.EXPERIENCE.IN.WUHAN.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Our room on the day that we are leaving Wuhan

Finally our 42-days immersion trip had come to the end. It feels great to return home, use the toilet bowl and to lie down on my soft bed. I remember the first thing which we said when we came out of the plane was that,"The aircon is strong. This is definetely Singapore!" Because China always seem to be cutting cost so they will either not on the aircon or on it just enough to cool the place. Anyway, upon touch-down of the plane, all of us clapped and cheered. It was a great feeling.

Through this trip, i've learnt many new things about China such as their history and i even got to experience staying in Wuhan. Wuhan is a great place filled with history, sceneries and great food (though it was quite oily). I really enjoyed this trip alot but i feel that the trip can be improved with more planning because i feel that the trip was quite disorganised and we could not really know what to expect even if it is the next day. Perhaps it is the way the Chinese people organise everything at the last minute and the lecturer also do not have any choice. But nevertheless, i totally enjoyed myself in this trip.

But overall, i've gain friendship and other important lifeskills such as puntuality and financial planning through his trip. It was hard for me to communicate with the locals because i can't speak standard chinese. But i'm thankful to my friends for translating it for me and helping me whenever the locals could not understand me. I've became a stronger person altogether after this trip because i can now tolerate smelly toilets, oily food, extreme hot weather, facing spiders and other creepy-crawlies and many more. This is what happens when you have no choice but to accept it because in China, everywhere is like that. We just have to face it and to get over with it.

I will miss staying up late with my friends
I will miss my friends acting as a foreigner and pretending not to understand Chinese
I will miss hearing local life stories told to us by the local uncles
I will miss hearing, "Good Morning!" every morning by some MDE girl
I will miss the Tang Bao, Dou Pi, wanton and fried rice
I will miss bargaining when i shop
I will miss all the cheap deals in Wuhan

The memories of the times i had in Wuhan will forever stay in my heart and i thank my parents, the school, all the lecturers involved in this program and especially Dr. Tan for making this immersion program a success. Thank You!

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Here's a picture of my luggage now. This is excluding all my clothes hanging, my smelly clothes, my other cosmetic stuffs. Good Game! Shall pack again later....

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Tomorrow will be my last day in Wuhan. I can't believe that our Wuhan journey is about to end in 2 days time.. And so, the school sponsored the farewell dinner for us. We had our farewell dinner at the hotel next to our school. But you know what? We had to share the restaurant with someone holding their wedding dinner there! So in the same hall, there was a farewell dinner and a wedding dinner. None of our teachers knew that we were sharing with the people there and so we were only told not to wear too lok cock (sloppy). So ya, most of us wore jeans but the thing was that most of us wore either black or white shirt! This matter plus we made alot of noise during the dinner sort of made the people at the wedding dinner unhappy. o.O

This is the thing about being in China. We don't know what will be happening until the actual day. It has been like this since Day 1 where i remember we had no communications available to contact our parents. The teachers cannot even tell us of the venue of the classroom for the next day lesson because they will only know it on the actual day itself. This made it very difficult to plan things in advance. Even if we were told one thing today, they can always change their story again tomorrow. I feel that Wuhan really have to improve they way they are doing things as they can't always do things on the last minute. This will hinder the progress of everything in their country.

That's the wedding section.

Here's our farewell dinner section.

Our lecturer making a speech to sort of close this Wuhan OIP trip.

That's the dean making a speech.

After the speech, our meal was served. Don't ask me what food is that because i don't know what i'm eating either...

This soup is the nicest food served there.

During our meal, the wedding ceremony started. I suddenly felt so emotional when i saw this. To be honest, i miss my boyfriend back at home. It isn't easy to have a long distance relationship even if it is for 6 weeks. Tears shed, quarrels arised but eventually we made peace with one another. My hands quivered when i was holding the chopsticks. I don't know why but i felt so happy and sad at the same time. Anyway, since i only witness half of their wedding, i felt that for that half which i've seen, it is the same practice as in Singapore. The only difference is that we will definetely share the wedding hall with other people hosting another event.

The bride and groom walking down the aisle together.

The groom on his knees putting on the ring for the bride.

