Merry Christmas!

Growing with the Cinnamon Tree

I just finished my piece for the school 45th anniversary writing competition!

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Have you ever seen an array of trees besides the school gate? When I go to school, I love to see the trees, especially the cinnamon tree. It was very small in the beginning, as told by my parents who witnessed the building of the school and the planting of the trees.

When I was in primary one, I was small too, not knowing much around me and going about everything self-centred. Once, I had a tasty lunch at school. Guess what? I was supposed to eat the lunch prepared by Mum, but my brother and I followed some classmates to the canteen and ate a free lunch. I remembered that we had two drumsticks and a cups of pudding. When I went home, I told Mum about the yummy lunch!

There was another laughable thing in primary one. One day in recess, I was joyless because I had two big cupcakes which would take me most of the recess to finish. Just then, my friend passed by and I gave him the bigger one. That was because there were almonds on the smaller one. He took the bigger one and I was happy again!

Promoted to grades three and four, I grew up a bit and was less self-centred. It was at that time when I became aware of the cinnamon tree. It was tall and upright, providing shades with other trees to cool us down once we entered into the campus.

I started to join different extra-curricular activities since my body and mind power became stronger. At grade three, I hiked in the ten kilometres long Little Trailwalker bushwalk held for our principal Mr Cheung who would be retiring soon then. At that time, I also joined the school string orchestra, the Olympic Maths class and the after-class athletics lesson.

But then, in teachers’ eyes, we were still small kids. Maybe for this reason, they gave us many rewards to encourage us. For example, my kind Chinese teacher Miss Wong gave us stickers if we performed well during lesson. She gave me a special sticker which was a pack of red and yellow shrimp chips.

There were two memorable events took place in primary four. The good one was that my brother and I joined the Yip Can Cook Class. We both liked cooking. In the first term, we could only join the easy paper cutting class which was rather boring. After that term, we joined our favourite inter-class activity, Yip Can Cook which we longed to join. Mr Yip taught us how to cook easy and yummy food in English. I recall that he once taught us how to cook curry fish balls and meatballs and spaghetti in the canteen.

However, the bad one was that I got my glasses for the first time. Those months, I could not see clearly when having lessons at school, especially the words projected on the screen by the projector. My glasses had a pair of shiny silver frames made of metal that almost shaped like rectangles. Its plastic sides were dark blue. I chose it by myself and my favourite colours are blue and silver. I felt quite dizzy when wearing the glasses on the first day. But I could see the cinnamon tree more clearly.

Primary five was a very exciting year. First, my brother and I were no longer in the same class because my brother, who is hard of hearing, could manage himself in primary five. Second, my school had renewed the facilities. At the assembly on the first day of school, Principal Ms Ho said, “Good morning! Have you students noticed there are air-cons in the covered playground!? There are also some plastic curtains and blue soft lining. most exciting is that the library has transformed into a ‘space station'! Have your first school day great!’

Probably because we had grown bigger, our class teacher Miss Wong treated us like bigger boys and girls too and she liked to joke with us. Sometimes she called some students in a funny way like Little Car and King of Leaving the Seat. Certainly, I had happy moments in primary five.

Now I am a primary six student. I am much bigger and taller. It is like the cinnamon tree which grows bigger day by day. I will leave the school soon but the cinnamon tree will still stay in the school to provide shades for students for many, many years.

12th Asia-Pacific Conference on Giftedness cum Children and Youth Summit in Dubai (Part 1)

(P6 is quite busy and I will publish the post in parts)

12 July 2012, Thursday

This summer holiday, I took part in the 12th Asia-Pacific Conference on Giftedness cum the Children and Youth Summit. My dad, Miss Wong, Miss Cheung, seven students and parents from my school took part in it too. The event was held in Dubai, UAE.

On the midnight of the twelve of July, the Hong Kong group including Dad and I boarded an Emirates luxury plane while Grandma saw us off. The air hostesses’ dress was special because there was a white scarf hanging on their hat similar to traditional Islamic dressing. During the comfortable flight, I watched the movie Alvin 3 which was best, the funny Adventure Time, Sherlock Holmes and played the Bejeweled 2 TV game. I also slept for three hours because our trip would start once we arrived there at four a.m. Dubai time. I enjoyed the flight but the in-flight meal was not very delicious.

