Short but Meaningful Trip

So, my day today was pretty boring yet fun in a same way. Just like any other day, I went to school in the morning then went home or hung out with my parents (because they’re still here) or do some home-works from school.  But as I went home from school, I was surprised that there was a giant tent set up right next to my apartment. At first I thought that the giant tent would be use for the bazaar or food festival, since the Singapore National Day is coming up. Turned out I was wrong! Well I wasn’t completely wrong, because it was sort of like a festival. But this is not an open festival for everyone.

As I finished dinner and went home with my family, I was shocked because there were noisy noises (singing, shouting, laughing, etc.) from the tent. Since I was so curious about it, I decided to go down and looked around the tent. Just as I observed the festival, I have no clue what was the event about, and then I asked one of the waiters there about it. The waiter explained to me that it was a festival for the Chinese workers around my neighborhood. They called the festival as “Hungry Ghost Festival” or “Seven Months Festival”. I was not really sure about what it was, but it looked like their cultural event.

The festival was so crowded and there were so many people from young workers to senior workers. They were partying, chatting, getting to know each other, etc. it was pretty scary though, because some of the people got drunk and started to act weirdly; they shouted, talking very loudly and they couldn’t even stand on their feet. Since I was alone, I think it was pretty scary and out of control, so I decided to go home.

From this short trip, I learned more about the Singaporean culture and also about my neighborhood. I just knew that there’s such a cultural event around my neighborhood. Living in Indonesia my whole life, I’ve never seen such event like that.

Here are some interesting photos I took during my short little trip 😀

This is the view of the festival from my apartment

 

The big Tent, where the festival was hosted

 

Here are some pictures of the people chatting and getting to know each other 😀

 

 

 

The Festival 😀

 

Brainstorm and Post-It Activity

On our creative thinking class, we did quite a fun activity; where we needed to brainstorm 101 ideas on how to make “Paper Man Die”. First of all, my teammates were Yu Lee (kimyulee.blogspot.sg) and Han Jie (thj1996.blogspot.sg). Both of my teammates are smart and expressive, so I was so glad I could work with them. The activity that we did was so fun. We needed to find creative ways on how we can kill a paper man. 10-20 ideas about killing a paper man are easy, but finding 101 was pretty challenging. Most of our ideas at first are pretty general, but as it went on, our ideas started to get crazier and funnier. Some of the ideas are even impossible or don’t even make sense, but we wrote it down anyway.  Aside from writing down the ideas, we were told to decorate or draw image that represent the action or tools that are used to kill the paper man. So first thing that we did was to write down as much ideas we can find on a piece of paper. Then the lecturer actually told us to pick out one writer to write down the ideas, but since everyone wanted to help, we decided to divide the part and everyone wrote and drew the ideas. It was very exciting drawing and putting down all of the funny ideas, but since we were too focused on putting down our own part, we didn’t even see or match the style of the writing. So at the end, each of us had different style of writing and drawing. Like Han Jie, was surprisingly really neat and organize, Yu Lee was very creative and good, while I was so messy but fast. When we all looked at the result, it was not as neat and organized as we thought it would be, but it was satisfying since all of us worked hard to put in the ideas and helped to decorate and write down everything. So this brainstorm activity I learned a lot about my teammates and to think more creatively.

Here are some pictures I took during the Brainstorm Process 😀

So these are our ideas on paper at first.

 

The Final Brainstorm (so as you can see, Green writing is Han’s, Red writing is Yu Lee’s, and Blue writing is mine) 😀

Secondly as a class, we also did a post-it activity, where we have to write down three things we learned about our one-hour journey assignment. Then after we wrote down three post-its, the lecturer grouped the similar ideas on what we have learnt from the journey and told us to make a heading from each category. And from that category, we have to take a short journey that reflected on what we have learnt from others’ journeys too. So on my next post, I will talk about my journey about culture and hearings.

Here are some pictures of the Post-It

And these are the things I learnt from my previous journey.

 

These are the two headings that will be the topic of my short trip 😀

 

My Journey

One of the things that my family like to do in Singapore is going on a cruise trip. So this weekend, my family came all the way from Indonesia to visit me in Singapore. Although I’ve been on several cruise trips around these past few years, my cruise trip this weekend was slightly different. Why different? Because usually I always go play around with my family, especially my brothers, but this time, I decided to go and take one hour of my time to explore the top dock of the ship alone.

Taking time alone for myself was actually very relaxing and kind of fun. So I went on the top dock of the ship and all I see was a beautiful, blissful and clear sky. I was not only fascinated by the pretty sky, but also captivated by the calm sea. The waves were splashing lightly as I heard the sound of the rolling tides. And as I walked around the dock, I was able to smell the tasty barbeque food prepared by the chef. The sound of the sizzling meat on the grill was very tempting. The smoke from the barbeque place gave me a sense of taste from the appetizing food they were about to serve. Next to the barbeque counter, there was a swimming pool filled with cheerful kids. It was really fun to observe them laugh and fuss around with each other, though it made me reminiscing how fast time passes through the thought that I was once like them. They were happy, carefree and got nothing to worry about. At the end of my one-hour journey, I realized how pleasurable it was. Good time with no phone or WiFi (of course I got no signal on sea), it was worth it. So at the end of my little trip, I was glad because I got to relax and just enjoy my time without having to worry about anything.  🙂

And here are some pictures I took on the trip. 😀

The Bright Sky

The Cloud

The Calm Sea

The Kid’s Pool

The Pool

The Barbecue