Ya Lun is an noob: Journal on OIP in China

Day 1 March 4
This morning, I woke up about 4am to prepare and get ready to go for Changi airport. Fortunately, I had my mother and my sister who were helped me to carry my two luggage which weighed about 15-20kg each. So we got there about 5.17am to meet the lecturers and others. The moment I reached the airport, I immediately contacted Mr Ma to inform him that I was at Terminal 1. After gathered all of us at about 6.40am, all of us went for registration and checked in our bags. After that, I went to have my first breakfast with my classmate, Shaoming and his sister. Together, we went to have our fried noodles with hotdogs and a cup of hot milo. Then, 20 minutes later to 7.10am, we took the lift back to meeting point. While our way back, we saw our lecturers, Mr Ma and Mr Chua sitting down at the café with other lecturers. So my classmate, Shaoming asked whether we can go in the main gateway earlier to get our universal plug as the pin design is different from local. Then, we headed back to the café and asked for permission from our lecturers, so they agreed. After we got our universal plug, we went in to the check point and entered into the airplane. At about 8am, the airplane has started to fly off from Singapore to Guangzhou and followed by Guangzhou to Wuhan within 2 hours plus interval before we transferred our flight to the destination point. The flight itself, took us more than 4-5 hours to reach. At 5.15pm or 5.30pm, we had reached the Wuhan airport. However, unfortunately the temperature was much colder than what I had expected during in Singapore. It was almost like I was kept in the freezer for certain period. Thank goodness, I have my winter-wear wore beforehand. So after that, we headed to the WUST school bus to take us from the airport to the WUST hostels. Before all of us were going to aboard the bus, the misfortunate was the spacing we took from our luggage. The luggage, each itself consists about the size of 3-4 medium bags. So the remaining of us had to carry them into the bus. Finally, we managed to squeeze all the bags and all of us in one shot. At 6.15pm, the first I had seen was the bus driver drove very speedy and kept horning on the road many times. In the first place, I was wondering whether the people here are they give signals as what we normally did in Singapore. If giving signal, the chance of horning on the road is lesser. So lately I never bother it so much and had some rest in the bus. The moment when we reached the hostels, it was about 7.29pm, and it was so freezing when I was delighted from the bus. I couldn’t imagine that it was so freezing in the night than in the day. After we got in our hostel, I myself had 8 roommates to share in one living room with 4 small rooms at level 4, room 1. Then we got our things placed in our room, we headed to the canteen 2 where located on the road nearby, so I quickly to buy the food to eat. However the price of food here compared those in Singapore, the price here was about $1-2 plus and cheaper than in Singapore. So I decided to try out the dishes at level 2 called “Curry chicken noodles”. Then I tried it, the taste of it was not really originally at all. The dishes, itself was added in with some so-called “unknown” sauces to stir up the curry taste. While I was eating, I felt that the curry taste is much better in Singapore than here. Maybe I was thinking that the taste of curry was not suitable for the people here in China. So they added with some sauces to adjust their taste. After that, we headed back to the hostels. The very first experience which I had encountered was very bad. While my roommate, Jeremy was having his shower, suddenly the power was trimmed off and totally blacked out. So the rest of us went to check the circuit, it was the circuit breaker triggered off. And this happened two times with 15 minutes in between. So we had waited for the water heater to heat up the water as the water was very freezing like an ice water. While we were did some washing, our hands will become cold and numb for a longer period. Plus, in our rooms, the air-con which has the heater function, it not really works well. In the mid-night of sleeping, we felt very cold and freezing even though we had wore 3-4 layers of clothes. So the reflection for the first day of this trip was not really smooth going, but sometimes would meet those unexpected matters (example like circuit trimmed off) along the journey. Although this trip was not accompanied with my parents, I should learn to be more independently and take care of myself whenever I travelled outside of Singapore.

First day arrived in China airport

we are now in GuangZhou Airport

Headed to check in for our luggages.

The signboard in airport

Airport view

So many luggages

Line up for luggages to be checked in

Mini transport use in the airport

Airport tower

Inside the airport

A view of GuangZhou airport

Checking the time for our flight

Main road

Airplanes.

