Oct 30

     Today's the third day of our stay in India, and also the second day of school at J.B. Petit High School for Girls.

     The day started off very much like yesterday, where I woke up at six thirty, ate my breakfast in haste and set off to school. On the way to the school bus stop, my host, Divina and I encountered a lot of people--and animals. I spotted a goat following its owner like a dog would do--and it's not on a lead, which is a pretty amazing feat. Divina told me that there's a cow living in the streets nearby, and today I see somebody taking the cow for a walk. Indians consider cows as holy and sacred animals so no one would bother the cow; in fact, the cow's quite well fed and even has its own personalized collar, so I guess they do play a pretty important role in Indian culture. Dogs, crows and pigeons are all over the place, and so are the people. I have came to a conclusion that Bombay is a city that never sleeps because there are quite a number of people and traffic around 24/7. At 7 in the morning there's already a lot of cars on the roads and there's a lot of commotion and noise, which makes the best wake up call ever. 

    The school bus has to be one of the most memorable activities in this stay, because even early at the morning students in the bus were chatting with each other non-stop (instead of dozing off or listening to music on the iPod like the majority of Hong Kong students). It amazed me that everyone seem to know each other--even if they are in different grades. Add in the bumpiness of the ride and all the hilarious conversations going on, the bus ride is quite fun. 

   The brief bus ride was replaced by the Geography lesson at class 9B. I sat with my school buddy Anuschka and she was revising for her Hindi test before the lesson. She taught me a few Hindi greetings but unfortunately, I can't remember much of them. In return, I translated her name back to Chinese and I wrote her translated name on a post-it and gave it to her, and I did that for some of her other friends. We had so much fun. 

After Geography, we had a yoga workshop. Now, we Hong Kong people are so fast-paced that we basically don't do much sports, but in India, almost everyone knows how to do yoga. Yoga is not just simply all about meditating and doing some seemingly impossible stances, but it's about calming your mind and finding your inner peace. Sounds abstract, no? But really, it's not complicated; all you have to do is focus on your breathing and empty your mind. We did some moves to stretch our back, and there's the yoga move where a person will walk on your back. That pretty much scared us all but after our friends from JB walked on us, our backs actually felt more relaxed. However, my favourite move is the 'dead man' yoga move, where you basically just lie down--and relax. It was so effective that I fell asleep. After the ultimate experience on yoga, I have decided to do the 'dead man' move every night to improve the quality of my sleep because I'm quite sleep-deprived. 

    Our next destination is the Prince of Wales museum, a beautiful building with tall domes and arches. Inside, it exhibits various historical objects and we had a good look at the paintings of India and the weapons.  I have learnt so much about the various religions and cultures in India, and I have also known a lot more legends and more historical background of India from the paintings. The weapons are downright intricate and violent at the same time, so this makes an impressive trip. 

    The art workshop sums up our day at school. After lunch, we started doing Madhubani paintings, which originated from the time when an ancient India king decided to commission some artists to draw the marriage scene of his daughter Sita to the god Lord Ram. Madhubani painting is practised in Bihar, and is traditionally done by women around the town of Madhubani. The paintings are usually done with natural dyes and pigments, and they use low dimensional imagery. We had a nice time drawing and painting the picture in those bright colours.  

   The enjoyable day passed by pretty quickly, and I'm anticipating what's in store for me tomorrow. 

                                                                                                             Gladys Yeung 3U (37)

  

                                                                                                                          

    

Oct 30

Today is our third day in India. Waking up at 6:30, we attend school at J.B. Petit High School for Girls as usual. As this is the second day of school, we get to know more about the school and the students there better. We get along well with the students there.

My school buddy, Yashina is in the 9th grade and we had our Chemistry lesson this morning. Although we have not learn the content yet in Hong Kong, it is quite interesting. We learnt about the properties of Acid and Bases, and the chemical formulas of them.

