Mit Pheap Exchange (MPX IV)

2007-12-31T15:11:00.000+08:00

i miss Cambodia! though i LS so many times on the last night, i still miss those fun, laughters and chatting in our village house and hotel rooms! -_-

anyway.. to MPX4.. Happy 2008!

Vincent

PA fundraising event on 4th Nov 2007

2007-11-04T21:32:00.000+08:00

Today the team went down to Yishun to help the Fundraising team to raise $ for the upcoming trip to Cambodia. It was a bright and sunny day as the crowd gathered for the event organized by People's Association and our team got down to setting up the stores for the sales.

The 3 musketeers lol...

MPX Mama Shop is finally Open!

We sold cookies, drinks and lollipops all courtesy of a nearby convenience store that provided them at cost price. With a target of $300 in mind we began our humble business...

Commando Justin watches for criminals

Friendlier side of Justin haha

The shows on stage

There was a large crowd at the event as various performances like Magic shows and dances were put on stage.

Monkey attempting to disguise as a customer

A photo moment for our girls (Jiamin, Alison, Xinling, Kiaboon and Jiayan)
notice whos the odd one out haha...

Looks like a gambling den from here haha

More Selling and Tempting

A team photo at last

Looking back I felt that it was a good experience as this was the first time I am setting up a store in such a huge event and I believe this is a relatively new experience for most of the team as well. We learnt about how to approach various people (outside NUS) and the teamwork that was needed to make this sales a success. It was also a sacrifice on everyone's part to come down on a Sunday morning. In the end we managed to raise $615 which is double our initial target.
I would like to thank everyone for helping out one way or another as well as for their time in making this event a success. Without you all this would not have been possible.
Signing off now....
Fun Ruey

Trip down to Pulau Ubin

2007-09-15T21:09:00.001+08:00

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

The birth of MPX IV

2007-09-15T16:50:00.000+08:00

Its time for me to blog again about what had happened so far in MPX IV.

Not too long ago, we had our first meeting on a saturday, meeting outside LT7A before proceeding to one of the tutorial rooms. A few people were late, and our dear treasurer, xinling, lost her way somewhere in architecture. I got to go fetch her in the end.. Haha.. but its okay.. if you're not from engine, you will probably not know where is LT7A just as i don't know where are the LTs in Arts. Haha.. We proceeded to self introduction where a metaphor describing ourselves was drawn on a piece of paper and everyone talked about why they wanna join this trip, their hopes and fears for this trip and also what they expect to gain out of the entire project. Joanne drew a very sophisticated drawing with a garden, food etc.. Xinling drew a dinosaur.. i drew a half filled cup and there were many others who drew very interesting drawings. Fun Ruey mentioned that wherever he goes, there will always be bad things happening.. hahaha.. so lets hope this wouldn't come true for the trip!! The objective of all these is to compare what you originally thought of this entire expedition with what you feel after the expedition and judged whether to see you are where you want yourself to be in the beginning. So here comes this philosophical statement, "The difference between where you are and where you wanna be is what you do to get there. "

We then proceeded downstairs to play a game called "Husband and wife". This game goes something like this, everyone would begin the game holding hands and standing in a circle facing inwards. The husband and wife would first start to walk around the circumference of the circle and once they tapped the hands of another couple in the circle, the two couples got to race in opposite directions to come back to the original spot of that couple whose hands were tapped, something like musical chair except there's no music. haha. So the couple who did not manage to make it back in time got to go and tap another couple and the game repeats itself. This is something that was very often played in Cambodia with the kids. And they really do run very fast, perhaps the only way to stop them from running so fast is to carry them and run! hahaha.

After the game which lasted for around 20 minutes, we proceeded back to our tutorial room where the whole project, MPX IV, was introduced to everyone. Pre-expedition, Expedition and Post-expedition commitments were briefed and roles were given out. The team was separated into 4 sub committees, 2 fundraising teams, 1 logistics team and 1 programs team plus a secretary, treasurer and photographer. Everyone then proceeded to discuss within their individual committees about what they are going to do and...

MPX IV IS BORN!!!

-Qiu Rong

Welcome to the "Festive Season"

2007-09-04T21:16:00.000+08:00

I guess most of you have already watched the movie "881"

Have to say it's good! Reminds me of Moulin Rouge. Not that it's better. But for local standards, it's not bad!

Cut the crap. AFter the show, my friends and I were kinda "inspired" by it and decided to do some shootings at the Getai.

Not all singers are as pretty as the ones in the show. You guys decide from the pictures ba.

Remember them?!?!
Hmm....
Woo....
Erm....
........

And not forgetting our “好姐妹”

帅哥！！

Anyway, I hope our good "brothers" and "sisters" will have a good time during their "vacation".

Tin

tar sar buns

2007-09-03T21:28:00.001+08:00

hello!
hahaha.

i'm so going to flood this blog until someone else writes in here,
or if i'm asked to shut up. haha

anyway,
today... i shall do a very short post....
which involves... copying and pasting conversations only.

it goes like this:

Qiurong - says:
eh go blog also le

Qiurong - says:
u also like quite free

Qiurong - says:
tell everyone u ate 11 tau sar buns today

Qiurong - says:
hahaha

hmmm...... not very entertaining,
but compared to the previous post,
i think...... still win lah!

haha.
someone, blog soon! (:

yay. monday's over!

love,
jiamin

me second!

2007-09-03T20:30:00.000+08:00

Alright.. alright.. i'm second.. shall post something here to make jiamin not so embarassed. haha

So this is the youtube video of what we done last year at mpx3.. in case some of you had never seen it before.. haha.. and some of the photos in cambodia..

The sunrise in cambodia which we all can catch..

This is the sunset..

Hmm.. who say guys cannot cook? I'm cooking!! haha.. and i cook very nice vege also.. but no.. this time round i will only be eating.. not cooking.. :)

Okayz.. post more pics next time.. busy with school work and webcasts and other things.. haha.. take care everybody~~ see you ard in school! :)

Qiu Rong

me first!

2007-09-02T23:48:00.000+08:00

hello people!

since Jiamin goes for cheap thrills
and there isn't any post here yet.
so I shall get the ball rolling......

actually!
I really have no idea what to type in here,
(and i don't think you people want to know what i did today also lah.)

but okay la,
there was something that happened today!
i bumped into Justin (whom is my logistic team leader. HAHA) at bedok reservoir.

and weirdly, as i went for my second and third round,
i didn't get to see him anymore,
(i thought we are supposed to bump into one another for every round.. HAHA.)

but the thing was that,
it rained......

so justin,
did you get drenched?

i did...
but it's good.
~~the rain is good.~~
i'm good.
haha.

ah. school's kicking in in a few hours time.
how i ~~love~~ dread it......
and it's only the 4th week of school.

okay lah,
enough of ranting and typing nonsenical boring stuff.

hope to see you guys for the next meeting.
and pardon me for my lousy ang moh.

i know, i ~~rock~~ suck lah.
but too bad.
HAHA.

love,
jiamin.
yay. (: