Sweet Sing

On Wednesday I woke up at ghastly o'clock and was on a bus with 40 ten year olds by 5 am. There's only one thing in my world that could induce me to willfully engage this insanity. Singapore.

The purpose of our field trip was a visit to the Australian International School of Singapore for their PYP exhibition. It opened with 37 students 17 years ago and has grown exponentially to a population of over 2,000 students. They have a swimming pool. They have a bouncing tent and face painting at lunch. I thought it was paradise and was worried my students would be envious but it turns out they prefer their leaky school with buckling floors. "I'm glad I don't go to school here. So far to they have to walk to the canteen!"

Personally I'd walk half a day to get a their cafeteria where, besides pizza and spaghetti, they serve a green garden salad (that's right people. Lettuce!) with a lip smacking vinaigrette dressing, fruit bowls and yogurt. Heaven!

From there we were off to the sixteen story Singapore public library which I was in awe of.

It wasn't exactly the kids' idea of fun but I managed to get them curious about the sculptures (Look kids, art you can touch! I don't think it's wood, any other guesses?) and an exhibit on Arab immigration to Asia (Find the display that teaches you how to build a mud house. Who can find the giant incense burner?).

But the highlight for all of us was the Science center. Iron pellets that danced to music (look Kleenex Kid electromagnetic fields!) optical illusions (Hey! It's Ibu's head on a platter) agriculture (Ms! come watch the chickens hatching!) genetics (Hey guys, remember when we talked about Frankenfoods?) and fire tornadoes.

I really didn't want to leave, and almost didn't have to when one of my student's lost his boarding pass for the ferry. But, after retracing his steps and digging through the garbage, he found it again and the whole fiasco worked out well for me because by the time we made it to the terminal all the kids were already boarded and I was able to quickly duck into the duty free to buy some wine.

On the ferry, the kids ate too much junk food (apparently, though not surprisingly, Singapore McDonald's has much better food than Batam McDonald's), we played with the toys we bought at the overpriced Science center souvenir shop and played "I'm going on a trip and I'm bringing ..."

Only a few more weeks and I'm going on a trip and I'm bringing my plane ticket, my backpack and a digital camera in case I see komodo dragons!