After Chemistry lesson, we had a Yoga lesson with other students whom had chosen Yoga as their elective. This is my first time experiencing yoga, and it turns out to be fun and relaxing. The teacher taught us some basic stretches in Yoga, but I couldn't do it really well. The special thing about Yoga is that they don't hold the posture for a certain time. Instead, they count the time in the number of breathes. The teacher taught us about the dog posture, which we bend our bodies while keeping a dip in our spine. That posture can allow the blood to flow to our brain more easily and we get a much clearer mind after that. The  another posture is the corpse posture. We get to lie down on the floor as if we are sleeping. With the teacher's words, we get to relax every part of our body and let it sinks to the earth. It is really relaxing that I even fell asleep during the lesson. Another interesting move is that we get to step on each other's spine. It is said in yoga that if we are stressed or we have back pains, our spine get tied in knots. By stepping on one's back, we get to untie the knots. It sounds a bit uncomfortable for someone actually stepping on you, but I found it fun and a bit ticklish.

We went to the Prince of Wales museum after the yoga. The Prince of Wales museum is located in an old building. There is different part inside the museum. I enjoyed the Natural History most. In that part, we get to see different kinds of animals in different period of time. It was said that most of the animals specimens are from real animals. In the exhibition, we get to see animals like Tiger, Lion, Leopards, Sharks, Turtles, Rabbit etc. Besides the Natural History, we get to see some prehistoric tools such as stone cutter, pottery etc. Unlike museum in Hong Kong, you can actually touch the exhibits. We took a close look on the tools used a few thousand years ago. Outside the museum, there is a bazaar where some Indian style products were sold.

After lunch, we had an Art workshop. In the workshop, we get to do Madhubani style painting. The style of the painting is that there is double lines for the outline of an object and the colour used in the painting is bright. I drew an elephant and a fish for my painting.

After school, my host buddy, Anshika, some other Indian friends and I went to shopping for some traditional Indian goods. We shopped for some bangles, scarfs, keychains, and pen for souvenirs. We all had a good time shopping. 

We all had a wonderful time today, and I really look forward to tomorrow's events~ :)

Good Night ~ <3

Michelle Ng

Oct 30

  It was a very long and interesting day today.
  In the morning, I enjoyed a Commercial Studies lesson with my school buddy, and we had to design a leaflet to promote certain products. It was really fun, although we had to leave early in the middle of the lesson to go to the Prince of Wales musuem.

  As said above, we went to the museum mid-morning. My host and school buddy took the school bus with I to go there, and it was ever so noisy in the bus! We had a fun time talking together with my friends.
  Once we arrived at the museum, we went to visit different exibits. There was an animal exibit where preserved animals were shown, including a white tiger.It was so cute! Ufortunately we didn't pay for taking photos in the museum, so I couldn't take any photos. :/
  After the visit, we went back to school for an art workshop. We had to draw in a style with bright colours and double lines, and everyone had a fun time doing that. It was a bit tiring at the end though where we all had to rush to colour our pictures in a very limited time!

  In the late afternoon, we went to the street stalls in the city for souvenir shopping. There was just so many shops there, all selling different items! We all had a fun time choosing our favourites and bargaining for a cheaper price. :)
  After a few hours of walking, carrying our heavy bags and lighter wallets, we all went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. There were many kinds of pasta. and we all had a great time trying them. During dinner, we also talked a lot and got ourselves really hyper, singing songs and whatnot! It was a very enjoyable experience.

  Although it was a very long day, I felt that I have learnt and got a lot from it. I hope the coming days will also be such fun!
Lydia Chiu 4X (8)

Oct 29

   My first day at JB Petit was kicked off by the ear-piercing school bell. We met our kind school buddies and made a lot of new friends. All of the JB girls were very nice and offered to show us around the school. We sat for English for the first lesson after our presentation about Hong Kong and DGS and the teacher seemed really curious about the Chinese language, so we taught them how to talk in Chinese and we wrote them our names in Chinese. They were fascinated by the simplicity of the language. We had a cookery workshop at noon and we made chilly onion potatoes accompanied by adorable little cheese tarts, yum!
   Later on in the evening, I went with my host to "bharat natyam" which is a classical dance from Tamil Nadu. (a little region in India) One of the students demonstrated the well-known belly dance originated from India for me, it was amazing and I was attracted by it and learnt the steps together with them.
    When we came back from dance class, we headed to "Colaba Causeway", which is as busy as the Causeway Bay in Hong Kong. I bought different Indian accessories from the numerous stalls on the bustling streets and had a better understanding of the different cultures of this fascinating city of Mumbai.
    For dinner, I ate a traditional Indian dish called Dal, which is a pulse that is very nutritious for the well-being of your body. The day ended perfectly with my host family singing traditional Indian songs just for me!
-Dana Tsoi

Oct 29

It was the first day that we attended school in J.B. Petit High School for Girls. Waking up at 6am, we arrived school at around 7:30 as school starts at 7:45. At first, it seemed quite weird as we do not know any of the other students, but as we chatted and get along with each other during the day, all went great.

