Day 33- Sat 27th sept 2008

Day 33- Sat 27th sept 2008

Weee… Today was really relaxing. All the tests and lessons are over but we are still learning in an amazing way. Immersing in the culture way :). The weather has already turned cool and I have decided to wear my only pair of jeans wherever from this day forth. HA! Bo bian lei… I have altered my other pair of jeans to become shorts=X. Din’t anticipate the change in weather all of a sudden.

My day started from me lazily waking up at 12noon feeling soooo energetic. My first time in Wuhan that I slept soo long! Anyway, the actual day only begun at 5pm where I finally got to eat my lunch! WHAT! Dey-Jun Wei, cook of the day, cooked creamy pasta for all of us today! Greatly appreciate it and I wished there were more of this cooking from him. Haha. Thanks Man! (we all paid for the ingredients, no free lunch in the world okay!)

The 2 chinese girls(xiao yan zi, Ya ping), whom me, dina and mak got more close too during the discussion day were invited as guest to our mini party. Following them came Shao Lin( whose name was given by his brother who was six at the time!- Like SMART!, btw, he do not know how any martial arts. HA!) and a few other girls. The atmosphere was really great. We spoke and one of them said that my Chinese was quite good, my accent was similar to theirs. WAHA! See, in china, speaking Chinese is not enough, you have to learn their accent too. (Apparently, their accent varies from different parts of China due to their dialect ba.) It was an enjoyable group chatter:)

After awhile, we all went down to play some “yan huo”, the sticks burn out very quickly and we switched to playing the “bomb cracker”(When you light the stick, you have to throw it further away and after 3 secs, it will explode and create a loud BOOM.) It was really fun but the sound was really very loud and I was always startled by it. I tried lighting one and it was both scary but exciting. Travis was super playful; he lighted one and threw at the ground, in the middle of our crowd of ppl. Everyone ran like startled chickens! HAHA!

We then went out to the “Wu hui” (Dance meet?). Wah! It’s awesome! It is at the big courtyard where there were a lot of ppl gathering around an area (a stage?) where there were some dancing performances. All the dances were spontaneous and it was like a clubbing area except that it was in the open and the main dancer was on the so-called mini stage. The rest of the people down stage was quite high and they jumped up and down:) The dancers danced very freely and there was blinking man-held spot lights on them. HA:) I have only seen this on TV though.

After the performances, the DJ, changed the mood of the atmosphere. He played ballroom dancing songs and slowly, couples went up to dance. Wah! In Sg, ppl always act shy when it comes to such slow song dancing. Sigh… Its kinda romantic and I kinda like this kind of dancing.

After that song, he played line dancing songs where individuals followed a set of dance steps. (It is similar to what I learnt in secondary, where ours are folk dance songs which is a must to learn for the folkdance night-LOADS OF FUN). Imagine they have this every thurs and sat during school term. Sooo fun. It is also because they can’t travel out far and they have curfews to be back by 10.30pm in the hostel. They spend their time with friends only. I tried my best to learn the dance steps but failed quite badly. HAHA! It was really really fun and when we parted our ways as it was nearing 10.30pm, I had a moment that I felt like crying. What! Felt quite “bu she de”. The fun had to end. All fun have to end.

Day 32- Fri- 26th sept 2008

Day 32- Fri- 26th sept 2008

SPORTS MEET+ HANKOU TRIP

In the morning at around 8.30am, we gathered to go down to the track field where the guys were supposed to be participating in the sports meet. I wore shorts and had on a jacket. It was super cold! Man, our supposed timing for even the earliest run was at 10plus but we went down to have a look. Travis was our 1st runner:) Our runners included: Travis, Maurice(grew fat here le!, dunno can run ma. Hah!), Mak and Hans.

At around 9am+, Frederick finally persuaded Dina to see the doc. Her ankle had been twisted real badly and it was swollen=_=. Ouch! I accompanied her to the medical centre where she paid for the medical fees 1st. She went through 2 rooms, one for just to look at the prob and the 2nd one where she was treated by a Chinese Sensei.:) woa! I took photos of her squirming. She screamed a lot. LOL! =X. The room was quite packed with Chinese basketball girl players who represented WIT. LOL! All with different injuries to be treated!(hand sprained & leg twisted) Their girls basketball team is like fierce man! The Chinese doc was named “hua tuo”(a well known legendary Chinese doc) on a award hanged on the wall. Tsk tsk tsk. Pro female doc!
Her sprain was treated with 4 needles and a suction cup. She enjoyed the suction cup part but totally went crazy with the 4 needles. HA! It seemed loads better after the treatment and she was told to come again 2mrw.













