iProject Day Four
26Nov 2006

After we left the hotel lobby, i was so happy i met sunh and her counsins!so i took a picture with them. Oh n faris stole them n took a picture too. haha. Oh man she's so cute!

sunh is on the extreme left. The girl in front of me is also cute!i cant remember her name though. but its one syllable for sure. haha

Today we'll be taking a break from construction and going to Bac Ha market. It was a VERY LONG THREE HOUR ride on the shaky van. Almost got headache. Oh You Ying got motion sickness. haha. Heres some strawberry vietnamese chewing gum.
strawberry. pink. braces. pink. strawberry milk. pink. SHIT.

We had stops along the way for toilet break, one of which was at Lao Cai. I was told there was a porno picture in the toilet. OMG. What's that for? ok maybe the guys noe. haha. i didn't go to that toilet but the one ont he second floor rather. 100% no porno. im clean.

So when we're there we shopped for about 1.5hours. We bought a soccer ball for the TaVan kids. I got shawls for mum, bracelet for my fwen, ancient coins n a few more stuff. The Bac Ha market is popular for its rendezvous for many minority tribes. They will gather after walking for long distances just to interact with other people and buy their essentials. Its quite silly to travel 6h in total (to and fro) just to shop for about 2h come to think of it. ANyway we met some saints from sajc. They're there for OCIP also but at a different place. I think they're gonna hike a mountain also.

Anyway after the shopping we had lunch. The muslims ate our food like snickers, milk, tuna n stuff while looking at others eating noodle. oh well. anyway later we return back to Sapa where we had our own dinner. the muslims gathered at nisa/raidah's room to makan.we shared the food we had. theres luncheon meat, campbells soup, potato chips n more!then we went back to our rooms n took our materials for sharing session.

goodnite vietnam

iProject Day Three
25Nov 2006

So now its about the same thing everyday when we're here in Sapa. Morning would be construction for about 3 to 4hours. Followed by teaching and interacting in the afternoon after lunch for about 2hours. For the construction, it seems that everyone is very hardworking at it and had the persevering spirit. We were so hardworking that the teachers were afraid we were too exhausted working hard. So they insisted on takign breaks. For me I didn't want to take a break until im tired. Besides, if i stop, i wudn't want to get up and continue working. haha. so once i lied =X about taking a break to one of the teacher. hehe. but i took a mini break about an hour later. =)



On day 2, i tore down their hostel furniture n removed the wooden planks. Then i went outside to level the ground by digging the rocks. So today i continued leveling the ground. We found more huge rocks underneath and so we had to excavate it out. No joke okay! And of course they're damn heavy. We had to first use different sort of spades to dig around it and loosen the soil. Once the soil is loosen we hafta dig it out and try to move the big rock. Slowly but surely we got it out by making use of the first class lever system whereby the fulcrum is in the middle and we just had to add force downwards. Oh and thanks for the big and long bamboo!

So we had our lunch. Today we had packed lunch; 1hard boiled egg, 2 baguette(one with cheese), 1packet of yoghurt, 1orange, 1cheese, some vege and tomatoes. Yea thats all. It just taste alright. Nothing marvelous. Then we played with the kids. haha. some of them were shy. most actually. but i rmb playing hide n seek with 2 vietnamese kids. my god they can play hide n seek the whole day n not gte sick of it.haha!

And then its time for ENGLISH LESSON! This would be my first time to teach about 20eager Vietnamese students on the language. I had fun. seriously.

Lesson 1.1:
Colours

Red --- Orange --- White --- Black --- Pink --- Purple --- Blue --- Green --- Yellow
ok class read for me. what is this?(points to every word)
rage --- oh-range --- whait --- be Lack --- pink --- per pearl --- be ler oo --- grinch --- yea Low

now THATS what i call ENGLISH!

Lesson 1.2:
Colours-sentences

The shirt is blue
what is this (points to every word in the sentence)
Zhe jhert is be-lu

bravo BRAVA! =)

haha dats funny..they have a bit of zhe french accent..they use to be a french colony u see

so we went back to our hotel, washed up and prepare for dinner.

before we went for dinner, we walked around the streets for some shopping and went back to put down our stuff. While waiitng for the meeting time, hafeez, arshad n i meet 3 ADORABLE tribal girls who talked to us. I was amazed at their competence int he English language given their age n education standard in school. So we talked n talked. I found out that all 3 are cousins and that they live in Lao Cai. Tonite was their last night in Sapa and they would be returning to Lao Cai tmrw. So let me guess..they walked to Lao Cai?! OMG we took about an hour an a half for a van ride and they're WALKING home? geesh strong people. I was quite sad i didn't take a picture with them. I only remembered one of the girl's name. Sunh. i think thats how u spell cuz THATS how u pronounce it =) i just hope they wud still be there until after dinner

Today's dinner was at this restaurant called Nature's. Its very nice i think. VERY cosy. So those taking the vegetarian meal were segregated from the rest. Sadly? Not at all!