First of all, 14 of us made a presentation to J.B. students of Stds 7, 8 and 9 on DGS and Hong Kong. We introduced the history, education system, cultures, festivals, food of Hong Kong as well as a brief history of our school. Also, we have taught the students some simple Cantonese phrases such as 早晨 (Hello), 再見 (Goodbye) and 多謝 (Thank you), and they learned the phrases really quick! At last, we performed the song 茉莉花 (Jasmine Flower) with Yan performing a Chinese dance.

After that, we followed our school buddies to classes. Some of us were following buddies from Std 9 while the others followed Std 8. I had math class with my school buddy Srishti, and the lesson topic was about circles, which was quite interesting although I’ve learnt it in S1 already. The students in the class are very enthusiastic in answering questions. As the class had an English test afterwards, I went to the computer room for the Internet.

Lunch was only 30 minutes. As my host Yamini prepared lunch for me, I did not try the hot lunch served at school. Some friends in my class taught me some Hindi like “Alvida” (Goodbye), and we had a great time.

After lunch, we had a cookery workshop where we made traditional Indian food – Kalakand (a traditional Indian sweet) and fritters (friend potatoes and onions). It is very simple to make and tasted nice.

School ended at 2:15pm. It was a nice start at school in Mumbai. I am looking forward to lessons and activities coming up in the week!

- Cynthia Ho

   29/10/2012

Oct 29

Today is the first day going to J.B. Petit. At first it felt a little awkward when stepping
into the school, everything is new and unfamiliar. However, after seeing friendly
faces of J.B. Petit students, the awkwardness completely vanished.

After school starts, we began to our presentation about our school and Hong Kong
and also a performance on chinese dances and traditional songs. We also taught the
students how to say simple Cantonese phrases such as 'Hello' and 'Goodbye'. They
then listened to us attentively and responded actively during the session. Some of
the students even greeted me 'hello' and 'good morning' in Cantonese!

During the PE lesson, we learnt an Indian sports game which requires dodging and
running and cooperation skills. It was called "Kho-Kho". It was tiring but fun at the
same time.

We did cooking after lunch. The cooking methods are simple, and we enjoyed it very
much. I found the ingredients of the Indian traditional food, as well as their taste and
smell very different. The seasonings are special too. There are even some spices in
the ketchup.

It was a nice and interesting experience with friendly and cheerful welcomes from
the students. I am looking forward to the next few days of school in J.B Petit.

- By Sharon Ho

Oct 29

This is our first day for school in India. I took the school bus in the morning for school, which was a really special experience because all the students could meet together and enjoy their time chatting during their journey to school. 

During assembly, we had done a presentation about Hong Kong's culture and our school. We had taught the Cantonese dialects to the girls, and they learnt really quickly! I was so glad about that. Afterwards, we had done a performance. Yan was dancing the middle while the rest of us were singing "The Jasmine Flower" in three parts. 

When we moved around the school, I could feel the cohesion and close relationships between the students- my buddy was introducing all her classmates to me as her "best friends". Also, I enjoyed studying in this building because this is a very beautifully built heritage monument with elegant pillars.

Among all the lessons I had today, my favorite lessons are commerce and cookery lessons. 

For commerce lessons in India, it was similar to that we do in BAFS course at schools in Hong Kong. Everyone in the class were very enthusiastic in sharing their ideas about the pros and cons of different types of advertisements. I especially liked the way that the teacher explained how the samsung galaxy note's advertisement was specially designed for their target audiences.

For cookery lesson, all of the DGS girls join together and cook some Indian traditional food. The savory food. The process was so fun and we all enjoyed our time. The food was tasty and my favorite food is bhajia, which is like onion ring.

What I enjoyed most in India until now is that there are lots of different kinds of food for me to try out, especially the vegetarian food. There are crispy dosas, yummy lassi etc.

I am looking forward to tomorrow's classes!! :)

These dosas are really tasty!! <3 <3

These are what we had made during cookery lessons, do they look tasty? :P

We look really cool, aren't we? xp

We are all liked the school life here very much :P

I am also studying like the others do!

      - By Hazel Chan :P