Grade 6 Camp

On Tuesday, the 23rd of November, Grade 6 CDNIS went on camp to Zhao Qing China. We went on camp to investigate marketplaces and how they organized and operated, but most of all we went camping to have FUN!!!

Day 1:

Today is the first day of camp, it wasn’t so exciting as we spent most of the day on bus rides. When we got to our hotel, we split into groups A,B,C. I am in group C along with some of my friends.

Our first activity as a group was to make our own chinese painting. It was very fun and we had our own instructor guiding us. In the end I liked my painting because it was neatly done and was very detailed. Luckily we get to bring them back to Hong Kong.

After chinese painting, we had a traditional Chinese dinner of PIZZA! Unfortunately we didn’t have any vegetarians on our table, therefore we all went for the meat pizzas and nothing was left.

When we finished eating we had around 1 hour to observe and interview marketplaces and their shopkeepers for information. Unfortunately we didn’t get much information because most of the staff weren’t owners, so they didn’t manage the process or any planning.

Element 22 and I were room buddies for the first night, so we slept in the same room. We got up a lot during the night because we were not used to the rock-hard beds.

Day 2:

Rise and Shine! Today was much busier than yesterday!

After breakfast we were filled with energy, lucky for me because we had our Amazing Race first thing in the morning. In the Amazing Race we split into groups of 4 or 5, our task was to take pictures of certain places in Zhao Qing Park. We didn’t know where the places were and the park was huge. All the groups needed to be back at a certain time and for bonus points we could complete challenges on the way. In the end all the groups got the pictures but the group in first place completed all 6 challenges. My group finished 4th out of 9, we completed all the pictures and did 3 challenges. After we finished, we had our lunch in the park and played the game Wink Murderer a few times.

After lunch my group took the bus to the Inkpot factory. There we carved and decorated our own inkstone. My one had a landscape, Zhao Qing in words and my name on the back. I really enjoyed it and luckily I carved deep enough so it couldn’t be washed away.

When the Inkpots finished we took a bus back to Dynasty hotel to collect our suitcases. After that we took buses and boats to arrive at our new hotel/lodge in the Nine Dragons Lake. We then had dinner and after that we had our dragonfly challenge.

Today I slept well because the beds were more comfortable and we were all very tired after a exciting day.

Day 3:

Today is our 3rd day in Zhao Qing, we started off with some chinese breakfast in the hotel’s local restaurant.

After we refilled our energy, my group attended the Camp Craft activity. It was supposed to teach us how to make a fire and how to keep it going. In the end my fire kept going and we all cooked some Bananas and Melted Chocolate! it was VERY TASTY!

After the Camp Craft we walked to the other side of Nine Dragons Lake to learn how to make a Catapult. Every group had a certain amount of materials they could use, my groups catapult failed and broke so we needed to use another groups catapult to fire our water balloons at our teachers.

We were all high spirited when we ate lunch because we got to fire water balloons at the teachers. The lunch was the normal chinese, I ate a variety of meat and vegetable with noodles and rice.

After my big lunch, we went on a hike to the top of a mountain, it wasn’t very difficult so everyone coped well. At the top we met with another group and played team building games. The team building games were probably my favorite of the day because my group of 3 (Wilhelm, Luke and I) always came first.

On the way down the canyon, we did some rope courses it was very fun and luckily no one fell into the water. The activity was led by Instructor Kevin and Brendon!

When we finished the rope courses we had a few minutes before our Camp Picture. We wasted no time and played a big game of SPLAT before the picture. The picture was important because everyone from instructors to students were in it.

Tonight’s dinner was also special because we had a Barbecue, unluckily for me I got burnt by a barbecuing stick. After dinner we took a easy 15 minute stroll to a outdoor theatre where we did our campfire. In the campfire we all sang songs and made up stories and acts.

I went to sleep as quickly as I could because I knew we needed to get up early tomorrow in order to be back at CDNIS at 2:30.

Day 4:

Wakey Wakey! Rise and Shine! We all needed to get up at 6am sharp. After we had our breakfast we went on the boat and boarded our bus straight away. During the BORING 6 hour bus ride we entertained ourselves by playing cards and chatting. Our dream finally became true when we arrived at school at 1:50pm. For the next 40 minutes our teacher allowed us to go downstairs and play.

Overall I loved this camp, we got to do unique things that would of never became true if we came to Zhao Qing ourselves. In this camp we achieved the two things I typed in the beginning, to investigate how marketplaces are organized and operated and most of all have FUN!!!