Monday, September 01, 2008
This is call "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" I'll be posting my daily journal on my blog (50% of my overall module) as well as letting frens (u!!) know what have i been "hurhur" in china =DDay 1
It was the most exciting day of my life, china would be my 2nd furthest places i ever been from home. As early as 5.30am on the actual day, we reached the airport T1 (port 6). Everyone seem so high-spirited and looking forward for the trip. We went into the waiting room at about 7am, took a light breakfast.
At 8am, we departed from Singapore to Guangzhou, it was a bit disappointing that i didn't get the window seat (><). However, the senior next to me was very kind, he shared with me a lot of things along the way. After 3+ hours of flight, we landed on GZ safety (thx God). We spend 4hrs while waiting for the next flight from GZ to Wuhan, which is our destination. We reached Wuhan at around 7pm after an hour of short flight. We boarded the bus prepared by Wuhan University, to a grand hotel where we took our dinner there, we had a great time knowing each other over the meal.
After dinner, we continued our journey straight to the university for our 6 week stay. We were all rather amazed to see the different vehicles and road rules in Wuhan. There was trucks with only 3 wheels, 1 in front and 2 behind, just like a tricycle. Motorcycles were on the pavement for people on foot, 1 motorcycle are shared among 3 to 4 people, even 5 is possible. After a whole day of travel, we were so tired. We went to bed as soon as we reach our room.
before we depart
The scenery outside the plane
The grand hotel (very nice!)
Day 2
Lessons were cancelled today, instead we had a tour around campus. The whole campus is huge!!!, it's almost like 2 times the difficulty we walked from NP bus-stop to the AT hub. The weather over here is as humid as Singapore, maybe slightly warmer over here. Our lecture building is all the way on top of the hill. That will be our workout before and after our meals.
After the campus's tour, we went to tour around our neighborhood shops to re-stock our daily necessities and some snacks. Most of us bought a prepaid card which allowed us to contact each other during our stay. The hyper-market (Wal-Mart), was where we stocked up most of our things.
Since we're living in a apartment with 4 rooms, 2 toliets, 1 living room, 8 people, we made plans as to what we should get to maintain the place neat & tidy. We bought a lot of cleaning agents, snacks and 9 dozens of 1.5 litres of water!! We all had a hard time carrying all the stuffs especially the water back to our 5th storey apartment.
After we finally managed to bought all the stuffs into the apartment, everyone took a small break. Then we started to clean up the whole place, everyone did their part and we finish the whole place in an hour or so.
At night, we went out of the campus to explore some new areas, and had our dinner there. The food at the roadside stalls were rather oily, we ordered a few such as fried rice and noodles but it tasted very nice, and the price is rather cheap.
Picture of Wuhan University
Day 3
Our 1st lesson was taught by a china lecturer or professor on the topic : Business Etiquette. He taught us some skill and knowledge about how to handle business meetings/events/meals with other countries. The most impression to me is chinese people likes to eat until the whole table is very dirty, they don't mind at all, while western people are more particular with it. Although, i have some difficulty trying to catch some of the words he said, because of his accent, i still learnt a lot during the 3+ hours.
After our lunch at one of the noodles shop outside, Mr jian taught us SDC , system dynamic & control. He was a funny lecturer, just like Tan CH. Comparing these 2 lecturers, Tan likes to crack his 'lazy' & 'freestyle' jokes, while Jian likes to crack his 'dirty' & 'misleading' jokes. I'm glad he teach us SDC, it's much better to learn from a lecturer who is funny & cute looking.
The night was quite boring because we still did not get our internet up. We rested early today after doing some revision and journaling.
The white hair is Mr Jian, the former shirt guy in the back is Mr Lee, our course manager. You can see their computer room facilities are well-equipped with a lot of computers, air-conditioner, lights.
Day 4
Our morning lesson is taught by a pretty lady professor or lecturer, also from china. Her english accent was much better compared with the one from yesterday (no offense). She taught us about China's places of interest especially in Wuhan, their culture and food. The whole lesson was rather lengthy & dry, even i, couldn't focus well throughout the whole lesson, a lot of people fell asleep. I paid rather more attention when she started talking about the 'food', i think most of us did too. (haha!).
She also taught us about places where we would be visiting during the weekends. I'm quite looking forward for this weekend where we can go shopping!! and see yellow-crane tower.
Afternoon lesson was SDC by Jian again. Nothing much to write about unless you want me to related some of his cold jokes to you.
(don't deduct my marks, kidding!)
Day 5
We woke up early in the morning and took a bus to the steel factory. Unfortunately for me, i can't go in to see because i was wearing slippery due to my cracked toe nail which was caused over a basketball match 2 days ago.
We came back at about 12 pm. A group of 10 people including me, went to a restaurant to have our lunch. The fishball soup we ordered was delicious, it was really made of fish paste from a huge fish. There was a big bowl of soup, and a meatless fish at the bottom of the bowl and 30+ fishballs floating above. This is one of their 'must-try' dishes in Wuhan. We bought some fireworks on the way back.
The road on the way back, especially when crossing, was rather dangerous. Everyone was jaywalking the road, and we can't expect the cars to watch out for us.
2pm was Jian's turn again ...
At night, i did some laundry myself. This is my 2nd time doing laundry so i'm still not very good at it. I think the 6 weeks stay here can improve my self-dependent skills.
Day 6
No lesson on weekends.
We went to Hubei museum in the morning with a wonderful female tour guide, our lecturers seems to like her a lot. It's really a amazing place there, we get to see a lot of ancient artifacts, scrolls, weapons and history informations. I'm particularly interested in the weapons' section where we can see how people fight during the old times.
After that, we went to a very big food street. 5 of us put RMB$105 in the food payment card and we 'attacked' almost every stall and tried all sort of delicacies. For the first time, i tried a black smelly tofu, i didn't like it at all!
We walked about 300m to the yellow crane tower after filling our stomachs. The place was quite fascinating. It was rebuilt again and again after several times of being destroyed during the warring age.
Yellow crane tower had a story behind it. People believe there was a so-called immortal who once stayed at this rest house for a year, after that he gave the owner of this rest house a yellow crane. The yellow crane danced and made lots of money for the owner. Finally, one day the so-called immortal came back and took back his crane and flew away.
A bronze sword
A kind of spear which they used to cut off the enemies' legs
Yellow Crane Tower
Day 7
Today is our 2nd outing day. We visited one of largest park in Wuhan, it was located just along the Chang Jiang River. The whole park which range about 7km, was filled with people and activities. I still can remember some guys playing tennis against the wall in the park, parents bringing their children out. I must say it's one of the healthiest relaxation outing for everything, full of trees and flower and dinosaurs fossil.
After strolling for about 1hr, we headed our way about 300m to the shopping area for our lunch and some SHOPPING! Initially, we were a bit lost as to where the tour guide told us about a underground food street. Anyway we took our lunch somewhere in a chinese eatery place. After that, we continued shopping the whole area. The price here are fairly cheaper than what was sold in Singapore, but there are still items which didn't drop too far behind such as PSP and nike shoes.
I bought a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans, jeremy who went with me, bought some shirts as well and we went to explore new things and snack over there. I also learnt a few new terms of words during the trip such as spoon (sha zi) etc.
Pictures we took when we're in the garden
Pictures in the shopping area
secretly in love_____
