Overseas Immersion Experience: China, Wuhan

Day 35-41: Decline

2009-10-11T22:02:00.002+08:00

Presentations after presentations for this week and after Wednesday, it seemed that everyone had went crazy!

On Thursday, I went out with Millison and Calista to Guang Gu and this time, the highlight of our trip is that we went to the salon to do our hair! Millison did rebonding, Calista did treatment while I dyed my hair. The salon we went to is the top salon in Wuhan from what we deemed it to be as they have quite a number of franchaise in Wuhan. We also saw one of their stores in Hankou and many other places also. Regarding the pricing of the things that we did, I find that rebonding and treatment is considered very cheap as compared to Singapore. Tell me how are you going to find a rebonding in Singapore for only SGD$50 and treatment for only around SGD$30! Only the dyeing of hair was kind of close to Singapore prices.

When I was about to dye my hair, I was shocked by the colour of the dye that was prepared for me. It has the colour of Planta butter! I was stumped at that moment and Calista and Millison was kind of stumped too as the dye colour differs greatly from the result brown colour I should get. Nonetheless, we continued with the dyeing and I find that the service in China is really much better than in Singapore. They will do things more merticulously paying more attention to the customers unlike in Singapore where everything is done so fast and quickly.

However, when I was about to wash off my dye at the washing station, I was kind of astonished at the hygiene of the salon. Reason being that when I peeked into the drainage of the sink, I saw the cotton buds and other things trapped there and I was thanking god that my hair isnt that long enough to the extent that it will touch the sink as compared to those girls who have long hair. The thought of my hair touching those rubbish is just horrifying.

Before that, we managed to chance upon a cafe and I simply love the ambience there. It seemed so relaxing and it gives me a feeling of home. I don't know why but it really makes you feel warm and it will be a great place to relax and catch up with your friends or even do work or some reflections there. Nonetheless to say, the tea there is also very nice.

I ordered the specialty of the shop which is a combination of red bean, pudding and pearl in milk tea. The taste is unique even though that one might think that red bean, pudding and pearl just don't click. It is almost the same as in life. People usually thinks that people of the different characters just don't click and they will not get along well but usually the case would be that when they come together, they will create something that is unique and maybe even better than being individual.

Then here comes Saturday which is the second last day here in Wuhan. We went for last minute shopping again and I was dared to try the most spicy chicken wing here in Wuhan known as the BT chicken wing (变态鸡翅). Ernest and the rest claimed that it is really too spicy such that it is almost inedible but me being a spicy food eater, I want to try how spicy can it get.

So, Calista was with me when I bought it. She must be the witness that I tried this and what is my reaction so that she could tell the rest about it. To me, the chicken wings looked innocent and nothing much except for the spices that coat the outside. I was still thinking that it is done in the style of the buffalo chicken wings that I ate in Singapore. The first bite I took, I felt that it was nothing. I continued eating and I find that it was not the spiciness that killed me. It was the food being too hot! The chicken wings were barbequed on the spot so it was really very hot such that I think my tongue got kind of burnt after that. So, to me, I can survive the chicken wing! I took away some for Millison and when she tried, she said that her lips were burning.

At night, we went for the farewell dinner held by the school and unexpectedly, there was also a wedding ceremony going on. However, we got criticised as most of us didnt knew and we wore black there but the director of the foreign language school was not really happy either as they were not informed that there will be a wedding dinner going on. So fair enough. The China students then joined us for dinner but apparently the ones at our table were not the ones that we knew. We still chatted with them although it felt a little weird as we do not have much table topics with them.

After that was photo taking session and we took photos with quite a number of people. Out of the sudden, I was dragged into a photo by 2 of the locals together with a ICT guy whom I dont even know.

Today was the last day which we were most nostalgic about. In the morning, we discovered the beauty of wrapping things in the original plastic bag they were contained in. It was nice and it helps in conserving the environment instead of buying more wrapping paper. So bottomline what we did? We wrapped our books in plastic bags so that when we bring it back to Singapore, the edges wont be damaged.

In the afternoon, we went to visit the bakery shop auntie who we know and stayed to chat with her for around 2 hours. She gave us a lot of free food for our journey tomorrow and she insisted on it. So, we repaid by buying more food from her shop and even giving some of our Singapore money as souvenirs to them. To add on, we even offered to give them new recipes to try out that are from Singapore so that they will have better business. I find that it is such a joy to know people from overseas and they are actually more friendly than the people you know back in your own country. At least it makes you feel home even though you are overseas.

Before dinner, Candy came to find Wen Liang and I. We gave her the electric kettle that we bought over here as we are not bringing it back so might as well put it into a better use by gifting it to someone. We chatted awhile before she left our dormitory and the rest of us went for dinner at Zhen Gong Fu. Even though it was a considered a elaborated meal in China as it was something like a Zi Char in Singapore, I find that it is actually the simplest and the best meal that I have ever enjoyed over there even though that Ajisan is better. However, how many more times can we sit down around the table and eat a dinner like a "family"? The simplest thing can be actually the best thing that you can have in life.

Anyway, keeping the cables and modem now. Tomorrow is gonna be really Home Sweet Home.

Day 28-34: Adventurous

2009-10-04T11:12:00.001+08:00

On the 28th of September, we went to the Q&R Pharmaceutical Company under the arrangement of Mr Huang, the coordinator for us in the University. However, I didn’t find that the trip was really beneficial to us as we only toured around the perimeter of the company only.
Everyone boarded the bus with our entertainment source as we heard that the trip to the company was only 30 minutes. In the end, the trip to the company only turned out to be 10 minutes. The company was just a few kilometers beside our school.

When we reached the company, the first thing that we saw was a bull ploughing the land. We were definitely curious of was, “What is a bull doing here in a pharmaceutical company?” Anyway, we moved on and an ambassador of the company, Tang Hui Hui, came to receive us. He can be considered as half of our senior as he was from Wuhan University of Science & Technology the pharmaceutical course. Then, we began our touring of the company.

The first stop was the warehouse where they kept their goods in. This was exactly what we were taught in our modules. I still remembered Ms Mrinal mentioning this in her Pharmaceutics lecture about the goods being labeled as Passed in green, Quarantined as yellow or Failed in red after they were being examined after production. The goods that passed and quarantined are stored at the middle of the warehouse whereas the goods that failed are stored in a room at one corner. There is actually a short wall at the entrance of the warehouse, which is around of the height of the temples that we went to on excursions, to prevent any stray animals from entering the place. This is definitely required as the stray animals like cats and dogs; they might urinate at where the goods are which will contaminate the products. I managed to overhear that the warehouse actually doesn’t obey cGMP. After enquiring more from Wen Liang, I managed to know that it doesn’t obey the cGMP due to quite a lot of reasons. The main few will be the corners of the room are 90 degree bended instead of curved; they have things hanging on the ceiling; the device that is used to attract and kill flies is not integrated into the wall.

As we were walking down the perimeters, I saw that they also have the emergency shower area for the workers if anything happens. I believe that this is a basic for every pharmaceutical company. Next, we saw the Ion Exchange Resin room. That was very interesting to me as I have studied this in Pharmaceutics also. However, we were only taught the theory of how the exchange of the ion happened but never seen any pictures of the actual vessel before. This time was indeed an eye opener and the tank was really huge.

We went on with the tour but apparently, we were not allowed into the compounds so we didn’t have a lot of information to know about. So, Mr Tang bought us to the gowning room in the company. When we reached there, what I witnessed was exactly the same as what I saw in Singapore when I went to Sunward Pharmaceutical Company when I was in Year 1.

The air pressure outside of the room is just like what we learnt. It is lower than the air pressure outside. The reason is such that the microbes will be blown out of the compound instead of entering the compound. The changing of the footwear is also done to reduce the amount of microbes on the footwear. As well as changing of clothes is to reduce the amount of microbes. Even though that the procedure of the gowning is rather troublesome, I would believe that if we were allowed to enter the compound of the factory, it would be an eye-opener. This was actually the last part of the visit.

Feeling a little unsatisfied with what we have only saw in the plant, we decided to ask Mr Tang some questions and we managed to find out that their actual R&D is done in Shanghai and the production of vaccines is controlled by government.

With this, we ended the trip and took a group photo with Mr Tang at the entrance of the plant before taking the 10 minute bus trip back to school.

As we reached school like earlier than we have planned, I decided to go to Guang Gu again to shop around and this time my shopping partners are Ying Li and Jehanne.

Definitely, Ying Li being a novice in shopping in Wuhan now introduced us, the amateurs, to a lot of new things to try out. The thing was the bubble tea in Guang Gu and I find that the taste of the bubble tea was so much better than the ones we had in Singapore! The reason is that even though that the drink is sweet, it is not as artificial as the ones we drink in Singapore. The taste that they have here is slightly more oriental and I find that this should be the way how the flavours should be developed as compared to Singapore's where they just put in what they want. The concept of the stall is almost the same as Singapore as the crew will be at the back doing the concoction for the drink with all the flask they had to contain the syrups and tea. The only difference is that their service is way much better as they have a queue system, which they will call for your number when your drink is ready (Yeah, just like how they do it at the doctor's) and they actually help you to open your drink unlike Singapore where everything is almost inconsistent and self serviced.

Then we had the Hong Kong style of waffle which tasted great also. Apparently, China's bread and pastries seemed to be more of the Singaporean's taste as compared to the main courses over here. Again, the flavour of the batter was not that sweet as it is just enough for you to taste it. However, I think that for people who like sweet stuff to be extremely sweet, the taste might be a little weird for them. One of the reasons that I think that it makes the difference for the level of sweetness is the milk that the bakeries will add into the batter for the waffle. I find that it is more easily eaten as compared to the waffle that we had in Singapore as the mould actually creates bite size portions and it makes it easier for us to tear it off bit by bit to eat, especially when it is hot.

