Day 41 - Bye Wuhan, Hi Singapore Posted by SuperJuniorF , Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 12:58 AM, in

The day we are finally heading back to Singapore has arrived! So at 8am, we met outside the school campus where 2 buses were already waiting for us. I felt quite guilty for making the WUST students wake up so early. Actually we were suppose to have breakfast with the WUST students for the last time but by the time we were ready, it was already 7.30am. Although we had to time to eat with them, they were very kind enough to buy us breakfast so that we do not go on the plane with an empty stomach. So before I left my dormitory, I took pictures with everyone of the WUST students who have helped me throughout the whole OIP.


After taking our final pictures together, we had to load the buses with our luggages. Personally, I thought that we really had a lot of things.

As we reach the airport, we took quite some time to check in. The ride to the airport was about 1 hour. As there were many free counters, we used their electronic weighing machine to weigh our check-in luggage. As for those students whose luggages are overweight, they had to rearrange their things and hand carry some of their items. Although it may be troublesome to carry heavy items on hand, on the brightside, at least nobody had to pay extra. At the Wuhan airport, I saw some of my other friends from the other divisions, so I decided to take pictures with them! ^_^

After checking in our luggages at the Wuhan airport, Ms Neo mentioned that our luggage will be sent from Wuhan straight to Singapore. However when we arrived at Guangzhou, we had to collect our luggages and check them in again. Due to this, our flight was delayed 2 hours! We finally arived at Singapore at 10.15pm. Although arrival time was delayed, I was glad that I manage to reach Singapore safely and that nothing bad happened during the flight. ^_^

Reflection

As I arrive in Singapore, I could remember all the things that happened in Wuhan as if it all happened yesterday. All the trips to the Yellow Crane Tower, the Three Gorges Cruise, the Wudang Mountain was really something unforgettable. Other than these study trips, I also did not forget all the fun we had when we played games, eat together, shop together and even cutting our hair together! Studying in Wuhan was also totally something different from studying in Singapore. Some of the students might not like the feeling but I find that the atmosphere in Wuhan is much more better for studying than the atmosphere in Singapore. May be Wuhan is a new place to me, so that is why I have such feelings.

Other than that, I have learnt and experience many things in Wuhan that cannot be experienced from the books. I learned to become more patient as a person. I have learned how to become more independent as a person. Although I might have relied a lot on my Chinese friends during the trip to translate every word the locals say, I think I have done quite some things that may surprise people. On the last few days, I manage to buy my own food and drinks without the help of any of my Chinese friends and I am proud of it. I know whatever I learned in Wuhn will be of great use in the future. I am also definitely sure that the memories for this trip will stay in my mind for the rest of my life. ^_^

Day 40 - Ms Wong's Apartment Posted by SuperJuniorF , Monday, April 12, 2010 at 11:35 PM, in

The main activity for today was actually to visit Ms Wong, our former mathematics teacher's apartment during her stay in Wuhan and we did just that! While we were waiting for Ms Wong to arrive together with Ms Neo, we took a photo with the locals students for one of the last time.

So after Ms Wong arrived, she brought us to her apartment which was only about 5 minutes walk away from our dormitories. The first time I saw her apartment really made me feel like I was at home! There were 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a toilet. Although the condition was not so bad, it was a horrible experience for Ms Wong as she told us that during the earlier part of winter, the apartment was so cold that she was literally shivering just to walk from her bedroom to the toilet! Furthermore, there was no heater in her apartment! Good thing there is a heater in my dormitory. ^_^ So after a short chat, we left Ms Wong's apartment to have dinner at a nearby restaurant. I was glad because tonight's dinner was on Ms Wong! ^_^

Reflection

Even though we had a short chat with Ms Wong about her experience while staying in Wuhan, it was an informative chat. She shared with us her experiece on how cold it can be in her apartment during the early winter and how her lifestyle is while she is in Wuhan. She told us that the food here is very oily and that she does not like it. However for me, I love the food here because it is rather tasty! May be different people have different perspective. Although we think that her apartment is much better compared to our dormitory, she said that her apartment is bad compared to her house in Singapore! Then again, it comes back to one's perspective. ^_^

Day 39 - Packing Up Posted by SuperJuniorF , Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 9:22 PM, in

Today, most of my friends went out except me. I did not want to go out because I wanted to pack my things and start a little bit on my IS video. Two more days before we retun to Singapore. Definitely I will miss all the things I have done here and especially the locals students who have been generous with their hospitality. Although I have already adapted myself to Wuhan, sooner or later, I will eventually have to return home where my family members are.

So what I did for most of the time today was pack, pack and pack! Just look at how messy my place is! So what I did was that I unpacked everything to rearrange all my items such that most of my items can fit into one luggage. The rest of the remainding items were being placed into another small bag. As I was packing my things, I found all the tickets that was being used throughout the trip in Wuhan. Just by looking at those tickets brings back memories.

Reflection

As I was packing today, I realized that we Singaporeans are very fortunate to be Singaporeans. As I was packing, I looked at all the things that I bought in just 1 month. It was equivalent to what some of the China students bought throughout the year! I recalled what one of the Ngee Ann teachers who was teaching in Wuhan told me, "Although the food here might be very cheap to us, it is still quite expensive to the locals because their salary is not high." After hearing that, I finally figured out why so many foreign workers are willing to leave their country to do hard labour in Singapore. It is because earning money in Singapore is much more worthwhile than working in their own country.

Day 38 - Relax, Night Shopping Posted by SuperJuniorF , Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 11:42 PM, in

3 days to go before this OIP trip comes to an end. As we have free time in our hands, most of my friends went out to shop while I accompanied Si Hao in the dormitory due to his injured leg. Me and Si Hao skipped breakfast this morning because we woke up quite late, thus we had lunch straight. Si Hao and I tried to catch up with our blog while we had the time in our hands. However when the clock struck 5.30pm, Si Hao and I got ready to go to Jiang Han Lu to do some shopping.

