Not the most bloodied battle compared to other sacredly divine schools, but with 102 applicants fighting for 70 places in phase 2C for Bukit Panjang Primary School, and every single one of those 102 live within 1km, I was slightly regretting not registering Zeeyau with CHIJ, Our Lady Queen of Peace to secure a placement. Oh well, but that would mean I have to go through the same ordeal again 3 years later when it is Didi’s turn for P1 registration. I was hoping the extra ballot slip Singaporeans get will give us a higher chance.

Ok, the grandfather wasn’t keen to visit the school to check the balloting outcome. Having fulfilled his mission of handing in the registration forms 2 weeks ago, he just wanted to go sip kopi with his kakis and didn’t show any intention of checking the result. Anyway, after several failed attempts calling the school late on Friday and on Saturday morning, I finally got someone to pick up the phone on Monday.

Well, we were successful! MOE claimed that a letter will be sent to the parents informing them of the application outcome. We have not receive anything yet. I wonder where they have sent the letter to! I hope the school didn’t make any mistake and told me the wrong result since the phase 2C supplementary has just closed.

With a secure placement back home for Zeeyau, our retreat plan has been put in place should we decide to go back home.

Primary 1 enrollment here in Shanghai is as crazy as Singapore if not more. Parents here buy property near key primary school （重点小学）, find connections, pull strings, seek backdoor, donate money or whatever within their means to secure a placement.

From what i have known, public schools here aren’t allow to conduct Primary 1 pre-enrollment interviews, unless approved by the state. However, private schools （民办小学）, international schools or international division （国际部) of public/private schools are free to do so.

While the interview is like one of the standard procedure when applying for international schools and international divisions, it is a really competitive and serious affair for students seeking a place in the mainstream education （中文班，local stream, local school）. Parents start preparing their kids by sending them to Maths, English, Pinyin classes to make sure they are able to handle the interview (and written test as well!).

Zeeyau’s class teacher also started preparing them from early this year. They have a short practice sessions in the morning where the teacher will ask questions like : Where are you from? What is your favourite food? Name 10 colours. Name 20 fruits. Name 20 countries. I had a shocked when I first learned about that. Can applying for primary 1 be so stressful and demanding!? Are the schools really going to reject the students if they can’t name fruits or tell you who their favourite author is!?

Took me some time to calm my nerves. I am sure the questioned posed will be simple enough for the kids to handle. However, I have heard from some parents that some extremely competitive school asked questions like “北极熊为什么不吃企鹅？”(why doesn’t the polar bear eat penguin) and also expect the 6years old to know additional/subtraction within 30. Well, that sounds demanding, but nothing surprising when you know that some schools recieved 800 applications for their limited 60 places.

As for Zeeyau’s case, she was asked questions like:
你叫什么名字？
你是哪里的人？
你在学校学习了什么？最喜欢学习什么？
11－3＝？
3＋4＝？
你愿意不愿意到芳草地念书？

Luckily this kiasu mom has been practicing basic additional and subtraction with her at home, else she would be stumped by those two maths questions. Anyway, I felt as long as the student is decent enough, can hold simple conversation and doesn’t require special attention/care, they will accept whoever applied. Well, all her classmates who applied to international schools or international divisions have been accepted by their choice school.

Didn’t know about the total solar eclipse we will be experiencing here in Shanghai until Zeeyau told me about it yesterday.

Anyway, this is our first such experience and so forth the excitement. The moment had arrived, we were experiencing night during daytime, but where was the sun and where was the diamond ring!? The Sun was supposed to be right at the middle of the picture, but I only saw the sky of Mordor. Right location but wrong weather, the sky was overcast and it was raining outside.

I wonder if the kids in the Kindergarten were disappointed not being able to witness it to the fullest scale. Well, at least didi had fun running in and out of the balcony trying to catch the phenomena.

We have been back in Singapore for a week and can safely declared ourselves to be free from the swine flu bug.

The kids have a blast of their time. Constantly eating all sort of junkie the grandfather bought to indulge them and then spend the rest of their time watching TV or playing with the neighbours until 11pm everyday.

And I finally had my four wisdom teeth rid off this morning. It is a big relieve to get these four stupid teeth off my mind, butI guess our plan for the father’s day feast tomorrow has to be shelved until I can eat properly.

Hopefully the pain and swell will go away very quickly, so I could enjoy myself a bit for the next two weeks before heading back to Shanghai.

Two important reminders.

1. always bring the child to consult a doctor to get a more through checkup during emergency even if everything seems alright.

2. avoid letting young kids handle glass.

It was really quite a freak accident. 弟弟 and I were enjoying a bottle of juice and he accidentally dropped the glass bottle. The bottle broke upon hitting the hard concert pathway. Then he rubbed his right eye with his hand and begun crying in pain. I thought he was terrified by the shattering sound of the glass. As I dried his tears with a piece of tissue paper, I saw a faint stain of blood on the white tissue.

Damn shit happened. My immediate reaction was to send him to the hospital right away and then warned him not to rub his eyes any more . He stopped crying after a minute or so and I started wondering if his tears had successfully flushed out any glass fragments that had gotten into his eye. Should I just go home since he wasn’t in pain anymore?

Better be safe then sorry and always trust our ultra kiasu motherly instinct. We went to the nearby Ruidong Hospital and was directed to see an eye specialist straight away. The initial checkup didn’t show any sign of foreign objects in his eye. However, closer examination with proper equipment found a stray piece of glass .

