Visit to NEWater visitor centre

Last Thursday we visited the NEWater Vsitor Centre in Singapore. We went there by van. It took about forty five minutes to get there. When we arrived at the NEWater Visitor Centre, we were met by a young male guide who brought us through the centre and factory. This is one of the four NEWater factories in Singapore and another one is being built in Changi.

Every day this factory produces 92 thousand m3/ day or 20mgd of NEWater. The water can be drunk because it is very clean. It is produced in three stages:
-microfiltation which uses small microfilms to clean the water
-reverse osmosis which uses more small microfilms and finally,
- the water goes through ultra violet disinfection. The water can now be drunk. The technology is the best in the world for producing clean water.

We also heard about the factory's history. Then Prime Minister Mr Goh Chok Tong first decided to use this technology and so the first NEWater factory was built. At the opening ceremony of the factory, Mr Goh drank the water and soon many people in Singapore followed his example because they realised that NEWater is actually very clean and pure.

Singapore has few rivers and some small lakes. As a result, water has to be imported from Malaysia. In order to prevent Singapore from being overly dependent on imported water from Malaysia, the Government of Singapore is planning another NEWater plant. NEWater is now used as an additional source of drinking water.

We learnt a great deal about the technology used to produce NEWater from the visitor centre.

Visit to the Peranakan Museum
Last week, on Thursday, we visited the Peranakan Museum in Armenian St. I’d like to give a short write-up about our visit. Before the visit, our teacher, Alvin, gave us good introduction of the museum. When we arrived, we were met by a pretty female guide who went with us to visit the galleries. We heard about the history of the Peranakans and entered their world. We learnt about the relationship between the Peranakans and Chinese, South Asian, European and local Malay women in the fifth century. The men were rich. They got married and had a happy life.
Some interesting aspects of the Peranakan culture which fascinated me were customs related to their wedding which lasted 12 days, and their food and feasts. There was an especially wide array of costumes on display. We also saw lots of jewellery pieces made of gold, silver, diamond and so on. We learnt that other cultures had greatly influenced Peranakan culture. The museum displays many antiques from 18th century Peranakan culture. The Peranakan culture is a unique hybrid which still plays an important role in the life of Singaporeans. After visiting the Peranakan museum, we have broadened our perspective about Singapore history. Today Singapore’s population is five million. The majority are Chinese, forming 80% of population, followed by the Malays and Indians in that order.We can see that Singapore tries its best to preserve the cultures and traditions of its people

About me

About me
Hi-Everyone!I come from Vietnam and now I am living with my family in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. I work in the Ministry of Transport. I am responsible for overseeing the transport infrastructure projects. I have worked for 30 years in this ministry. I have two daughters. Currently, my children are studying at National Economic University in Hanoi. My family likes reading books and sports. I play tennis, my children play table tennis and do aerobics everyday. We usually spend our summer holidays touring other countries.
My work requires me to read magazines related to transport infrastructure and books about transportation daily. I also have to organise Transport international workshops. As such, I need to improve my English. I am very lucky as I am now learning English in CCE (Centre for Continuing Education), NTU. Every day my teachers help me to better my English. Actually, I have difficulty in speaking English but I’ll try to improve as much as I can.
During the course I visited museums in Singapore and participated in a lot of interesting activities. I have gained much knowledge about the history of Singapore and its variety of cultures. Today, the government of Singapore tries to develop the country and unify the communities while preserving their culture and traditions at the same time.
I hope when I get back to Vietnam my English skills such as writing and speaking will have improved dramatically.