The following day, we had another student interaction session with the locals again! This time, it was at the clubhouse and the whole place just simply looks like a disco, which is able to make you go high. As we entered, we were told to draw a number card, which I thought it would be used for lucky draw (I had too much of Toastmasters as we have lucky draws every session), but it turns out to be a lucky draw for the participants for the games they had for us. As the number were being called, we were definitely scared of our number being called. The second round of the game and I was called up to play the drink game which someone had a drink that was spiked with a high amount of salt. So the floor had to guess. Oh well, I went up to play definitely and after that it was Millison's turn to go on the floor to play a bursting balloon game.

The funniest part was that Dr Tan was sabotaged to play musical chair and he was the 4th last to get eliminated! However, the ironical thing is that the winners for the game were needed to do forfeits! All of us were kind of shocked by that. So, not all that glitter is gold yea people.

Overall, I find that the China students really made the whole event very well and all of us enjoyed it totally.

Friday, we went to Guang Gu again for some activities to unwind ourselves. We went to Ajisan for lunch and we were stumped by the variety of food they had on the menu as compared to the one in Singapore. The best thing was that, the price of a bowl of noodles in Ajisan here is the price of one bowl of high standard Ba Chor Mee in Orchard in Singapore! How good can it get! Imagine Singapore having a bowl of Ajisan noodles for around $5, I'd go crazy if there is such deal.

Then we went over to the karaoke in the evening and I love the karaoke here! It is so much better than Singapore in terms of the ambience and system! Even the toilet area looks nicer than any of the high class places I went in China.

Firstly, they do not need to use a remote control to select the songs that they want to sing, but it is replaced by a touch screen system! Within the system, there is a lot of extra functions such as cheering, jeering and applause effect.

Secondly, there is another remote implanted in the walls of the room and you can adjust the volume of the system from there and the television screen is just simply so big! Apparently for Singapore's K Box, the television screen is not as big as this unless you have a room for 8 people and above. But, we only have 4 people!

This weekend, there was no excursions but we went to Shucheng Jie (书城街). At the shopping mall there, the book stall is one of the biggest bookstall you can find in China with all the high standard books just like Kinokuniya in Singapore. Nonetheless to say, we spent 4 hours in the bookstores hunting for our books and buying them like nobody's business as the prices of books in China is way too reasonable. My best harvest for the day was the whole set of The Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre by Jin Yong. I wanted to get the whole series in Singapore but apparently, it was kind of expensive but here, I could just get it without much hesitation.

We went to Pizza Hut for lunch and apparently, we felt that we got scammed by them. The thumbs up for the Pizza Hut in China is that they have more variety and the food SEEMED nicer. Now, I am going to show you what the power of SEEMED can do.

Then, Sunday was whole day stucked in the room preparing for the PBL presentation tomorrow. Hopefully everything will go smoothly!

Day 26-27: Wudang Mountain

2009-09-28T03:22:00.002+08:00

The duration for weekends excursions just gets longer and longer. For Wudang Mountain this time, we had a 6 hours bus ride to endure. The best thing was that we had our power supply cut off before we left for the trip, leaving us washing up and packing in darkness. Oh well, I think I have gotten used to it also already. That's why everything seemed so normal even though it is not normal in Singapore.

We had to report 630am in the morning to take the bus ride again and nonetheless to say, we slept on the way there. When we reached there, the first thing we had was lunch and before we dig in, we saw the whole collection of swords sold over there.

Definitely, there is a big hoo ha about the swords as we don't really see swords sold in Singapore. Everyone definitely had the intention to get the swords back to Singapore as a souvenir but that will never happen as we will have a whole load of problems when we are going through the customs. No one will want to get delayed by this kind of problems when we are going back.

As usual, there were some weird dishes during lunch which we don't even want to eat it. This time, it was the tofu. It has a burnt taste to it apparently and we don't even had this kind of taste in the previous same tofu dishes that we ate.

So, after lunch we began our sight seeing. The weather was kind of bad as it was drizzling when we reached Wudang. So the place was kind of shrouded by mist which the tour guide claimed to be a holy aura (仙气). This is deemed to be a good sign for the Tai Zi Bo as the person who was worshipped there was claimed to be the master of water.

Then we had a tea appreciation session there. That was the first time I drank tea that was brewed on the spot other than the ones that I drank during tea time. The taste and smell of it is just simply so fresh. I find that the art of tea is really interesting as actually there are quite a number of steps to brew a pot of tea. Even the step that we think it might not matter most, it can actually affect the taste of the tea. The tea that I have tasted there was the best with the Honeysuckle, Gan Lu and red tea. The Gan Lu was the best as it leaves a sweet taste when you drink water after that even though the taste was bitter initially. I think this is the same theory as 先苦后甜, which means that suffer first and enjoy later. I think I should have bought some back to brew it for myself to constantly remind myself about this value of life.

Wudang is one of the things that I want to explore as I was setting the things to investigate for my pre-trip report. So, for this trip, I was paying a little more attention with the environment there to compare and contrast the Wudang as mentioned in legend and the Wudang in reality.

However, the most famous one that I heard in the show is Zi Xiao Dian (紫霄殿). However, it seemed that the ones that I saw on the television before that looked so different from the actual one that I saw here. The one that I saw on television actually looked very grand and majestic with vibrant colours as it is used to receive guests. However, the one I saw here is just like a small temple and the hall is not big enough to receieve guests as shown in the show. Nonetheless, the feeling that the building gave me is that it has survived through a long period of time and it has a lot of historical values in it.

Then we went on with the trip and one of the more interesting one was the Nan Yan Gong (南岩宫). There is this urn that was situated at one of the buildings, which is protruding out. The story that was told to us is that people will usually pray at the temple and try to place the joss sticks into the urn which they will usually lose their balance and fall off the cliff. I was quite shocked when I heard about this as I never imagined that people in the past are really so religious such that they are willing to risk their life. Just looking at how high and where the urn is situated at, my legs would had already went jelly nonetheless to mention about going to put the joss sticks in. Maybe it is because that I have vertigo.

Then, the day ended and we stayed at the mountain resort over there. The weather was turning colder in th evening and it just like what I experienced when I went to Japan a few years ago during end autumn. It was really cold.

This time round, as there were not enough rooms in the first resort, Wen Liang and I were assigned to stay with the ICT people at the other resort. However, even though we are seperated from the rest, it seemed that our room is better than what the rest of them got!

When we entered our room, the first thing always to check is the toilet! I was totally happy when I saw that the toilet looked almost better than the one at Lu Lin because of the shower and the toilet bowl. Just I was about to think that I was able to enjoy a good shower, I was too quick to make the judgement. Wen Liang went to bathe earlier than me for that day and he came out of the toilet telling me that the water has only cold or colder. I freaked out immediately and went to test it for myself which it was the truth. I cannot take cold showers at night or I would get a cold. In addition, the weather was so cold that the thought of bathing put me off. Even wiping myself.

With that, we ended the day. The next morning when we woke up, the weather was even colder than the night before! As I walk out of my room, I was shivering and my hands and feet were chilled. There is no hot water from the tap so when we wash up, it made us even colder. In the end, we emptied our bottles to fill the hot water in from the hot water flask and that became our heater. That was like so comfortable however, as the weather was too cold, the water eventually turned cold quite fast and I changed my water 2 times. I was kind of wondering how come no one knew that it would be so cold and didn't ask us to bring more thick clothings because I was expecting the weather to be still cool but to the extent that basics still can be worn in the environment.

We began our hike of the mountain after our breakfast and the experience was awesome even though I was one of the last few to reach the top with Edah, Ryan and Dr Tan! All of us were able to walk quite fast at the starting however when we reached 1/4 of the whole distance, we started to slow down. The expected duration for us to finish the hike was 2 hours but I took around like 2.5 hours. However, it was great to spur each other on as we were tired from the climbing of the stairs which is really excruciating. From what Dr Tan told us is that the distance covered was 5m but with inclination, what do you think? It is definitely increased. Even though my thighs are still aching from the climb, it is really worth it as the view and scenary that you get to see during the climb cannot never ever be found in Singapore and I believe that this is one point of China in which that there is still perfection in the imperfections.

Comparing the legend and the reality in my post trip report again, now I understand that why the characters said that they usually need 1 day to go up the mountain to visit the sect or look for the person. However, there were still some parts where I think it is unrealistic as they could make use of Qinggong to go up or come down from the mountain in around 2 hours time.

We were also told before that Wudang has a lot of herbs. Look at this big Lingzhi that the locals had retrieved! I dont think that you can see this kind of big Lingzhi in Singapore that commonly as it will be expensive and due to business tactics, it is not wise to stock up so much as no one will buy it due to the price.

Finally we reached the top and the view is really breathe-taking! Even though some parts of the scenary was shrouded by mist, I think that is the beauty that makes it look secretive and yet, majestic.

After touring the summit of the mountain, we went down the mountain by taking cable car! This was the first time for me taking the cablecar as I didn't have the chance to take it in Singapore except the Skyluge at Sentosa which I think was horrifying enough for me as I have vertigo. The cable car was moving quite quickly so when we were shoved up by the assistants there, Calista and I knocked our head against each other but at least we got into the cabin. The view of the mountain from the cablecar was kind of better as you are suspended in the air looking at it. However, due to my vertigo, I don't really dare to look down but to ask Calista to help me take photos of the scenary. To add on to the fright of what I am afraid of height, the cable car had to kind of jerk and make noises when it had reached a connecting point! A lot of us complained as well, as we were very worried about our safety. There is totally no chance of survival if we were to have a free fall from this height.

After this, we went back to the middle of the mountain to take our bus to a restaurant outside for lunch and we took the draining 6 hours ride back to hostel again and when we reached school, it was drizzling again. I have learnt to see that Wuhan had very little rain fall and even if it rains, it is usually a drizzle.

With this, that marks the end of all the excursions that we will have on the weekends and next few weeks will be work and more work for presentations.

Day 21-25: Stationary

2009-09-25T01:19:00.001+08:00

Stress stress stress!

This week we had our Traditional Chinese Medicine class test and before that, everyone was mugging like crazy. Luckily, I bought my notes up to the cruise to read and I managed to clear half of the contents by the end of the 3 Gorges.

Anyway, this week we had lesson with the Director of the Foreign Language School on Chinese Philosophy. However, we had quite a long session of China History before we went into the philosophy. Up till today, I still find that Anna is still the best lecturer among all the China lecturer that I met. The Director is also not bad but apparently his class was not as lively as I thought it would be.

