Welcome back Year 8 students. Wasn't our IDEALS

trip amazing… it certainly lived up to its name—it

was AN AMAZING RACE. We had lots of fun times

and special moments during the week.

Inside this magazine you will find articles, written by

you—the students, recalling all the special moments

that we had during our week in Mai Chau. I am sure

that each one of you will have your own special

memory of it. Of the teachers there were so many

that we couldn't possibly pick a favourite one. Could

it have been:

Ms Lily watching Mr Tome and Mr Tony having to sample the

delicious foods that the students had made

Watching the students get more paint on themselves and the floor

than on the walls, shelves and school gate.

Watching the students strut their stuff down the cat walk during the

fashion show

Seeing everyone digging in the mud after the raining overnight

Snuggling under the blankets and drinking hot milo while each group

produced their drama productions

Whatever is your favourite, we all agreed that the students behaved

extremely well, excelled in everything that they did, tried new things—

whether it was an activity or foods, participated in the activities achiev-

ing the IDEALS skills and made this field trip one of the best ones ever.

The amazing team on the Amazing Race

Well done and welcome back

the Amazing Year 8 team

MAI CHAU 2011

14—18 March 2011 Volume 1, Issue 1

Inside this issue:

Off to Mai Chau Page 2

Treasure Hunt Page 3

The Bonfire Page 4

Painting Competition Page 5

Cooking Competition Page 6

Fashion Show Page 7

Some Fun Memories Page 8

Tree Planting Page 9

Brocading Page 10

Animal Hunting Page 11

Hair Competition Page 12

The Amazing Race Page 13

Drama Page 14

Our Farewell Party Page 15

Our Final Day Page 16

―The funniest thing I saw today was seeing Polly falling down

the stairs, Ms Lily shouting to be careful and about 2 minutes

later Angie fell down the stairs followed by me.‖

Katie

―The funniest thing I saw today was Mr Tome having his hands in-

side his clothes trying to keep warm as he didn't bring enough

warm clothes .‖

Ye Jin

Page 2 Mai Chau 2011

3 awesome teachers, 33 cool kids and a very funny tour guide

were all very excited for the adventure to Mai Chau. At 3

o‘clock in the morning, before the first ray of sunlight touched

the city, all 33 students woke up very excited, expecting a trip

that will ―wow‖ them. They came to school ready for whatever

was waiting for them in Mai Chau. The teachers were very

busy counting the number of students and also sorting out all

the other information which the students needed to know

before, during and after the trip. At the airport, we all waited to

be checked in and even though we were all tired of the short

sleep that we had that night we were all very excited about the

forthcoming trip. During the flight, our group filled up most

part of the plane. It was very noisy with 33 excited students on

board who wanted to chat to their friends rather than try and

sleep. I don't think that the other passengers realized that they

were going to board plane a very noisy plane so early in the

morning. When we got to Hanoi we then had to collect our bags

and board the bus which was to take us to Mai Chau. It was a very

long bus journey and soon most of us were catching up on our

sleep that we had missed during the night.

When we got to Mai Chau it was nice to see the countryside and

breathe in the fresh air, especially after the long journey. We

found where we were sleeping and unpacked our bags. We then

were called in to have some lunch to fill our empty tummies ready

for the week‘s adventure.

We‘re off to Mai Chau By Zachary Keffer and Tom Ho

Very excited about our adventure

Hanging about at the airport

for our flight

Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 3

Year 8‘s Field Trip to Mai Chau was amazing!

We first arrived at the home stay and found where we were

sleeping. After unpacking our bags and deciding who was

sleeping where we then went off to have some lunch. I think

that most of us were too tired to eat a lot of lunch. Afterwards

we got told that we were going to start our first adventure. The

TREASURE HUNT!!

Our challenge was to look for things like traditional clothes,

dolls, some snacks, watermelon, water bottles,…

We were split into groups. We were in Ms. Lily‘s Group. Our

groups were called the Super Six and Jasth. While we were

on our way to find the treasure items, we had a chance to

enjoy the view of the beautiful countryside and we got to

understand more about each other!

2 members of our group found 2 treasure items. It was tiring

returning back to our home stay but we had a lot of fun. We

learnt much about communication and teamwork.

Off to find some treasure!

