Post Trip Feelings

The trip had been an enriching experience for me. Throughout the 5 days of this trip, we learnt alot and played alot. Friendships were forged between both Singapore Polytechnic's students as well as University Ciputra's students.

The objective of this trip was to explore start-ups from a foreign percepective, interacting with foreign students who already own their own business. Local students to find out more about start-ups in Surabaya, Indonesia. During the day, we worked together as a team while at night we would chat and play with one another like friends whom we had not met after a long time. Although it's only been 3 days knowing them, I learnt alot about their culture and education system.They were very welcoming , have warm hospitality, bringing us using their cars to places of interest in Surabaya for example the biggest shopping mall and biggest carnival. There were some nights they would come to our villa to play games with us. The memories spent with them for 3 days were very memorable.  

On the day of our departure, everyone was overwhelmed with sadness. Most of the Indonesian students brought us to the airport and sent us off.

Some hugged each other goodbye and exchanged phone numbers so that we would contact them when we visit each other again. Although some did not show their sadness, everyone knew in our hearts that we would miss each and everyone dearly and the memories spent together would never be forgotten.

Back in Singapore the next few days, it felt unusual as they were no longer with us, missing their voices and laughter and missing their presence. I felt nostalgic. All the 5 days worth of memories came rushing back to me, all the things we had done such as practicing for the role play which many funny acts happened, as well as playing at the carnival, playing games together. Also the fun car rides we have when we would blast music and enjoy the bumpy rides, travelling at high speeds. I really enjoyed myself and missed everyone of them since I have returned from the trip. 

Through out the 3 days, I was also happy I learnt more about business planning, ideation process, coming out with problems and various solutions to solve it. It taught me to think from both a business man and a customer's percepective.  

I feel that it was a very meaningful trip and wouldn't mind going for a similar trip again

Day 2

Day 2 of the trip ~

It the day 2 of our trip to Surabaya and we woke up early in the morning for breakfast

It was our first breakfast at the villa and the food there was good. It a buffet style breakfast and the food choice there was similar to Singapore Nasi Lemak.

 

After breakfast, we went to University Ciputra to start off our program. Here we are at the registration. After the registration, we were all settled down in tables based on our grouping. While seated, I was very anxious to meet the Indonesian students, it was the first time for me going oversea to work with people with other countries.



This is our classroom for the next 3 days and the lady in the picture is the head of ciputra giving us a welcome speech.



After a while, the Indonesian student came in, things was quiet when they came in and slowly, they sit down in their group with our grouping. We will very quiet at first as we did not know each other and we just kept quiet and look around at each other.

After all the Indonesian student has settled in, we played an ice breaking game where we had to introduce other member  of our team to the whole group. After the ice breaking game, we got to know each other better, that's where we started have small conversion.

The Indonesian student speaks limited English and they convers mainly in Indonesian Bahasa. Although they speak limited English, they can understand English perfectly well, its just that when they tries to speak English, they have a hard time forming sentence. Some of them even understand Chinese.

This is my group working on the first thing together, creating the group name and logo. We called ourselves INFINTIY, and our logo consist of a infinity sign, with both countries flags in it and then drawing other feature and the end result looks like a Naruto face.

 



 After the first group work, we went for lunch which is a simple Indonesian meal consists of lamb  meat and some fried seafood.

 

After lunch, the Indonesian student take us on a tour around campus and there we learnt about some of the work they done and how their classroom looks like. The guy seating on the chair is Alfin and the hair he is sitting on is the chair he himself design , one of our group mate he is a funny guy and he always tries to keep the chat going in the group. One funny thing about him is that whenever he talks to us, he will be stuck at a word in English and he will use never mind to cover it up. They also bought us to their library where they have tons of books and also places for student to relax and study.
                    

 

After the tour, we went back to the classroom and each group had a presentation on their logo and name. The first picture shows my group logo and design and the next 2 picture shows the other group design.

                             

                            

  

 

After the name and logo, we went and talked about problem we faced in our everyday life. In the team, we each had to discuss about a few problem that we feel is important and then share it with the other team member. From there we will then vote for the best problem and then we will think of solution to try to solve the problem. Team member from each group will then have to go up on stage and share the problem we have chosen to the whole class. 

 



  

After discussing about problem, we break for dinner. The dinner consist of potato and chicken with their special sauces. After dinner we each talk about what we have learn for the day and how we felt about the people. And the program for the first day had ended .

