4th Nov :(

No matter how hard I try to resist, time still slips away.With a blink of the eye, today is our last day in India. 

We went to Tara's birthday party where I saw most of my friends for the last time before I leave. They have been really friendly to me when I was in school, I felt like I was part of them. I definitely would not forget them and the time we spent together. However, we still had to say goodbye to each other unwillingly. 

Afterwards, Yan, Parmangana, Muskaan and I visited the gateway of India. There were a lot of people and we left after taking a few pictures. Then we went to Dhobighaat, it is a place where the wash men known as dhobi, washed clothes. There was a place in the middle made of stone which looked like a maze and the wash men would was the clothes there and the water that drained out was very dirty.  It was a poorer part of india and the all the people there were staring at us as if we were strange creatures. I experienced the huge difference in wealth in india. They were living in huts and 

The past nine days felt like a fantasy to me. I was treated with much love and care. I had the best time and I have learnt so much about India, including their lifestyle, culture and traditions. It has been such a great experience and I would want to visit india again in the future. 

Gessy Li 

Nov 3

3rd November, 2012

   The day pretty much started with a yell from the vendors below. I have learnt that the vendors would cycle around every single day, shouting out to everyone to indicate that he is willing to take in anything old, or he is selling certain goods. Apart from the vendors, some other creatures are also capable of being extremely noisy: the crows. One thing about Mumbai is not only it is densely populated by human beings, it also boasts thousands of crows which would be everywhere throughout the day. Unfortunately my sleep was disrupted by the vendors and the crows and so I woke up and got ready for the day. 

    The day rolled by quickly, with Big Bang Theory on TV, a sweet lime juice and a custard apple for breakfast.  Sweet lime and custard apples are fruits commonly found in India, with the sweet lime tasting slightly like oranges and the custard apple resembling a grenade, but tasting delightfully sweet. However, there are not much flesh inside but an awful lot of seeds, but it was a really interesting fruit.

    After a nice morning, me and my host Divina went to the Colaba Causeway, which is pretty much like Mongkok in Hong Kong. There's a great hustle all around the place and there's a lot of commotion. People were pushing all around and there are a lot of stalls and motorcycles all over the place. It is terribly crowded but there are a lot of goods sold at a good price--and we can even bargain! I bought a some bracelets, bangles, scarves for me and my mom, some ornaments and so forth. Along with these souvenirs, I also learnt more about the fine art of bargaining. Apart from stalls, there are also some branded shops like Nike, Reebok, Adidas and so on. Exclude all the people all over the place, the Causeway is a nice place to spend all your money. 

     We went to pick up some Indian foods at Camy, an Indian snack shop Camy is one of those shops that everyone knows in Mumbai; according to Divina it's been here for a long, long time. I bought some nice snacks like chakli (rice biscuits), banana wafers, chevea(corn chips) and a lot more. I'm starting to worry whether I can fit all of this stuff into my suitcase.

    So it has been a really fruitful day (literally) and hopefully I have enough space in my suitcase to put everything in. Sounds cliche, but time really flies. I really do not want to go back to Hong Kong so soon. 

Gladys :D 

     

Nov 3

This is our second last day in India and though our hearts are  weighing heavy with the fact that we're departing the next day. However Indians obviously believe that to mark a departure of good friends is to  celebrate like crazy, and our day was filled with explosive fun! :D

In the morning I went with my host to Colaba Causeway, which is a local street that is packed with stalls that sells souvenirs and Indian products. There were stalls selling bangles, jewelry, cravings and various clothing items. It was a loud, happy and exciting place and I basically had a shopping spree and bought lots of special gifts for my family and friends in Hong Kong.

