riss - international school - year-7-ideals-challenge-week-to-cat-ba-island-1

Volume 1, Issue 1

Year 7 IDEALS Trip

to Cat Ba Island

Renaissance Internat ional School Saigon

Welcome letter 2

Day 1 2 – 3

Day 2 4 – 5

Day 3 6 – 7

Day 4 8—9

Day 5 10

Goodbye 10

Inside this issue:

Dear All,

The Year 7‟s went

on a school trip to

Cat Ba Island, which

is in Ha Long Bay.

Ha Long Bay means

“Descending Dragon

Bay”, it is a place of

great natural beau-

ty and is an

UNESCO World

Heritage Site.

On the trip the

Year 7‟s had many

opportunities to try

new activities and

go on exciting ad-

ventures. Nearly

everybody tried the

rock climbing and

the kayaking proved

to be a popular,

though wet, choice

also. We sampled

different foods and

had the opportunity

to talk to people

from different

countries.

Students were also

able to fulfill the

IDEALS program

and achieve many

personal goals.

We hope you enjoy

reading about our

adventures in Cat

Ba! And we would

also like to take this

opportunity to

thank the many peo-

ple who worked to-

wards making our

trip the great suc-

cess that it was, in

particular Buffalo

Tours, Slo Pony, Mr.

Charlie and Ms. Lien.

Ms Imogen, Mr.

Ramez and Mrs Ly.

Letter from Ms. Imogen, Mr. Ramez and

Mrs. Ly

May 2011

Photographers and Art-

ists:

Ji Yoon

Sara

Eun Ah

Yeo Eun

Ji Yeong

Seon Ah

Dan Thanh,

Dan Thy,

Min Ah

Van Khanh,

Cindy,

Ji Woo,

Sana

Peera,

Yeo Bin.

kids forgot to bring their enter-

tainments. After 2 hours, the air-

plane landed. Next we took a bus

to a port. We got on the ferry

and it took about twenty minutes.

We arrived in Cat Ba Island. The

rest of the trip is really just bus

rides to one destination to anoth-

er. We took a bus to the Hospital

Cave, we were divided into 2

groups rock climbing group do

rock climbing and the other group.

Thursday we took a boat again!

Anyways on Friday it is the trip

Home! And everybody seems ei-

ther cool with it or has mixture

of sad feelings. When we arrived

back to HCMC, everyone is sent

back home safe and sound!

The scene begins at 4:30 AM,

where everybody met up in the

school‟s activity room. When eve-

ryone was there, we got on the

buses to be transported to the

airport. As we entered the air-

port, we were given the duty of

keeping our passports safe. Our

airplane was good pretty It was a

good flight except some other

At 4 o‟clock in

the morning, we

went to school

and Ms Imogen

gave us a card

to write our

names and we

put in on our

luggage. The

teacher did a

roll call and then we got in the

bus to go to the airport. Be-

fore we got in the plane, we

checked-in first, it takes an

hour to

do! After

we went

to Hai

Phong air-

port, the

bus takes

us to the

port. It

was terri-

ble, people were burning rub-

bish, polluting the air and

throw rubbish everywhere! We

waited about half an hour for

the boat to arrive and then

went by bus to Sunflower1 ho-

tel. At the first we stayed in

our rooms to have a wash and

then we had lunch at the Slo

Pony restaurant which was piz-

za. The we went to the Lien

Minh Village, and did some ac-

tivities there like picking up

litter. At about 10 o‟clock, Ms

Imogen and Mr Ramez checked

our rooms for the last time to

make sure we were asleep.

al water but mostly we chose

Coke.

Lunch: At lunch, we had fried rice

and pizza for lunch at the Slow

Pony‟s office. We has a Pepsi but

we had to pay

10.000VND if wanted

Breakfast: On the first day we

had breakfast on the airplane, we

ate bread with ham and some

meat and vegetable. We can

choose between 4 drinks which

include 7up, Coke, Milk and miner-

something else. Everybody said

that that was a good lunch be-

cause it was easy to eat and deli-

cious.

Dinner: For dinner we were at the

Lien Minh village, we had a deli-

cious dinner in the canteen, a Vi-

Travelling by Kai Yi (7RR) and Ho Seok (7IV)

Day 1—Monday: The Beginning by Duong (7IV)

Food Review by Tran Anh (7IV) and Hyun Sik (7RR)

PAGE 2 YEAR 7 IDEALS TRIP VOLUME 1, I SSUE 1

At the Lien Minh Village, we

did some activities like pick-

ing up trash around the

place that we will do the

rock climbing, digging some

bonfire pits so we can make

a bonfire in the evening af-

ter we have dinner. We had

a rest, ate some fruit and

we helped the people pull

out some wild grass sur-

rounding their wheat. We

also made some boards that

could be put around the Vil-

lage like “Put the trash in

the bin” or “Do not shout”

or something. We went

back in the evening to have

dinner, we had a bonfire and

ate some sausages. We sat

around the biggest bonfire

and sang, talked and laughed.