Diagnosis in process












Travis ran during the time when I accompanied dina to see the doc. He did well clinching 2nd placing in the heats. Apparently, there were no finals for the run and they clock the placing by the timings of all the runners.

kua kua kua.... see the flags all up already? It is the closing ceremony...=_=

A screw up was made as we were told to head down for the final relay run at 12.30pm. The entire sports meet had ended when we reached the track. What?! Like how come we weren’t informed. We were quite disappointed and Mak was worried for nothing. HA!

Went for a final trip down to HanKou!

Everywhere the stuffs has already changed season. Especially clothes. Oh man. Intended on doing some shopping but in the end, it was just looking through the many coats.
We tasted the renowned Si Zi Mei Tang Bao:) I really loveee tang baos! The juice just squirts out as u take a bite. Waa… Sigh, I’m gonna miss the tang baos!!!

The trip back to the hostel was a long journey. Heavy jam again and it will probably be the last time that I will experience the jam from Han Kou back to Wu Chang ba. I will miss Han Kou too.

Day 31

Day 31-Thursday, 25th Sept 2008 (Exactly 1 month in china!)
Weather: Chilly!

Oh no! It’s the day of our final test for International Business. I really have to do well for this as my SUDD paper really sucked. Just hope that I will at least get a B. Today we have gotten a tight schedule. Early in the mornings about 8.30am, we gathered to watch the military training of the freshies in WIT. They have trained for 15days and today is where they display the fruits of their training. It was quite spectacular except that they were a bit “nua”(jellyish). Ha!
Most of us had our study notes for the test at 10am with us while watching the military marching. HAHA!

After the test (what a relief!), we(me and dina), walked to the back of our school where the Tang Bao laid as Dina has sprained her ankle(long story) and would prefer walking less. I craved for tang bao for a few days already and I’m sure I am gonna miss it when I’m back in Sg. Sigh.. Quite loving the freedom in China and with the many friends I made, it is all made up of FUN.

We had 2hrs break before our final lesson of this entire Immersion program. Oh! How I will miss climbing up the 7 storey to school every day. (nah, maybe not! HA!). On our way back to our classroom building, we decided to take some photos for remembrance sake. Only after dina said that it struck me that it would be our last time walking the path to school! WAH. Time passes so quickly eh.

Lessons were on the history of China(yawn)… and it was finally time to go Carrefour:). We met up the 2 chinese girls from ytd’s discussion meeting (they got along very well with us, the guy could not make it as he had matches) for dinner and treated them. They treated us ytd and we felt bad about it. They weather has really turned chilly and I’m enjoying the entire cooling feeling, it gives me the romantic feeling. Anyway, we changed our plans from going to “HU QUAN” to staying at the Carrefour area as the 2 girls had curfews of having to be back at 10.30pm and it was already quite late when we were done with dinner.

Day 30

Day 30- Wed, 24th Sept 2008

Today, we had an early day. Not studying but it was supposedly a discussion regarding building and environment btw the Chinese students and us. Oh dear, that sounded already so awful. I was thinking that if we were allowed to speak in English, which would have been an easier task than to try and translate the terms in Chinese and think of things that should be said.

As we walked to their built environment building, I dreaded and hoped that it would be over soon as it was an arduous task. When we entered the classroom, it was awkward. They clapped for us and sat at a row at the back of the “meeting table”. It was like a conference meeting. Die. The tone of it was so serious and brave dina did the most speaking on behalf of our NP group. Ha! They were surprised with our “good” Chinese but there was 1 Chinese female student whom I felt was very condescending towards us, Singaporeans. Probably she was curious but she spoke in a rude manner? She gave comments that made me feel that we are a rude bunch of people who do not have any manners. Thanks ar.=_=. Towards her, we remained quite polite and the teacher from them explained clearly that we are not like what she thought. Anyway, I believe there was some sort of language barrier which still existed as our Chinese were not as fluent and if we were able to communicate with them in English, there will not be such misunderstandings and we could fend for ourselves better.

One of them asked a dumb question, “Is the Chang e(mid-autumn folk legend character) of Singapore’s legend a male or female?” – Supposedly, in this story, the maiden (chang e) after eating some elixir, she flew to the sky and away from a man. Like duh, how can the chang e be a man. =_=.

We finally ended up having our own chatter groups which has a good mix of both the Chinese students and us. My group has 2 girls and a guy who stays at Hei Long Jiang (he says the journey back home takes 30 hrs by train=_=). Poor thing. Anyway, it was such a waste that we had not met with them earlier as they knew the place better. We ate together for lunch and visited each other’s hostels. It was a far cry comparing our hostels and theirs. WAH! We are fortunate man!

