Sooo...it was the fateful day I brought the Germans out together with Josephine and Ain. We met at the train station at (supposedly) 0900 but everyone turned out to be late with me being the earliest at 0920. HAHA. It is good to have friends who are always late so no one has to feel bad when they are late. We went to NACLI and saw that the Germans have finished their breakfast and were waiting for us. There were whisperings when we got in. It turned out that Mrs D told the students to wear non sleeveless and long pants because we were going to the temple that was more conservative(Tooth temple) but Josephine and I were wearing shorts so they were wondering why. Oh well. It turned out that we were not going to the tooth temple. Just Thian Hock Keng Temple and that temple do not really care what you wear so haha they wore their sleeved tops and long pants/skirts for nothing.
The first thing on the list was calligraphy. IT was quite hilarious looking at the Germans write their names. It turned out that I was the only one who learnt calligraphy before so I ended up telling them how to hold the brush etc etc. It was quite fun translating their names for them. I did not even know how to read some of the words. Luckily, Ain had the foresight to google the han yu pin yin before the day itself. I roughly translated their names for them. It was a good start. This year's batch was much friendlier than last year's. Maybe it was the age gap-___- They were mostly 15, 16 year olds. Only 2 guys and 13 girls and 2 teachers.
We went to Thian Hock Keng Temple next. Josephine did the tour-guiding thingie. She is good. I think she totally memorised whatever facts about the temple there is already although I thought differently at some parts of the tour. I always thought it was left leg into the temple first because our left represents the heavens and the right represents us. Oh well. This batch of students did not look bored at all and asked many questions. This was different from the previous batch. I am glad. They are seriously interested in our culture.
We had a l walk after that to Chinatown where we visited the Indian temple and had lunch. Ain was the first one to do the henna and some of the Germans followed suit. I have never done henna before. It is pretty, but I do not really like the idea of staining my skin. Oh well. We gave them 2 boxes of Durians for them to try after lunch. Their expressions were pretty much the same when they tasted it. Only about 4 were like, "It is okay." Everyone took one nibble and they do not like the king of the fruits! Their faces were like >.< Eeew! Haha.
We took a train to Little India and were sort of at a loss of where to go there. Turned out that none of us knew Little India well. But I suggested a detour around Little India before going to Kampong Glam. I think the walk took the energy out of all of us because the sun was scorching and I was melting and everyone was complaining. Tough. We went past Thieves market and I sort of gave a brief introduction based on what Shabira told me. Because it was her PW project. Thanks Sha! Haha. Frankly speaking, it was my first time walking around Little India too. But I led the way and we did not get lost. HAHAHA. I love my sense of direction. It hardly ever failed me:)
Ain took over in Kampong Glam, explaining about the Mosque and we split up into group to teach them about the traditional games. We had Snap, Five stones and Chapteh. I was in charge of Snap. Looks like my game was the most boring-.- They knew how to play the game. They mentioned that it was similar to a game call Harigan(???) in Germany. Oh well. Like the yesteryears, they liked the bubble thingie and bought quite a lot of it to bring home. Haha.
We then proceeded to Bugis where I went with Josephine to Bugis. She wanted to buy a Iphone cover. We got a pretty black rose one at $16(original price was $18 but I bargained! Awesomeness!) We ate yummy crepe on the second level and it was time to meet the Germans again. Looks like most of them were already very tired and they did not buy much things(unlike last year's batch)
Two girls had to go back to NACLI because someone was not feeling well. Poor girl looked as if she was hurting really badly D:
We went to Holland Village next and we saw Li Wei there. She is in SMU now :/ Oh well. There, Ain met her boyfriend and they decided to go to a hotel to rest for an hour (I am sure they were just kidding) while Li Wei, Josephine and myself went to find food. That was when my headache got worse and I lost my appetite. Josephine went to Breeko Cafe and we talked. I was not feeling very good. A little dizzy and stuff. We went to Daily Scoop to get ice cream. I got the yummy honey vanilla but I could not keep the ice-cream down. I could feel bile coming up my throat. I tried to go to the toilet to puke, but nothing came up so I went out again and dumped my ice-cream D: We took pictures, but then by then I was REALLY not feeling very good. Bile was coming up every few minutes. I forced it down. I was miserable. Li Wei went back and I walked back to NACLI with the Germans. On the way, I felt utterly unwell. I think this happened because I did not sleep enough the previous night? I don't know, maybe it was a case of bad luck. BOO. Ruined my night!
When we reached NACLI, I could not take it anymore. I pretended that my phone rang and walked to one side, trying to find the toilet. But the toilet was next to where all the Germans were! I knew the puke was going to come up whether I wanted it to or not, so I took out the bottle of water I bought along the way and puked into it. EWWW. Massive EWW. Thank god I found a bin and a sink and a water cooler to clean up. Thank god I did not puke on myself. Ewww. But I felt much better after that and went to join the Germans again. I missed out a lot D: Apparently someone sang and some of them had gone back to their rooms already. I was so sad. But better to have missed it than puked in front of everyone. I said farewell to the teachers and left. The teachers are always so nice! Mrs D always have gifts for us at the end of the tour! We split them up between us.
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| So sweet! |
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| Stuff from Mrs D! |
At times like this, I always feel that I want to do this again and again. It was very fun showing them parts of Singapore and sharing our culture with them. It was great opening up whatever Mrs D got for us. But I really do not know if I will do this any more. Maybe this is my last year doing this. I really enjoy doing this though. I wished there is a platform for me to volunteer myself as a more informal tour guide for foreigners. Sigh. I like planning this kind of stuff, but I do not like the idea of being a tour guide because it becomes a job instead of a hobby. Oh well. I hope that more chances will come in the future when I get into university. I like to host people. I try my best to get into as many as possible. That's why I volunteered for the Japanese one in SAJC. Ahhh. Experiences like these are hard to come by.
This is a really long post but I am done now! Ciao!
Rebecca:)
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