. Chew Yin, Anglia and me went up to quite high and was glad we did that. It was really cool but scary at the same time. We then travel down by foot of cause, which was scarier as it was really steep and you just cant stop moving down.

We then head on to The Summer Palace where the Empress Dowager once lived in.

We then proceed to the 13 graves of the emperors, a quiet place.

Day 49 Saturday 6th of June

The day has come! Our departure day from Dalian to Beijing. We were all trying to gather all the memories spent here in Dalian for the past 48 days. It was a good trip. Alot of packing was done and all were worried about the luggages' over weighting issue. All trying to find a weighing scale, lol. We didnt want to sleep so we decided not to sleep but eventually slept at 3 plus in the morning till 6 plus to get ready and leave. We left Dalian Polytechnic University at about 6 30 am for the airport.

When we reached Beijing, we immediately set off to Forbidden City, a place I had always been dreaming to go to, I finally left my footprints there. It was a very grand place with lots of rooms and open wide spaces. I suddenly fel that I am in one of those chinese Gu Zhuang Xi i seen from tv.

After which, we continued walking and walking and walking a long distance till we reach Tiananmen, the place which is famous of Chairman Mao's portrait. We were all anxiously taking lots of photos of that because we werent allow to take photo but to keep moving to let the human traffic flow. However our quick hands managed to take some decent photos of him with the red walls. After a long day walk, we headed back to the hotel.

DAY45 Tuesday 2nd of June 2009

After so many days of intensive work on project over day and night and day and even saw how early Dalian’s sunrise will appear, we finally had some air to breathe. Today is critique/presentation day. We had Thierry as our guest critique and Jonathan, our lecturer, grader for this project. We had a very long and busy day however; we head on to the School of Fashion in DPU for a cultural night performance for international students who came to DPU for exchange programs. They put up a great performance for us and fellow people from CLS and DXPD put up a dance and song too. Kudos to them. It was a pity we could not perform due to the heavy load of our project work. But, however, I guess we did enjoy the evening and will head on to party after Wednesday as all submission will be over.[Something I realize during the whole performance. The helpers were so quick and efficient during the whole performance like how efficient they move things up and down stage and how smooth the music and performances flow. I think it really relates to their lifestyle here. Even to how fast one must order food once they step into the restaurant. A good point to take back
home.]
And whoo! We can shout out ‘Beijing! Here we come! ‘ =D I think it will be really cool and fun to get the chance to go to Beijing and go to all the famous site attractions. Whoo!!! And shopping! =X Was it fast or was it slow? We actually spent almost 2 months here in Dalian. Will I miss this place? Guess some factors I will
say yes. Like the weather here, the daily view of planes taking off and landing. Some food and drinks here I will miss. WaHaHa Hello C-lemon drink, walnut muffin-dalian version,手抓饼, some of the dishes here were not bad-can’t name all of them out, the glass bottle soft drink, the sceneries here, a lot, a lot a lot. Oh my…I will miss here…..but home is still the best =D Home Home Home, here we come…..=)
But I truly feel that having the chance to come to a foreign country, living on your own and getting to understand other country’s culture and lifestyle is truly truly a very meaningful and great experience that I will not even get to experience with the media or books. It is the self experience and daily ponders that makes us more mature and to learn to live on a foreign land and blending in to their lifestyle and culture is a great deal for us. =D
Had to give thanks to people from Dalian Polytechnic University for their warm hospitality throughout this whole trip! Kudos to You Guys! Hope that the school will continue to strive in all areas and be the best in Dalian.
Lastly, hope that everyone from DID enjoyed the long stay here in Dalian and had learnt a lot from this trip and take back great experiences to Singapore and mark this trip a meaningful one.
=D Jamie Signing Off =) A Good trip @ Dalian, Liaoning Province

DAY40 Thursday 28th of May 2009

Today is Dumpling Festival in Dalian! (awww, I miss Singapore’s dumpling! Yumyum~ drooling already) So, the locals here will have three days of holiday, starting from today. Woke up in the morning and started with nothing but project. Everyone is at the working-mode for project already, Monday is submission day, everyone! Hang on! After Monday, we will be FREE =D (at least a big load of work is off our shoulders)

I had home made fried rice today for lunch. We have our very beloved WangLan, Amanda and Sharon cooking fried rice in the pantry. The fried rice consists of dried shrimps, and onion. They cooked side dishes too. There were bean sprouts fried with dried shrimps and egg fried with onion. It was delicious! (So Singapore)- what we have been saying as we really miss Singapore food!

Then, Jia Min and I went back to work once again. I napped for awhile =X
Woke up and work again. Then after awhile, I went down to take bowl, then Jonathan and I went into Hui Jie’s room to help her with her mapping of material choices. We were at a lost because we didn’t know which is the best. Then, Jonathan Ho appeared at the door, with a bag of dumplings and a packet of sugar. It was for us! Thank You Jonathan! It is so nice of you to get everyone dumplings. =D

Some people were crazy over the dumplings, not because they are nice but it was because they already had a few before. The dumplings here are very different form Singapore’s dumplings. Their glutinous rice is much sticky and oily. But, it was still a good way to blend into the country, to ‘taste’ every culture here.

I had home made dinner! Amanda made abc soup which consists of carrots, potatoes, celery, onion, chicken breast and tomatoes. It was slurping good! Wang Lan fried brinjal with chili oil and cauliflower. There was fried rice too. =D

DAY36 Sunday 24th of May 2009

Today is work day, no other thing but work, work, work! The whole morning was project tasking all through. Then came lunch, then work again. Finally it’s enough, JiaMin and I decided to go out for a walk, at the same time buy some snacks for the long late nights while doing work. =X on the way, we saw a temporary store selling posters, featuring anime shows, Taiwan stars, NMB stars etc. We saw some of our friends’ favorite and bought for them. After which, while walking back to hostel, we saw a floor of clothing like stuff at the other end of the road. As curious people, we went forward to take a peep. They were actually rubbish and the locals were bending their back down to look for stuff. I guess this is sometime like our Singapore, Garang Guni. However, we question, of all places, why outside the locals’ hostel in Dalian Polytechnic University? I just don’t feel right looking at them like that. Our curious souls increased. So, we decided to climb up the stairs to the locals’ hostel, ourselves. It was a interesting venture to see the local’s life here. Our hostel building is actually their hostel too, just that, theirs is separated form us by a locked door. Beside my room, there’s a locked door and we were very curious what’s behind the door until I discovered today that it is actually the local’s room! So near yet so far as they can’t access to ours, we can’t access to theirs too. It is really a great difference between our environment and theirs.