After which they hugged and the guy carried the girl and they turned in circles! How romantic!

All the litters on the floor are the poppers used.

Me and brenda.

We went to play pool after that. This will be the last time where i'll be using the lousy pool table!

We then went to join in for the KTV session hosted by our lecturers. The room was quite big and the sound system was not too bad.

I sat on some antique hanging chair.

This is the KTV lounge. No alcohols or soft drinks served. We can only sit, chat and sing in the room. Haha.

I have to admit that i am shock to hear my lecturer singing. He was quite daring to sing eh? And he really does have a nice voice! Thumbs Up!

Now it's time to pack my luggage to prepare for the weighing session tomorrow! Oh my gosh! I'm so excited to go home right now! But when i think of packing everything into the luggage, i'll become moodless. So many things to pack.....

I have to squeeze all of these into my luggage. Good luck to me. Haha. Oh ya! I found 100 yuan in my luggage! I'm rich! Oh my gosh, the cash came at the right time! Because of this, i shall go out tomorrow. No point bring back the cash. Haha! So happy. 100 yuan can buy me alot of things leh!

Alright. Shall sleep early and wake up early tomorrow! Last day in Wuhan so i shall not waste time sleeping! Hehe! So excited!

Oh btw, one last story:
As you know, i am sleeping beside the wall. And so last night, somehow i slept very near the wall. So at that moment, i wanted to turn to change my sleeping position and guess what... I knocked my forehead right straight on the wall! Gosh. My friends were all using their laptops. One of them even used earpiece to watch movie but they all heard the knock. It was that loud. Today i woke up and i pressed on my forehead and i felt pain. Lucky there wasn't any bruise on my forehead! Ok. End of story. Lesson learnt: Put a pillow on the wall to prevent another knock on the wall.

Friday, October 9, 2009

I finally had my tang bao and dou pi today! For 15 yuan, i ate till i was so full! This is the best meal ever that i've ever eaten in Wuhan. Haha. We were so full that we don't have the space in our stomach to try more foods. So wasted! We travelled for 1 hour yet we only managed to eat tang bao and dou pi. Haha. And so, we'll be going back on Sunday to have our last satisfying meal in Wuhan! Can't wait!

The crab roe tang bao is 60 Yuan. I feel like trying. Let's see if i still have money on Sunday. Haha.

We were in the bus. 4 Persons squeezing on 3 seats. And oh, on the bus i witness the most shocking thing. Some local actually gave up his seat for a women holding a small boy! Shocking right? But i do hope there will be more such people in China, because so far i've only seen people snatching for seats. Even if the seat is right in front of me when the previous person got off the bus, another person will come along and just sit down almost immediately.

This is the dou pi which i was mentioning about.

This shop sold another famous food in Wuhan. I don't know what it's called, but i can describe it to you. It is glutinous rice wrapped over you tiao (dough fritter). You can choose whether you want it sweet or salty. My friend tried it today and i'll try it on sunday! "It's a must try in Wuhan!" as claimed by every locals.

We watched their afternoon news while eating these snack foods. It seems that the news in Wuhan is more like Crime watch in Singapore. It was very informal as compared to Singapore as they also played a rap about the news, and they also put in animation because they could not re-enact the scene when the stabbing incident took place. The news reported very few world news but they only concentrated on what happened in China. I felt that they should improve the program by adding in more world news so that they can update the people on what is happening elsewhere as this might indirectly affect their country as well.

Anyway after eating, we went to the arcade to have some driving competition on Daytona. We had lots of fun there! Haha. It's been a long time since all of us played in the arcade. Then we went on to do some shopping at the rat street again. Yes. Again. But! I didn't spend anything for myself over there. Though i was so tempted to try on a skirt, i simply walked away because i know that if i try it on, i will buy it. Now, i'm the 2nd richest kid in my clique. Haha! I climbed from the last to 2nd already! So proud of myself.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

We did not eat dou pi today because it is not on the way to our shopping destination. Anyway, we went to Hankou today. Da Jie told us that it is a good place to shop as that’s the wholesaler’s market. Yes, it is indeed a wholesaler’s market. But it was all Da Jie’s fashion! We were so lost at that moment because we travelled for 1.5hours only to arrive at this aunty place. And besides that place, we didn’t know where else to go as we were not familiar with that place. And as you know, once the local people are busy, they will not bother to entertain questions if we ask them where we can shop for youngster’s clothing. So anyway, we just walked around hoping to find some cheap buys.

