mpx4_unite at... Saturday, September 15, 2007
Today, the MPX IV team went down to Pulau Ubin for a morning of fun, interaction and learning. Haha.. 9am at changi jetty, that was our intended time to meet and as usual due to some unforeseen circumstances, many of us were late.. So the gang of me, justin, jiamin, jiayan (wow.. j cube!!! hahaha), tian rui and beng hwa (aka bae yong jun lookalike) went down to the hawker centre nearby to eat some stuffs before the rest arrived. Justin bought an additional tau sar pancake, supposedly our miss mermaid's (aka jiamin) favourite, while i ate a coconut one. Soon after, patryce came with the rest of the team and we proceeded to changi jetty to board the bumboats. We were divided into 2 teams due to the capacity that the bumboats can carry and off i went with alison, charmaine, vicki, beng hwa, kia boon, fun ruey and ser xing on the first bumboat.
The 5 pretty girls...
Plus.. the 3 handsome guys.. hahaha
All of them from the first bumboat at ubin jetty.. excluding me who was taking the photo..
The second bumboat
The first foot on Pulau Ubin!!!
Welcome to Pulau Ubin!And so we waited for all to arrive.. took some group photos before we went on to do what we set out to do today. Patryce separated the team into 2.. the villagers group and the YEP team. Then we proceeded onto the open area near the NParks exhibition area to kick start our cultural shock module.. or in a nicer name.. "Understanding Reciprocity".
The team basically roleplayed a situation where the YEP team was put through a welcome ceremony by the villagers team to make them feel uneasy and bring them out of their comfort zone. Vincent played the village chief and the YEP team was made to kneel before the village chief and asked to do a dance.
Vincent acting as the village chief.. giving a "Present" to the representative of the YEP team, eugene.
"The YEP team"
The dance by the YEP team..We sat down for a small reflection session after this. Questions such as "how does the villagers and YEP team feel about the ceremony and were there any areas where the YEP members might have offended the villagers and vice versa" were posed.. Last year over in Cambodia, we were made to kneel down in front of a monk who sprayed water on us to bless us. The main take away from this role play would be how far are you willing to go to indulge in the host's culture without losing your own dignity and self-respect.. where are we going to draw our bottomline?? Its always good to be mentally prepared...
Due to the inclement weather, we were stuck at the NParks area for sometime until the rain eventually died down. The team was separated into 3 groups in the meantime to come up with a design for our MPX IV T-shirts.
When the rain did get smaller.. Chek Jawa.. here we come!!
On the van.. the route to Chek Jawa.. a wildlife reserve on Pulau Ubin..
At Chek Jawa
Walking on the boardwalk.. Mr Tian Rui..
A few random pics of the boards along the boardwalk
Where are we???
What is everyone looking at?
This? I thought there's supposed to be some pretty cool marine life inside? argh.. the girls must have scared away whatever was in this hole.. haha or issit the high tide?
The team taking a picture at the end of the boardwalk leading out to the middle of the sea
Proceeding on to go to the 21m tall tower!
Woah.. what issit again???
Hmm.. i don't see anything actually.. hahaha
The 21m tall Jejawi Tower
The 2nd group who didnt go up the tower with the rest because it can only take maximum 20 people..
So we went to look around and saw this crab.. can you see the crab? haha
Now its our turn to ascend the tower.. on top of the tower!!
Going back to Ubin jetty after the Chek Jawa tour.
Last shot on Pulau Ubin before we left the island.
On the bumboat back to Changi Jetty.And so, that ends our morning tour of Pulau Ubin and Chek Jawa. Rather short but tiring.. everybody looked tired and hungry. Xinling and Charmaine got to leave us after that and the rest stayed for lunch under a shed near the hawker centre at Changi. All of us ate either the famous nasi lemak or the noodles and Alison and serxing shared with a few of us one "myth" regarding the famous nasi lemak chilli.. haha
After we ate.. it was home sweet home!! Thanks everyone for coming and for those who couldn't make it for today, i hope this entry will let you know what the rest of the team had done today! So for now.. mid terms are coming and good luck for your mid terms, everybody!! :)
- Qiu Rong
mpx4_unite @t...
9:09 PM :D
* mpx_4