When we landed at the Dubai International Airport, which have been voted the best airport in the Middle East, we walked through the counters to do the formalities. I noticed a novel sight that the Dubai custom officers wore in white from head to toe. It didn’t look like the usual uniform. Afterwards, we waited for the other Hong Kong group flying a later Cathay Pacific flight. It seemed that we had waited for them for half day long and I was bored to death. The huge airport was off-white with many dozens of wide pillars across the hall. Dad pushed me on a luggage trolley exploring the airport. We stopped by an unusual escalator which ran a long straight way before going up to a train station. I was interested and tried it. When I finished trying it, my classmate Jasen ran into us. He was bored too, so we played a game braking the luggage trolley. Since I sat on big soft luggage cases on the trolley, I called my trolley a luxury car. There were almost no shops around except for the souvenir and fast food shops.

At last, the other group arrived. We met a local guide and left the airport. The outside temperature was not very hot because it was only morning. But it was late afternoon to me since I had spent many hours awaken since the overnight flight. On the way to our first stop, Abu Dhabi which is UAE’s capital city, I was magnetized by the buildings because every building was exceedingly attractive. The buildings which caught my attention most were a twisted skyscraper and a leaning tower. The guide was busy introducing the city to us on the journey.

After a two hours’ drive we arrived at Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, UAE’s largest mosque. The bright sunlight almost blinded me and hot breeze blew to my face when I got off the bus. It was extraordinarily hot as if I were in an oven! The big mosque was pure white with big and small domes decorating its top. On top of the biggest dome, there was a pretty golden moon statue. I stepped in the gorgeous mosque and the inside was cool and shady.

I took off my hat, sunglasses and shoes. As for the ladies, they needed to wear khimars. The first thing I did was going bare-feet to the air-conditioned gents. I walked by a room for Muslims to wash their feet. The gents was not smelly and was the cleanest and most beautiful I had ever seen. There was a vast square in the middle of the mosque under the scorching sun. Then, we walked all the way to the praying hall. At first, I thought the floor must be burning but to my surprise, it was icy cold.

 

 

 

 

In the big splendid air-conditioned hall, I saw large fancy chandeliers hanging from the high celling. Surrounded by ninety nine Arabic phrases on a wall was a bigger phrase. They were the different names of Islam’s god, Allah. On the soft vast green carpet with fancy pattern paved on the colossal floor sat children listening to adults. They had to be Muslims. Then, Dad asked the guide about Islam and he told me that the mosque’s green colour was representing hope, pure white and gold for milk and honey in the heaven. Dad also said that the times shown on the flower-shaped clocks was the daily times for Muslims to pray when visitors were not allowed to enter the mosque. After some photos, we left the beautiful mosque.

It was extremely cool as I opened all the air-conditioner vents over my head on the coach. By lunchtime, we dined at Burger King with my classmates in the big Marina Mall. Jasen’s dad bought a pair of Adidas shoes because his shoes were melted a bit under the hot sun. It was quite funny because I had never heard such a thing. I only ate a few fries for the reason of my eye inflammation. After lunch, I watched Tom & Jerry at a screen instead of going to the sight-seeing tower behind the mall because there was not much time.

In the afternoon, we said goodbye to the entrance's fountain which spitted water high noisily and headed to the world’s biggest indoor theme park, Ferrari World on Yas Island. On the large Yas island, except the construction of Universal Studio, I first saw nothing but sand and grasses. Finally, I saw the triangular Ferrari World topped with a bright Ferrari red roof was glinting under the shining sun. The immense glass building was surrounded by some verdurous trees.

With excitement, we followed my classmate Adrian who has found information about the kid’s section of Ferrari world. However, we were too high and couldn't play almost all the games. Luckily, we tried Carousel which had Ferraris and motorcycles on the round platform. I thought I could drive there. Although the platform only turned around slowly, making me disappointed, Dad took photos of me pretending I was driving speedy. The motorcycles were more fun.