―Do we have the map upside down? Can

anyone see the treasure?‖

―The funniest thing I heard

today was ―Pick up the father‖

and I was the father! ―

Jeong Seop

―The funniest thing I saw today was

Anthony falling into dirty water,

and then 2 minutes later Zach fall-

ing into the pond trying to find the

treasure.‖

Andy

Treasure Hunt By Hiro Cao and Thy Bui

On the first day of IDEALS week we participated in a bonfire activity. We

were really glad there was a bonfire because Mai Chau was extremely cold

compared to Ho Chi Minh City. There were a lot of activities and games to

get us warmed up, and it was fun.

We first had to split ourselves up into 6 groups. These included

Fantastic 5 : Angie (leader), Jason, Nhiem, David and Zach

G6: Viet Anh (leader) Katie, Polly, Anthony, Yira

and Jin Sol (8LH)

The Jasth : Tom (leader), Hiro, Sharon, Angel and Jun Ho

The Epic : Andy (leader), Huy, Quan, Nana, Tom Lim and Jung

Bin

Super 6 : Ye Jin (leader), Jeany, Dan, Thy, Hoang Anh and Khoi

Power Ranger: Seong Hwan (leader), Su Ung, JinSol (8CG), Song Eun and Jeong Seop

The first activity we had to do was to make a big circle around the bonfire

and start singing different songs to warm up our throats and our bodies.

We sang a lot of songs in 3 different languages, English, Vietnamese and

Korean. After the singing we then had to get into groups of three, and each

person volunteered to be either the ―mummy‖, ―daddy‖ or the ―baby‖. We

then had to take it in turns to carry the a character. It was so funny trying

to see the ―baby‖ trying to lift the ―mummy‖ and the ―daddy‖. The next

activity meant that we had to use our bodies to make different letters of

the alphabet. It was quite hard to do, but with our team members working

together, we did it. The best activity during the evening was when 6

students went up and to have stickers

stuck on to their bodies. Then another

group of 6 students, from each of the

teams, came up and were blindfold.

The rest of the groups had to

communicate with the person

blindfolded to tell them where the stickers were, on their team mates.

The winners were the first team who managed to take off all the

stickers from their partners. It was extremely fun to watch.

At the end of the bonfire we got to eat sweet potatoes and potatoes. It

was delicious, the out side was burnt and over-cooked but inside was sweet and hot. A lot of people choose

to eat the sweet potatoes rather than fresh potatoes because there was so much flavor in them.

What letter is this?

Trying to lift the ―Daddy‖

―I know there is a sticker

here somewhere.‖

The Bonfire By Angie Le and Song Eun Lee

Page 4 Mai Chau 2011

Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 5

The second day was a wet and cold day. We went straight to the

‗Chieng Chau‘ Secondary School after having a breakfast with

bread and hot cocoa. After arriving there, we met the Head of the

School and were given out the instructions: We were divided into 3

groups. One group was chosen to paint the classroom walls, the

second group would paint the bookshelves and the third group

would paint the school gate. My group was given the classroom to

paint. Each of us got a mop and buckets of yellow paint. We started

to paint the wall in yellow. It

was a hard work at times and

it took us more than 2 hours to

finished one classroom,

even with Mr. Tome, Mr. Tony and Ms. Lily‘s help. It didn't help be-

cause we managed to get most of the paint on the floor rather than the

walls. Every time we got paint on the brushes the paint would slide

down the paint brushes and onto our hands and then onto the floor. At

the beginning we got more paint on ourselves than on the wall. At the

end I think that we had done a great job in my opinion. All of us

got paint all over our clothes but we had had an extremely fun time

together. Mai Chau Rocks!

Painting Competition By Dan Vo and Katie Le

Sharon hard at work

painting a wall

Mr Tome helped us to

clean up afterwards

Cooking Competition By Jung Bin Huh and Thinh Doan

On Tuesday afternoon, the students got to experience

what it was like to cook some authentic Vietnamese

dishes. Jung Bin and Thinh report on their

experiences.

Thinh and I were in the same team with Tom Lim,

Quan, Andy (our team leader) and Huy.

I was very excited about the cooking competition

because I liked cooking but didn‘t have much

experience of cooking. Thinh was also excited about

the cooking competition because this was the first time she had made food by herself Firstly we had to

pick a tam leader and the group chose Andy. A few minutes later, a woman chef taught each of the group

leaders how to cook some Vietnamese food. I was a bit worried because our team leader was a boy who

didn‘t know how to cook. I bet Thinh felt the same

way just like me.