The lecture was rather heavy content based but then it spurred me thinking about the Chinese philosophy thinking which the director left us.

Then, we visited the coke factory as well!

That was a very interesting trip as I can see alot of things and share with my father when I go back to Singapore as he is a fan and collector of coke. When we went into the room, we were treated one glass of coke each. However, me not being a fan of coke, I decided to just keep and smuggle out one glass of the coke which we are actually not allowed to.

We went to the manufacturing process section after watching the advertisement clip that the company wanted to show us. We saw that the QC here is very stringent also. They have a worker to sit in front of the belt to take notice whether any bottle is contaminated by any fungal growth. I believe that this shares one common point with the pharmaceutical production is that they will have one worker to sit in front of the conveyor belt to check the products also. Another thing is that they have shifts for the worker also to make sure that their eyes are not over strained.

Then when we were to leave the factory, some of the students found out that we are also entitled to taking the drinks that were provided and they decided to try all the other drinks before leaving.

Well, now life in Wuhan is getting more and more interesting. It seemed that we have learnt to adapt to the environment and I think I have started to learn to love the imperfect things that is over here and maybe, the hostel is not the worst place after all as compared to what I thought during the first week.

Day 18-20: The 3 Gorges

2009-09-23T21:30:00.000+08:00

It has been really AGES, since I updated my China blog and Ms Esther has started reading the blogs! I think I better had my posts done this few days or else there will be the Butterfly Effect (which is what I learnt from TCM, meaning it will accumulate and get worse).

So, weekends are here again! This time, we went to 3 Gorges, which is at Yichang. The bus ride that we were having is getting longer and longer. Just this trip to 3 Gorges, it is as long as 5 hours. Seriously, I think that going to anywhere in Singapore is really fast. Imagine sitting on the bus for 5 straight hours with only like 15 minutes break in between. This time we set off on a Friday as we need around 1 day to reach the 3 Gorges, 1 day to tour and 1 day for the returning journey. Definitely, the pro is that we will have one more extra day of fun; the con would be that we need to rush for our syllabus before that.

Anyway, it was raining when we were making our way to there. To add on, semester 1 results was out on that day when we were making our way there. The whole atmosphere just makes you reflect on the results that you have achieved for the semester. Well, I could say that I have not done badly and I have done my best for this semester. Maybe for Microbiology, which is the disappointing one, I am not really satisfied with it. Oh well, move on and think about the next semester.

We arrived at Yansha Hotel in the afternoon for our lunch. I would agree that this is so far the best lunch I had here in China as the taste is really close to the ones that we can get in Chinese restaurants in Singapore. Everyone definitely ate to their contents on that day as we can see from the before and after. For me, that was also the first time that I had 3 bowls of rice here, being a very picky eater.

After that, we continued to make our way to the 3 Gorges. As we were entering the compounds of it, we passed by the security check of the place and we were told that that was done to prevent anyone from bringing any explosive materials into the vicinity or even blowing up the compound. This is definitely understandable as the 3 Gorges is something that the China had spent billions of dollars in building it. To add on, it controls the water flow of the rivers and it prevents flooding of certain areas during certain seasons. So, if any damage was to be done to the dam, it would be disastrous and it could affect a lot of people.

Also, we were told to pass the tour guide our student pass so that we can enjoy concession rate for the entrance fee. I find that this is a very good and feasible idea as firstly, it would attract more students to go there and the organization is able to earn more money. However, on top of that, the students will be able to learn more about the project of the 3 Gorges to expand their general knowledge. I find that this can be applied to other attractions of China too. For example, The Yellow Crane Tower that we went for last week. The place has historical events and I find that by offering concession prices, it would attract more people like us the students to go there. Another example would be the Hubei Province Museum. That is definitely a place where there are a lot of ornaments with historical values. I believe that this would really allow students to learn a lot of things. Comparing it to Singapore, I see that almost or 95% of our tourist attractions do not even have concession prices for them. Which in this case, I have to agree that, with normal adult prices, I wouldn’t even want to go to the Ancient Civilisation Museum situated in Raffles City no matter how interesting the exhibitions are.

Just as I thought that on Lu Lin Mountain Resort Trip the translation of the Chinese to English was bad enough, what I saw this time when we were about to board the internal bus service was worse. I think I can do a better translation for them. 1. No weapons or imitated weapons. 2. No flammable items. 3. No toxic substances. 4. No radioactive substances. 5. No fire source.

The checkpoint is almost like what they have at the airport. Imagine how strict the check is to prevent any accidents from happening. Then, we received our tickets for boarding the bus, which I was intrigued by it.

It is actually a ticket cum postcard! I find that this is very environmentally friendly. Usually, when tourists finished their trip at an attraction, they will just dispose their tickets into the bin (or in China it might not be). However, by making it into a ticket cum postcard, the person can send the ticket as a postcard back to their country when they finished the tour. In this way, it can help to conserve the environment as there will be lesser waste produced from tourism. In addition, this idea also allows the family of the person to know that he is enjoying himself over there.

Then, we saw this “staircase” for the ships which are going upstream or downstream. We were told that we will see this when we take the cruise later.

So, our first destination is to see the whole layout of the 3 Gorges Project in the project room and the whole thing is really majestic just from the looks of the model.

So we were told by our tour guide about the different parts of the 3 gorges and their uses in controlling the water level as well as for economic purposes such as the entrance of ships. So here we have the “staircase” which we saw before that. This is used for the bigger ships. It is known as the “staircase” because the ships will go up and down the steps by controlling the level of the water.

This is what they known as the “elevator”. It is used by the small ships and they could be elevated straight to the height that they need to go unlike the bigger ships.

Definitely, this is the dam. If in the model it is already so big, imagine it in the actual size!

Then we went on to tour around the park and I found more funny signboards.

I think to those Caucasians, who visited this place; they would be laughing hysterically at this. This brings me back to the point that it is important that we master our languages well enough or else we will just be a laughingstock to others when we open our mouth or when we write.

When we were walking down the hill afterwards to take the next bus from there, our attention was caught by this.

It might look like a stone but in actual fact, it is a speaker giving description on the venue. It just blends well into the environment doesn’t it? Then when we reached the bus stop, I saw another signboard again. Shouldn’t it at least be Queue for bus?

Then we went on to the next spot and we saw the dam. The wall is really high and I was thinking and imagining the water came gushing down when the gate was opened. The whole place would really be flooded. I also spotted some boatmen clearing up the water. I believe that this is something good as it keeps the environment clean. Maybe it is because that this is a tourist attraction as well, that is why they are placing more emphasis on the cleanliness here.

We went on to tour the rest of the park and the next thing we knew, it was dinner and we were going to board the cruise!

As excited as all of us were, the boarding time of the cruise was delayed due to the docking of the cruise and such. So everyone was waiting at the ticketing area. Then, as time passes, more and more Chinese started to come in. I managed to spot that they were locals who signed up for their country tour. I think that this is somewhat common to what Singapore has, which is organized by the Resident Committee, going to some farms and factories of Singapore in a 1 Day Tour. However, I find that this is more interesting in China as there are really places that you might not even visit in your life time even you are a Chinese living in China. It is kind of rare for a Singaporean to not visit major parts of Singapore in their whole life. Now I feel that, maybe television and internet might not be so important in China after all as I find that, there can be a lot of places to be explored and their scenery are really artistic or in Chinese we say “诗琴画意”.

Finally the cruise came and just as we think that we Singaporeans are “kiasu” enough, I think that the Chinese won us in it.

The whole scene was just like what I see in Singapore when I was at Chinatown during Chinese New Year. Pushing and squeezing to get pass the gentry as soon as possible. I felt that if there are children around there and this happened, if they fell down, they will just get killed by a stampede. So in the end, we waited for most of the locals to get pass the gentry before we went in with a more orderly way.

After walking down a long flight of stairs in dark, crossing platforms and walking down the path with head bended down (for me and there are some spider webs) we reached our cruise! The cruise was a little disappointing as it was not as big as I thought it would be and it was not as clean I thought it would be. On the other hand, the lighting and the hall was quite nice if I were to grade it using the China scale. We were also lucky enough to all have a room as there are some locals who don’t have a room and they need to sleep in the hall. At first I was thinking that it will be a bad idea to sleep in the hall however, when we went to our room, I changed my mind instantly.

The first thing that welcomed me was the weird smell that the room had and the worst news to hear from Tony when he opened his room door was that, he saw 3 rats! Definitely I shrieked and I had goose bumps. I was still rejoicing a few moments ago that Dr Tan actually gave us the room on the 1st floor but the thing is that first floor rooms have rats hidden in them. Now, you should understand why I claimed that sleeping in the hall is better? In addition, my room is just right beside the engine room which is like so noisy.

When I opened the toilet, my jaw just dropped in horror. The amount of space inside is just so little such that I don’t even know how I was going to move in there. To make things worse, the ceiling of the toilet was kind of low which makes it even more difficult for me to go into the toilet.

Just as everyone was complaining about the space and all, the next news came and it just add on to the mental burden that we had. The water on ship was not clean. When they stopper the sink and they allowed the shower head to run, they actually see that the water is pale yellow! That is not in only one room as all of us also tested it. When I heard this, all I knew is that, I don’t think that I will be showering for the next 2 days with this kind of water.

So altogether, we had rats, dirty water, and weird smell in a room. How bad can things get?

After that, I went to Edah’s room to take a look as her room was a different one from the rest. Her room was a little nicer with a bigger bed and she had a “living room”. We went up to the deck and it was really cooling on the top and the air is so much fresher.

After enjoying the air on the deck, we went to sleep. Apparently, I woke up with a very bad seasick the next morning even though I don’t have any seasick upon boarding the boat. The feeling was really very bad as the nausea feeling make can cause you not being able to walk straight and the whole world seemed spinning.

