Day 6 & 7.

We went to St. Joseph boarding school. It has a large sand field  that looked like a stadium. It has a farm and a huge auditorium. They have their own tea plantation, rooms, study rooms and hospital. The school is around four times larger than ours. They get to see their parents every second sunday of the month and on the first sunday, they can go out and do whatever they want. The amount of students in the school is more than 1200 people.
After that, we headed to the botanical garden. The usage of camera requires payment. There was a green house and a lot of variety of beautiful flowers. Some are as old as 25 years. Plucking of flowers are not allowed and offenders will pay a small fine of 100 rupees. We walked up the hill to a tribal village. The tribe was called Todas. It was drizzling and we have to spend half and hour in the shelter until we can continue our journey. We learnt about their tribe and their lifestyle. Shaha was nominated to be the chief of the tribe. We then headed down and went to a shop. We bought chocolates from there. Then we headed back to the hotel.
The next day, we visited the Orphanage. We were all very excited to meet the children there. They all suffer from HIV, infected and affected. We first reached and were briefed and did prayer. At first things were really awkward, but when we split into small groups and interacted with them, things got better and we got to know more about them. We talked and took photos with them. The event was ended with a ceremony and we gave them our gifts. The departing part was really sad but we soon got over it. Next stop, tea factory. We got to see how the Tea was made, the process and everything. The machines were really cool and we got to try a little of the tea at the end. Then we headed to the chocolate factory beside the tea factory. We all got our chocolates and headed for lunch. After lunch, we headed to a hill. We managed to climb to the top and we could barely see what was at the bottom because of the fog. It was freezing cold up there and a group of guys took off their clothes. Act cool only. We then went down and went for shopping. There was not much to shop and we headed for our journey back to Chennai.

- Delphine, YingWen, LingXian, Lionel, Neyashan, QingQuan, Sashi, Jude.

Day 4.

Today , we went to Lady Andal School to participate in the cultural performance , sports exchange session and home visit . First , we performed 'We Are The World' to the people of the Lady Andal School . Then , we participated in the sports exchange with the students . We played basketball , soccer and volleyball . Our school's team , which consisted of QQ , Yingwen , Delphine , Zhiyin , scored 25-22 and 25-7 . Then , our school's soccer guys team , which consisted of Shaha . Siongchin , Thiaga , Migulaan , Jude , Neyas , Harvind , Marcus and Sashi , which scored 1-2 . And the girls' team , which consisted of Zhiyin , Mahirah , Shahirah , Delphine , Marsya , Yingwen and Crystal , which scored 1-2 . The rest of us played basketball for fun . Weisheng and Lionel went to Soham's house for the home visit and he came from a wealthy family and he was really hospitable and brought us to ride the auto-rickshaw that could only be found in India , and also brought us to shop called 'Landmark' to buy some souvenir . Afiqah met her buddy, Ekesha. She came from a very wealthy family too, her father was a CEO and her mother is Fashion Designer where her company imports UK and USA designs. They have a chauffeur who brought us sight-seeing, shopping malls and also her house. Ekesha's parents were very very very VERY nice. She herself is funny that makes it easy to communicate with. I really enjoyed being with her. Shaha met his buddy , Vishnu who is studying at Lady Andal.At first , He meet up with his buddies who all of them were the soccer player . Then , we went to KFC and had our lunch . My buddy treated me to a KFC meal .The meal was superb and delicious . Then we went to a Lan shop but it was full . So , we headed to Go-Kart . My Buddy treated me 10 laps of the GO-KART ride .Then , we went  to Express Avenue Mall , from there we went to the Arcade Called "Fun City ". We had an awesome time at there . From there we went to a restaurant called "Copper Chimini ". We had the best Dinner ever at there . Zhiyin met her buddy and her buddy met up with Atthirah's buddy. We spent the day together by going to City Center and have a walk there. We headed to Marina Beach to have a walk together. Then we headed to Blur, a very big theatre with 2 bowling lanes and arcade. At first, we want to play bowling, but we need to wait until 8, we were running out of time so we went to the arcade instead. We had a great time with our buddies and the arcade, we had lots of fun together. :D Then, we headed to a chinese restaurant to meet up with Zhiyin's buddy's parent. We had a wonderful dinner there and the food was really awesome. At around 9, we head back to the hotel and bid farewell to our buddies.