Map of Wuhan. Notice that Wuhan is divided into three parts. We are staying at WuChang. We went to shop at Hankou. And we have to cross the Chang Jiang Bridge to get to our destination.

These are the aunty shops...

We saw this dog bullying another small dog at first. Then a man walking his monkey came by and the monkey attacked the dog. And so the big dog ran away. Everyone laughed on the spot.

The whole shopping area was like that. So nothing much for us.

And the all sell jackets and all the winter clothing. No point for us to buy eh? But i do notice the weather is finally changing. It was cold for the whole of today. And at night, i was shivering even though i had my windbreaker on.

The whole shop looked red because of all these clothes.

Notice the green light for pedestrains and notice the cars and motorcycles. Even with the police car there, they don't seem to abide to traffic rules. It's so dangerous to cross the road in China. Everytime, we will stand beside the locals if we want to cross the road. They walk, we walk. They stop, we stop. It was hilarious.

The place was very crowded. Lots of aunties shopping and lots of people push carts of clothes and stuffs. They will shout at you if you are blocking their way. So for the whole time, i was looking out for them instead of looking at the things they are selling.

And this is the latest fashion in Hankou i think. I see many girls with this explosion hairstyle. Not only aunties do this, youngsters even do this! I remember seeing three teenagers walking together with heavy makeups and this explosion hairstyle. Gosh.. I think it is hideous..

Some random photo.

And so, since we are so bored with the place, we took a bus and arrived at another shopping destination. It was so much better as at least the clothes here are very fashionable. But! The prices are at least 3 times more than that of the wholesale market. After shopping at the wholesale market, none of us bought anything from the new shopping mall as we felt that it was too overpriced.

Once again, there are so many people here. Today's the last day of their holidays. Tomorrow they'll be back at school with us!

We tried this tang baos. They can't even be compared to the ones we ate before. It was just average.

We ordered prawn and meat tang bao. I remember seeing other shops selling dog meat tang baos. Ahh! Disgusting!

We stepped into the sex shop once again. This time, we went in knowing it was a sex shop. I realised that in Singapore, we can only go into this kind of shop if we are 21 years old or above. But over here, anyone can just step in. I think they should follow in the path of Singapore because this kind of things might corrupt innocent young children's mind. The children should have an innocent mind while they are still young. Look at the photo above. Blown up condoms. Wonder if it is used before... Hmmm....

The owner placed the dog on the van while we went to buy his stuffs. What if the dog slipped and fell? The dog will be strangled to death!

Introducing.. MacPork! But! It doesn't taste as nice as the other burgers in MacDonald

I felt that there isn't much of customer service in Wuhan. They will only be nice to you if you buy their stuffs. If you touch the things but don't buy in the end, they will sometimes scold you. Or if you ask too much about the product, they might be irritated and ignore you. It's pretty much like "You are only welcome if you purchase from my shop." Even the bus conductors will scream at you if you block his mirror or block the gear stick. I mean, in Singapore we can be sued if we are rude to our customers. But i do admit that i've seen 3 shops since day 1 who values customers service. The bakery in our school, Li shi fu stall outside school and the wanton shop outside our school. They will say thank you and good bye to you after you finished your meal. And for the bakery, the boss will open his ice-cream box at night when he is about to close his shop because we wanted to eat ice-cream. We didn't even request for him to open the box. I'm touched.. I feel that China should have more of these service so that it will make China a better and more polite place to live in.

There are times where i really wanted to go into the shop and have a look. But i just turned away. I told myself that i can only look on the outside and not ask the price. It works because i didn't buy anything for myself today except on food! Yay! Just 4 more days to survive.......! If i brought more money here, i would have shopped like crazy because everything is so much cheaper if we convert back to Sing Dollars! But then again, if i had more money, i will not learn the importance of finanial planning which is a very important survival skill especially in future.