By Joey Barber
•
July 4, 2024
OUR YEAR 9 STUDENTS HAVE RECENTLY ARRIVED IN CHINA - here is their first update. All of us were extremely excited to get going to China, and after 3 hours at the airport we eventually got on the plane. Lots of us were quite nervous when we first boarded but quickly overcame it once we were high in the sky. We occupied ourselves on the 14 hour flight with talking, films, games and sleep. It was also a lovely thing for the air hostesses on the plane to provide the two birthday boys with cake - Ollie and Jack. When we arrived, we were all very tired and were greeted wonderfully by our China Trip hosts, with McDonald's and immediate access to rooms to relax and sleep. I think we were all pretty surprised by how amazing our rooms were. That night we also met a robot that delivered my (Evie's) food which we were all extremely excited to see. On July 3rd, our first official day of our China Trip, we attended an opening ceremony where Mr McKinney and I (Evan Dawson) represented Hove Park School by saying a few words on stage along with other schools and speeches from Chinese and British members of the Mandarin Excellence Programme operations who made this trip happen. After that, we enjoyed the day with lessons on Chinese speaking and Chinese singing. We had lunch and then participated in a treasure hunt around the campus which we all enjoyed as we got to see more around the campus. Finally, as for dinner, we were provided with a wonderful 'Welcome Dinner' in a lovely Chinese restaurant with delicious Chinese delicacies; roasted chicken, fried fish, tofu and a common Chinese dish of scrambled eggs and tomatoes. When we got back to the hotel we threw a little birthday party in the lobby for our other birthday boy - Darcy, which had cake that we definitely all needed. It was very hot all day but we all still managed to have so much fun. Huge thank you to Ms Qiao because we are all so happy to be here. (Written by Evan Dawson and Evie Buss - Year 9 students)