Luckily, we went down the cruise after breakfast to Baidicheng to tour around. Even though I was on land, I was still trying to overcome the nausea especially when I was going up the stairs. I almost fell back as I was going up. As we were heading towards the spot to take the bus to our destination, we were welcomed by the locals who were so warm and friendly that they kept promoting to us the local gifts that they had. I think that this is one of the most common ways of business which is to camp outside of a place where a crowd will go by and then it will be much easier to get business.

When we reached Baidicheng, I saw that there is a sedan service offered by the locals to carry those tourists who doesn’t have the stamina to climb up the hill. I find that this kind of service has almost the same feeling like the trishaw service offered in Singapore, maybe due to the fact is that it is done by manpower. The difference is only that trishaw at least made use of mechanism which is the bicycle part while in this it is really brute force. From what I see, the guys were all very buff and toned which made me think that they must have been in this business for quite a long time.

This is the place where the historical event happened. When we saw Zhao Yun, most of us who played Dynasty Warrior, which is a video game, were stumped. He looked totally different from how he looked in the video game who is a suave, young warrior!

As we were going down Baidicheng at the long stairways down, I saw this man carrying a beam with heavy loads. This is kind of common in China as most of the places do not have lifts and they really have to depend on their own to climb up the place. Sometimes, I just have to admit that these people are really very pitiful. The reason is that just to earn money; they really have to slog their life for it just like this man, or it could even be an old man.

With this, we ended our tour and we went back for a early lunch before we had free time while waiting for the cruise to reach Shen Nong Jia. Where there are even more scenic places and interesting things to view.

One of the more interesting one that we managed to see was the Hanging Coffin. It was rumoured that when it was discovered, they found that it was kind of impossible for the people to transport the coffin up to somewhere so high. Up till now, it still remains as a mystery how the coffin was transported up. When I heard that, even though there is a chill down my spine but at the same time, it was a really interesting to know.

The most interesting part for that day came which is the Shennongxi Stream. It looks like as if everyone is going for a Dragonboat Competition with the life jacket on. Apparently, it seemed that the life jacket is not so clean after all as it as a very "mouldy" smell and all of us put on it reluctantly. Or else, the boatman will not start rowing the boat due to safety reasons. However, I could understand why this is so important as there are some parts of the stream where the water could be very deep. So, it is not a joking matter no matter how reluctant we are...

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream~

Pharm-ers smile! I managed to take this photo as I was on the other boat with the MDE students as there were not enough space.

The water at one part of the stream was actually so shallow that we can see the nice pebbles and stones below the boat. I find that this is almost impossible to find in Singapore as the stones are really unique and beautiful. Besides, Singapore surely do not allow people to remove them from the source also. The boatmen are all really nice as they know that we cannot go down to the water so, they were the ones who picked the pebbles for us and they really pick those unique ones to give us. To add on, I find that their straw shoes looked so much more stylish-er than the ones we wore at Lu Lin.

Then, the boatmen went down the boat to start pulling the boat as the water is too shallow already. In actual fact, the they should be pulling the sampan with their body naked. The reason is that the water that is absorbed by the clothes will make them heavier and it will make it more difficult for them to pull the sampan. In addition due to modernisation and tourism as well, they need to wear clothes and only allowed to remove their top. This can be a boon and a bane of tourism from what I learnt in the past also. The tradition of certain race or tribe could be lost as they need to make sure that they are properly attired and they need to "act" to make sure that it is suitable for tourist to see.

However, the good thing that tourism can bring is that, it will bring upgrades to the infrastructure of the area which will benefit the locals as well. Despite the above benefit that it brings, the construction of the infrastructure might destroy the landscape and the natural scenary as well.

What we heard from the tour guide is that, in the future there will be no more of these boatmen to pull the boats anymore as they will be replaced by motor boats. The reason is also because of modernisation where the boatmen they need to send their kids to school which they will not follow in their foot steps. With this, it actually destroys the tradition of the Shennongxi Stream as people came here is to experiece the pulling of the sampan by the boatmen themselves. However, with motor boats, I believe that the experience will not be as genuine as the one that we experienced.

Look at how fast the water is running! I really pity the boatmen as they must really be very strong in order to go against the stream. I really take my hats off to them. After we went against the stream, we headed back to the ship and we managed to hear the mountain songs from the boatman. It is really nice and it really conveys their feelings.

With this, we ended the activities and headed back to our ship for dinner and free time again after that. This time round, I bought mineral water to wipe myself at least.

The next morning, we alighted from the ship and finally, Hostel Sweet Hostel. Now, I am starting to feel that, hostel is more and more like home...

Day 14-17: Exponential

2009-09-17T22:52:00.000+08:00

Life just goes on here in Wuhan and for this week, which is week 3, there aren’t a lot of things to mention about except for a few very significant events.

On Tuesday, we finally met the local students and we had an interaction session with them. We were allowed to choose between going to a theme park to play and an orchard to pluck tangerines. Apparently, most of us chose to go to the orchard to pluck tangerines. Well, I don’t know about the rest but for me, I chose to go to the orchard as it is something new to us as we don’t really have orchards to pluck tangerines from in Singapore. Next, I don’t really have the faith in China’s theme park safety if they mean it is something like Escape Theme Park in Singapore.

So, after our morning lesson on Chinese Medicine, we gathered under our hostel to meet the China students. Then we set off to this plantation!

The plantation was really big and pretty. The China students were very nice to us too. They told us tips on how to pick the better tangerines and they showed us something which I think it can never ever be done in Singapore, especially when it is in a plantation owned by an owner. If we can ever do that in Singapore, the next thing we know is that the police and civil defence will be after us.

The thing that they attempted was to start a fire in the plantation to roast the sweet potato that they dug from the ground fresh!

I find that this is something really very fun to do and I was impressed by how the way the local students do things. In an orchard or plantation like this, they could actually start a fire with the twigs and branches there. Although it seemed kid of primitive, I wonder how many Singapore students can do that if we were allowed to do this in Singapore also, reason being that most of us are bounded by the world of the internet to be too busy to go and experience new things. On the other hand, safety might be an issue as around the fire is bushes. So, there might be a chance that a orchard fire might broke out if the person is not careful.

After the picking of oranges, we went back to our hostel before going for a barbeque session with them. When we were leaving the plantation, I was feeling puzzled as before the trip, we were told that if we wanted to take the tangerines out, we need to pay for them at RMB 5 for 1 Jin (0.5kg). However, I didn’t see anyone paying for them up when we left and it seemed that the owner didn’t press for any payment either? Weird…

So we went to one of the compounds outside of the campus which they have their barbeque. As we were making our way there, we saw these people in the army uniform again. Now, it seemed that they were there doing some leadership training like what we have in Singapore when we were in Secondary School. There are some things in China which they have common with Singapore’s education system too.

Finally we reached the barbeque pits and here, I got a surprise again. There is no barbeque pits here! There must be a way that they can do it as, since they can start a fire in the orchard with twigs and branches, so can they do it here and I was right. We started fire with the most primitive way again and not a single fire starter was used. The feeling is just so back to the nature and so rural.

I believe that if next time I ever encounter this kind of situation in any barbeque, I would be able to start a fire even without a fire starter.

After around 2 hours of barbeque, we finished all the food and we had a mini chat session with the China students to know each other better. Although in the afternoon at the orchard, they weren’t interacting with us much as we were all over the place; they are all very warm and friendly. Most of the students are of same age as our Year 3 students. When we were talking about some of the common things that we teenagers will chat about, Stephanie Sun was bought up. It seems that her fame is really all over the Asia region already.

As we were chatting under the night sky, there were also people playing with fireworks. The fireworks here are really magnificent but Singapore definitely won’t allow this. China now also has some restriction with regards to playing fireworks. People are not allowed to play fireworks without any permission in city area due to the same reason as Singapore, which has got to do with safety measures. However, the good thing is that people are still allowed to play them at the countryside.

For Wednesday, we had our IS lesson and frankly speaking, I was not really happy with the teaching style of the teacher even though I think that the rest of the people they enjoyed it as it is taught in a different way to some extent.

Here you go, headphones and the lecturer will speak through the main speaker to teach.

As cool as it looks, I find that it is rather redundant. Firstly, people will be distracted by the buttons and if the headphone is not comfortable, people will keep fidgeting and adjusting the headphone. In some another way, this way of teaching doesn’t apply to me. However, I find that the good thing may be that people will not talk and the voice of the lecturer might not be heard next door. However, the lecturer was not really up to my standard as the way he speaks really makes people want to fall asleep. Anna is still the best lecturer I have seen here since last week?

The lecture was on Chinese Customs. Being a Chinese that is more traditional at home, I have known most of the things before hand. However, the parts that I don’t know seemed to be more interesting than the information that I actually knew beforehand. E.g. Feng Shui, some other marriage customs. However, I think that like what Anna mentioned, all these traditional customs are getting lost. In actual fact, I don’t really see people practicing them anymore such as giving the traditional bridal gifts.

Anyway, going to 3 Gorges tomorrow onwards till Sunday afternoon. Hopefully the cruise will be good?

Day 12 &13: Wuhan City Tour

2009-09-12T23:54:00.004+08:00

It was a great weekend again even though for this weekend, we did something that was more relaxing as compared to last week. We had a tour in Wuhan City, which comprises of Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang.

So on Saturday, we went to the famous landmarks in Wuchang, which is the East Lake, Hubei Province Museum and Yellow Crane Tower. As usual, we need to report early for our excursions. However, I suppose that everyone have got used to it already. The sad thing was that Milllison was sick yesterday such that she missed out all the fun.

So, we set off at 730am and for the trip this weekend, we had Lei Jing and she asked us to call her Xiao Lei as well. This surname reminds me of my secondary school Chinese teacher who had the same surname as well and she is from China too. It seemed that in China, the tour guides prefer the tourists to call them xiao something instead of calling them their surname and with dao, or in English guide. Just like last week, we got Xiao Chen or Candy who also asked us to call them by that. The reason that they gave was that they find that it will actually close up the gap between us and them as it is more personal rather than official. Well, that is a good thing to do as in this way, it will make them more approachable and it will leave a deeper impression on us.

We reached the vicinity of Hubei Province Museum and Xiao Lei was introducing us the East Lake. The sight was really spectacular and I envy the students of Wuhan University as the school is just beside the lake. Ok now, I am in Wuhan University of Science and Technology. So there is a difference between this 2.