Then I attended a party hosted by one of the hosts, Raeka. It was her birthday today and she held an absolutely awesome dance party in a restaurant. It was completely marvelous; the party was complete with drinks, loud music, and crazy dancing which all of our teenage girls enjoyed a lot. It was very nice of Reaka to let us join her party- it was such great fun! :))

Afterwards I visited Crosswords- an enormous bookstore near my host's home that has a vast collection of Indian and english volumes. I bought 8 books at such cheap prices- it was awesome! Finally I enjoyed a dinner with the host family at the local race course- I enjoyed some traditional Indian food such as butter chicken, roasted chicken and vegetable skewers and they were absolutely delicious.

I enjoyed today a lot- but all i can think about is we're leaving tomorrow and I'm kind of sad already :(

Nov 3

    It was a free day today as there was no school, so we were free to go wherever we wanted with our host.

    I had a great lunch after waking up quite late, a change from the previously early morning call. After that, my host and I watched movies together.

    In the afternoon, we went to the bookstore Crossword. It was really big, and even had a place to eat upstairs! The books were also a lot cheaper than in Hong Kong. One book cost around 300 rupees, which was 50HKD! I immediately grabbed a bunch of books. Apart from books, it also sold snacks and stationery. It was like your Page One bookstore in India, only with more books and a lot more affordable!

    After spending a few hours at Crossword, we carried on to go to a bus ride round the city. Yes, those bus rides with an open upper deck. By this time, it was around 7pm, so everyone was really tired. However, that didn't deter us from taking many photos! At the end of the ride, we also went to the Gateway of India! The view was really pretty.
    With everyone nearly weeping from exhaustion, we drove to a restaurant with many different cuisines available. We had a great time chatting with each other, and the food was delicious too. After all, it had been a long day.

Lydia Chiu 4X (8)

2 Nov :P

Today is our last school day at JB Petit and we had taken lots of photos everywhere in the historic and beautiful campus. I am sure that all of us will miss our school buddies so much after we go back to Hong Kong and we will all keep in touch with them. These friendships are definitely long-lasting ones. 

For the visiting, we had gone to a Jain temple. The architecture threre were simply adorable. The temple was built with marbles and the pillars were crafted in details. Through this activity, we had learnt more about the religions in India. We got to know how people worship for other religions and the features of their gods.

After lunch, we had a really fun dancing lesson. We were taught some Bollywood dance and even Mrs. Lau joined us! We were all enjoying ourselves so much and getting so hyper!

Finally, for the last activity in this school, we had done some mandis on our hands, which were actually tatoos. All of us found the spirals and patterns really fascinating. 

After school, I had gone to Coloba Causeway. It is like a whole long street which sells all kinds of souvenirs in India. I had bought some traditional Indian outfit and postcards, which are all so nice.

All in all, I had enjoyed myself a lot today :P

Nov 2

Time flies. This is the last day of school in J B Petit.

Since today is dress-as-you-like day, everyone in school dressed casually mostly in shirt and jeans and a few in Indian clothes. Similar to our school, during the dress as you like day, students are not allowed to wear spaghetti straps or short pants.

We followed the timetable for the first 3 lessons as usual. We had double Chemistry for the first two lessons in which we had the "flame test" on different metal compounds which include potassium, copper, sodium and calcium compounds. Since I had learnt and performed this test last year, I was familiar with the procedures of the test and had no difficulty in performing it

For the fieldtrip, we went to the Janism temple. it was quite cool to me as I haven't been in a temple like this before. It had some Indian sculptures of the gods which Indians believe and its architecture was beautiful and unique. We learnt a lot of India's religion from the temple.

After lunch, we had an Indian dance workshop. We were taught with classic and bollywood dances. Since both are Indian dances, their styles are pretty much the same. The steps are not hard to learn as they are quite similar, but with different variations. We basically followed what the teacher did. It was exciting and fun for us who had never learnt Indian dances before.

Finally afterschool, we did some mandis on our hands. They are tattoos which have mostly spiral patterns.

