oep @ vietnam |day 2|
Friday, February 1
well i'm blogging this so that i can get a train of thought for the hcl project that we have to do about the very same topic i'm blogging about: our oep... so i'm writing in english first, then translating the acceptable stuff into chinese and use if for the project :P
so day 2 of the oep was more like day 1, since the first day was just a flight. so we woke up as if it was a school day, like 6am, and went down for the breakfast catered by the hotel. the food looked kinda nice at first glance, so we helped ourselves to the mini-spread there, which consisted of bread, with a toaster that you had to manually push up the knob-thingy so that you could take your toast. in other words, it wasnt automatic. next to that, was like a formation of butter sticks, a variety of ham, and tomatoes and cucumber to go along with the bread/toast. then there were also trays of noodles, fried rice, gelatinous rice, and some side dishes.
when we went to the tables, we suddenly recalled ms ong's words of advice to us while we were still in singapore: don't eat eggs, chicken, or any uncooked food. we started to doubt the cleanliness of the food, and scrutinized every dish. first, sample: the ham. as we all know, the meat they use for ham isnt usually fully cooked, with a small number having properly cooked meat. ham is usually only partially cooked. so i chucked the ham aside.
next, was the fried rice. the fried rice looked fine, except for the fact that there were small strands of egg everywhere, fried together with the rice. that was a no-no, so i chucked it aside too.
there were 2 types of noodles: one of them was hor fun, while the other was i think something like mee goreng. hor fun passed the test with flying colours, the only problem with it was that it was super super oily. the mee goreng was also fine, just that it tasted dry and bland.
the gelatinous rice was just like plain rice... except for the fact that there were nuts in it. who would wanna eat anything like that?
and finally the side dishes. there were some dishes with chicken meat in there, which we didn't touch. so i just separated the chicken meat from the rest of the stuff like potato and mushroom and ate them.
so in the end everyone was mainly eating bread, with or without butter, the potatoes and mushrooms from the side dishes, and the noodles. all in moderation, since they were quite disgusting for breakfast.
then we went for drinks, and there was only coffee, tea, soya bean, and orange juice there. the obvious choice for most of us was orange juice, while some went for the soya bean. one taste of the orange juice and i didnt want anymore. instead of quenching my thirst, it made me more thirsty, cos it was obviously sweetened artificially, cos there's no such orange that can be sooooo sweet! its like the tinge of sourness that all oranges have wasnt even there. then those drinking the soya bean said that the soya bean was so tasteless, that they needed to add the suger for the coffee, but of course they didnt, since it was cold soya bean, so the sugar wouldn't melt easily. maybe they wrongly added the sugar to the orange juice instead of the soya bean... but i highly doubt that, cos they cant make the same mistake EVERY single day!
so after breakfast, we set off to the war museum on foot. now this museum isn't your typical singapore museum, fully air-conditioned and all. this one was open air, and used fans to provide wind. there was a tour guide attached to our class to explain all the stuff there in the museum, so that she could explain further than what all the signs were saying, not that anyone listened to her, since she was speaking so softly... the signs were all in vietnamese too, so we got nothing much out of it.
we were also brought to see the jail cells the viet kong were kept in, which was really really miserable. they had figures inside the cells, to show you what it was like living in there, and they had their feed chained down the whole time. there was even some writing on the wall in one of the cells, but they were in vietnamese, so i had no idea what it meant. but i guess it could be words of despair. we even saw a room full of drawings of how the americans tortured the prisoners, and trust me it was super inhumane. it's too disgusting to describe.
after the guided tour, we were allowed to explore and revisit the places we like for 15min. then in the main block of the museum, the group i was with saw like preserved fetuses kept in a bottle, to show what the war does to babies. i dont know what's more inhumane, the deformities caused, or the preserving of such things. unless the mother died during the war and had her womb blown open somehow... cutting it open just to retrieve the baby would still deem the act inhumane.
after leaving the museum, we set off to mekong delta, where we took a river cruise to one of the four islands there. the one we went to is called unicorn island. on the island, we managed to see the lives of the vietnamese villages, where technology had not spread much. all the stuff they were selling there were all handicraft, which must have took them a long time to make. and yet, they were selling them for such low prices. they really work hard for their money.
we were brought to a little shack which made coconut sweets. really interesting how they made it, and they gave us free samples too, all fresh and warm. of course, all part of their marketing scheme to make us buy coconut sweets which they were selling there. i didn't buy any cos my parents had already told me not to buy, but lots of people bought them, and the pricing of buy 5 get 1 free really paid off, as it enticed people to buy more. of course people also combined together so that the prices would be lower, but in the course of making a group of 6, some people were forced to buy more than what they wanted just to fulfill the 5 packs that needed to be bought. haha.
after that, we were brought to a place that made honey tea. in the tea, they put honey (duh!), half lime's worth of lime juice, and chinese tea. i'm not sure what tea it is they put though. there were mixed reviews on the tea, as some liked the unusual taste while some detested it, preferring the authentic taste of chinese tea (like me). they also took out a whole err... how do you describe it... "mini-wall" or bees, all storing their honey. cos they obviously have to keep their own bees to make the honey. they invited people to come and hold is by the handles, and jie jun excitedly took hold of it, and was the attraction of many cameras. at first people didnt dare to use flash, incase it scared the bees, but after a few people accidentally forgot to turn off flash, and seeing that the bees didn't react, everyone just started using flash freely.