When we reached the museum, it was only 845am and the museum opens at 9am. So we had no choice but to go to East Lake first before going to the museum. As you can see, the environment is just like those scenes where you see in those ancient Chinese dramas. It is really very tranquil.

The East Lake is also where Qu Yuan killed himself to prove his patriotism towards his country, when the Han was conquered by the Qin. So, a statue was erected to commemorate his death in the park.

Then we saw a crowd gathering near the statue and we saw a stall selling crystal ornaments which in actual fact, from what I see, it is not just statues made from acrylic rod as I saw the acrylic rods on the table. Another thing to prove is that, the person claimed that the ornaments won’t crack when it is dropped on the ground. How can crystals actually not crack or shatter when they drop on the ground? However, they ornaments that were made were elegant and beautiful, especially the grand piano.

We didn’t manage to finish the tour in the park as time was up and we needed to go to the museum next.

I still remembered a few months ago when I was watching the Eclipse in China on the television where they featured the Hubei Province Museum. Just from the television, I was really intrigued by the exhibition here and I really wanted to take a look at the artifacts which they mentioned on the television. Finally, my wish really came true!

We went to see the exhibition of the artifacts which was the most famous or the icon for Wuhan: The Tomb of Marquis Yi. The history really came alive and I was totally amazed by the exhibitions there even though some of them are replicates.

This was one of the artifacts that the tour guide mentioned, even with modern technology, it is impossible to replicate it. It is the same thing as some things in the world. There can be only one and it cannot be replicated with no matter how much money. This is actually a ice bath and a warmer for the Marquis to drink wine in the past.

Then here comes the highlight of the whole museum: the bells. This set of musical instrument can play up to 5 and a half octave in the musical scale and it is the heaviest musical instrument in the world. All the bells weigh 2400kg and with the supporting structures, it actually adds up to 4000kg. Imagine that! I think one of the bass bells is enough to kill or knock someone out.

Apparently, we have been grading every toilet that we went to.

After the tour at the museum, we went to the Bu Xing Jie (Walking Street) to eat our lunch. On our way there, we observed that the traffic of the road is really bad or rather worse as it is in the city area. Look at this.

Doesnt this remind you of the trams in the olden times?

It was much worse than the scene we saw back on the way to Lv Lin Resort. Just a taxi doing a U-turn at the junction could just jam up the whole lane for like 5 minutes. As compared to Singapore’s city road, China’s one might be narrower as we can see in the picture. Singapore usually has 3 or 4 lanes but China only has 2. I suppose that this is another factor that is jamming the traffic up.

To add on, the frequency of the traffic light is also very fast. So, it will not be very fast before the traffic light turns red and we need to wait for the next green light. Not forgetting the fact that the Chinese will also cross the road even when cars are moving, this delayed our progress even more.

Finally, we reached our destination. Walking Street is really a street where it sells a lot of snacks and food that are famous in Wuhan. One interesting fact there is that they make use of the card system just like what we do in the University. I find that it is very rare for a street selling food like this to implement this kind of system. By the way, the feeling that the street gave me is just like Singapore’s Bugis Street. Imagine paying for your food in Bugis Street with the card system. That will be kind of cool?

Even Singapore has the card system in some of the dining area also, it is usually where they give you the card to buy the food, they will credit the payment to the card and then you pay at the exit when you finished your meal. I think that this is the major difference between China’s and Singapore’s card system. Definitely, there will be pros and cons to each of the system that the country adopts.

However, I find that by depositing the money into the card first and getting back the refund of what you have left later is a better system. Why do I say that? Sometimes it just happens that we did not bring out a lot of cash for our meals and we decided to go the restaurant. We might order food and exceed the bill unknowingly, creating embarrassment for ourselves when we are not able to pay up. Therefore, when you actually deposit the money into the card first, you can be more certain of how much you can spend and if you exceed the amount of money that you have in your card, the system will not allow the bill to be processed and it will spare you from all the embarrassment.

So, as we walk down the street, we definitely saw some mouth-watering food. For me, the dim sums over there stimulated my stomach gastric juices. However, one of the foods that surprised me was the Siew Mai. It was totally different from what we see in Singapore and unknowingly, I ordered 6 instead of 3 because I was under the wrong impression. The Siew Mai in Wuhan looks like Xiao Long Tang Bao and it is actually filled with glutinous rice, some diced meat and mushrooms. Distinctively different from the yellow skinned, filled with meat and topped with roe Siew Mai from Singapore.

I managed to try the Har Kau (Crystal skin shrimp dumpling) also and it tasted just like the ones sold in Singapore. Maybe that is the only one that has the closest resemblance to the ones sold in Singapore. I bought a bun from there too and this is the Soup Dumplings that my friends tried which I missed out.

Time passes so quickly and after which, we went to the Yellow Crane Tower!

This is the historical venue that I have been looking forward to visit for the whole trip other than the Hubei Province Museum. I didn’t have a lot of photos on this as the battery for my camera went flat so some of the photos I took were with Edah.

Nonetheless, the view from the top of the tower was magnificent. I believe that it is almost the same as the view you can see from the Carlsberg tower in Sentosa, or even better. The tower is said to be 5 stories tall but in actual fact, it is 9 stories due to the partition in between the stories. So, we endured all the way up to the highest floor first before going down the levels slowly.

The stairways are narrow and there were a lot of people. So imagine the space densely packed with people. The ironical thing was that, one of the stairways is labeled as the emergency route. However, I just can’t figure out how is that narrow stairway is going to be an escape route if a fire really broke out.

So when I reached the top of the tower, I saw the thing that I have been yearning for! The stamp which I could have my name carved on it. I wanted something that is big however the price is also “big”. So I settled for a smaller one which cost me only RMB50 which is around SGD$10. I believe that in Singapore, the price would be much higher if I were to make the same one.

I suppose that Yellow Crane Tower was the place where I got a lot of souvenirs for my family and myself. That was the first time in China here that I don’t have enough time to shop for the things I want. I got the stamp, a poem made for myself, a medallion for my Father, a gourd for my aunt. For my Mother, I got her something else at Lv Lin Resort last week.

So why did I get so much souvenirs at the Yellow Crane Tower?

Firstly, I was intrigued by was the skill in the carving of the Chinese characters. For the stamp that I got, the characters are required to be craved reversed on the base by the seal cravers so that the characters will appear correct on the paper when we stamp it. I wonder how did they managed to do that and it is within a time span of lesser than 10 minutes. Not forgetting the fact that the characters are in the traditional Chinese form. I think this is really an art that China has and it is very difficult to be learned.

Secondly, it was the poet who made can make poems for you using your Chinese name. He could even make a poem for Malays e.g. Edah by translating her name into Chinese! Isn’t that fascinating? Now I appreciate the beauty of Chinese language even more than what I have in the past and I will continue to love Chinese as much as I do in the past.

The last item that I wanted to get was the fan that has your own Chinese surname on it but due to time constraint, I didn’t manage to get it. It was really a pity. Then, we went back to our hostel.

So Sunday, we had our part 2 journey which is to Hankou. Luckily we set off only at 830am. So we don’t have to wake up so early for the morning.

On the way to Hankou, we went past the Chang Jiang and Han Jiang of China while we were on the Qing Chuan Bridge. The weather was kind of misty so the scenery of the lake was not very clear.

The converging point of Chang Jiang and Han Jiang which separates Hankou and Hanyang

When we were reaching the first destination, which was Hankou Beach, we saw this bustling market selling a lot of groceries and clothes.

Then Xiao Lei was telling us about the story of the Dragon King Temple by the side of the road. Some people might find it utterly fake or false but being a Chinese, I believe in our mythology. The story goes like this.

In the past, people built the Dragon King Temple to pray and protect them from the floods due to the rise in sea level when the river was flowing downstream at some period of time. However, the government after a few years decided to tear down the temple for recreation of the infrastructure. After 2 years, Hankou was struck by flood and it caused huge damage and loss for the city. This was believed to be that the Dragon King was displeased by the demolition of the temple. So, they built it back after they solved the crisis of the flood.

So we reached the beach and we had free time to tour around. It seemed that we always stay at one point and we took a lot of photos before moving on. So, we didn’t really manage to finish seeing the whole beach.

After which, we went to the shopping area which I don’t really have the mood to shop as 2 people were down with an ailment. When we were on the way, I saw the “HDB” flats that they have in China and I find that they looked similar to those I saw on television which is found in Hong Kong.

Then I saw this waste which is going to be recycled. I find that even China is lagging behind Singapore in terms of cleanliness in some ways, their recycling scheme is a much more of a success than Singapore. Whether it is in city or even in school, I could see that there are recycling bins. When I looked into the recycling bins, it can be seen that the rubbish are more or less categorize correctly and I believe that this has got to do with educating or cultivating the habit since young. Singapore has much more to learn in terms of this.

Although Hankou’s shopping centre has the most decent lunch I have ever seen since the first day I came to China, I was totally turned off by the service at the shop that looked like a fast food restaurant there. Despite the fact that the food was not bad excluding the rice. The shop was HCC.

So I went to order Black Pepper Chicken Chop Rice however, after waiting for 15 minutes plus, my order became Curry Chicken Rice. I was like staring at the order that I received and I told the waiter that he gave me the wrong order. In the end when he double checked my number plate and the receipt that he had in his hand, it was reflected as Curry Chicken. I wanted to insist that I was correct as I have witnesses to help me verify what I ordered before that but I just chose to let it go. All I could just say is that, it is either, my spoken mandarin couldn’t be understood, or the waiter was not really paying attention.

Anyway, Week 2 ended just like this... It's gonna be 50% of the overall trip after this coming week. Happy or not?

Day 7-11: Start

2009-09-11T21:10:00.003+08:00

Great. The water supply got cut off yesterday night when I was going to bathe. Reason why? It seemed that nobody really knows even though we attempted to enquire from the landlady. Some of us thought that there is water limit as it was like midnight at that point of time. Leaving with no choice, I had to wipe myself. I think in Singapore we are really blessed to have stable water supply for 24/7. I think if Singapore implements water limit the whole country might most likely just die from it.