Posted by : Shaha, Weisheng, Afiqah, Kaishiong, Siongchin, Thiaga, Atthirah and Zhiyin.

20/06/11 Day 3

It is already the second day of our trip in Chennai, we visited Lady Andal school and joined in their classes to experience their daily school life. We visited various part of the school such as the swimming pool and the auditorium. We also attended their assembly which was very different because they had a group of students to lead the others to sing the national anthem and school song as well as the pledge.We found out that they are able to wear their own home clothes to school on their birthday. The place was rudimentary because the floors were covered in sand instead of concrete floors.

We were all broken up into different groups and we all attended different classes, about 6 in a class. The class was very hot and humid because the fan cannot be used, they use blackboards to teach the students and they don't even have a projector.

During the lesson, there were times that they are very noisy but when they have questions or doubts, they would still pay attention and ask the teacher to clear their doubts and they jot down notes every lesson like us.Some students are disrespectful and mischievious because even in front of the teacher, they played a fool among themselves such as throwing chalk at each other.

We feel very fortunate that we are able to study in Singapore because we have a better studying environment with advanced facilities and fans in the classrooms and air-conditioned rooms.

We went shopping today for three hours. We wanted to buy snacks for tonight. However, we were too engrossed in the arcade's fun fair rides which were so much more cooler than Singapore's Timezone. During the trip back to the hotel, we saw a person got banged down by a big lorry. The person fell off the bike and cried but no one stopped to lend a helping hand.

When we arrived the hotel, we got stucked in the lift with 11 people when only 5 people are allowed in a lift. It was miserable because we had difficulty in breathing and after 15 minutes, we are finally rescued by the hotel's staff. Even though it was stuffy in the lift, we felt that it was a good experience.

Day 2

On 19th of June, we went to the Mahapalipuram to see the religious statues. The tour guide says it is like one of the seven wonders of the world. There’s an amazing balancing rock called the “butterball”. Since it was above a steep and slippery slope, the climb up was a struggle but sliding down was AWESOME! We enjoyed it very much and most of us climbed up again just to slide down. We did a little shopping at the street shop. The things that were sold were cheap, so spending our money was not a problem. We then went to another place to see another statue. The tour guide says that actually the statues were all under the sand and it was the king who built them. My group wondered about how the king manage to built it. We saw the statues of the goat, cow, lion, elephant and the wild boar. The tour guide interpreted the illustration of the statues and we find it interesting and meaningful.

Then we visited the temple and the church at Mylapore. The temple was very strict as we cannot wear shoe inside. All of us were not used to being barefooted outside and we had difficulty walking on the hot surface. The temple is very big and walking is tiring. I salute all of them. There were goats and cows. Some of us got the chance to feed it. The goats tongue has two colors. On top is black and at the bottom is pink, interesting goat. After that we go St Thomas church to see his tomb. It was surprising to find out that there is Christians in India. We learnt about the history of St Thomas and it was enjoyable.

The best yet a scary place was the second longest beach in the world. It is very long and it is impossible to walk from east to west. The beach is really different from Singapore as there a lot of roadside shops. There was a mini funfair and the cute thing was, the rides were manual. Also, there are horses that public can ride but sadly we can’t. The unexpected and shocking thing that happen, there were A LOT of kids aged 6-8 years old came begging us for money. But we were not allowed to give them anything, therefore we moved away. However, they followed us wherever we went. Most of us were shocked but we had to reject them. It was really heart-wrenching to see them begging at a young age. It taught us to be appreciative of what we have now compared to them.