This is the place where we were waiting for our flight

Shops in GuangZhou Airport

Shower with heater

Air con and also as a warmer

Circuit breaker

Day 2 March 5
Today, I woke up late at about 7.10am although I had set my alarm clock to 6.30am last night. So I quickly did my wash-up and ready to meet others in the canteen 2 along with my roommates. The moment we reached, i saw majority of people including the staffs and student from university had started to have their breakfast. Compare the people in Singapore, they may find that breakfast is not really taking that early, maybe around 9 or 10am plus. So I tried their morning dishes such as porridge, sesame ball, buns and etc. They were really delicious which I was eaten the curry noodle last night. How I wish they were become my daily morning dishes. The price of eating here is also cheaper than in Singapore. The difference is that when I was having the breakfast in Canteen 2 from our polytechnic, the price there is $1.50-$1.80 Sing dollars. But while having here in WUST, China is $5 RMB, which was about less than $2 SGD to eat as our wish in order to fulfil my hunger. It was really yummy and delicious until I had my two rounds of them. After having a heavy breakfast, I went out with my classmates, 4 of us to search for money exchanger. Along the street, we found a bank but unfortunately were that they didn’t have the facility of foreign currency exchange. So while we were heading back to our campus, we saw a guy who was riding on the bicycle but this guy was riding with ton of things which stacked about 2-4 metres high. We saw it and really a wow, what an amazing thing to be seen. At about 9.30am, we were gathering at the meeting point at our hostel level 1 to meet up our WUST lecturer, Miss Lisa to lead us the campus tour. Later on, we were toured around with Miss Lisa and gone through the buildings in this university. There was 4 canteens in this university but the distance between them is much far than one another. And I have seen the library here as well. It was really quite big too. And there is another building which is constructing for library facility according to our conversation with Miss Lisa. At about 12 pm plus, it was our lunch break; we headed to canteen 2 to top up the values for our daily food expenses. After that, I went to another stall instead of the noodle stall, to try out their local claypot rice. So I tried out their one of the dishes, “Fish with Beancurd claypot rice”, it was not bad than the curry noodles from other stall. At about 1.30pm plus, we went down to gather with others at level 1 from our hostel. The task for today which was given by Mr Chua, was to go to the building called “Lu Xiang Guan Chang” to get our necessary things and exchange our foreign currency. So most of us went to take a bus outside the campus, bus no 901, go to our destination place. When we were boarding the bus, I noticed that the ticketing system is not available unlike in Singapore bus. In the first place, I was wondering whether who will collect our money for bus trip. So apparently, there was a lady, who in charge of collecting the money from us and the passengers in the bus. But there’s quite “special” was that, when the bus reaches the bus stop, the lady will announce the location and stopping area to the passengers whether they want to depart, Unlike Singapore, there wasn’t any button to press for “Bus Stopping”. In this place, there’s only one who will announce the location and stopping area but in Singapore, everything is computerized or automatically. When we had reached the building, most of us have separately walking to get our own things. So left my roommates and I to walk over the building by crossing the road and underpass. On the way there, we met our lecturers and the girls very coincidently. So we told them that we couldn’t found a bank that can exchange the foreign currency. So fortunately, thanks to Mr Chua, I had managed to exchange the notes into RMB from SGD with him for getting my things according to the situation. After that, we were separately walking from our lecturers to continue our shopping. As we were walking around the area, I saw many statues were situated at the place nearby too. At the same time, I had seen some street stalls selling foods such as beancurds, satay chicken/beef sticks and pineapple fruit (cut). One of the foods sell, the smell that similar to smelly beancurds, is the “Wu Xiang Dou Fu”. Although smell is a bit bad, I didn’t have the courage to try it. I was afraid I may have bad breath during my journey. At about 7pm plus, we met with others and took a bus back to our campus. Therefore, home sweet home, time to fall in. After we reached the campus, there are some stalls along the campus street outside selling things such as socks, necessary things and etc. So Mr Chua went to buy two basketballs, the cost of them is about 110 RMB, it was really very cheap and originally, compared buying in the Singapore. So today was the end of my second day in Wuhan and finally managed to have currency exchanged otherwise it’s hard to survive on the following days. Although this trip was seem to be tough in the beginning but I slowly got used to it on the living. And I had made a comparison that between in Singapore and in China, the food was cheaper and delicious but yet the way they cooked was not really as healthy as what I expected.