After half an hour, Ms.

Imogen told us a scary story

and we played the “Love”

game. After that, we

walked to our bus and went

back to the hotel, we had a

good sleep and were ready

for the next day.

Activities around Lien Minh Village by Hung (7IV)


Painting signs, picking up lit-

ter, weeding crops and

building a fire pit

the history of Hospital Cave.

When we went into the thea-

ter, we saw the stairs that had

a warning sign that said:” FOR-

BIDDEN”. We sat down near

the stairs and wrote a report

about the Hospital Cave and

we did a sketch about it.

The Hospital Cave had a very

long history. This is important,

as it served both as a secret,

bomb-proof hospital during

the American War and as a

safe house. It was built be-

tween 1963 and 1965, and was

in constant use until 1975.

When we arrived at the Hospi-

tal Cave, we climbed up the

high stairs. Inside Hospital

Cave it was cold, it had a lot of

different rooms, like the

kitchen, the pool, the theater,

and the doctors room. We vis-

ited these rooms and learnt

On Tuesday, we climbed a

very high courageous tall

mountain. It was very inter-

esting because a lot of peo-

ple climbed a very high

mountain so it was very awe-

some. Then we had a deli-

cious lunch at 11 am. After

that, we visited the Hospi-

tal Caves, it was very dark

in there and the room was

empty because it happened

a long time ago but the

guide told us what happened

in the room a long time ago.

Secondly, we went back to

the village to wait for din-

ner.

While

we

wait-

ing, we

did

some-

things

fun like: telling jokes, play

games such as cards and

many more. Lastly, we ate

dinner and the food was

very delicious. Then we went

back

to the

hotel,

Sun-

flower

1 to

rest for the next day‟s ac-

tivities.

Lunch: For lunch we ate some

sandwiches which we ordered the

day before. We had a choice of

tuna sandwich or chicken sand-

wich. For drinks we can buy any

thing we want but with our own

money (10.000VND/ drink).

Breakfast: We ate breakfast at

the hotel Sun Flower 1; we had a

buffet which is quite delicious.

For the free drinks we can have

mineral water or tea. For the cost

drinks we can have anything we

like but cost 15.000VND.

Dinner: We had lunch just the

same like the 1st day at the Lien

Minh village, Vietnamese kind of

food but different food not like

the day before, the drinks was

also the same; Pepsi or

Mirinda.

Visit to the Hospital Caves By Harry (7IV) Sae Wook (7RR)

Day 2 Tuesday By Jeremy (7RR)



We have done the most in-

teresting activity in the trip.

It is Rock Climbing. In rock

climbing we experienced

new feelings like being

scared or fun. Rock climbing

is a very good sport and

good for health. In that ac-

tivity, some students were

scared and some were ex-

cited.

Rock climbing is very dan-

gerous so we had to learn

how to be safe. We needed

to about safety harness and

safety helmet plus shoes

and the Haines gloves. Be-

fore we did rock climbing,

we also needed to use chalk-

on hands it soaked up sweat.

There were three types of

rock climbing. For the first

type, we could hold on to

the holes in the cliff to

climb to the top. The second

cliff was harder; we didn‟t

have the hole to climb up

the cliff. For the third one,

we got to climb up to very

high cliff but it was easiest

one. We were divided into

two groups to do the rock

climbing.

While we were doing the

Rock Climbing, we were very

nervous so the guides always

said “Don‟t look down! If you

look down you will get nerv-

ous!” and told us how to

climb up and how to move to

the next steps. Some stu-

dents were scared of

heights so they couldn‟t

climb.

Rock Climbing by Minh (7IV) and Yeun Soo (7RR)


Ho Seok and Peera Rock

Climbing

Mr. Ramez and Ms. Sarah

talking to everyone before

rock climbing.

YEAR 7 IDEALS TRIP VOLUME 1, I SSUE 1


Pictures by Van

Khanh and Seon

Ah on page 6

and on page 7,

Dan Thy and Ji

Yoon

On Wednesday we went to the

restaurant called „Slo Pony‟.

Most of us ate pan

cakes there and we

drank cocoa. It was re-

ally hot! We rested a little

while in the hotel and than we

went to the port where we

rode on the boat. The most

exciting fact was; the boat

had a 2nd floor! We had a great

view on that boat we saw a

place called Monkey Island al-

so. When we went to the 2nd

floor of the boat, it was

freezing cold. We had to wear

our thickest clothes! We went

up to the 2nd floor be-

cause the view was really

beautiful. Everything was

absolutely beautiful and amaz-

ing. Suddenly, it started to

rain so we had to go down-

stairs. When the rain has

stopped, we wore a life jacket

so we could go kayaking! The

most exciting activity in our

school trip! Every one got

their clothes wet but we all

had fun. We sang and rowed.