NUMBER ONE: 8 of us got to sit together and we were comfortable
NUMEBR TWO: we played chap chili chap with crappy gestures
NUMBER THREE: we got dishes no one else had like omelette and fruit curry

i LOVE the fruit curry. its a hot dish with fruits like watermelon, pineapple and banana in a mild curry sauce. I kept on tasting the curry sauce to investigate the ingredients. Guess im not as expert as my late aunty. But if im not wrong i tasted a bit of curry(DUH) , cream and thousand island. Sounds like a weird combination BUT bottomline its NICE. seriously. I kept on eating till i burn my tongue slightly cuz its still hot. OH n did i mention about the Vietnamese springrolls? Its superb! We ate vegetable springrolls by dipping it in the light soya sauce and put the WHOLE thing in the mouth. Its not that big if your thinking of Old Chang Kee's springrolls. It just about the length of your index finger.

AND THEN.....the finale for the coursed dinner is a BIRTHDAY CAKE! Happy birthday Hui Min! Last year for Mission 45 someone celebrated his/her birthday in Thailand. So now's iProject's turn! The teachers ordered a cake and we got THREE CAKES. u noe why? they considered a 3 tiered cake as one. So yea.. We ate one or two, gave some to the restaurant's customers and gave the last one to the TaVan students.




No sign of Sunh and her cousins when we returned. how sad...

goodnite vietnam

iProject Day Two
24Nov 2006

GOOD MORNING LAO CAI! So the train stopped at Lao Cai train station and we packed up out stuff and alighted the train.



We met up with some others at the gate later as they were in another cabin and rode 4 separate vans to go to Sapa. The ride wich was 2hours long was filled with the sounds of horns from vehicles and picture perfect view of the mountains, low lying clouds and also man-made terracing. The best part was when we were shocked at the piles of cow dung left on the road. eww. We also passed by several schools, none of which we're going. Soon enough we reached Royal View Hotel and brought our luggages down to the lobby where we were served with some Vietnamese green tea. It wasn't really nice- or maybe we're just pampered with the sweet things in life.haha. Anyway we're not ready to check in, so we had breakfast at the hotel's restaurant. I could only eat the vegetarian noodle (wich looks like maggie mee), the fried rice, fried egg, some sandwiches and the fruits. Too bad I can't eat the bacon or sausages. oh well... After breakfast, we brought our bags to some holding rooms as some of us will be living in another hotel (Mountain View Hotel), wich is a 1 minute walk from Royal View. And so the guys who will be shifting to another hotel posed on the bed. haha


ok ronald's EXTRA..haha

OH and guess what?when i wanted to remove some big waste at the toilet, i found out that I CANT FLUSH IT! omg...so i called for room service. I pity the plumber assisting in the plumbing works. oh wEll..So we went down to ride the van to Ta Van School which was about a half an hour ride. We were welcomed by a banner n two neat rows of vietnamese kids who clapped when we walk pass them. OH MANN.. the schools doesnt look dat bad.theres 3 buildings.2 belongs to the secondary schools wile 1 for the primary school.n so we went into a classroom for a welcome greeting and dance. There, we were also served Vietnamese green tea. This time i forced myself to gulp down half of it.


Now thats us sitting on small benches. If you were to notice my hair colour is somehow different. I LOVE it anyway. haha

The performance were so cute especially when the small kids came in to perform. haha. so after that we walked around the school and by the time it was around noon, we went back to our hotel, check in, have lunch and return to the school to begin construction

DIG SCRATCH DIG SCRATCH
the ground mind you, not elsewhere...geesh!
we had to do some levelling works u see..we also tored down their beds with hammers n the power of shaking..haha..OH n a hammer flew to the wall..its like OH MY GOD..luckily no one was in that direction...so it was about 4pm(singapore 5pm) dat we left the school to return to our hotel to freshen up, have dinner and debrief/reflections. I enjoyed reflections i guess.

After that we returned to our hotel n had supper. Fortunately 3 of the guys' room could merge via the balcony. so we had fun eating supper, talking crap n sharing jokes.

oh n look under 'collections' to view all the pictures!

goodnite vietnam

iProject Day One
23Nov 2006

We're all so excited to go to Vietnam. The whole iProject team were suppose to meet at the airport at7.30. I was the third to come. First was Hafeez followed by Jie Ying. My mom spoke to this lady on her left whose daughter from TKGS is going to Australia for netball training. It's like woah, u go all the way down-under just to train. Anyway in the end the last member came at about 8am. Well he has a valid reason; there was a traffic jam. haha. I was so glad some Innovians came over to bid us farewell. Yep, people like Yong Feng, Isa, Sling, Nigel, Te Chun, Kenny. Yong Feng ur stud sux. Thnx for dropping by so early in the morning btw. Oh n Nigel, ur labelled as the loud guy, though i thought Kenny would claim that title. Oh n i was so lucky Mr Lim n Te Chun told my mom im a good guy, which is true anyway =).By the time it was around 8.30, everyone had their baggage checked in and after waving our last wave, we went pass the officer and cleared the first row of customs. It was so funny when we all did a 'general wave' to the parents n our friends. Anyway we proceeded to BK to grab a pre-flight meal. I went to 7-11 to buy some potato chips. Oh n the lady at the counter was quite horny. But nvm. I shall put it to discreet mode.