She had it remove quickly and his corneas wasn’t injured in any way, just a little cut on the minor eye area. Thank goodness the little lad was sensible enough to heed my warning not to rub his eyes. The amazing thing was, the kid was in total compliance during the whole process. No crying, no fighting. He followed the doctor’s instruction to look to left, right, up down and could even keep himself steady while the doctor was removing the glass fragment. Imagine someone holding a cotton bud and tried to swab it on your eye. I think he was quite brave.

Anyway, that was our little emergency last Thursday.

Our night continued at the famous 老舍茶馆. It was supposed to be a cultural thing and I didn’t had that planned as I thought the children wouldn’t take it well. However, our friend assured us that it would be alright even if the children fussed and make noise since the atmosphere of the place is suppose to be lively.

We were treated to all the major aspect of Chinese culture which includes tea brewing, music, dance, song, martial art, opera, face change and even a magic show. The performances were all interesting and easily appreciated by everyone, even the children were absorb by the various items, else they kept themselves busy with the snacks.

It was definitly an enjoyable night and a great place to visit in Beijing.

Great Wall climbing day today and I have picked 慕田峪 to visit. Took us almost 3 hours to reach the destination by car as traffic was quite heavy.

Zeeyau completed the amazing feat of climbing up the steps to reach the great wall and continued effortlessly for the rest of the trek followed by more climbing up some more steps. 弟弟 climbed and walked and cried for half the journey and demanded to be carried every now and then I would have given up if there was a choice to turn back, carrying 弟弟 while walking up the steps was killing.

弟弟 climbing up the steep steps on the great wall.Getting down the wall was much easier as we bought the cable car tickets. Though it required more effort to reach the great wall by foot, walking down the long flight of steps with children will be too dangerous.

It is May day holiday today in Beijing. I guess it will be crowded everywhere, so the plan was to make a trip out of the city. Well, not a perfect plan as the Beijing city dwellers were having the same plan and some parts of the road was packed with cars driving out of the city.

We left the hotel early at 7.30am, so the traffic weren’t too bad except for a few bottle necks. James did the driving though I was against that idea initially, and it turned out to be a smooth and event less drive after all (thank God).

Anyway, we were heading for 龙庆峡, which took us about 3hours to reach. It was bloody warm and sunny yesterday, so we were all dressed lightly today. However, it was raining in the morning and there was chilly wind blowing. We were confronted with a 14degC temperature and cold wind when we reach our destination and James was without a jacket. Zeeyau was crying and wanted us to return home immediately. We almost headed back home, but decided to have an early lunch and wait for the weather to clear.

We had a meal of 农家饭 (err…country style meal), and their 柴鸡蛋 (range free chicken eggs) were really yummy. However, such simple, non fancy meals cost us around 200rmb. That was really expensive since we could easily have a meal in a nice restaurant for that price . Well, thanks for the meal, the rain stopped, the sun showered its warmth and we managed to make our way into the gorge.

Boat ride in the gorge, kids friendly and leg muscles friendly.

金刚寺, small temple, nothing special.

百花洞, or rather, 假花洞, ultra amusing cave full of fake plastic flowers. The kids found it interesting, we thought it was amusing looking at the plastic flowers, spotting buildings that were falling apart. The toy pandas even had the same expressions and pose.

 We lost our camera on valentine’s day, and finally bought a new camera today! Digital camera in China is so much more expensive. I made a call to check with my brother and he said he paid like 600sgd for his Cannon powershot G9, and that was like 2 years ago. The same model was tag at around 4500rmb and the upgraded G10 was listed at about 4800rmb.

After spending lots of time trying to bargain for a better deal, we still pay a dear sum of 4300rmb for the G10. Ah, so expensive, but we really need a camera.

No more kiddie friendly visits today. Forbidden city and such were off my itinerary as they were too touristy and crowded. Plans were made to visit 雍和宫，国子监，孔庙 in the morning.

Well, 雍和宫 was the former residence of emperor 雍正 and birthplace of 乾隆 and was later converted into a Lama monastery. Bringing children to monastery or temple weren’t a relaxing experience. First, they architecture didn’t interest them, secondly, they simply couldn’t follow the instruction not too step on the 门槛 (doorsill)。Anyway, the children disrespectful behaviour of stepping on the doorsill did not annoyed the monks or the Buddhas, instead, a friendly monk who was on duty to change the 供品 (offerings) gave the 3 children present an apple each. Oh, that attracted lots of attentions from the people around. The guide then told me it is considered great blessing to receive the offerings.

Next stop were 国子监 and 孔庙 which were just a street away. They were so much deserted compared to the other tourist attractions around. I hope the children could absorb some of the positive elements present at these educational institution but they clearly didn’t. They were more interested in playing with the wooden plaques (for blessings) hung around the institution. Zeeyau was tired and complained of leg pain and 弟弟 kept wanting to touch the relics on exhibit. I had to flee the various rooms before getting chased out of the premise.

James finally joined us in the afternoon for the visit to 恭王府(Gong Wang Fu). The huge and beautiful mansion was definitely overcrowded with tourists. The show at the 戏楼 (theater) was too short, too commercialise and lousy, what a waste of time. There was a long snaking queue to touch something, should be something to do with fortune or blessings. We weren’t keen in doing that and left our tour group before the queue start and wander around on our own. Well, no guided tour, but at least we didn’t have to endure the guide rattling uninteresting information into our ears.

We ended our tour with a trishaw ride visiting the 胡同 (Hutong, small lanes) 四合院 around 什刹海 (Shichahai). Many of these traditional Beijing houses were undergoing renovation or restoration. It would be interesting to live in such houses, though the floor area seems rather small.