We often had to change direc-

tion of the boat but we man-

aged to get away from finding

direction. We also had to get

away from the basket of oys-

ter that Vietnamese people

caught. We were wet and cold,

so we put on some dry clothes.

Then we went back to the ho-

tel. We cleaned our bodies

warm and than went back to

sleep to take a long rest of our

tiring day.

on the boat when we were going

to go kayaking. We ate some nor-

mal Vietnamese

food. We could pay

for our drinks

which include Pepsi,

7up and Mirinda.

Breakfast: In the morning, we had

breakfast at the hotel, we had a

buffet. We can buy our own

drinks or we can just drink miner-

al water or tea

Lunch: We ate lunch

Dinner: When we arrived at the

island, we ate a buffet which is

really delicious! There was meat

and fries; there was also rice and

soups. There were no free water

so we all had to pay

for our drinks.

Day 3 Wednesday By Su Min (7IV)



First we went on the boat to get

to the floating house which had

the kayaks tied to it. Then we got

into groups of two then we put

life jackets on. Then we started

kayaking but it was very hard to

control the kayak. If you don‟t

know how to control the kayak the

kayak just goes around and

around! After that you will know

how to control it. The sea is warm

and very clean. So we can see fish

and coral reef, seaweeds. Because

we went too fast then a lot of

kayaking crash together. To con-

trol the kayaking you need to

have team work and strong hands.

Then we went to the mountain the

when we say something like “Ah”

the sound will be bigger and big-

ger. When we went back to the

boat we were so tired and wet

that we can‟t go swim-

ming any more. And

when we come back it

have a problem that

some kayaking was up-

side down and we must

go and help them. No

one got hurt but they got all wet

and especial Mr. Ramez. Some

student don‟t have clothes to

change then they must wearing

wet or short clothes. And that

day every body is so cold that

they don‟t want to go camping any

more! When we come back to the

hotel every body just want

to take a hot water shower

and then sleep. It was a hard

day and everybody had used

all their power. We worked

hard!

Kayaking by Phuc (7IV) and Won Sang (7RR)



Before Rock Climbing

During Rock Climbing

Kayaking

In The Caves

Cannon Fort

Talent Show

Before Rock Climbing

Playing Games

In The Caves Cannon Fort


The hallways of the hospital caves

Playing cards at Ha Long Bay

Us on the Junk Boat

Outside the exit of the hospital cave

Minh getting ready to rock climb Us at the Hai Phong airport Su Min On the Junk Boat

Vietnam Land. At the top we

looked down to the sea there is a

small island which looked like a

fish. There was a small room that

has all the stuff from the Ameri-

can War like: Hats, uniforms, guns

and shoes. There was a big model

of the Island. The reason why

they put the weapon on the hill

because it was easy to shoot the

airplane and they dug a big hole so

the enemy can‟t see them, Next

to the weapon there is a big box

that they kept bullets. We then

relaxed in the café where could

buy snacks and drinks. Then we

went back to the hotel to prac-

tice for the tal-

ent show.

On the fourth day we woke up

early, we ate breakfast at 7:30

am and relax until to 9:00am. At

9:00 am we walked to the hill fort.

At 9:30 we were at the top of the

hill! We visited a lot things. The

fort name is Canon. We saw the

weapons used in the American

War. There is a big gun to shoot

the airplane of the America or

French army because they want

On Thursday, we woke

up at 7:30 and had break-

fast at 8:00. Then we

started to walk to the Can-

non Fort. In the Cannon

Fort, there were many sol-

dier mannequins. There

were also guns, soldier‟s

shirts, caps and a clay

model of Cat Ba Island.

After we visited the

Cannon Fort, we went back to the

hotel, (actually we walked back) to

get some rest. Then we went to

Lien Minh village (by bus) and had

l u n c h

there. In

the lunch,

Ms. Imo-

gen told

us about

the tal-

ent show

and she

said that

e v e r y -

body had

to join in!

We went back to the hotel

again. We had 45mins to prepare

our talent show and get some rest.

Then after that, we performed our

show in a house which was also a

small restaurant. We also had din-

ner in the same house that we had

performed the talent show.

After the dinner, Ms. Imogen

took us to go to karaoke. We had

lots of fun. The Vietnamese sang a

lot!

Finally, we went back to the

hotel to prepare to go back to

HCMC the next day.

normal Vietnamese food at the

Lien Minh village.

We ate a lot be-

cause it was really

cold even in lunch,

so the food made us warm.