Nov 2

            It was the 6^th day of our cultural exchange trip to India, and it was the last day we attend lessons and activities at J.B. Petit High School for Girls. As it was a Friday, it was the “Dress as You Like” day in J.B., when all students are allowed to wear casual wear to school. To my surprise, apart from Fridays, students are actually allowed to wear casual wear to school on their birthdays!

            Math class marked the start of the day. Std. 8A has just started a new topic --- simultaneous equations, which I’ve learnt in last year (S2). They got the concept really quick even though it was a new topic to them!

            After math, it was social studies lesson with the headmistress of J.B. --- Mrs. Kutar. They were learning “Music in Europe”, and Mrs. Kutar introduced the orchestra as well as different “families” of musical instruments of it to the class. Also, we talked about Ludwig Van Beethoven. Although I often play his pieces on the piano, there were some facts on him that I never knew! The biggest difference between their social studies lessons and our liberal studies lessons is that in social studies, they mainly study history, geography, music, art etc. of a certain place (e.g. Europe), whereas in liberal studies we mainly study news that are happening all over the world, which we need a critical mind to give opinions.

            At 10am, all the DGS girls and their host and school buddies went for a visit to the Jain Temple, which was a temple of gods of the Jains. As there are only about 500 Jains in Hong Kong, we have not really heard about it, so we learnt about many facts about Jainism on our way. As Jainism was founded in India during the 6^th century B.C., most of the Jains in the world are found in India, but only 0.5% of the population in India are Jains. Jainism has 24 gods, and in the temple we visited there were only the 1^st and 23^rd gods. The Jains prescribes the path of not harming any living beings, therefore they are strict vegetarians. It was a nice experience where we were able to see the way Jains practise their religion, hence acquiring new knowledge.

            After lunch, we had an Indian dance workshop. There are classical, folk and Bollywood dance. We learnt the basic steps of classical Indian dance --- right left right left, left right left right. With these steps, we could actually dance anything as we like, as there are lots of variations of these steps. There are many kinds of fold dances in India as each state has its own state dance. It is actually a variation of the classical dances where you add in folk movements. As for the Bollywood dance, it is mainly danced in the Indian movie industry, and the dance steps usually rock more. Although it was quite tiring after dancing, we still had a great time.

            After school ends, all of us got tattoos which are done by a natural type of herb. The herb is brown in colour, but when it gets on the skin it turns orange and gets darker as time passes. After 1-2 weeks, it will disappear naturally.

            Time flies, and there are only 2 more days till the end of our cultural exchange trip. I will surely miss Mumbai!

Nov 2

   Despite the overwhelming heat that slightly troubled us, we all enjoyed the last day at JB Petit. We had the last enjoyable lessons of Social Science and double Maths learning about Beethoven and revolutions of circles respectively. Afterwards, we headed off to the Jain Temple. It was very beautiful, with painted ceilings that displayed the different types of life Indians had along with the white-washed walls and sturdy pillars. It was the statues of the gods and the shimmering chandeliers that lit up every single hall where people would kneel down to the gods and mumble their own prayers. One interesting thing to note was the holy symbol that was seen everywhere. It was carved on doors, floor mats and ceilings. It actually looked quite similar to the yin yang symbol in Chinese!
  
   As we went back to school, we were quickly rushed off to the Indian dance workshop. We learnt the basic steps of Indian traditional Bollywood dance, with zigzags, turning, and swinging your hips. Although we were terribly troubled by the heat, we soon forgotten about the perspiration streaming down our foreheads as we were totally fascinated about the dance. The dance instructor demonstrated several pieces of dance that required a lot of movement from the whole body and we all followed really well. She also taught us how to do the Namaste (means Hi in India) movement through walking forward for four steps, clasping our hands together, and moving backwards. These movements were very fun and towards the end, all the DGS girls swayed their hips while dancing to the Oppa Bollywood Style!