the bees also flew around while we were sipping our tea (lol, sounds so british), and it really freaked me out cos they were flying so closely around me head, and i was scared they would sting me. but then the owners of the shop said that the stings of the bees were removed, so i was soooo relieved, and like couldn't believe i actually was afraid of those things.
then we went to have some vietnamese fruits, and were treated to a couple of songs played on some chinese instruments. at first we all looked on and thought it looked rather easy. cos all they were doing were plucking strings. but then they invited one of us to go and try the instruments, and darren tay tried it out. he started playing a single-stringed one, where you had to pluck different locations of the string to create the different notes. but when darren played it, all the notes he played sounded the same. as it turned out, you needed to pluck the string in a certain way, and make sure you didn't puck it too hard, if not it wouldn't produce the note desired. there was also a stick on one end, which you had to shake so that the string would tighten and loosen accordingly, and produce a wavering sound. it was really really cool, but it was hard to remember to use it when darren was already trying so hard to play the notes.
then he tried a multiple-stringed one, where each string represented a different note. it was easier to play, but you also needed to press down the string so that the sound wavered, just like the other one. and of course when you're looking at one side making sure you're plucking the correct strings, you're hardly likely to be bothered about the other side of the string, making sure that you are pressing the correct one.
after walking so far into the island, we needed to get back out. so this time, instead of backtracking all the way back on foot, we were brought to a small stream, where there were boats bring rowed back and forth by the vietnamese folk. i was on the same boat as jeremiah, darren and gareth, and darren was singing the whole time rather loudly, a whole range of songs which i joined in at a much softer volume.
there were some ang mohs in the boats going in the opposite direction, and darren was saying "hi" to some of them, haha. so hilarious, cos the ang mohs just smiled back at this super enthu person :P the other empty boats kept calling us and pointed to a stack of money, as if asking us to tip our boats when we get off. and so many boats did that! it was this demanding attitude that made me not wanna give them anything. i mean, if you want us to tip, let us do it out of our own free will! isnt that the meaning of tips... also, the person at the back of our boat acting as the steer, scolded darren in vietnamese. i bet he was asking him to shut up. you should be letting your customers do what they want right... who wants some person who tells people off. not like you're gonna get anything out of that. so when we reached the end of our journey, we all got off, and none of us gave them any tips. after asking the other people in the class, i found out that matthew lee gave them a 100,000 dong! that's like giving them a S$9 tip! who gives that much just for a boat ride? even restaurants dont get that much tips. so just out of a code of honour, the other 3 people in hit boat had to pay him back... 25,000 dong per person... that's still a lot. i'd never give that much. especially for such poor service.
on the boat ride back, as in the big boat for the whole class for the cruise, we were given a coconut each to drink. at first, people were longing for the larger ones, so that they could have more. but bigger isn't always better, cos those that got larger ones had trouble finishing all the juice inside :P even the big eaters couldn't finish the large ones, which goes to show a lot. thank goodness i got the small one. so after that, those that wanted to eat the flesh passed their coconuts to the tour guide, who chopped it into half, and chopped a small portion from the side, making a spoon. kinda innovative eh.
after that we went to have lunch at some restaurant which was by the riverside. the food wasnt that good... so we started looking for ways to make it nicer. so some people took the pork and stuck it into their chopstick, then held it over the charcoal fire of the steamboat. really innovative, cos it ended up being barbecued pork, which the nice taste of smoke. people also started playing with the food, and a certain someone (i shall not mention his name for his safety) made a 'banana man' out of the banana they gave, putting various garnishing from the dishes, and sticking it through with a chopstick as his handle.
on the other side of the table, darren and a few others all took their chopsticks and stuck it into a prawn, cos nobody bothered to shell the prawn just for the miserable morsel. so they just 'poked' fun at it to put it to better use. in the end, mr tan got up to scold the people who were playing with their food, and warned that if he saw anyone playing with food again, he would scold them. so people quickly started taking photos of their creations before they had to be destroyed.
the rest of the day was nothing much... we just went to a supermarket and bought some cheap confectionery for us to eat throughout the trip. when ms ong saw the amount we bought, she quickly warned us not to eat too much, or at least drink lots of water. cos with this kinda sweet stuff and lack of water, easy to fall sick. i think she meant sore throat.
and in the night we were given more free time, so we *ahem* illegally *ahem* played *ahem* card *ahem* games *ahem*. hmm, i seem to have got a coughing fit. seriously. and that was that. as far i can remember... oh right. we all had to pack our bags cos we were leaving for dalat the next day, meaning we were gonna check outta the hotel. so obviously we couldn't leave anything behind. thank goodness only 1 set of teachers came to do room check this time, that was ms ong and mr chan. and i wasnt sleeping yet, so they dint disturb at all (: how fun
oh yea, i totally forgot, i needed to charge both my handphone and camera, but i didn't have an adapter for my 3-pin plug chargers to fit the 2-pin sockets of vietnam. so i went down to sam's room to charge my handphone first, since he had borrowed an adapter from ian. so troublesome... haiz
AMEN;
5:57 pm