Oh well, lessons have started for this week and I really have to say that Traditional Chinese Medicine is really interesting and it has started to change some of my perspective towards Chinese Medicine in the past. I often see my father in the past coming back and his back has circle marks which I find that it was kind of disturbing. However, now I know what the rationale behind it is. It really depicts of what my father was suffering which has got something to do with the wind.

In fact, many people might find that Chinese Medicine is rather difficult to believe in as there is the involvement of 5 elements, which to some people they might not believe it. However, the 5 elements Sheng and Ke (Growth and Counter) Cycle is something that is kind of abstract for people to understand the meaning behind it. Just like what we were talking about in the first lecture, it is just what perspective of what you are looking at.

So, we went for a campus tour again on Monday to look at the other parts of the school, which we visited the School of Info Engineering and School of Life Science.

Generally, I didn’t have much to comment on the School of Info Engineering but apparently, their chairs in the classroom gave me a shock.

It was covered with Fungi! I seriously wonder what the school is doing when they have this kind of condition of chairs. Singapore students will be really shocked if one day we walk into the class and we see this kind of situation.

After walking from one end of the campus to the other end, we finally reached School of Life Science in WUST. The funny thing is that it is also located at the borders of the school which is almost like Ngee Ann? I wonder if it is for convenience of escaping if there is any accidents.

The Anatomy & Physiology laboratory here is seriously the best. Why? They have real specimens for you to look at and they actually labeled it before they sealed it into the glass block. As gore as it is, if Ngee Ann have this, I think it would be really be impressive as it will really open up our minds.

Then, we on to the pharmaceuticals laboratories and there is a lot of comparison to make between our laboratories and theirs. However, I believe that most of the equipments or reagents were not displayed out as the tables were clear.

The laboratories don’t really differ much from Singapore except the fact that some of the equipments are older. They also have Safety Regulations to be obeyed by both the teachers and the students also.

Now, I am interested to know how the way they study when is like they have almost the same equipment as us. This will be answered in my study plan.

Finally we had our first IS lesson for the week. So for this week, we did History, Geography and Culture of Wuhan. For our IS module, it was a China lecturer who is teaching us and for every lecture, the lecturer will be different. So for today, we got Anna/谢老师!

China’s history is really very rich and I suppose that if we were to talk about everything, it will really take more than one year. I am really amazed that so many events happened in Wuhan. One thing that I really need to credit is that Anna speaks good English although at some point of time, she did direct translation.

One point that I would strongly agree with what Anna said is that we are losing our some of our cultural roots. I got to know this from one of the points that she was talking, which is food in China. Usually, Chinese will eat mung bean cakes during summer, rice dumplings during Dumpling Festival, moon cakes during Mid Autumn Festival and dumplings during December. However, she mentioned that we can get them now and then due to the demand of it which she claims that it doesn’t have any “excitement” to look forward to.

I believe that this is also happening in Singapore, such as we are abusing some of the special things that we eat on special occasions by having them all year round. I find that it sort of made the festival that we are celebrating feel kind of redundant as the food we can get them whole year round.

This same applies for Chinese New Year. Anna said that the Chinese in China they also had reunion dinner and celebrations during it also. However, the fact that shocked me was that their attitude towards the celebration of it is almost the same as the modern Singaporeans. She claims that they will also have reunion dinner and then they will sit together to watch the New Year Celebration show which they find that it is almost also a routine to them for Chinese New Year now.

I find that this is a very sad thing to be happening as festivals should be something that we look forward so that we can have gatherings with our families and have the special food that we have for the festival with them. How could it just become a routine in this society now? That’s why most of the Chinese don’t even know how to speak their dialect (properly) and some don’t even feel the pride in speaking their own mother tongue.

Lesson ended and when I was walking back to the hostel, I saw what I saw in the morning again.

Weird isn’t it? Uniform group assembling during curriculum time? To add on, some of the officers (I suppose) in blue uniform, they are staying in the same hostel as us. After asking some people like the landlady, it was said that they were not students of this school. However, Dr Tan said that this is something like their Freshman Orientation Camp but it is done in the uniform group style. Hmm, interesting… I should really find out what is it about soon. If it is something like what Dr Tan said, I think that it might be a really new experience if we were to execute it in Singapore. We might not be able to do this also because I think some of the students might not be able to take it? Maybe that is why also Singapore students are deemed as the Strawberry tribe.

Oh well, gotta sleep early to wake up early for the excursion tomorrow. I will have tonnes of photos to post again for the weekends.

Good news, I finally found food that is edible to me and the taste is close to Singapore.

Yang Chou Fried Rice

Shrimp Dumplings

Day 5 & 6: Lv Lin Resort

2009-09-10T02:49:00.003+08:00

The weather has just turned autumn yesterday evening and it was really cold when I woke up this morning despite wearing a pair of socks when I went to sleep.

I think finally I have the time to blog what happened over the weekends when we went to Lv Lin Resort. From now onwards, I will be uploading one blog post with two days content or I will really die of overload here due to the pictures.

So on Saturday morning, we reported early in the morning at 730am to find the buses late to bring us to Lv Lin Resort. The transport system in China is really very unpredictable at times. The worst thing was that I was having abdominal problems in that morning so I decided to take a medicine from Millison and luckily it subsided for awhile. So while waiting for the bus, the whole Ngee Ann took a group photo which I don’t have it with me now.

Finally the bus came and we boarded the bus.

Then on our way, we had our tour guide for the 2 days trip, who is actually also a student from Wuhan University studying Tourism Management, Candy (小陈). She is a very good tour guide as she really gives insights of Wuhan to us and she always try to keep us entertained which is a very good thing. Even though that she admitted that her English is not good, I find that she is really very brave to admit that her English is not good. She also explained to us why her English name was Candy and the reason was that her teacher found that her smile was really sweet. The best part of the bus trip was that she asked us Riddles, as in Chinese “Cold Jokes”, while we were on our 4 hours trip there.

However, most of the people on the bus were asleep as they were all very tired from waking so early, leaving those of us who were sitting at the front of the bus to chat with Candy. Unfortunately, my stomach gave me problems again this time and I broke out in cold sweat. I knew that I need to go to the toilet but I was struggling that whether I should tell the bus to pull over as everyone will need to stop and it will delay the trip. In the end, I couldn’t take it and I asked Candy whether is it possible for the bus to pull over at any random toilet on the road side as I really couldn’t take it. Luckily, she told me that it is possible and she asked the driver to pull over at the next petrol station that he saw and the whole bus took a break.

Definitely, I was the first one to rush down the bus to go to the toilet, but I was also the first one, to find myself in the worst toilet conditions that I have had in my whole life. Trust me; you wouldn’t want to see what the contents inside the gap are.

This toilet that I visited, is seriously worse that any of the coffee shop toilets that I had visited in Singapore. Firstly, the smell is horrendous. Secondly, the whole toilet is infested with flies. Thirdly, the whole toilet look as if it is going to collapse anytime with walls that has the colour of what you see on the floor.

A lot of things were seriously going through my mind when I was stucked there. However, I told myself, if I can survive excreting my waste in this kind of environment here. I can do it anywhere in Singapore because I believe that there wouldn’t be any toilet back in Singapore that could be as terrifying as this.

So, after the toilet trip, I was feeling much better and I started to ask Candy more about China and shared with her what is in Singapore throughout the whole trip with Wen Liang and Tony. Suddenly, as we were going past the rural area, we noticed something very interesting by the roadside.

When we found out from Candy what it was, she said that the farmers are actually drying their just harvested rice grains on the roadside. Definitely, I was astonished. I was wondering how in the world people can just dry rice on the road?! The rice would be contaminated with dust and dirt when a vehicle drives past it. In Singapore, this is totally absurd as we are definitely not allowed to even stop our cars or have any vehicles stopping in the area beside the white line.

Another thing was that vehicles don’t stay in their own lane and they could just cut over to the lane that you are travelling, totally heads-on, without any notice. In Singapore, this is really a big tattoo and I would anticipate that Singaporeans would have already got into an accident straight.

Then as we were going up the mountains, we managed to take some of the photos and the valley is really very deep. I think we were like 200m above sea level? Reason being is that I could feel my ears being blocked up when the bus was going up the hill.

Then another tour guide from Lv Lin Resort joined us.

So when we had reached the place, we went for lunch before our water rafting and seriously, that was the first day ever since I reached Wuhan and I had a decent meal which is having something that is close to the Singapore taste. The black fungus and shredded lean meat was the best dish that I had eaten here in China.

Then, we went to get our straw shoes before we go for our water rafting.

Even though the feeling of the shoe was very pricky and uncomfortable at the beginning, after when we went down into the water, the shoes just became like a plant that was wrapped around your feet. It just seemed so magical?

Most of us didn’t manage to capture even a single shot of the scenery that we saw when we were rafting as it will make our camera wet. That was a total waste because the scenery there was really a sight to behold.

So after around 3 hours of rafting, we finally reached the end point and everyone went to shower to get the smell of the river water off our body. After which, I immediately rushed down the bus to take some snap shots of whatever I could take from the scenery at the end point before the bus actually set off to the Beauty Valley (美人谷).

I cannot believe that they actually also have a system like in Wild Wild Wet where the keeping of the rafts are semi-automated.

We didn’t do much at the Beauty Valley except for hiking and taking pictures of the majestic waterfalls that we saw.

After the hike, everyone was totally burned out and tired. We headed back to the Resort for dinner and we went into our hotel room which looks superb.

Finally, up to that day, I had a proper toilet to use for sanitary purposes. I seriously felt like crying (literally) when I saw this kind of toilet as it really reminds me of the toilet at home (as in Singapore home) even though it is smaller and some of the facilities is better.

So that was the only night where I had a proper shower and I can blow my hair dry using the hair dryer in the bathroom.

To add on, there is a television in the room which I find that, it is really something that I treasure right now. The channels in China are quite interesting as they have more public channels than Singapore (definitely). I was watching the discovery channel that night which was talking about doctors delivering cubs for a tigress which was not able to give birth normally.