We also played Junior GP. Before the ride, we watched a brief cartoon about safety in a small room that looked like a pit stop. I sat in the car on the track beside the stands. The car was small and I bumped my head. When the game began, I was on the lead but crashed before going into the tunnel. I pushed my car impatiently. Junior GP was fun except the mishaps before the race: a girl crashed and staffers had to push her all the way back. Also, there was a spoiled boy didn’t want to go. I was angry and moved my body and steering wheel making the car run.

After Junior GP, we strolled around the kids’ section finding rides to play. Dad and I also explored the Family’s section. On our way, we saw the G force in the middle of the park that lifted people up and dropped them down slowly. I thought it was not as exciting as I wished. We played Ferrari remote-control toy cars and Dad took photos of me standing beside some cool old to modern Ferraris. Then, we tried a wind generator. The wind generator was situated in a room producing five levels of wind. There was a control panel on which one had to press the button to go from one level to the next while following the body gestures illustrated on the panel. The fifth level wind was quite strong but the pushing force was not.

There was less than an hour before the time for our visit was up. So the two of us hurried to find rides worth playing. It was mere luck that we bumped into the ride called Speed of Magic. There was a long queue and we had to wait for roughly 20 minutes. When it was our turn, dad thought that it was a roller-coaster. But it was actually a 4-dimensional adventure ride which was much more fun. I found the high speed adventure process fascinating. I had never tried such an exciting thing before.

Speed of Magic

However, the most exciting part was yet to come. On our way out from the Speed of Magic, we came across Miss Wong who cued us to try the main ride of the Thrill section, Fiorano GT Challenge. It was the replica of a Ferrari F430 Spider and used carriages of four individual seats to bring people around the rails. There were the general and advanced rails. Guess which one we tried? The general one.

I was a bit worried and hesitated at first. But there was no time to lose, and my classmate Jameson who was leading the way was shouting to us to give it a try. And I was glad that we did. Dad and I jumped into the seats of the last carriage which was a yellow Spider. There was also the red one. As the roller-coaster swished along the rail, I kept yelling, "Don't ever be like this!" It was great fun!

Before leaving, we viewed the famous world's fastest roller-coaster Formula Rossa. It was madly fast and the rail was really long. The starting section was especially fast, which shot the carriages off like a bullet.

Fiorano GT Challenge

Formula Rossa

The long day did not yet come to an end for we still made a brief visit to the Burj Khalifa afterwards, the world's tallest building. I watched the musical fountain for a bit of time and had dinner with Adrian's family at a restaurant serving Italian and Japanese cuisines in the world’s biggest mall, Dubai Mall. I liked the spaghetti marinated in an orange-colour sauce and the strawberry milkshake best. Dad had fish salami and a special Dubai cucumber drink. I can’t really remember the cucumber drink’s special taste but it was just sour and a bit sweet. I took several pieces of cucumber from different dishes and decorated dad's glass with them on the rim.

Finally, after the meal, we were whisked to the hotel through the road flanked by the brightly lit fabulous skyscrapers which were mostly duplicated in pairs. The city was beautiful but the only regret was that it was still unbearably sultry at night. We arrived at the hotel quite late that night but the sleep was well.

Amazing Activities Meeting One

Amazing Activities is one of the Day A activities. We had our first meeting last Tuesday. At the moment we entered the 5A classroom, I noticed that there was an image of a instruction booklet projected on the board.  As soon as I was curious what it was about, the teacher introduced that it was about how to plant a fish. "Plant a fish?" A big question mark sprang to my mind.

After the introduction, we divided ourselves into several groups. Then the teacher handed out to each group a small plastic cup of soil, a cup of water and a camcorder.  I fixed my eyes at the soil and felt excited. Immediately, we poured the soil into the water and started setting up the camcorder to take time-lapsed footage of the soil in water. However, our group's camcorder broke down. So we could only do the watching until the school ended. But nothing happened because the teacher said that the fish would hatch only in two hours. Our meeting was too short for it. Did the fish hatch the following day? Make a guess.

The clue is that we were delighted in the morning.

