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.

DAY35 Saturday 23rd of May 2009

Once again, last night, we discussed about having morning exercise at stadium the next day, of course, running around the track. 07 30am, I woke up to prepare for the morning run. This time round, a new character appeared. It was none other than Ming Fu. We began with some stretching exercise and the real running begins. Anglia and I ran two rounds. Chew Yin and Jonathan ran four rounds and Ming Fu, five. After which, we end off by posing for photo taking. =X

Chew Yin, Jonathan, Anglia and I then went off to buy bread and eggs for breakfast, bread with ham and egg, yum!

On the way back from morning grocery, loud spark sounded off, real loud. I then tried to find where exactly it came from. Then I quickly walked towards our hostel. It came from the construction site just beside our hostel. They were putting off fire works and fire crackers. It was so loud that it almost blew my ear drums. The fire crackers were very nice, ended off with a loud ‘pang’ and exploded with the red wrapper flying all around. We then questioned why at this time and what occasion was it? Being curious, we went to ask the receptionist form our hostel. She said that it is a form of showing auspicious and good greetings as they put up the beams at the construction site. It is a very interesting culture that Singapore would never do.


We then went back to cook our breakfast and it was yum yum delicious as we had bread with ham and cheese and half boiled egg with soya sauce and pepper!

And, after awhile of rest, it was time, to go to the temporary book store on the street to look at design books. We had been waiting for this day to come as we didn’t get the chance to buy any books last Saturday. This store has architecture books that cost only 10 RMB and other design books at 13 RMB or even lesser. HAHA I bought quite a number of them and was delighted about it. Good Bargain!

Then after, Alice and I went to look at hand made key chains that are very good gifts for family and friends. I bought some for my family and close friends.

DAY34 Thursday 22nd of May 2009

Woke up at about 7 today for set off at 7 40 to various site visits that regards to our industry, design. We first dropped off at 180 Production Company which do mainly advertising, graphics etc. It is a company which achieved lots of awards. Someone call Polo presented to us about this company. It was quite an interesting presentation with all the explanation of why and how they design the adverts, quite fun though. Their workspace interior for their design team looks quite cool.

Then, we head off to viewing show flats. We did not expect a lot but when we reached there, it was like another world. It is The Fifth County, located in the Airport Area, which is being built by the government with huge investments. The houses here are designed in castle-like manner and with Southern California style villas. A very high end area for the locals to live in. On the other hand, we actually had quite a lot of fun riding on the tram they provided for us to travel around the area, with all the wind gushing towards us and the speed the driver was driving. =D

We then head on with our very very hungry stomach for lunch. This time round, we went to a new restaurant with new dishes. Not bad I can say, got to eat some fish.

We moved on to the Acendas Building we went to before, to a newly opened graphic company branch in Dalian, E-Graphics. They have just started for about 3 to 4 months and recruited about 14 employees. E-Graphics has lots of branch all over the country like London, Paris, Warsaw, Tokyo, Singapore etc. They were very pleased to work in Dalian, mainly because of the environment and the hardworking designers here. We asked questions, exchanged views, a good interaction and ended the long day of site visits.

DAY33 Thursday 21st of May 2009

The design talk was enrichment to most of us as the speaker teaches interior design which is prior our scope of design. I can say her presentation was the most interesting one maybe because it was something we are familiar with and the way they teach design here can be quite different from Singapore. I felt really guilty for falling asleep from time to time from sleeping for only 3 hours the other night. The lecturer who majored in 手绘 believes that every designer has had to know how to sketch, draw to become a successful designer. As the world now advanced with better and improvised technology, almost every industry uses computer/technology to do work. However, she said that having the skills to manipulate the program and complete task from there, it is just a matter of training, time and process. Almost anyone can do the job. But, having your own unique drawing/sketching skills is precious and invaluable. It will be a skill that will be adored by those who could not pick up. As it needs time, lots of practice/drawing and a bit of talent to achieve that.

Then we also talked about the teaching system between Singapore and Dalian and found out their way of teaching and how the students learn and absorb things is different from Singapore. She said that classes is not for us to boot up computers and do our project/ assignments. It is a time for the lecturer and students to interact and learn things from each other. And, somehow from all that, it will arouse thinking for both the lecturer and students too.

Just a thought after talking to the lecturer. After 2 years studying interior design, what have I learnt? What did I do? What have I achieved? I was at a total blank when I questioned myself. After talking to the lecturer and understand DPU’s school of design way of teaching, I felt that Singapore’s way of education could be questionable. Why do we study for? Because we have to. Because we need to get a diploma, then with that we go on to degree with that diploma. Then, we can get a job, hopefully. It just quite simple, most Singaporeans learn a skill so that they can earn a living in the future. Not many learn a skill because they want and love to and have an interest in what they do. I feel so empty, not knowing what I have been doing for the past 2 years at that particular moment. What do I really want to achieve in the end? What do I really want?

