5 DEC 2012: Year End Gathering of the Parent Support Group of Unity Secondary
Parents and children of the Unity Secondary School gathered at The Chevron to celebrate a year of growth, fun and friendship, and to welcome yet another glorious year ahead.
Thanks to Winnie for so thoughtfully handmade the gifts for everyone.
Alvin met his primary school classmate, Richard Tan, who is also a PSG member in Unity Secondary.
6 DEC 2012: A Fresh Coat of Paint for the Service Balcony
It was time to give a fresh coat of paint to our service balcony and Robyn picked a beautiful shade of blue. Daddy and daughter took 2 weekends to accomplish this painting task. Robyn proved to be a handygirl!
15 DEC 2012: Shopping at Takashimaya
In preparation for our skiing trip in China, we went shopping for winter gloves, woolen socks, knee reinforcement braces at Takashimaya. In the end, we bought what we were looking for back at J-Cube.
Robyn is almost as tall as Grandma and Grandpa!
18-27 DEC 2012: Skiing and Christmas in China
We flew from Singapore and landed in Beijing at midnight on 18 Dec. Took a coach to the city railway station, caught the 3am train and about 2 hours of sleep, and arrived at ZhangJiaKuo (张家口) before daybreak at 6.30am.
It was freezing cold at sub zero temperature!
A friend's parents, Mr & Mrs Wu, who live in ZhangJiaKuo, took us to a hearty 豆浆油条 breakfast. By noon, after another 1.5 hour of taxi ride to Chongli, we arrived at the Genting Ski Resort and checked in to the luxurious 5-star Genting Grand Hotel, amidst snowy white slopes all around.
What a long distant travel on multi-mode transport - MRT-plane-coach-train-taxi - all within 24 hours!
We hand carried Avita aromatherapy and Celergen to Mrs Wu from her son. She presented us with a piece of her beautiful handmade stitch artwork - 八骏图
This hotel is newly opened so everything is brand new and our room was very well furnished. The ski lift is situated just a few steps from the hotel so it's truly a ski-in-ski-out hotel.
We really enjoyed our skiing here. The slopes are plentiful with a variety of green, blue and black runs. The chairlifts are fitted with wind cover and even heated seats! And it wasn't crowded so we felt we had the entire place to ourselves!
We hired a ski instructor, Song Jian. Robyn learnt fast!
We had the entire slope to ourselves! Shiok!
Taking a tea break at a cafe known as 金花阁 (named after the mother of Genting boss) at the summit.
Alvin at the summit in beautiful weather, with some wild horses at the background.
While the sun was shining brightly on this first day of our skiing, the temperature was bitingly cold at -15 deg C. The winds were especially freezing cold. We shielded up fully with multiple layers of clothing.
Despite the cold, we had a mighty good time!
Robyn the terrorists?!?
Alvin on skis while Jin tried snowboarding.
Robyn getting ready to ski down a blue slope. She was commended by the ski instructor, Song Jian, to have very good 雪感.
Jin snowboarding down a blue slope! It was Jin's first attempt at snowboarding so it felt more like snowbumming...
Alvin against a beautiful backdrop of surreal mountain ranges.
By the end of our 3rd day of skiing, Song Jian pronounced us fit to try black run. We ended our day with a fine performance down our first black run.
It felt so exciting and great, more so when Song Jian commended that we did far better than his expectation.
After 3 days of skiing at Genting Ski Resort, we decided to try out Wanlong 万龙 Ski Resort and we moved to Flower Ski School, a privately run school by highly experienced team of instructors.
We are grateful to Song Jian for levelling up our skills and for guiding us for a day at the Wanlong Ski Resort. We are now confident to take on most of the 'easy' black runs.
22 Dec 2012 was a special day to remember:
- It's the deathday of Alvin's mother in 1973.
- It's the birthday of Alvin brother (Melvin) in 1969.
- It's supposed to be the End of the World day in 2012.
- It's the day of black runs all over Wanlong for us.
- It's the day we got froze bitten from -30 deg C!
-30 deg C was no joke. I couldn't even unglove to shoot photo. The photo on L is one of few I managed to snap with gloved fingers up at the Wanlong summit.
Every chairlift ride up to the summit was a freezing torture because the chairlifts were unshielded with no heated seats, and very slow.
Once we got off the chairlift, we would head to take shelter at the 万花木屋 at the summit to defroze over a hot tea.
My plaster across my face to protect from froze bite struck up a conversation with 叶冰柳 who a new friend.
叶冰柳 showed us how to ski through forest in deep powder snow. We are thankful to her for the fun!
Wanlong 万龙 Ski Resort has a different appeal from Genting 云顶 Ski Resort. While older and less advanced, it has somewhat a more interesting variety of ski slopes. Anyway, we recommend skiing in both resorts!
Thanks to 郝世花 for letting us stay for 3 nights in the Flower Ski School which she founded 2 years ago. It was homely, friendly and we especially enjoyed the communion dinner. Chef Aunty Zhang especially adores Robyn.
We hope to be back skiing soon.
24 Dec: Christmas Eve from Chongli to ZhangJiaKou to Beijing
We made it back to ZhangJiaKuo and enjoyed a sumptuous lunch with Mr and Mrs Wu. At 4pm, we caught the train bound for Beijing.
By the time we arrived at our hotel, it was 10pm. The hotel was already packing up its Christmas eve dinner but we managed to squeeze in to grab its 'leftover'! Haha!
25 Dec: Merry Christmas to all on the Great Wall of China at Badaling (八达岭)
We thought we might catch sight of Santa Claus on his return reindeer flight...
Wherever there's a wall, we'll attempt to climb up...
A love that outlasts the Great Wall.
One step at a time... it was a rather long and icy walk up...
Descending with care...
Beautiful scenery...
26 Dec: Boxing Day at the Forbidden City, Beijing
Amazingly huge, complex and exquisite. W learnt so much from our guide who graduated recently in tourism.
A dish recommended as a must-try to us by our Chinese friends in Singapore and one that we finally got to taste it on our last night in Beijing -
炉肉火烧 (roasted donkey meat).
30 DEC 2012: Family Gathering at Janet's Home
We all met at Janet's home to share our respective snowy holiday stories - Janet's family went to Japan, Melvin's family went to China and ours to China.
Robyn showed off the Lenovo smartphone that we bought in Beijing.