   After the dance class, we bade farewell to our dear JB classmates who had spent such a wonderful week in the classroom with us. They taught us so many Indian traditions and I had so much fun with them. They hugged us goodbye outside the artroom and we went to do our henna tattoo. (mehndi in Indian language) Our hands were beautifully painted by two professionals using a cream-like squeezer. They told me that my name Dana was somehow hidden in my unique henna tattoo at the back of both hands!

   This week at JB Petit flew by quickly and I'm really glad I had learnt so much. I'll miss the girls so much and all the delicious Indian snacks they had offered me. Thank you JB. -all our love from DGS Hong Kong girls. Can't wait to see you again!

- Dana Tsoi

Nov 1

Hindi as the first lesson of the day was pretty interesting. They had a quiz on opposite words which is called "vilom" in Hindi. Seeing them write in such a language fascinates me since it's so different from what we usually see. Hindi is written below the line, and even though I had no idea what the characters meant, they looked pretty to me :) Tanisha my school buddy once said that if she saw a message that had only Chinese character on it, she'd think that her computer had a nasty virus. I had to agree with her. If my computer suddenly pops out a message with Hindi on it, I'd be a little scared too :D

Chemistry was quite interesting to me, even though I learnt most of the things they were teaching. They were learning about different chemical reactions, such as how carbon dioxide turns lime water milky. I was amazed at how all the students knew not only the English names for the different solutions, but the scientific formulas as well. Tanisha says they have to learn them by heart since the beginning of term, and "it was a really tough time". Since our teachers told us specifically that we aren't required to learn them, I feel pretty sorry for them :P

After a while, we went out for a fieldtrip to Manibhavan, which was where Gandhi stayed when he was in Mumbai. It was quite cool to see the very few belongings that he had, and the different pictures depicting different things he did to fight for equality and the independence of India from the British rule. There were a few clay models that showed the events, such as the Salt March and the Fast for Communal Harmony. After the short visit, I learnt a lot more about this hero and what he did during simple life. All in all, I think that Gandhi was all in all, a true hero and a great man.

We went back to school after the trip, and the 14 of us amused ourselves in the junior school playground for a while before lunch. I was getting pretty tired of the repetitive school lunches, so today I opted for a cheese dosa instead. It's a traditional south Indian snack, which looks and tastes very similar to a pancake.

After lunch, we had a speech and drama workshop, which I can certainly say is the most interesting lesson I've had in India so far. The teacher Ms Bedi had us do different emotions, from the smallest scale (moving only your face) to the largest scale (practically jumping with exaggerated facial expression and movement). We then separated into 5 groups, where we had to come up with a commercial for an imaginary product. It was really fun since we got to use our imagination and act crazy :D I definitely think that there it should be included in our curriculum at school, since it really helps us relax and get away from all the academic stress...

I can't wait for tomorrow since it's going to be Dress As You Like day :) I guess all 14 of us are lucky to have this event twice this school year :D (though that's nothing compared to the JB Petit girls since they have it every Friday...)

June Ho 3U (12)

Nov 1

     Today is our fifth day to India.
     We have lessons with our school buddies as usual. I had geography lesson and it is interesting since I haven't leant them before. Afterwards we went to Mani Bhavan -- a place dedicated to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. That place was a mansion which belonged to his friend, and was also an important place where a lot of Gandhi's political activities were initiated. There were a lot of paintings and photographs about him and the political activities related to him. There were also small dolls in boxes which show important things about his life. I learnt so much in Mani Bhavan, about Gandhi and also India's history.

doll box

Mani Bhavan

     Afterwards, we all had a speech and drama workshop. This workshop was fun and very intersting. The teacher taught us how to use our whole body to express sadness, happiness, anger and fear. We started off with just little facial expression, to moving our hands and feet, to jumping up and kneeling down to express those feelings. Then, we were divided into group, and we were asked to do a short commercial about an imaginary product. All of them were very funny and entertaining.

speech and drama workshop

    After school, my host took me to ride a horse carriage. This was my first time and it was very exciting. The carriage was so beautiful that I felt like a queen when I was sitting in it. I got to see how Mumbai looks. The ride was bumpy but still nice all the same. I am sure tomorrow will be another fruitful day.

