Today, I was happened to wake up at 7.45am instead of 6am. As usual, I quickly did wash up and got myself prepared to meet the rest with our lecturers at the main entrance gate. About 10 minutes later to 8.09am, most of my group and my classmates were ready and walked down together to the main entrance gate. At 8.15am, we reached the gate and waited for the bus and our tour lead to be arrived. As we were waiting, the weather was seem to be very bad and rained lightly since in the morning. It was very freezing when every time the wind blows towards us. At the same time, I also saw some groups of the local students were waiting for their bus to send back to their hometown. And there was a local man who was likely to be waiting for his girlfriend at the gate in front. He was holding a stalk of pink flowers and stood beside the van. After 20 minutes later, he had left from the scene and didn’t want to continue waiting. About to 8.30am, the bus has finally reached and all of us were immediately boarded into the bus. After that, we were set off together with our tour lead, headed to our last destination for today, Hankou. Hankou was one of the three cities combined in Wuhan. It was known of its shopping and trading port as during the past, most of the people were used to go Hankou and had their shopping over there instead of going other two cities. As the bus travelled along, I was watching a variety and comedy show in the bus to release my boredom. At 9.42am, we had reached the Hankou city and dropped off at the Hankou Jiangtan. Then, we were given a short briefing on today’s activities by our tour lead. Next, my group and I went to the other side of shopping mall, Wan Da Grand Shopping mall. The distance we have to walk there was about 2-3 km away from us. It would probably take 5-10 minutes to reach the destination. So, we went together with our tour lead. However, the weather seems to be very bad and it was rained lightly but yet so cold until all of us had to walk even faster. Normally the temperature wasn’t constant every day. It would change its temperature daily whenever there’s rained. According to what Mr Chua told us from the briefing last night, he said that Wuhan was the in-land state. Whenever there’s rain on that day, it will drop its temperature low to 8-9 degree after the next two days. Unlike in Singapore, the temperature wouldn’t be affected so much after rained as compared to Wuhan. Fortunately the rain wasn’t so heavily, else we might have the difficult for the activity today. After 10-15 minutes passed, we finally reached the destination, and we also had walked passed along the street. The street name was called “Hankou Bu Xing Jie”. As we were walking, we had seen a building mall located just in front of us. Then, we went inside and shopped around for our necessary accessories such as clothes etc. The size of the mall was about doubled as big as IMM in Singapore. It had a lot of shops that can be worth to visit. The inside of the mall consisted many areas such as food, arcade and fashion. After had shopped inside the mall, we met with other students from different division of Ngee Ann and a local student of WUST with her boyfriend. Later, we walked out of the mall and crossed over to another building. The name of the building was Mei Shi Jie Fan. It was the place where most of the local food could be found here. The price of them wasn’t expensive but it still treated as normal price in other places. Then, we walked to the arcade and went inside to see whether there’s any difference from Singapore. As we were walking around the arcade, I saw there were two technicians who were fixing the arcade machine. Later, we went to Macdonald’s where beside the arcade for buying burger to have some bites. When we were inside the Macdonald’s, I saw there was quite number of set meals. One of them I came across was their pork burger. This type of burger might not easily to be found in Singapore. Normally the set menu in Singapore consist either fish fillet or chicken spicy. However to my surprise, I found that there was included a pork burger as well. However, the cost of set meal was much cheaper than in Singapore. A Macdonald’s set meal would probably cost about $9-$12 in SGD while in China, it would cost less the given amount. After that, we went out of the building and walked around to the area. Then, we crossed the road to another building. As usual, we were shopped around for our things that we wanted in the building. At about 11.40am, we walked across the street and went to a shop for buying some clothes at Wen Zhou Chen. And then, we had taken a picture together with the shop-owner and the staffs. Next, we went to the street nearby and there was selling fake shoes instead of original. The minimum cost for a pair of these shoes was lower as $20-$30 RMB. However, the brand was similar to Converse but it was not original About 2.30pm, we started to walk back to the meeting point but in our half way, we were suddenly felt so hungry and immediately dropped off at the Macdonald’s to have our late lunch. At about 2.45pm, we had eaten finished and quickly ran back to the meeting point as soon as we could. As we were along the street, we had also taken some pictures with the statues in the Hankou city. About 10 minutes later, we finally made it on time and reached the place. However, we were going to the zoo in the afternoon. Despite of the bad weather, the activity for the zoo was cancelled and then headed back to our school after boarding the bus at 3.10pm. As we were travelling around in the bus, some of my