It was about 9.00 that we met at the boarding gate n took a group photo. OH n i LOVE travellators! If u brisk walk on it, ur practically walking twice ur normal speed. After the group photo we went in, scanned our hand carry and sat down for a while before boarding the plane. Oh n we all started talking Viet. by reading our arrival/departure card. Too bad we cant talk out loud as we are afraid we might insult the language in front of some Vietnamese people there =X

The flight was 3h 30mins long and im proud to be a Muslim cuz we got our food served first. haha. Oh n thanks to Marsha for switching place wif me. Thanks to her, me n Faris could karaoke our way to Vietnam to the soudns of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL.



mann..i love KrisWorld. haha. i have alwaes loved the in-flight meals. I got chicken initially but swopped with Faris for salmon. Prefer fish sometimes. I forgot what movie i watched but it wasnt for long cuz i learnt some Viet. language with KrisWorld, the entertainment set. I found out later that i could have asked for soft toys cuz they have it. Winston got this dog(i guess) from Barnyard. Freddy, u noe him, that crazy fella? yea.

So we alighted the plane and found ourselves going out by two tubes. So we took pictures of each other. haha. Singapore isnt like that okay?




After clearing immigrations, we all had to check for the number of stamps we have cuz some of us lack of stamps. haha. SO funny. At the arrival, some Viet. pple were holding this red banner bearing our college name on it. There were some girls(some hot ones haha) holding several bouquet of flowers. For the teachers i guess. So when the formally greeted us and gave out flowers, i was so shocked that i got a bouquet also!! AARRGGHH OMG OMG OMG!



I have never gave pple flowers, wad more received them..haha I decided to hold the bouquet for the whole trip. Some sort of a companion and something to pose wif u noe..

In the bus we went and travelled the streets of Hanoi. It is beautiful! You can literally feel the clamness the capital has to over. Sad thing is that the traffic conditions is quite scary. Then can never get their hands off the horn button! I found out later that they don't obey traffic regulations either. I juz hope i can survive here. We headed to an old prison which has become part of their heritage. It's because it is that very prison that sparked the birth of an independent Vietnam. It's also sad to see how the prisoners live by each they. Most of them were given a concrete 'bed' to rest on while having their ankles locked to the ground. Their 'toilet' was alos pathetic. Its just a whole wif a big pail underneath. mann.. And for serious criminals they get sent to the dungeon. On the other hand its creative to see that instead or barbed wires they have on the walls, they used pieces of broken glass. PLUS the walls are 5m high n 0.5metre broad. For me i could really feel the sufferings by the prisoners. Also cuz the place is rather creepy.haha

After the prison visit we went to a local supermarket to stock up our supplies. So me n You Ying shopped for food, food n more food. We got about 8 bowls of instant noodles, 8 small packets of milo, 4 strawberry milk, 4 choc milk, 4 plain milk, some chips, snickers, sardines n stuff..i think its quite cheap as compared to grocery shopping backin Sing. Our 2 bags full costs us 240,000 dong which is about S$24...dats S$12 per person. Yep yep.



Then we walked around Old Quarter Street which is like Chinatown + Geylang + Little India and the pasar malams. Theres alot of stuff there. I got some communist badges wif Ho Chi Minh on it. Its 10,000 dong per piece(abt S$1) Bought 10 of those and bargained till i got 7,000dong for all 10. Yep yep. Should have bought more. It damn nice lah! Anyway as we walked on, we got kinda 'conned'. Some peddlers came forward and put the wooden plank wif 2 basket thingy on Hafeez' shoulder and she said 'photo, photo'. Well alrite, we'll take a photo. Then she gave us a bag of bananas n pineapples and said '100,000dong' WHAT THE HELL. $10. oh nono. So i gave her 2,000 dong initially (20cents oops) "NO...100,000 dong" oh mann..fine i return her fruit bag n gave her 4,000 dong(40 cents haha) take it or leave it. And she helped her hands to my money. I pity other who paid her about $3 and even $10. Oh well..i guess its for the experience. That was after we went to this shop wich sells flags, badges n more! they bought this HUGE flag for sling. Can u imagine shorty sling with the big flag?haha i bet when she holds up the flag, it wud be touching the floor!haha kk not that extreme lah. Anyway i bought some Ho Chi Minh badges here. I got a 30% discount, paying 70,000dong instead of100,000dong for 10badges.


Dinner was at Nisa restaurant. Khairunisa(Nisa) was very happy. haha The Malaysian-Muslim restaurant serves Indian, Malay n some Viet cuisine. It was NICE!i felt like home. I ate lotsa meat cuz i noe i wun be having much meat later on. haha. Oh and damn the omelette is nice!

After dinner we headed to the train station at Hanoi to go to Lao Cai and later Sapa. The overnight train was a long 10hour ride. It was quite comfortable and the toilet was amazing. Its literally juz a whole down to the railway track. yep yep. haha. The night was quite cold but i had a good sleep. Cabin roomies: Yeow Sheng + Padro



Till tmrw then!
goodnite vietnam