DAY29 Sunday 17th of May 2009

Morning weather was good and the three of us went for morning exercise. We ran the track once as the other two of us have not been running since I don’t know when. So, one round is good enough. We then wanted to continue the morning exercise with the play of badminton but sad to say, the morning wind is way too strong. So, the solution is to walk up the hill behind DPU’s library.

We then continued with work for the day and decided to go on for badminton at DPU’s indoor court before dinner. It has been very very long since I played badminton. It was really fun.

DAY28 Saturday 16th of May 2009

Today, the weather was relatively sunny which was not supposed to be as stated from the receptionist from our hostel, which was supposed to be a rainy day. So, we decided to venture out to Xing Hai Square. It was a really fun and nice day with a lot of walking and running and climbing and posing and jumping!

DAY27 Friday 15th of May 2009

Discovery Kingdom day! Rare sight, everyone woke up earlier than usual because we are going to Kingdom of Discovery Theme Park in Dalian. It was a one hour plus ride there. I still can’t believe I actually took those rides. There were some minor rides like teacups, I took. But, I actually took the Space Shot ride which shoots you high up and drops you down when you are unaware. But it was not bad, lol. =X It was a day full of fun and screams, a day to vent out all stress, fear and weird stuff kept in one. =D Enjoy the pictures!

DAY26 Thursday 14th of May 2009

As usual, Thursdays is interim review. We were to show our progress on the project with AutoCAD and 3D MAX. Our group has to try to play around with heights as the design looks quite flat from top elevation. More editions to be made.


After lunch, we had a design talk about China’s design enterprise by Professor Lin Jing Yang from DPU’s School of Design. He talked about branding and his designs. He even had a translator with him. She was very nervous but got better gradually. However, I know I’m being very bad here but some of her translations were really quite funny. >.<
Anyway, yesterday was Eelaine’s birthday. So, they invited us to join them for dinner at Xing Gong Jie, the town area. We went to BullDog restaurant. I had chicken cutlet and strawberry ice cream for dessert. The food there is not bad but too small a portion for 22 RMB. We then went to Wal-Mart for grocery shopping and preparation for tomorrows outing, Discovery Kingdom. We bought a lot of stuff like instant noodles, cheese, ham, bread, biscuits etc. YAY, tomorrow we are heading to Discovery Kingdom, which they say it’s a pirated Disneyland with all the rides and shows. whoooo =D

DAY25 Wednesday 13th of May 2009

After the badminton game, I rested, went to bathe and was at a very comfortable state, lol. So, I decided to rest/nap for awhile. I lay on the bed and went off to lala land, unfortunately. My dear group mate came to my room, saw me on the bed and also decided to take a rest too.

The time is 1 am, and we both woke up, finding ourselves very awake. So, we continued to do our project. Shortly after, the time shows 4 30 am and that was when we realized a slight change of the lighting in the room. It was dawn already. Dawn just sneaked in like that, so early. I think it is quite nice waking up at this time, it just felt refreshing. Shortly after, we heard some local workers downstairs, already going to work.


We then decided to drink cereal because our always hungry stomach was already starting to grumble. After the hot drink, we went off to sleep officially, lol. [Maybe one day we should go to our hiking place to watch the sunrise =D]

Once again, the day started off with our beloved lecturer, Jonathan Ho, transferring his 3D MAX Powers cum tricks to us. We got to learn how to create the glowing effect in lightings.

It was lunch time; we proceed on and saw a temporary booth selling design books. We were all attracted to it like almost immediately. The books are quite interesting but relatively expensive, even in RMB. But it was fun for me because I always like to go to book stores and browse at all kinds of books.


We had nice dinner! At least I think it feels like Singapore food some how. I like because there was one dish quite similar to what I like to eat in Singapore, it is call Gu Lu Ruo, supposedly its pork and pineapple in Singapore context but the one we ate is chicken with pineapple. NICE I Like =D


I bought quite a lot of stuff today. First, it is a badminton racket that cost 5 RMB only. Then, I also bought two more books from the famous book store van. Before that, I already bought a book. They are namely, Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder at 15 RMB, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera at 10 RMB and Forrest Gump by Winston Groom at 10 RMB. Nice, I like! =D

THANKS to Our Beloved Friend JiaMin <3