 

However that's not the end of the day. The Indonesian students wanted to bring us out to play for the night and to bring us for food around the city. The first stop they take us to was a Raman place the place has nice setting and the Raman was good.

 



 Next, they take us to a place where they sell ice cream at the first floor and a bar on the second floor . The ice cream there was awesome even better then gelato in Singapore. We were chatting around in the bar getting to know each other better and we played a game of truth and dare which was very fun.



The last place we went to for the night was a place that allows us to play pool. we booked a few table and someone of us who didn't know how to play pool was learning while some of us played against each other. It was a fun night with lots of laughter.

 

 

There few people who didn't want to play pool was sitting around playing card game which are similar to a game called Dai Dee(Big 2) which we play in Singapore. I joined in with them and we had lots of fun.



 



 After that, we went back to our Villa tired from the day event but happy as we had made new friends in Indonesia 

 

Day 1

Many of us didn't have a full 8 hours of sleep, and so we survived the rest of our day with just a few hours of sleep.

3:59am - embarking on the 5D4N Indonesia trip. We were sort of kiasu to meet at 5am to check-in to get our boarding pass. But I'm glad that we were early, at least we don't have to rush. We had breakfast at McDonald's before clearing the immigration checkpoints.

Once we clear the checkpoint, we got to go to our boarding gate. So the D and E gates were at the same directions.

We felt relieved when we know that our boarding gate is at D40. However, we came to realise that E gates are all the way at the front, while the D gates are all the way at the back.

We were a little disappointed, knowing that we got to walk further. It's early in the morning and yea, imagine how high our laziness level can be. But well, we still have to walk there.

Yes, we boarded the plane after waiting for about 20 mins or so. Some of us were chatting amongst ourselves, while some of us couldn't part with our phones. Yes, even for that few hours.

It started to drizzle right before we depart, weathers like that are more or less worrying. There was a short delay, we were supposed to take off at 7:55am but the plane took off at 8:30am instead.

Yay a window seat for me, but it's not my seat originally! I like to look out of the window during the flight, since we don't often get to be a window apart from the clouds. BUT I have to close the windows shutter due to the glaring sun.

WE HAVE REACHED INDONESIA!!! Here's a few photos of the Juanda Airport Terminal 2!

We reached our house/apartments. At about 12pm (SGT). Our apartment for these 5 days, is REALLY nice. Serious!! Even though it's not very spacious, but it's cozy and more than enough for all of us. Yes, sweet and nice. AND ALSO BETTER THAN EXPECTED. 

We set off again, to Tunjungan Plaza, the largest mall in Surabaya. The ride from our villa to the mall is about an hour. We are all starving!!! These are some of the buildings that we have passed by on the way there!

This is the entrance of the drop-off point of the mall.

And yes, really huge. 

We decided to have lunch at the foodcourt. Their foodcourt is like a brand new thing, we never knew that the foodcourt would like this! 

Fried rice with chicken cutlet, which costs around SGD $3.00

After lunch, the guys and girls separated! As for the girls, we went shopping and one of us bought a pair of shoes! We saw A&W and wanted to try the signature Root Beer Float. Why isn't there an A&W restaurant in Singapore? :( 

We then meet the guys to shop at the supermarket, for our toiletries, snacks, drinks and etc. WE SPENT SO MUCH TIME THERE!!!


We went back to our villa to put down all the things that we bought, and went out for dinner again.

ATM station

TADA!!!! Here we are, at G-Walk – the place where we can taste their local specialties outdoors! Most of us were not able to order the food that we want because we do not know what's on the menu! Some of the food we have ordered:

Nasi Ayam - MUI FAN

Soto Ayam Spesial

It's not noodles, but rice.

Happy Soda Gembira
Really interesting drink with bandung + milk + soda all in one, you can taste the different levels of substance one by one. THE SUGAR RUSH IS VERY STRONG.

Es Cao. It's actually grass jelly drink, with raspberry syrup. Bingyuan who ordered this, says it tastes kinda weird.

Satay (around 10 sticks) SGD $1.40

New discovery: Kinhou was quite calm and composed when something dropped on him. It looks like a bird shit, but the local Ciputra students do not think so.

IT’S THE FIRST NIGHT, WE GOTTA BOND. SO YES, WE PLAYED ALL KINDS OF GAMES. Games like truth or dare, and and I forgot the names of the other games. The first night was really enjoyable!! That's all for day 1, we had to sleep early and prepare ourselves for the next day, day 2 - where the challenge starts.