This is about our trip in Nanjing and in Hangzhou.

Nanjing is a beautiful place. As I think most parents would be very interested about our homestay experience, I (Joy) shall write about it first. On my part, I think the homestay was fantastic! The families treated us like their own relatives and they were really nice to us. :) Some of us were homesick as we really missed our parents. On the second day of our homestay, our buddies' families took us to some scenic spots like the zoo and the theme park. In fact, we had so much fun that we were all quite reluctant to leave them on the third day.

We took about a three-hour ride to Hangzhou yesterday. We then later went to watch a performance. This performance was based on the old stories of Hangzhou. We really enjoyed it and we were astounded by their dance moves. The coordination between the movement of the props and the dancers was so swift that the audience did not notice!

Today was a busy day.  We visited many places like the tomb of General Yue Fei, the Flying Peak, the Lingyin Temple, the Flowers Harbour, the West Lake(Xi Hu), the Riverside Street, the Six Harmony Pagoda and the Qiantang Bridge. 

I really enjoyed the cruise watching at the West Lake. During the cruise, we actually stopped at the deepest part of the lake and went up to the front and back decks to have some pictures taken. We learnt that even though the West Lake looked very deep, the deepest of the lake was actually 2.88m long! The shallower part of the lake was only 1m - 1.2m long. The scenery was breathtaking, and upon arrival, we witnessed several wedding couples taking wedding pictures by the jetty.

In part of the West Lake area, there were many peacocks. Jia Sen mentioned that the peacocks there wanted to show off to their mates. They would shake the lower part of their bodies to open their beautiful feathers. 
He observed that however hard the males try
to impress the females, the females did not seem to be interested.

En Yi felt that Temple of General Yue Fei was interesting. The clothes of Yue Fei and his son were put in the tomb. Wei Qin thinks that both General Yue Fei and his son, Yue Yun, were courageous and loyal. At Lingyin Temple, Tanya thought that the caves were especially cooling inside. In one of the caves, Anthony and some others went to touch the "Fortune Buddha" as it was rumored to bring wealth to those who touch the Buddha's hand. When we were doing fish watching at the Flowers Harbour, some of us bought fish food to feed the fish.

Mr John Lim noticed that budgetting was a problem for some of us. Even though there are still five more days to go, some of our friends only had 80RMB left!  

So far, we think that this trip is very meaningful and indeed, a good experience for us Singaporeans as we get the opportunities to learn more about China's rich culture and history.

Lots of Love,
Joy, Wei Qin, Tanya, En Yi, Anthony and Jia Sen (Group 4)