Briefing Before Dubai’s Trip

Four Talent Pool’s students and I took park in the 12th Asia-Pacific Conference on Giftedness cum Children and Youth Summit Dubai International Conventions and Exhibitions Centre.  So, we had a briefing in the Polytechnic University on the first of July at two to six o’clock.  When we started, the chairman of the Asia-Pacific Conference on Giftedness gave us a pep talk.  He was a stout man.  He hoped we could make friends with participants from other countries in the camp and push further our comfort zone.

The most special part was we had a lesson learning Survival Arabic prepared and instructed by Mr. Almardi who was an Arabian PolyU grad.  He was a tall man and his face looked like Obama.  Mr. Almardi said that Arabic is read from right to left, even the punctuation are in reverse.  He taught us Arabic words about greetings, daily communication, finding directions, money matters, eating and numbers.  However, it was very difficult to read and remember.

At the end of the briefing, everyone needed to introduce themselves and one Hong Kong feature in English in two minutes.  When it was my turn, I introduced myself and the Ocean Park very well.  So, I got B+ across the all items.  I left at about 6 o’clock.

Talent Pool’s service learning

On the twenty-sixth of June, we paid a visit to Caritas Lok Yin Day Activity Centre by school bus at ten with Miss Wong and Miss Kwok.  Before the visit, Miss Kwok had a rehearsal with us.

When we arrived there, we were given a simple welcome ceremony with a staffer giving a short introduction and the centre’s adult students beating drums.  The drum beating was great.  While we were entering into a spacious room, there was a big wave of greetings.  Miss Kwok said that it was because the adult students were excited.  Some of them waved their limbs up and down.

We divided into three groups of five pupils.  First, group one played games with those students.  They had to pass a ball when the music started.  They were so cheerful that they clapped to the rhythm.  When the music stopped, we asked for the name of the person holding the ball.  After that, we had a matching game.  We held cards which had patterns or numbers on them.  Then, the adult students needed to match the cards in pairs.  If they were right, we would give them presents like handkerchiefs and Oreo biscuits.  However, most of them did not know how to play the game even after explanation. So, we went over to those students and gave them a helping hand.

Next, group two played the song Pirates Of The Caribbean on the violins in duet. One of the violinists played the violin at too fast a beat.  But Miss Kwok thought that it was not a problem. We also acted out a play, Peter and the Bear, which was interesting.  It was short though.  When we finished, we found that there was a bit of time left.  So, our teachers suggested us to sing the famous song, Below the Lion Rock together.  Although some of us forgot the lyrics, the adult students were all delighted.

When we came back school, we had a reflection.  Miss Kwok appreciated our good work.  In this service learning, we had enhanced our leadership skills.  While we did the preparation for the voluntary work, we knew that collaborative was important.  We can join hands in problem solving and dealing with stress.

PICASSO

Today, Dad and I went to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Sha Tin at five thirty by KCR.  We were going to see an exhibition about Picasso.  The masterpieces were from Musée National Picasso in Paris.

I admire Picasso for his works are amazingly creative and his styles are varied.  Among all the works in the exhibition, I like The Woman with a Stylet and Paul Drawing best.  The former one is intriguing in a special way while the latter looks neat from the way Picasso used the colour. I enjoyed the exhibition lots.

 

Visit to an Astronomical Centre

On 11th April 2012, the talent pool’s classmates travelled by coach to the Ho Koon Nature Education Cum Astronomical Centre situated on a mountain in Tsuen Wan for a visit.  With the building in white and pink, the centre looked like a school.

After we entered into the building, a gentleman took us to a huge room on the lower ground floor.  We sat on cylindrical chairs around hexagonal tables.  Hexagon is my favorite shape.  When we were settled, the teacher started to introduce the Sun and planets of the Solar System.  He also showed us some amazing videos about spaceships.  I was amazed to learn that there is ice under the earth of Mars.

Next, the gentleman took us to the roof floor.  There were tools that helped us watch the Sun safely, including three telescopes with solar film attached, a sundial and a solar projector.  He also lent each of us a piece of solar film.  We saw sunspots and solar flares through the telescopes.  After that, we went into a room on the roof level where a giant telescope was put.  Beside it were two screens which showed the stars right outside the Earth.  A student was chosen to click the Sirius on the screen and   after three clicks on the ‘Enter’ key, the telescope moved.

