Last week, Burmese students from Temasek international College touched down Singapore for their one-week study trip to learn about hospitality and food and beverage operations. Their trip began with a welcome barbeque, filled with delectable food and ice-breaker games facilitated by Mr Arun, Mr Clarence, and Pei Ling.
One of the first major activity in this engaging study trip was an amazing race. Students were broken up into different groups and were tasked with interactive activities along the way. This amazing race activity was designed to engage students’ leadership skills and see how students work together as a team – social skills that are integral for work. Students also get to attend an engaging and comprehensive wine workshop conducted by Daryl Saw, CEO of Stewords Riverboat and a certified Specialist of Wine. Students explored a variety of wine and were taught 5 vital steps of wine appreciation. Students also learned how to develop taste and smell skills, and how to open up their palette.
On the fifth day, students were treated to scrumptious lunch buffet at Furama City Centre Hotel. They tried Singapore’s delicacy (for the first time) Laksa – a popular spicy noodle soup in the local cuisine and yummy durian desserts! On the last day of the trip, the Myanmar students started their day with a delightful local breakfast consisting of prata with curry, chwee kueh (steamed rice cakes), tea and coffee and more. During breakfast time, they also presented their short videos – a project assigned for their amazing race. The videos made by students were conceptualised with creative graphics and were all really well done elaborating on the the local culture scenes in Singapore.
After breakfast, the TIC students headed to level 11 in the campus to begin preparation for the Marketing Fair. With the dimension of focus in cultural diversity, TIC students worked together with SISH students to execute different booths. The Marketing Fair featured interactive activities, creative mini exhibitions, pop-up sale of little goodies, and yummy “street-food” of Asian delicacies – a wonderful showcase of rich cultural goodness. The TIC students head-speared the booths that represented Burmese and Thai culture. Clad in their own traditional costumes, they presented their local confectionary sweets, cakes, goodies, hung cultural decorations on the walls, and designed their own informative pamphlets to give
out to the fair-goers.
This one-week study trip for TIC students was short but extremely fulfilling nonetheless. In a short chat with some of them during the lunch buffet, they exclaimed they feel that this trip was very inclusive and comprehensive – encompassing all kinds of hands-on teaching methods that are beyond paper and books. Some of them expressed huge interest in working in the hospitality industry overseas for exposure. We hope they have enjoyed their study as much as we do! We wish them all the best in their endeavours and hope to see them again in the future.