Day 26

Day 26- 19th Sept 2008, Friday

Yay! We are finally free from exams. Today, we decided to go Si Men Kou as recommended by Shi Ding Le. She said the place was renowned for having the tailor street and the big chinese medical centre where all kinds of herbs can be found there. I am bent on buying the Pearl Powder which you can't find it in Sg. I have always heard about the effects of Pearl powder and I will like to try it:)

When we first reached, the place looked awfully familiar to Dina. After walking a little, we realised it was near Hu Bu Xiang. A place that we went before already! It was just given a different name. Chay.... Anyway, we walked a little and the group of them went for the "Haunted house". It is something similar to the one at KL where they have people scaring you as you walked through. (They do all sorts of things like touching u on the shoulder, grabbing ur foot and stuff). Me and Dina met them late and it was a good thing. Phew~! Kai Xin came out earlier then them and she cried. I guess it was really scary. It scared us too, I mean scared us from wanting to have a go. HA!

Jia Min, Chai Kee, Yvonne and Rebecca was conned!
They went into a so-called FREE facial treatment. It was not free after all. They paid a small price for it as it was not that expensive.

After that, we headed for HU BU XIANG- FOODIES HEAVEN!
Lots of tantalising gourmet. wahhh. I want to try all except the seafood. HA! Me and dina tried the wanton which was filled to the brim of the bowl with miny wanton. It was small yet was tasty! We even tried the Black Smelly beancurd. It looked gross seriously but it tasted the same as the white ones. Some other food I tried included Dou Pi, chewy fried tang yuan, their zhu chang fen etc. Aww.. I like the place:)




















DOU PI- one of wuhan's specialty(fried nou mi fan)

Day 25

Day 25- Thurs 18th Sept 2008

Lessons as usual today with Frederick:) WAH! Nothing much regarding it except that test is coming real soon! As in, its on Monday and thurs!

After lessons, we headed down to Hu Quan which Shi Ding Le said that it was an interesting place to go:) Maurice and Ivy went there b4 and they said that there were lots of things to see and it was a double confirmation so it got me excited. (especially that it was nearby and we havent got to explore it) :)

Upon reaching the place which i imagined to be crowded with lots of stalls on either side of the road like a pasar malam, I was wrong. None of this at all. We were all in a shock and thought that we were brought to the wrong place. Dina even wanted to call and scold Maurice already. HA! Kaixin and Ameris wanted to leave the area and was waiting for a cab when I spotted an alley! WAH! Luckily, me and dina went in to check it out. It was this huge Pasar Malam! weeee...

It got crowded nearing the evenings and on the outsides of the "pasar malam", there was this mini 'pasar malam'. HA! People placed mats on the ground and place their goods on the mat to sell.

Buy of the day: Chinese engraved stamps! (128Rmb for 4)- even though i was some what cheated by the uncle who told me that the stamps were at 7rmb. I happily took 3 initially, thinking that I would make for my family, bf and all but... in the end, for each word carved, its 7rmb per word! Thanks ar uncle. Nv mentioned a single word about it till the end where the amount was shocking. I forgive that uncle though, his engraving skills were gd and its still worth the value. :)

Oh man... I spent another 500rmb=_=. Sigh. I'm left with 1000rmb and I hope it will last.(it will definitely last if I dont do any shopping)

For our dinner, we went to one of the roadside stalls which had noodles and soup.:) Lovely Zha Jiang Mian. :) Best so far. See dina with her hat, it was a nice one which was bought from the large Pasar Malam:)- try getting such a hat at Sg, it will cost a bomb!

day 24

Day 24- Wed, 17 Sept 2008















Economics! Sigh... It seems a little overlapping with our International Buisness module at China. *yawn*. Its the last of Andy Xi's lesson today! To be honest, if Shi Ding Le were to taught this instead of Andy, I believe I will be attentive 100% times more=X.


After econs, the entire group of us (me, dina, maurice, hans, wee heng, ronald) went to the salon for the China haircut experience. *faint!* Initially mine only costed 15Rmb(3sgd) for the hair cut and wash but........... they psychoed me=_=. I ended up dyeing my hair and the total cost amounted to 100RMB(20Sgd). Even though it was cheap, I quite regretted it. Was budgetting okay~!


Btw, the haircut was... regretfully cheena. LOL! =_=. Wee heng said I looked like a ball when I was done with blowing my hair. Thanks man. I bet he said it to spike me. Ha! Cause I laughed at him the moment they took the curlers off him. (He was the only daring one who dared to perm his hair here- respect man). I did not expected such curls either and it was shocking. Sorry man!

Anyway, I even did manicure today. I like did a total makeover can. From head to fingers. I feel that it all doesn't suit my character. Black nails, blackish red hair? Whatever man. I'm gonna have my nails re-manicured b4 going back sg. It is like freaking CHEAP! (25rmb with studs can!-5sgd)

I'm hoping my hair would grow longer in this remaining 2 weeks before i head back to sg. Luckily, I did not cut my hair during the last week. Phew. Btw, the hairstylist who did my hair had stayed in Wuhan all his life w/o going overseas at all. He is only 23? with a 6years of hairstyling experience. How fortunate am I...

















Wee heng















Maurice and wee heng.














My manicure( my 1st time having my nails set black! OMGosh~)