As I expected, Andy couldn‘t remember the recipe

very well so he had to ask the other teams for some

help. We then began making food.

Andy divided the team into half; Andy, Tom Lim,

Thinh and I rolled the Banh Cuon and Quan and Huy

fried the Cha Ca.

Hilariously, I heard that someone in Angie‘s group

dropped a bit of meat on the ground. A puppy, who

had smelt the meat, came over to eat the food that had been dropped which then frightened Thy, who

went off screaming.

We then made some decorations on our ‗productions‘. Eventually, we won the prize for the ‗Greatest

Food Looking‘. However, the ‗Most Tasteful Dishes‘ went to the Fantastic 5 which was Angie‘s group.

Jung Bin preparing to cook

Thinh expertly cooking the food

Page 6 Mai Chau 2011

Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 7

On our second evening of our Mai Chau trip, we

entered into a fashion show, where we dressed up in

traditional Vietnamese clothes. We were divided into 6

groups and Jeong Seop who was in Power Ranger

group volunteered to dress up in the fashion show.

There were 12 volunteers from the 6 groups. Jeong

Seop modeled with his partner Jin Sol who was very

attractive girl. They all wore Mai Chau traditional

clothes and they showed off their beautiful clothes by

walking up and down the pretend cat walk doing lots

of different poses. After they performed each of the

judges had to give a mark and comment on their

performance. At the end of the evening Jeong Seop

and Jin Sol was picked as the loveliest partners from

the 12 volunteers. There were lots of great models and

another one which got really good comments were

Yi Ra and Anthony‘s performance. When they got to

the end of the walk way they made a heart signal with

their arms. It looked very romantic. Everyone did their

best and we all had a great time.

The 12 fashion show models

Yi Ra and Anthony on the catwalk

―The funniest thing I

heard today Jeong

Seop proposing to

Jung Bin‖

Yi Ra

―The funniest thing I saw today was Khoi wearing the teacher‘s

clothes that were too big for him as all his clothes were wet or dirty.‖

Hoang Anh

Fashion Show By Tom Lim and Jeong Seop Lee

Page 8 Mai Chau 2011

Some fun memories

Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 9

Tree Planting By Sharon Ly and Jeany Vu

The funniest thing I saw today

was Huy doing hula hoops in

front of the girls in the local

school.

Hiro

―The funniest thing I saw today

was seeing my shoes stuck with

lots of dirt which made me taller

and heavier.‖

Jason

During the activities that was been occurred on the field trip, there

was an activity called ―Planting Trees For The Local School.‖

When we got to the school, it had been raining overnight so the

ground was very muddy. We had to split ourselves in to our

groups and then each group had to plant 20 tree saplings each.

Digging up the ground was hard work since the dirt was all wet

and muddy due to the weather but we also have a lot of fun. We

all got tired and covered in mud but we were glad to do some

thing that was worth it and useful for the school. During the

digging process we all had to search for spaces to plant the trees

and we almost ran out of space. At the end of the morning, in to-

tal, we planted more than 120 tree saplings and that made us very

glad and proud of ourselves. At the end all of our shoes and clothes were all wet and muddy. The local

school invited us inside to rest and be entertained by the students and teachers who had put on a dancing

show for us to watch. We then returned the entertainment by singing to them. We chose the song called

‗Just the way you are‘. Even though we didn't really have time to practice the singing was quite good

because almost all of us remembered the songs lyrics and we sang it out loudly. After the singing, we

went to the principal‘s meeting room for some food and drink. The Principal gave us a gift of a picture of

Mai Chau and its surrounding areas to say thank you for our help.

The Epic – ready to go digging

Page 10 Mai Chau 2011

On Wednesday evening 2 local women came into our base

camp. They were bought in to come and show us how the

local people made money from tourists by brocading.

Brocading is a form of sewing. The women had prepared for

us to make some book marks from sewing a piece of material.

We split into our groups that we had been working with all

week. The leader of the group had to go to the front and learn

how to sew. They then had to come back to their groups and

show the rest of the students what they had to make.

Each group were given some needles, material and thread. It

was really hard to make. The women had told us to sew the

shape of a heart onto the material. We tried our best. A few

people had managed to sew a really beautifully designed heart whereas for other students, it was really

hard as we kept pricking our fingers with the needles.

