Thursday, November 18, 2010

Hanoi Write-up

4:47 PM Posted by JieMin , No comments
Day 1

I was exhilarated when we finally landed in Hanoi.
We first visited Hanoi Amsterdam High School, the best school in Hanoi. We saw the grand-looking school and were amazed by the various facilities it provides. We then interacted with the students and found out that we had many common interests.
Next, we had yummy dinner in the hotel.

Finally, we went to watch the Water Puppet Show. We admired the spectacular performance of the water puppets, which were depicting the daily lives of the vietnamese with some humour injected. There was also a few vietnamese either playing musical instruments or voicing the characters.

We were very tired and retired to our hotel rooms.

Day 2

We first went to Nguyen Du Secondary School. We were warmly greeted by the students and were guided to the hall. The principal of Nguyen Du Secondary School and Mr Soh, our vice-principal gave a speech to welcome the other party’s school.
Then, SST students played a video about what SST was about, for the Nguyen Du Secondary School students to understand. Next, SST students gave a presentation about what we SST students do on a daily basis.
The Nguyen Du Secondary School students also gave a presentation in English about the history of their school and an introduction about Vietnam.
We were called to exchange gifts with the Nguyen Du Secondary School students and we thanked them for hosting us.
After that, the Vietnamese students had several performances like singing and dancing. Many of us joined in the performance and we had lots of fun.
The Nguyen Du Secondary School students guided us around the school and we got to know them better at the same time. We then helped our Vietnamese buddies to create Blogger accounts and let them post on the GCP Friendship Blog.
Soon after, we left reluctantly as we could not bear to part with our new friends.
We ate delicious pho (Vietnamese noodles) for lunch.
Next, we visited the Hoan Kiem Lake. The name means “return sword” lake as the Vietnamese president once received a sword from the heavens to fight during WWII. After it was over, the golden turtle asked the president to return it the sword.
We went to the Ho Chi Minh Museum. There were many different artefacts about his life. He was very noble. He fought for Vietnam against France.

Day 3

We were on a bus ride for 4 hours until we finally reached Ha Long Bay.
The scenery was beautiful and magnificent. We got onto a boat and had prawns, spring rolls, “crabs” and other seafood.
After a while, we got off at a cave, which was founded by a fisherman and his son accidentally.
We saw the rocks naturally shaped in strange ways and one of them even looked like the Merlion!
After that, we got back onto the boat and onto the bus for another 4-hour-long ride.

Conclusion

I noticed that there are many motorcyclists on motorcycles on the streets of Vietnam. This is probably because motorcycles are cheaper than cars and there is not much public transport. I also noticed that many people live in small and rundown houses. This is probably because many Vietnamese are poor.
I learned that I take some time to recall what I did and feel earlier in the day, for reflections.
I realised that many students from our Hanoi GCP like to sing aloud together to songs that we are familiar to.

Done by: Sun Jie Min 1-07

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