classmates were suggested whether we wanted to go for another shopping at Yellow Crane Tower nearby. So majority of us had decided and told our tour lead that 20 of us were going that place. Then, our tour lead informed the bus driver that we were going to drop off at that area instead at the school outside. About 4.02pm, we reached the place and dropped off at the nearby area. Next, most of us had given our goodbye greeting to our tour lead and his friend before we left. As we were walking along the street, I saw there was an event held at the outside of restaurant building. There was involved some dancers but I couldn’t manage to see their dance moves as it was surrounded by the audiences there. Later, we had reached at the outside of the building, and it was called ATM ATM market. However it wasn’t like those wet markets that sell raw meats or fish. It was the place that sells fashion accessories, clothes and etc. There were 4 levels in that building, but I was not sure whether there was 5th or 6th level as most of us went to forth level and went down to ground level after buying our stuffs. At about 7.10pm, we had bought our stuffs and headed to the nearby place for having our dinner. And we had reached this small town where sell foods in a row along the street. From there, we were having our dinner until 8.30pm before we took a cab back to our hostel for 9.30pm briefing. As today’s activity, I was quite excited to go one of the three cities in Wuhan, Hankou. In the beginning, I wanted to find time visit there however I didn’t manage to. From there, I had learnt about the history of this city and learnt their cultures over there. According to what our tour lead told us in the bus, the people in Wuhan especially women were acting differently from others. An example given by our tour lead, the way they speak was not the same between in Hankou and Wuchang. The women in Hankou were very furious as the way they talked was almost like quarrelling but it was not. And the women in Wuchang, was quite sensitive in their surrounding and not really that active as others.
Mr Ma is holding an umbrella...
Smart action...
Another smart action taken...
Waiting for girlfriend?
Cinema in Hankou...
Fixing machine in the arcade.
Fixing process occurred in the arcade..
Pork burger in Macdonalds.
Delicious...
Egg & Ham Pie
Looks it is going to rain soon..
Looks familiar.... Is the penguin which represents China's messenger, QQ?
What's he doing? Fixing?
Mailbox
Taken a photo with the local entrepreneurs in the shop
20% Discount shop
Rubbish on floor
Late lunch at Macdonalds
One smell, million years...
Looks normal? Made of rice and it's a pancake
Day 26 March 29
Today, I woke up at about 10.45am to continue doing my homework from what I left last night. It was quite a lot of things to be done during these 2 weeks before we leave to Singapore on April 14. Then, about 3pm plus, my group member, Jeremy went to help buying the necessary stuffs with some of my classmates and the local students. About 5pm plus, I left from the hostel and walked down to the barbeque area. It was quite a long distance to reach within 10 minutes approximately. By the time I reached, I saw my classmates were helping up with the local students at the guide house nearby. They were getting the stuffs to bring over the gathering area. I was about to help but there was number of people helping. Next, as I walked towards the area, I saw some of my classmates were helping up to carry those grilling materials over there. After had settled the place, we were begun to start on lighting the fire. However, most of us had difficulties when lighting the fire as there wasn’t any flammable accessories such as kerosene, fire heater and etc. Then, most of my classmates were started to think how to light up. At first, they found dry grass to light up with the fire and placed beside the charcoal. However the success rate of heating was quite low as most of the woods and grass were not really dry after had rained since yesterday. And some of the local students were decided to heat up with the plastic materials. But we told them not to burn those plastic materials. It would cause to have toxic gas as the result. About 20-30 minutes later, we managed to heat up the charcoals with the fire. And it was so red in color and quite suitable for barbequing. Then, we begun to start eating after grilled the food. As we were eating, my classmate and I started to have conversation with the local students. We talked about what we do during the week and also talked other stuffs as well. Most of them were quite friendly and really took initiative than us for grilling the food and let us to have it. In return, I had grilled some foods such as mutton sticks, chicken wing for them to eat. Although it was so dark and couldn’t see whether the food had been heated up and used our sense to make our decision. We were also encountered some difficulties on grilling the food without having any light. At about 9.30pm, we were started to pack up and cleaned the area before we went back to our hostel. From there, we said our good bye to the local students and walked back to our hostel. As for today’s activity, I had learnt to be more initiative than what I am currently. I found that the local students were quite friendly and they were almost treated us as their close friends. In Singapore, there were some people who not really like the way as they did. At the same time, I had improved on my communication skill and begun to communicate more with them rather than just sit there and grilled quietly.
BBQ gathering