Even though brocade was really hard for me, it was al-

so amusing and a lot of fun! It also gave some lessons

in life because for me it was like solving a problem

and we always need to solve problems in our life.

―How do you sew a heart shape again?‖

Sewing needs a lot of concentration

Brocading By Jun Ho Choi and Huy Truong

―Ouch

‖

―Ouch too‖

Volume 1, Issue 1

Animal Hunting By NhiemTran, David Nguyen and Quan Phan

Hello we are the Fantastic 5, On Thursday our tour guide told us

that we were going animal hunting. Mr Tome was very scared.

But before we could go hunting they gave each group a paper

animal and some face paints. We had to paint our faces so that we

looked like the animal we were hunting. There were six animals in

total, gorilla, tiger, lion, rhino, hippo and crocodile. We had fun

painting each other‘s faces.

We then had to

into the forest to

look for the

different animals.

If we found the animal for our team then we would win 1

point, but if we found another animal for another team

then that meant that we had stopped the other team from

winning any points. This race was fun because even

though it was raining and all the animals were hidden in

very hard places, everybody was very excited. The race

was very long and tiring but everyone tried their best to

finish the race. At the end, the group Epic won the game

by finding 3 tigers. The Fantastic 5 came second place.

Nhiem and Andy were the most excited ones from the groups. They found lots of animal for their teams.

This was the best time during the trip. The landscape was excellent. This race was fun because they were

paper animals and not the real ones. Epic found lots of animals but a lot of them were rhinos and as their

animal they were looking for was a tiger, that meant that the other groups lost lot of point. It was the same

for the Fantastic 5 who found 6 elephants when they were suppose to be finding King Kong.. The race

ended and everybody enjoyed it very much.

Andy ready to go hunting

Polly found an elephant

Page 11

Page 12 Mai Chau 2011

On the IDEALS week to Mai Chau, a hair

competition was organized for the six groups to

show their talents on hairdressing. Each group

choose a model for them to do some

―decorations‖ on the hair. Each team got some

hair gel and a comb to fix and design the mod-

el‘s hair style. There were 6 models that repre-

sented each group. Most groups wanted to cre-

ate a rambutant head. Angie group were the

only group who attempted the ―Chairman style

hair‖. Jason was the victim of the ―professional

hair designer‖: Ms Lily used the idea of her

sister‘s hair style to recreate this ―masterpiece‖.

To create the hair the group used ¾ of the hair

gel bottle on Jason‘s head. The models then

had to go on the stage and model their hair

styles. Jason was expecting to get the lowest,

but it turned out that he got the highest score of

all. The judges were the three teachers that went with us on the trip. They were Ms. Lily, Mr.Tome and

Mr. Tony. Every group tried their best to have the ―best hair‖ for their team so they could win and also

gain some points for their team. We tried to make many weird and funny styles to gain more points. The

group ―G6‖ has the lowest mark. We had a lot of fun then and not one that we can easily forget.

Hair Competition By Viet Anh Lien and Jason Thai

A hair raisingly fun competition

―The funniest thing I saw

today was Jason with his hair

greased down with hair gel.‖

Zach

Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 13

During this school field trip, we gained a lot of experiences throughout the week. Our school has provided

us a wonderful and amazing field trip.

On the last day of the field trip, we had the Amazing Race activities. However, due to amount of rainfall

we had over the week, our teachers and tour guides decided to change the race to an Indoor Amazing

Race.

During our first activity, we got into groups of 5 or 6. We had to collect a coded message for each team.

We had to figure out what the code was and followed the instructions. In the message that we had done, it

said we should name our group and make a poster for the name of the group.

After half an hour, we had 6 colourful posters from each of the groups. Then, each group had to present

and describe the poster to their classmates and teachers. Everyone in the group had to participate in this

activity.

We then had other tasks to do such as:

Hair Competition

Drama

Charades

Guess the famous person

Each of the activities required teamwork and good communication between each person. Even though the

day was ruined by the weather, we still all had a really good time and have never laughed so much before.