Breakfast: We ate pancakes

and eggs with bread. We can

choose soft drink but most

people drank

hot ca- cao.

Lunch : We ate

Dinner : We also had dinner at

the Lien Minh village but still

Viet- namese

food and soft

drinks.

Hill Fort By Khoa (7RR)

Day 4 Thursday by Song Anh (7RR)



On Thursday, at about 15:00,

we started to divide into small

groups to prepare for the well

known talent show. 2 hours lat-

er, we set off for a restaurant

which is then prepared for the

talent show. The numbers of

chairs are just enough for us.

This show had put lots of

pressure on everyone so no

groups volunteered. So we put

it the easy way, when captains

come to pick a number to see

the order. It didn‟t work out

that good when teams are so

scared that they hid there

numbers or threw it away. Un-

fortunately, Duy and Kai

Yi, the most imaginative

students, are chosen

first. They struggled to

the centre, whispering

their plan to each other.

Their performance was out-

standing so they eventually

went third. Then Korean sing-

ing followed, even though sev-

eral students didn‟t under-

stand, the melody was quite

good. Magic tricks, acting and

many other talents are per-

formed. We had great

pressure but fun perform-

ing in-front of our class-

mates. Groups even got

prizes later on. There was

this ABC song singing from

Korean boys which somehow

came first. Our talents were

simple but amusing, and every-

one was tired after this well-

known event!

Karaoke by Kiet (7IV) and Duy (7RR)

Talent Competition By Kiet (7IV) and Duy (7RR)

While setting up the karaoke

thing Mr. Gary showed his tal-

ent: beat-boxing. Everyone

clapped after the most-

fantastic beat-boxing ever

heard, and truly is. But unfor-

tunately, everyone forced Phuc,

the best beat-boxer of the

students (maybe), to challenge

Mr. Gary. Mr. Gary won easily,

since Phuc was too scared and

most of what he did was spit-

ting sounds. Once the karaoke

thing was set up, everyone

took turn to sing, but Mr. Gary

sang first since one of the mi-

crophones was held by him.

Some students even dared to

sing a solo, but not too long

after all the others join in.

Popular songs like „We will rock you‟ and ‟25 minutes‟ … were

chosen. Vietnamese and Korean

songs then joined the list. We

had great fun enjoying singing

and listening to songs. But stu-

dents soon went back to the

hotel, after the great-full-of-

After all the struggle through

the tiring talent show, at

about 20:00 on

Thursday, we and our

teachers, together

with Mr. Gary (one of

the guides), set off for karao-

ke at some other hotel. As we

reached our destination, eve-

ryone settled in seats which

are lacking somehow because

of the overload number of stu-

dents. So we shared seats,

which wasn‟t that comfortable.


Left: Min Ah & Yeo Bin

walking to the Hill Fort up

the Hill

First day (night): We played „If you love me honey give me a smile‟. This is so funny and shy girl said to girl and boy

said „If you love me honey give me a smile‟ to boy, but some boys said to teacher. Later this game is boring and we

change a rule we must do boys to girls, girl to boys. This game is exciting and this game is finished we talked about

ghost story, Ms Imogen told us ghost story and it is so scary but some scary story is real.

Second day: We played number game if teacher said number 4 we cannot move (jump) and we must jump once a time

and if we are wrong we need to start again but teacher said another number we need jump and first who goal that

person is win.

We think this game is easy but this game is little bit hard. If main number is four, a man said fourteen. It was very

tricky. We had to careful

Third day: we took a boat and we play separated in two groups. We played some games and talked and we arrived we

play kayaking, some people were wet and they said very cold. Some boys were sick so girls borrowed girl‟s jackets

and towel.

Fourth day: we went karaoke to sing. Most of boys sang the songs and we had really fun time. After karaoke, we

went back to hotel. We went to friend‟s room and played some games. After we played games, we go to our room

and slept.

to the airport to go back Ho

Chi Minh City and we

waited few minutes for

the plane come. It took

2 hours to fly from

Hanoi to Ho

Chi Minh City.

We landed at Tan

Son Nhat Airport.

We felt so good

when we‟re back

in Ho Chi Minh

City everybody

fell so well because in Cat

Ba Island it was so cold and

On Friday, we ate sandwich-

es for breakfast.

And for lunch, we

went to Hai Phong

and we went into Lot-

teria. We can only

eat hamburger and rice with

beef, for drink we must buy

it by our self if you wanted

a soda. If some people

wanted even more food be-

cause they‟re still hungry,

they used their own money

to buy more food that they

wanted. After that, we went

in Ho Chi Minh city we felt

so warm. We went back to

school by school bus, we

said good-bye to each other

and went home.

Day 5 — The End by Duong (7RR)

Games by Chris (7IV) and Yu Jin (7RR)

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