DAY12 Thursday 30th April 2009

Thursday 30th April 2009, yet another fine day. We had Interim Review for our project. Every pair had to present to Jonathan, our lecturer, of what our project is about and how is our progress. Our presentation was okay, got to think more and do more research in order to make this project work.

After that, I had dumplings for lunch. I shared with Anglia, each with about eight dumplings to eat. The dumplings were filled with Jiu Cai and eggs. It was not bad but hungry Jamie wasn’t satisfied at all. So, I went to buy 2 fried dumplings. It was quite nice as it was a bit crispy.

Dalian Polytechnic University had Sports Meet today. A different kind of sports meet I have seen so far, apart from all the sports day I had in Singapore.

Thursdays are always half-days. Meaning, we will have visits for the second part of the day. As of today, we went to Doeret food factory, a Singapore company in Dalian. They produce can food and many other processed foods. We got to wear safety gears before entering the processing place. There were white wellingtons, white rob, white mask and white shower cap for us. First time wearing it and found it quite an experience.

Then after, we went back to hostel and proceed with dinner. We wanted to have western food for dinner, like maybe KFC or Pizza Hut. But, we will have to take a 1 hour bus ride to go to the city area to have it. Kind of lazy and tired, we decided to settle our dinner in school.

Going on with plan 2 was not a bad choice after all. We went to eat Xiao Long Bao and Wanton Mee. They taste quite nice, not too salty.

Then, then, Chew yin, Amanda and Jiamin bought bubble tea! They miss bubble tea back home so decided to try out the Dalian version of bubble tea. From what I know, it tasted not like bubble tea, quite blend. Others bought Shou Jua Bing, something make of flour, tasted like Roti Prata from Singapore. Quite tasty though.

So, it was a day trying new stuff as usual, here in Dalian, always on the go of trying out new things that will widen my vision and knowledge.

DAY11 Wednesday 29th April 2009-Studio,exploring around, fun with glass bottles

Hello everybody!! Ha I sound kind of high today, maybe because of the fun we had today. Morning was the usual, 3D MAX tricks, more and more we learn each day. Lunch was kinda of bad because of the huge amount of salt I consumed. I felt my tongue was dropping off because of the salt,ewww.
Just wonder why their dishes here are so salty. Culture shock? But luckily there are some places that serve quite good food, comparable to Singapore's dishes,pheww.

After lunch, we saw a drink stall selling glass bottle soft drinks, quite cool though. Maybe because we don't really get to see all this in Singapore. I bought seven-up[Qi Xi] in chinese. HA I still think having it to be called [Qi Shang] is more fun. =P We then start blowing into the glass bottle to make the different tone "du..du...du". Then we tried to play the Carlsberg tone with the glass bottles. So nice.
Continued with project work, was discussing with my group mate, beloved Jiamin about our whole concept. Its always the most tedious part of the whole project, the concept and how we approach this project. We were brainstorming, trying to come up with a good concept.

Dinner was at a new restaurant, the food there was generally okay, not bad. And, we bought the glass bottle soft drinks again.LOL [I wonder how am I going to hand carry those glass bottles back=P] Had fun today and tommorrow will be studio and visit to food factory. Hope it will be a good experience to understand the chinese factory, something out of our discipline.

Cheers~

DAY8 Sunday 26th April 2009 SAKURA DAY!!!

IT IS CHERRY BLOSSOMS DAY!!! WHOOO!!! I HAVE NEVER SEEN CHERRY BLOSSOMS BEFORE AND TODAY THIS PARTICULAR DAY IN DALIAN CHINA; I GOT TO SEE CHERRY BLOSSOMS!!! IT IS THE BEST DAY I EVER HAD!!! =)I was taken aback when we step into the park. The cherry blossoms were so so so beautiful and sweet-looking. I took so many photos till I do not know how many I have taken. It was truly beautiful. Truly a beauty in the whole wide world. I truly encourage all couples or families to come here when the cherry blossoms.
This beautiful chapter took us only 30 RMB and one and a half hours of bus ride. We actually took a bus ride organized by a club from Dalian Polytechnic University. Some of the local people joined us too, with their families. It was really worth everything. We not only saw beautiful cherry blossoms but also tantalizing sceneries there. I saw very cute and cuddly kids around there with their families too. They are very adorable. Photos will showcase my feelings.

We decided to buy popcorn there ad guess what, I took a video of how they actually make their popcorn. Very interesting indeed. The popcorn was sweet and nice.

We went on, on our trail to look at other scenery there at the park.

There were lots of locals there and they were having a lot of fun and taking photos. One of them climbed up the cherry blossom tree. Monkey sees monkey do, we did the same thing too. It was so much fun and the photos turn out to be much nicer.