The Amazing Race By Anthony Truong and Andy Hau

―The funniest thing I saw today was watching Mr

Tome cleaning up the dishes at dinner time because

Mr Tony said that if anyone was not walking in a

straight line along the road would have to clear the

tables. Mr Tome didn't hear him and stepped out on

to the road and then got told off by Mr Tony.‖

Khoi

Hoang Anh and I were in the Super Six. One of the

activities we did in Mai Chau was to produce a short

drama based on the activities that we had done that

week. It was very funny and we could make up some

of our own events. Hoang Anh and Dan were the

funniest because they danced and acted in a very

funny way. They were acting out the fashion show

that we had the day before. Song Eun kept hopping

on one foot pretending to be Ms Lily.

As it had to be a short play we rushed through ours.

It was also cold that day so it was hard to act in the

play. The narrator kept speeding up the story so the

actors had to act out the scene very quickly which

made it funnier. The other groups were also

fantastic. The funniest group was the Fantastic 5. In one scene Jason was checking his bag for everything

that he had lost. Whilst checking the bag he said: ―Where is my diary, where is my comic, where is my

PSP, and my clothes, I forgot everything!‖ ―Oh! This is not my bag.‖ Everybody fell about laughing. We

learnt a lot of things from the drama and how we can improve on our acting skills.

Drama By Khoi Pham and Hoang Anh Nguyen

Our impressive acting skills

Page 14 Mai Chau 2011

―The funniest thing I

heard today Jeong Seop

proposing to Jung Bin‖

Yi Ra ―The funniest thing I saw

today was Zach acting

when he had to pretend to

be Ms Lily.‖

Seong Hwan

Hello our names are Polly and Angel. We are going to tell you

about our fun field trip to Mai Chau. On the last night we

were there, the home stay had put on a farewell party for us. It

was really god fun. We had 4 people who had a birthday in

March and they were: Thy, Hiro, Thinh and Seong Hwan The

tour guides had bought them a cake to help them celebrate.

Before the party we all sang ―Happy birthday‖ to them and

they all cut the cake, so that we could eat it afterwards.

The food at the party was

so good. Everybody

loved the spaghetti. As

soon as it came out of the

kitchen everybody had

their bowls ready in their

hands to take it. Khoi managed to get the biggest bowl and that was

his second helpings.

After the lovely dinner Polly and I had to clean up the tables but then

a puppy dog ran past the tables and scared Polly, which made her

jump up and then land on the cake. Everyone laughed. It was such

good fun on our last night. After dinner the homestay had arranged

for us to watch some traditional dancing. We then got to have a got

at it too, but I don't think that we were as good as they were, we

needed more time to practice. We were sorry that we had to come

home.

Farewell Party By Polly Huynh and Angel Ly

Oh dear Polly sat on the cake

―Happy Birthday everybody‖

Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 15

―The funniest thing I saw today

was Polly sitting on the cake

trying to get away from the pup-

py.‖

Thinh

―The funniest thing I saw today

one of the ladies bought a big

bowl of noodles out of the kitch-

en and then it was all gone in 6

seconds.‖

Jung Bin

At 6:30am, all the girls woke up as usual, with Ms. Lily

telling us to get out of bed. We washed our face with

cold water and went down for breakfast. After finishing

the last breakfast in Mai Chau, we went up to tidy the

room before we got back on the bus to take us to the

airport. We packed our bags and our luggage. We all

went down to the dining room to meet up with everyone

else. Mr. Tony announced that it would be colder in

Ha Noi because it rained overnight. While we were

waiting for the bus we took pictures of each other, the

home stay and the clouds on the mountains, which were

very beautiful. The bus came and we rode on it. After 4

hours on the bus, we arrived at airport. Finally, we flew

on the airplane, fly back to Ho Chi Minh City, where our

parents were waiting for us. We all loved this trip, even

though it was freezing cold and we found it hard to wake

up, we still enjoyed all the events. We will never forget

this trip.

By Jin Sol Kim and Ye JinYu

Now we are going back to home. The weather was fine with a few clouds

in the sky. We had a lot of fun in Mai Chau. Even though we didn‘t do

kayaking, we all still enjoyed our trip. We had breakfast at seven thirty

and packed our luggage. We said bye~ to our tour guides. It was bit sad

to say good bye and to be going back to home because the view of Mai Chau was so beautiful and the

atmosphere was brilliant.

Beautiful Mai Chau where we stayed

Our Final Day By Jin Sol Jang and Yi Ra Lee

Mai Chau 2011 Page 16