Day 3 - Outing with the Wuhan students. Posted by SuperJuniorF , Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 9:17 PM, in

It snowed today! It was the first time I experienced snow but it was raining and snowing at the same time. Although the snow flakes I saw were not as much as the snow flakes in Russia or Canada, it was still a joyful experience! When I first saw the snow falling from the sky, me and my roommates were so excited that we ran out of our domitory in single layer of clothing to take pictures and videos of the incident! I consider myself lucky because the probability of Wuhan snowing was 50% and I GOT TO SEE IT! ^_^ Singapore will never snow and to all my friends in Singapore, enjoy this mundane video of snow! ;D

Today was free for us so the students in Wuhan took us a very enormous shopping mall which was about an hour bus ride away. Gladly to say, I find the bus ride in Wuhan similar to a roller coster ride. ^_^ The bus ride in Wuhan is almost similar to the bus ride in Singapore but with a few diferences. The first difference is the driver. Bus drivers in Singapore wears a uniform, are polite and drives safely whereas the bus drivers in Wuhan has no uniform, are rather harsh and drives recklessly. I realised all this when I first took the bus from WUST to the shopping center. As I step into the bus, the bus driver was talking really loudly and in a harsh way. Maybe it is just the way all the bus drivers behave, that is why all the local commuters do not feel anything. The bus drivers in Wuhan also do not wear any uniform. They just wear casual clothings. Maybe it is normal for the people in Wuhan but in Singapore, only private bus drivers wear casual clothings while the public bus drivers wear uniform. The bus drivers in Wuhan also drive very carelessly. They often stop suddenly and not gradually slowing down. This actually causes the commutors who are standing to sway into another person. I my opinion, this is very dangerous as they might hit one another very hard to the extent that one or both gets injured. In Singapore, if any of the bus drivers do this, the Singaporean are allowed and able to send a complain letter to the company but in Wuhan, the commuters are so used to it that it does not even bother them.

The second difference is the signs on the bus. In Singapore, the signs on the bus are basically signs which states the rules on the bus but in Wuhan, the signs on the bus promote business such as kfc and wedding planner. This is another major problem because the rules are not strict. During the bus journey to the shopping center today, there was a man who literally brought a large wooden one-seater cushion chair on the bus and everyone had to move away because of the chair! In my opinion, this is not acceptable because it is very inconsiderate. In Singapore, we are not allowed to do that but even if we are allowed, commuters would be very irritated. In Wuhan however, the student from WUST that was accompanying to the shopping center even made a joke by telling me, "Do you want to sit down?" *Sorry I do not have the picture of the chair in the bus because it was too crowded and people were blocking my way* ^_^

The third difference is the commuters themselves. They are the most noisiest and straight-forward people I have ever seen. When they want to get out of the bus, they just push through the crowd without saying excuse me. Then there was a time when I got a seat on the bus and an old woman just comes up to me and said that she wanted the seat. She is an old woman, so she has the priority but that is not the point. The point is that she is straight-forward. Many people in Singapore are not straight-forward, even the elderly. A seat in the bus is a simple example. Most of the elderly in Singapore are shy to ask for the seat even though they have the priority but the elderly in Wuhan are not. Other commuters will also take any empty sits whenever they have the chance. They do not look around before seating like most Singaporeans do. This shows that most of the people in Wuhan are not self conscious compared to the people in Singapore who are very self-conscious about what people think about them. I like this kind of character very much as it shows that they go after what they want and are not half-hearted about it.

After the one hour bus ride, I finally reach my destination! I swear the shopping mall is bigger than Vivo City. So what else can we do at a shopping mall? Shop! Although the shopping mall is much bigger, it is almost the same as the ones in Singapore. The one thing that makes that particular shopping mall that we go to special is that it is an open-air shopping mall! The cold weather substitute the air-condition and I was shivering all the way while serching for things to buy. Here are some of the pictures:

Me in front of the huge shopping mall

The huge shopping mall

The electronic store (Similar to Sim Lim Square in Singapore)

Expressions of the local people

And a short video of the open-air shopping mall!

So after shopping, me and my friends went for dinner. After dinner, we went to the arcade for a while. The arcade is similar to the ones in Singapore so there is nothing special about it. The only special thing is that the people there play all out and do not hesitate to buy tokens. In Singapore, people buy about 10 tokens on average but in Wuhan, the people there buy 40 tokens on average. The most I saw was about 300 over tokens! However the people are able to do that because the tokens are cheap. 2 tokens for 1RMB is equivilant to 10 cents per token! That is very cheap! So after playing arcade, we headed back to WUST and called it a day. ^_^

The food I ordered, Seafood Fried Rice!

Ate Charmaine's food for her because she said it was too spicy.

Me and the WUST students!

Reflection
Today was a rather relax day. Although going shopping is similar in any country I go to, but shopping in a freezing weather is something very different. It is not the same as shopping in an air-conditioned shopping mall in Singapore because in Wuhan, I will not know when the wind is going to come or when is it going to be very cold. So the experience is quite unique and one of a kind. Shopping in Wuhan is also an experience because the salesperson are more out-spoken compared to the salesperson in Singapore. In my opinion, Singaporeans should try to be more out-going and out-spoken rather than being shy and self-conscious. By doing this, they will actually become stronger mentally because they do not care what others think about them. As I always say, you will never know what others think unless you speak up. ^_^