After awhile, some of my friends were in need of going to the toilet. So, we went to find the toilet nearby. It is a public toilet hut I would say. However, with a however, the toilet turns out to be very interesting for us Singaporeans. It is an open concept toilet where by there is only 3 partition for each cubicle, with no door. Everyone will be like staring at u pee or shit. A very different culture experience indeed.

After we went back to the hostel, it was already 4 plus pm. I did some work before we went out to buy food for dinner. I met my friend’s counterpart, Wu Yan. We were brought around the school campus we never explored before. First, we were brought to a wet cum dry market near the school. It is actually catered for residence who live there. Many locals were seen there. Suddenly, flashes of Singapore wet market came to my mind. It was quite interesting what they are selling and the way they shout out to promote business. I felt nostalgia when I walked through the market. Just a very special feeling.

We then went back to explore the other part of school campus call the Xin Xing Jie. This place is right under the local student’s hostel and had many other different kinds of food. We had dinner at a Hala restaurant.

A very fulfilling, fun and nostalgic day for me.

DAY7 Saturday 25th April 2009 -Free and easy

Saturday was a free and easy day for everyone. So, my friends and I decided to stay in to do our work. This is not a holiday trip but a half study half holiday trip. So, I got up, washed up, ate bread and jam for breakfast and went on to do work. We have to do up the blog for GEMS, which is this that you guys are reading. Others are InTech assignment 1 whereby we need to CAD out the plan, section, elevation and details of a feature wall. We have to do up a chair using 3D MAX too. To add on, we need to brainstorm on our project’s ideas and concept too. WOW. Lots of work to do! I can say that it is truly not easy to do work in a cold climate country as I feel very tired from the cold wind and the ‘holiday mood’ we have. BUT, we are sensible adults who know when to do work and when to play.

Nearing night time, our stomach started grumbling. So, we embrace ourselves with only a few layers of clothing and ran down to buy food nearby. I ate Korean fried chicken cutlet rice. It was steaming hot and nice. My roommate, Anglia and another of my friend, Chew Yin, bought Korean kimchi rice for their dinner. Guess what? It was totally hot and spicy! Even Anglia, who loves and can eat spicy food, could not stand it. I then took the courage to just eat a ‘pinch’ of the rice. At first, when I was still chewing, it was alright. Then, I looked up and stared into the air because the spicy-ness had engulfed my whole entire mouth.

After dinner, we decided to wash up, and then continue to do work. After a few hours of work, we felt bored and decided to have pillows fight together. That’s the fun of travelling with friends as we can play till we drop.

DAY6 Friday 24th April 2009 -Visits

Friday is whole day VISITS for us. We were so excited BUT HOWEVER, the weather was bad and started to rain. I was so cold till I wore six layers of clothing. It was really bad as raining states that we would not be able to take nice views. Our cheerful tour guide for the day
So, the first place is the Dalian Modern Museum. It looks pretty grand and designed. We got to see a lot of visuals and historical artifacts. We then headed on to a small beach which has foggy scenery and cold wind blowing straight at us on this day. It was really a pity that it rained that day. Lots of beautiful views could not be taken.

We left the beach and went to have lunch at a restaurant. It was a few plates of dishes on the table at first. Slowly, more and more dishes were coming in and finally filled up the entire table, 10 plates of dishes in total; it’s a 10 course meal. [whoo] I can say it was the best meal we ever had since day 1.

After which, we head on to a place like our Singapore Orchard, whereby there’s lots of shopping malls featuring the more branded stuff. We were quite stunned by the pricing though. One t-shirt actually cost 500 sing dollars. Amazing ya?

Then, some of my friends were waiting for another friend buying things at Watsons when my friend told me to go into Watsons. I asked why but she did not say. Then I found out she was referring to Doraemon products they were selling. I was so happy!
It is 5 cute Doraemon key chains for 19 RMB. I was about to pay for this when I realize I saw a Doraemon cushion more worth the money buying for. So, I bought the Doraemon cushion for just 10 RMB!! KUDOS!

DAY5 Thursday 23rd April 2009- Intech lecture, excursion to Ascendas IT Park, mall/Tesco

Thursday morning starts with Interior Technology Lecture. Jonathan taught us about the different type of masonry. He then also taught us skills for 3D Max. It was quite an interesting lecture, learning good skills and putting them into action.

We then went on to have lunch, following with site visit together with everyone to Ascendas IT Park. We took a bus there and on the bus journey, I got the chance to see how Dalian’s traffic is like and the architecture around there. The traffic was quite congested and vehicles were honking to each other non-stop.

Ascendas IT Park is situated quite high up the mountain, so, it was quite cold to travel around there. The place is for people to strive in technology areas and to venture into the market. A very interesting discovery- their lift basement sign is -1 not B1

Heading on, we were brought to a mall to shop for more things. We went to Tesco to buy more food and snacks. We bought ice cream to eat! One of it is actually black banana flavored and it’s really black. Another is green tea ice cream. It was tasty!