Sarah Ho :]
4U (13)

Nov 1

              This morning we went to school as usual by school bus.  I met my buddies and had geography lesson with Ashumi. The teacher was very interesting and although she was teaching the things we had covered last year, some of the terms were different and I learned some new concepts. After geography lesson, we had a little bit of cookery, then went to join another class for social studies lesson. They taught us about the languages in India and how they were formed. They also taught us a few conversational phrases and we all enjoyed that very much. Then we had to teach the class about Chinese and some sentences in Cantonese. It was very fun and enriching.
             After the lessons we boarded the bus to visit Mani Bhavan, the place Gandhi lived in while he resided in Mumbai. It was a very interesting place as it displayed quite a few of Gandhi's letters and the things he used when he was alive, and also a miniature doll display that illustrated the main events that happened in his life. I had surely understood a lot more about the important figure to the world and India's fight for freedom and peace, and learnt more about his philosophy and values.
             In the afternoon we had a speech and drama workshop. The teacher was very inspiring and the session was extremely fun and enjoyable. We did some fun warm-up exercises then split in groups to create a commercial advertisement for an imaginary product. We all loved the session very much.
After school, we went to another host's house for English tuition, then went to the bookshop Crossword for some really cheap books :) For dinner, we went to an Indian restaurant for naan bread, which I love. The day was very fruitful and fun, I enjoyed it very much. Time flies so fast, and I can't believe there's only 3 days left of our time in Mumbai! :(


-Yan Chan  3U (5)
1st November, 2012

Nov 1

         Today was a really fascinating and fruitful day that we all learnt much about Indian culture and history. We had a tight schedule, but still it was very interesting and we enjoyed it very much.
         After some lessons in the morning, we went to Mani Bhavan with our buddies. It was where Gandhi-"the Father of India" stayed when he visited Mumbai. There were photographs and miniatures showing the biography of this amazing man. We not only understood more about Gandhi, but also the founding of the country and its background.
          Gandhi was one of the greatest of the Indian Freedom fighters. His life was that of great learning and sacrifices. He was a warrior of peace and fought for the rights of the untouchables - people of a lower caste who were treated almost like slaves. He was truthful from the start and always championed the poor and the ones in grief. One of the greatest turning points in his life was the incident of South Africa when the white officials at the train station kicked him out of first class despite him having the ticket because he was black and no blacks or dogs were allowed on trains.After this incident he really changed his perspective about his life and decided to return to India and fight for the country, using the principles of non violence. He campaigned against the British i many ways, with one of the most successful being Quit India Movement. He encouraged the boycotting of foreign goods. He spoke against the riot in Bihar and led the salt march against the heavy taxes levied by the British on salt. He also encouraged the unity between two of the most conflicted religions at the time - Hindus and Muslims.
          His glorious life was ended by a man called Nathuram Godse who shot him in the head with three bullets. Gandhi ended his life with God in his mind and on his lips.
          Gandhi was actually a very rich man by birth. Yet he chose to fight for all those Indians who are poor and unprivileged. He is a very inspiring man in every aspect and will always be respected by the world. He brought love and light where hatred and cunning ruled.
          After visiting Mani Bhavan, we headed back to school and attended a lesson on speech and drama. The teacher was so humourous and funny. We played games about how to act with facial expressions and body gestures. We all enjoyed it and learnt a lot. We also separate into groups and did a short commercial on an imaginary product. All of them are so hilarious that we cannot even stop laughing. With a round of applause, the school day was ended and we all went home with our buddies. The day was so much fun and excitement. I can't simply wait for the surprises we'll have tomorrow and I am anticipating the crazy shopping in mall Phoenix later XD