After which, I went to dreamland and Sunday came. We woke up at 7am and went for breakfast at 8am. The breakfast wasn’t too bad as it kind of fits the Singapore context with the dough fritters, hard boiled eggs and steamed buns.

We went for a hike in the mountains which was like 800m above sea level and the view was magnificent. This mountain was used by the Lv Lin Army to fight the enemies off in the past, even in World War 2, and therefore, it became very famous.

After so much sightseeing, we went for a horse ride which was really fun however; it left me with a backache and gluteus ache. There was a video taken on Jehanne’s camera which I have not gotten from her. The video was kind of funny especially the expression on my face when I was coming back from the 1 round of run on the horse.

We went down the mountain to a temple and at there; an old man was actually helping people to do divination. Definitely, I went to let him take a look and some of the things that he said were really true.

When the tour at the temple ended, I got 2 souvenirs back for my family and we went back down for lunch before we finally sat on the 4 hour bus ride back to campus again.

Day 3 & 4: Adapted

2009-09-06T18:27:00.003+08:00

Just came back from Lv Lin Mountain Resort over the weekend with an aching backbone and gluteus from the long hours ride.

However, I am not going to talk about the trip to it but instead, what I have not been updating the past few days. Day 3 and 4 is again free and easy day while we are supposed to have lesson on Day 4 , which is Friday.

Day 3 was just a whole free and easy day so we decided to go back to the place that we went on Tuesday, which was Guang Gu. This time round, we spent the whole afternoon shopping there and we managed to finish shopping the whole shopping centre!

Before that we saw the local students coming back into the campus.

So for the lunch, we went to Macdonalds. Finally I got to taste the most unique burger that I suppose no one can ever eat it in Singapore- McPork!

The meal at Macdonalds is much better than Singapore’s in terms of price and combination. I got my meal of a MacPork and a sprite float for RMB13, which is only around SGD$2.60? I think it would cost more than SGD$6?

I wonder if Singapore will ever have scrapped cars in the shopping centre even the shop is under construction.

We saw some other shops with very interesting shop signboards. Chinese is really a very wonderful language. In English, it means you don’t sit when you are not hungry. However, in Chinese, it means that you do all evil deeds by using the same tone but by changing the second and the last word of the phrase, it means another meaning.

After which, we went to the arcade and there are some games here that Singapore doesn’t have them. The drum maniac game here is played using a real drum set and that person inside is really getting a lot of attention from people.

Then we saw a group of people playing Jackpot. They seemed to be like using cheat codes because they keep scoring 3 Bars and coins just flow out like water. In front of them there are just buckets and buckets of coins.

Then we walked past the Pharmacy here in China.

One thing that you can expect from the Pharmacy here is that all the drugs are in Chinese and most of them doesn’t have generic name for it? Even they have the generic name I wouldn’t have understood also even with my standard of Chinese with the scientific terms.

Another interesting thing is also that the drugs are not just pure western medicine and they have like a combination of Chinese and Western medicine together. Especially the excipients.

Fake Macdonalds?

The menu of this store is almost identical to Macdonalds also. So unique~
We went over to the other side of the shopping centre which has a bookstore that is as big as Kinokuniya in Orchard road. Dr Tan is really helpful by helping me to source for JLPT Level 4 Ten Year Series and I got it for RMB 40 which is only about SGD$8.

When we were going back, we saw Millison, Edah and Hajar still waiting for the bus back to the campus. The problem was that they left 1.5 hours before us and they were still waiting for the bus when we left the place. Imagine that happening in Singapore! I think that everyone would be complaining and definitely it will be in the news. The time when we reached the bus stop was around 415pm and after waiting for like 15 minutes, the bus finally came at 430pm which sums up 2 hours of waiting time for Millison and gang.

When we boarded the bus and we asked the ticketing officer what is the interval of the bus, she actually told us it is 6 minutes once! We were all seriously stumped. If it is really 6 minutes once, I think 20 of the bus that we were waiting for would have already past. More information would be that, the bus that we are waiting for is just like a bus in Singapore that has like E.g. 900A and 900. So without that A, we can’t go back to the campus.

When we reached back the campus, I did my first round of laundry which obviously, I was quite blur as this is really my first time in my whole life doing laundry. Yes, I know that I am much pampered but I believe that with this experience this time, I will have no problems next time anymore if I am going to survive on myself.

The food here is still very foreign to me. So in order not to starve myself, I have no choice but to just survive on bread and pastry. However the pastry, which is Wife’s Biscuits, is superb to me as the butter taste is very strong.

So at the end of the day, here are the souvenirs that I got so far.

So moving on to Day 4, I woke up very early in the morning to look for the public piano that they actually have in the campus. However, the result that I got was even more disappointing. The landlady managed to acquire for me that near Canteen 2, which is very close to my hostel, there is a public piano. When she asked the manager over there whether we are allowed to use the piano, the manager replied that we need to pay to use it. Reason? He was afraid that we will spoil the piano.

At that point of time, I was kind of angry and disappointed. I shall start off with the disappointment first as with my character, anger derives from disappointment. The piano is really so close yet so far. It is just a 5 minutes walking distance from the hostel to the piano and I cannot use it. In Singapore, even though I do not have a piano at home, I don’t even mind travelling down from Woodlands to Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, which is situated in Bugis, to use the public pianos there. For here, this is what I got. Now for the anger, when I checked the piano out, I thought that it might be a grand piano such that the manager is afraid that we might really spoil it as grand pianos are really expensive and I think that it would be rare in China. In the end, it was just an upright piano, something that I could have just found it easily in Singapore.

So after that, we went for the campus tour to know where our classrooms are. On the way, we saw a number of other divisions of schools and some scenes from the school are really scenic.

The school that we are going to study at is Foreign Language School. It is a nice place as I think it is the only place where in China you will actually see English signboards or posters and they are more or less grammatically correct. I find that the university encourages their student for English as well which is good as this will really prove people wrong that their English is CMI (Cannot make it).

I think our classroom was something that we really need to adapt to it as well. From the first looks of it, it looks decent as I have seen this kind of classroom in my secondary school days as well. The only difference is that there is no air conditioner in this classroom. Oh well, back to the secondary school days which I don’t really mind.

However from this picture, you can imagine how microwave-like the classroom is.

The tour ended like in 1 hour time and we went back to our hostel to do our work.
Then at 9pm, we went for a briefing for our excursion to Lv Lin Mountain Resort.

Lights off at 1130pm!

Day 2: Contrast

2009-09-03T03:54:00.006+08:00

I was woken up by the freezing cold atmosphere of the room at 830am even though Wen Liang and I had adjusted the temperature to 27 degrees and low fan speed. The reason was that we do not have blankets because we used our blanket as a mattress to make the bed like at least softer. Apparently, the attempt failed as we still woke up with shoulder, back and gluteus ache. The best thing was that my best friend allergic rhinitis striked me again.

At 9am, Dr Tan came and knock on every of our door to wake us up just as we were in the midst of washing up. He was really blowing his horn by saying *Pu pu bu pu pu bu~". So cute right? Then after that we went for breakfast. When we reached the canteen, I was kind of surprised by what they sell in the canteen. There is quite a variety of food but only the stall for Shao Bing (Biscuit) and noodle stall were opened. So in the end which I dont know what to eat, I shared 2 kinds of the shao bing with Chen Wei.

Qian Ceng Bing (千层饼)

Jiu Cai Bing (韭菜饼)

And the drink I decided to have milk tea.

After our breakfast, we went to tour around the campus by ourselves and Dr Tan showed us his campus on the way also.

So this is the washing station but most of us prefer to wash the clothes ourselves.

Then as we walked down the way, we saw the other hostels which is totally unclear to us as the area was pitch dark when we arrived. When we saw the conditions of the normal students there we felt very blessed as compared to them as the conditions of their hostel is worse than our's.

Our hostel!

Down the road

Then we came across this ATM machine which all of us have the feeling where it might collapse anything when you are actually withdrawing the money. So, when using ATMs in Singapore, please dont complain about the machine.

After which, we saw the library! It looks really grand which is like a courthouse situated on a hill.

Then we went past this building which looks like that adminstrative block which is really grand also.

Then as we were taking photos, we saw this school bus which has the students on it. At that point of time, I was thinking that this point about the university in China is good as it saves the student alot of time while travelling around in the campus. Especially when the weather is hot and the distance is long.

As we walk down...

Tada! This is Dr Tan's hostel.

After which, we saw a fair which is on the handphone prepaid cards which we didnt get it as we were getting it later.

As we walked past the main gate, there was like a cordon and everyone pass through it very easily as I was too tall. So, this was what I did:

I did a Limbo!

After which, we took photos around certain place of the campus.

Edah trying to be Koala.

When walking back to our hostel, we walked past a row of convenient shops beside our hostel. There were somethings that you wont believe how cheap can it be.

Finally at 1130am, we went to get our prepaid cards! The first thing that we did is to call back to Singapore but apparently, the IDD is not activated. However, when we were on the way, I found out something about the traffic system in China.

On the pedestrian crossing, there is no traffic light opposite of the junction where we want to cross but instead on the main traffic light that is used to signal the drivers. Everyone was like looking opposite for the traffic light and we were still kind of dumbfounded until someone told us to cross. We were still wondering at that point of time how did the person know when to cross the road which he pointed out to us on the top.

So we went down to the supermarket after that which has the size of like Ang Mo Kio Hub NTUC.

From my expression you can see that the sun is very strong such that our eyes are squeaming.

I wanted to take some photos of how the supermarket look like but I was stopped by the shop assistant who looked so fierce. So I only have like this few photos.

Finally we got our pails for washing clothes and we went back to our hostel to put them before going down for lunch. This time, I had the Zha Jiang Mian for lunch.

It was rather salty and spicy and especially oily. Reason is being that there is a interfacial surface layer of oil when the sauce is cooled.

After that lunch, we went out to the city! The first time taking the China's bus transport is really very interesting. The bus stop is almost like Singapore only that they do not have the bus number listed beside the bus stop. On the way to the bus stop, I found out something about the road side of the road also.

It is very spacious!