Then, we went inside a big semicircular air tent in a room.  Inside it was dark and the projector projected a 360-degree version of constellation animation on the tent’s ceiling.  At last, we went back to the huge room where we started.  The teacher gave each of us a box of astronomical telescope with a mini tabletop tripod as a gift.  The telescope allows a 90-degree viewing angle!  That is cool!  Finally, we said goodbye to the gentleman and left.  What a wonderful day!

Digital Art Drawing Competition for Primary Schools 2012

I won myself the bronze prize in the Digital Art Drawing Competition for Primary Schools 2012 which I took part for my school yesterday. Our teacher brought me and the other two students to the Science Park where the competition took place. We waited for a long time for the competition to start, and had one hour only to finish the drawing. I was pleased to have won a prize. The winning prize is a computer bag.

 

Fukurou

Last Friday night, Dad, Mum and I dined out in a Japanese restaurant, Fukurou.  It is on the fifth floor of Canton Plaza in Tsim Sha Tsui.  It serves Japanese cuisine like sushi and sashimi.

We were given some appetizer before ordering two dinner sets, which were two pieces of eggplants, two bowls of vegetable salad and two bowls of miso soup.  We ordered two of each appetizer because the appetizers came in two or four pieces for each order. We also ordered a plate of grilled squid with sweet soy sauce, deep fried soft crab, scrambled egg with pork chop set and stir-fried beef in Japanese style.

The food were all very tasty.  I like the vegetable salad best and I will go to Fukurou again.

A Trip to Hong Kong Museum Of Coastal Defence

Today, my teachers took our Talent Pool class on a trip to the Hong Kong Museum Of Coastal Defence.  It is located on a high ground at Shau Kei Wan.  The place covers a vast area.  But this time we only visited the auditorium which is beside the car park.  The most interesting thing is that the auditorium building was originally for military use.  It looks rather old on the outside but modern inside.

Through the glass doors, we went in the building where we were given a brief talk about Hong Kong under Japan’s occupation.  Using a Powerpoint presentation, the speaker talked about Hong Kong between Japan’s invasion and today’s remembrance day of Hong Kong’s victory.  Ten minutes later, we were divided into several groups and remained in the auditorium.

First, we were asked to make medals.  The speaker gave us some golden and silver-coloured papers, saying that we could cut out any shapes we liked from them.  The pattern with four pointed ends were one of the common shapes.  Then, we drew pictures on the front and wrote letters at the back.  Finally, we finished it by backing the medal with a piece of cardboard fixed with a ribbon.  The ribbon had red, white and blue stripes on it like the national flag of France.  The medals looks like those used in a competition.  I like it and still keep it at home.

Next, we played a war game in groups of two on a higher ground.  Actually, the area was a trench.  The trench could slow down or deter the enemies invading the military base. This is because the trench is flanked by two high rock walls and the enemies had to climb up and down across it to the base itself.  On one end of the trench, there is also a fort which has holes on its thick wall.  The gunners used the holes to shoot the enemies’ feet.  We rolled sheets of newspapers into paper balls on which we sprinkled some cornstarch powders. Then, we took our position and hurled the balls at the other group.  When the balls flew through the air, there were powder smokes trailing them.  The balls hit the players and left powder marks on them. Luckily, for keeping us clean and counting powder dots in the end, we wore black plastic sheets.  At last, all groups tied. We had a memorable trip.

Visiting Great Grandma

Last Saturday, we paid a visit to Great Grandma at the home for the aged.  The place was quite quiet but a bit old.  It looked rather forlorn. Great Grandma was at great age.  Her health condition seemed okay.  We were all very glad to see her, and she was also delighted by her visitors including my family, my two uncle’s families and my aunt’s family. I wish her well.

Lion and dragon dances

The banging and drumming went louder and louder.  All of a sudden, they stopped and the dances finished.

The spectacular lion and dragon dances took place along the waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui this afternoon.  My family made a trip to watch it.  I like the lions more than the dragon because the lions are more nimble.  They were active and agile in jumping, acting curious and interacting with the crowd.  The most special scene was when the lions ate lettuce on the bamboo sticks.  Firecrackers going off was also cool.