Imagine if Singapore has this at the neighbourhood. I think those sickening cyclists wont have to cycle on the pedestrian pavement already. The bus came promptly and we boarded it. Dont expect the bus to be working perfectly in China because the bus can be very cramp and exhaust fumes can be smelled everytime the bus continues it's trip.

Finally we reached Guang Gu, which is just another Orchard Road of Singapore and I can really assure you that. Firstly, the bus trip duration is also almost 30 minutes from where I am staying and secondly, it looks like Ion from some of the views.

However, it seemed that when we entered the shopping centre, the inside became suddenly like shops at Chinatown of Singapore.

This was the shop that all of us spent our time inside as we were buying DVD to watch back in the hostel. No matter what, other than being poisoned by the internet, we are poisoned by the TV too.

As we spend like 30 minute in the shop and we went to the city late, by the time we finished shopping in the shop, it was already 630pm. So, we decided to go back to the hostel. But before going back, we went to Starbucks to get some drinks. The prices only differ from Singapore by a few cents but no harm trying it in another country.

Unexpectedly, we met the rush hour of China and it was really worse than Singapore because there could be people who are rushing and squeezing into the last bit of the bus that they could ever squeeze into. Not forgetting the fact that China has abundant amount of people.

Nightviews and photos

Another thing about the bus system in China is that there will be ticketing officer on the bus to go around collecting money for your trip.

This reminds me of what my father told me about my grandfather's occupation in the past which is ticketing officer too. I wonder how come China doesnt even use cards now or any automated system. Only some of the newer buses have the part of the Singapore buses have in the bus.

We went back and walked past the streets where we went to get our phone card in the morning again and it tranformed into a vibrant and lifely nightlife (I suppose it is supposed to be like that as the China students are on holiday).

After getting some food and groceries again, we went back to our hostel and this marks the end of our day again.

Day 1: New

2009-09-03T00:34:00.010+08:00

Due to internet problems, I (or rather everyone) was unable to blog for yesterday. What are the reasons, they will be mentioned and discussed in the posts later.

Just like everyone, I reported at Changi Airport at around 445am with my parents. As usual, the scatter-brained me (under high anxiety conditions), just have to forget to pack some last minute items that was required for my trip. Luckily, I was reminded by my mum and I just managed to slot it into the baggage in time. You might be wondering what is it and it was just a packet of sweets that I needed to have it on the plane.

As I was on the way to the airport on my father's car, I dont seemed to understand why but I just felt void out of the sudden. Just like what I mentioned in my last post, it was just me feeling nostalgic about leaving my relative and friends, my house, or my room for 1.5 months into a foreign land that is actually rich in historical events. Definitely, this will a chance to once again train myself to be more independant than I am in the past. Just like overcoming having a scattered-brain as mentioned above as it will be really me, myself and Yee Tat.

This marks the journey of me going into a foreign land to create a new self in me. This foreign land includes what I had stereotyped in my mind: Technology that is behind time; Buildings that looked run-down; Environment that is like as if cleaners never existed; Sanitary systems with obnoxious hygiene; People with outright lousy attitudes and totally cannot make it standard of English (Definitely, there are exceptions with the people that I know personally or groups of people from different classes). However, I was thinking to myself like what I remembered from my Social Studies, "There is always 2 sides to a coin". So, I wonder...

Very soon, the sight of the control tower of the airport was spotted and the next thing I know was that I was waiting for closing to 2 hours for our turn to check in for our flight.

Apparently, there was some problems with the flight that we were taking such that we were made to rush for our plane as soon as we checked in without sufficient time for us to even bid farewell to our family.

After all the security check for the baggages before boarding, finally we could sit down after that long hours of standing and defnitely, its picture time!

The Man of this trip: Dr Tan Hong Kiat!

Jehanne & I

Doing final check

Dr Tan, Edah and I

Finally, we are boarding the plane!

So when we boarded the plane and I found out that I was sitting with Calista and Chen Wei who are both my Year 3 seniors.

We begin to explore the things that we have in front of us in the small pocket of the seat. The first thing that caught my attention was this!

Doctor?

The next thing was:

This is really what I deemed as direct translation even though yes, I admit that I use it sometimes also. In this sense, laughing at others will also mean that I have to laugh at myself the time that I used direct translation too. Even though this is one of the stereotype that I mentioned above, it had also lead me thinking back that, if I dont even know how to speak or use the language that you know well, it is really a shame. So, it is really important that we should know the languages, that we know, well.

Finally the plane took off, I captured some pictures on the plane

I was like knocked out on the plane as I only slept for 1 hour before I went to the airport. I was really so tired that I didnt knew that the stewardess was distributing the drinks until Calista woke me up.

So, I had my favourite: Apple juice! (Sorry that this was taken when I had finished my meal)

Then the meal came shortly afterwards. I still remembered very clearly that the air steward was asking whether we want rice or rice noodles for our meal. Especially when he walked passed Edah and Hajar asking whether they wanted food. Edah then told Jehanne to tell them that they are actually fasting. At that point of time, I was thinking to myself, "Dont you know that the muslims are fasting?". This is a total classical case of not being updated constantly which I believe, maybe some of us are guilty of that. The reason will usually be that, we dont watch the news or read the newspapers.

It was just like a situation which I witnessed like 2 days ago when I was going home. 2 friends, who looked like upper secondary boys, were walking togther and as I was walking past them, I happened to overhear their conversation.

"Eh, how come there are people who are carrying donation cans around the MRT control station asking for donations for Taiwan?" asks person A.

"You dont know that Taiwan was strucked with a very serious typhoon?" replied person B.

At that point of time, I was seriously feeling that how could a person not know something that is like so happening and it is affecting like half the country.

So, I went back to dreamland once again after eating like this fish rice.

Finally, like after 4 hours of flight, we reached Guangzhou Airport.

Well, I was amazed definitely, by the looks of the structure because it was not as bad as what I thought it will be. It was comparable to Singapore.

We spent like half an hour before we found Macdonalds for our lunch when we are waiting for our interstate flight. I was excited for Macdonalds over here in China was that I was told they had pork as the patty which I find it totally new and interesting. However, to my disappointment, they do not have it at the Macdonalds of the airport and I dont know whether they will not have it at the other Macdonalds of the country as well.

My lunch for the day -Grilled Chicken Sandwich meal and it comes with a berry sundae.

It costs RMB$27 which is like around SGD$6+. I find that it is very worth it except that, all of us agreed that the fries were extremely salty.

Finished our lunch and we headed for the next flight.

As we checked in like 45 minutes earlier, I took a nap again as I was really tired and finally we boarded the plane again at 530pm. Again, I was sitting with Calista and Chen Wei.

The meal on the plane this time was noodles or vermicelli. This time I chose noodle and it was really nice. It tasted and looked like pasta with cream sauce (to me).

This is the vermicelli that Chen Wei actually chose.

Slept again and finally we reached Wuhan at 750pm!

Checked out.

I looked like some mother carrying so much things.

Then, we took the bus to Wuhan University of Science and Technology which was like 1.5 hours again. My butt felt like falling apart when I alighted the bus.

The bus trip was kind of scary as the roads were very dark. The definition of dark goes like this:

I wonder, what are the chances of us finding such a dark road in Singapore. When we finally reached the more developed part of the city, the view of the streets were kind of magnificant. I did not really have the chance to capture it down as the bus was really moving too fast.

When we reached the hostel, it was already 10pm and we still went for dinner which I think the some food doesnt really suit our taste as they were kind of extreme in the taste and we dont really eat them in Singapore.

Just as I thought it would be hostel sweet hostel, I was stumped when I saw the bedroom which was kind of small. It contains 3 bed but I only managed to take 2 of the beds with this angle from my camera.

The bed looks perfectly fine to me. When I sat down like how I did it in Singapore for my bed, I stood right back up. The reason: The bed is equivalent to a wooden board. Yet, the ironical thing was that there are still springs under the bed still. I was totally stumped. How hard are the springs exactly?! The bed is really hard to the extent whereby when you throw a handphone on it, it will bounce off immediately. I was wondering how am I going to survive the remaining 40 nights with this kind of mattress.

However, the nightmare was actually the toilet.

I was totally disgusted when I saw this. All I can say is that, the toilet gives me a feeling whereby I dont even feel like bathing. I felt as if the toilet is seriously a jail especially after I bathed in it. The joke I made was that, they should actually drill 2 cuffs at the side of the big hole for people to slip their feet in while they are bathing, So that, when we bathe even there is a slight movement of our feets, they wont end up in the hole. Now thinking back of the spacious space in the toilet that I have in Singapore, I seriously wont complain that I the toilet is small. Reason being that it wont get smaller than this whereby you dont even have space to move. I am seriously agree that you need the bad to actually make the good look better.

With this, Day 1 ended with a whole day of rides and so much new things to be anticipated.

Take home message of the day:

"If you are thinking that you are having a
bad condition in Singapore, think
again. There will definitely be something
that can be worse than what you think is bad. There will always be the worse, to
make the bad actually looks better. Just like the toilet and the bed I used to
have back in Singapore."

"First day is a detox for you guys" quoted from Dr Tan Hong Kiat.

Maiden

2009-09-01T02:30:00.000+08:00

Tick tock, tick tock...

2.5 hours more to check in, 5.5 hours more to boarding the plane.

For me, this would be the first time that I am actually leaving my home for actually more than 3 days. Since the past few hours, I have been feeling nostalgic. Friends around me had told me that I am rather independant. However, I believe that the fact that I am feeling nostalgic whenever I am going to somewhere foreign, shows that I am someone who finds it difficult to let go off things.

I have to admit that it is difficult for me to stay away from home more than 3 days. Moreover to say staying away from Singapore for 6 weeks which is 42 days. Oh well, I shall take this as a challenge to myself, to break out of my comfort zone then...

In fact, I think I have a lot of things that I need to break out my comfort zone. Maybe, the report from Assignment 1 to Dr Tan would really reflect on what I need to plan and anticipate for myself.

Anyway, feeling nervous in the midst of excitement.

First Post

2009-08-19T00:15:00.000+08:00

Finally Done!
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

终于完成！