As we took the bus and arrived at Jiang Han Lu, I saw this old equipment that is used to pay for a parking lot. It was ancient to me as I no longer see this in Singapore, or may be I should say there are very little left in Singapore. In Singapore, most carparks are now underground or multi-story carpark. The payment for the carpark is also by the hour, so the drivers do not have to worry about not paying enough and using more time.

At Jiang Han Lu, Bu Xing Jie, although it was late in the trip now, I tried to learn bargaining. I was surprised that I succeeded well and managed to get a shirt for 20RMB which is only about $4! The price is definitely very cheap compared to even the shirt sold at bugis street. We also witness a fight between two ladies. We were not sure what their reason were to fight but their fight caused a scene. Good thing some people stopped them and nobody got injured. So After walking through Bu Xing Jie, Si Hao and I each went to buy a pair of contact lenses. We managed to bargain each pair from 120RMB to 60RMB and to be honest, it was a good deal! In Singapore, buying a 1-year coloured contact lenses would cost more than $50 per pair but we bought it for 60RMB which is about $13! ^_^

The sellers of the contact lenses.

Reflection

So far throughout this trip, I have seen 2 incidents of ladies quarreling to the extend of physical contact. That is by far the most time I have seen two women fight in a month. In Singapore, although there might be some fight between the ladies, most of the fights are not in public areas. What surpised me after the fight was that everything could go back to normal the way they were before as if nothing happened! Its amazing how the people in China behaves. No wonder so many wrong things can happen. Nobody actually care about enough to take actions when something wrong happens such as littering or spitting. It is when the bad incident that happened is related to them is the only time when they really react. It is a good thing Singapore's government take firm actions when someone does a wrong thing.

Day 37 - Basketball and Farewell Dinner Posted by SuperJuniorF , Friday, April 9, 2010 at 10:37 PM, in

We started the day off with a friendly basketball match with the WUST students. The friendly match was actually organised by the student union of WUST so as to interact and make friends with the WUST students. Obviously, basketball is not our forte. After 2 hours of play, we lost to the WUST students by quite a huge margin. Despite losing, I felt that it was a good game and it was fun! However during the game, Si Hao got injured. He sprained his ankle and was actually sent to the hospital to get an x-ray check. Luckily, nothing serious happened and turned out his injury was just a minor injury. ^_^

In the evening, it was time for our farewell dinner at XHC Gourmets. Each student had to pay 50RMB for the dinner and I thought it was worth it. Before the dinner started, tokens of appreciation were given to the people who has made this OIP possible. A short speech was also given by me who represented MDE and Sam who represented ECE to actually thank the people who had made this OIP possible and also to apologize for any misbehaviour during the trip. ^_^

After dinner, something terrible actually happened to me. My stomach was painful, I felt weak and felt like fainting. Luckily for me, I have my friends who took me back to the dormitory safe and sound. When I returned back to the dormitory not long after, my body let out all the unwanted things in my body by vomitting and I felt much better. ^_^

Reflection

It was really an unforgettable experience to play a basketball match with such talented students. I have never played a basketball match before and playing it for the first time with China students was really something special to me. In China, their main sports are basketball, badminton and table tennis. That is one of the reasons why in many of their universities in Wuhan, there are many basketball courts, table tennis tables and badminton courts! Although we can see that the students in Wuhan are exposed to very little variety of sports, that is not the case when China come together as one. Just look at China when is comes to the Asian Games and the Olympic Games. China is one of the strongest or even maybe the strongest country when it comes to sports! Even after 1000 yeaars, I do not think it is even possible for Singapore to come close to China in terms of sporting talents. At least Singaporeans have the advantage when it comes to education! ^_^

Day 36 - San Gong Lu Posted by SuperJuniorF , Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 10:05 PM, in

After getting to sleep in after so many days, when I woke up, I had the urge to explore a street that I have been going frequently since I stepped into Wuhan. San Gong Lu is the street loacated nearby my dormitory. It takes less than 5 minutes to reach there from the doorstep of my room. San Gong Lu sells many food, drinks, accessories and other daily neccesities such as mattresses, shampoo, toothbrushes, pens etc. However it is most known for it's food. At San Gong Lu, there are many food stalls selling variety of food such as fried rice, fried noodles, porridge, vegetables, soups, hotdogs, paus and many more.


Usually in the morning, not all the stalls at San Gong Lu will be open as most stalls sell barbequed food. I was told by the WUST students that in Wuhan, the locals there love barbequed food. They love it because it is delicious! I tried the barbequed halal satay and I swear it single-handedly beat Singapore's satay.



During lunch time, San Gong Lu is usually very packed. Many students from WUST wll be rushing to buy their food. This is a usual scene even in the school canteen as the food are of similar price. In Singapore, food sold in school are usually cheaper than food sold outside but this is not the case for China.




Reflection

There are not much street places like this in Singapore. Singapore is so developed that there are many fast food restaurant franchises all over the island. However the night markets in Singapore, well known as the "Pasar Malam", is some of the things that keeps Singapore interesting. By having the "Pasar Malam", we can preserve the old culture of Singapore selling street food and also selling other things. Places like Geylang, Little India and Chinatown still have these kind of stalls as these places are tourism attractions. Modernizing these places too much will cause it to lose it's cultural feel.

Day 35 - New WUST Campus Posted by SuperJuniorF , Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 10:47 PM, in

Today was the day when all of us met a whole new bunch of Chinese students in the new WUST which is the Huang Jia Hu Campus! I thought that the trip to the campus would be faster than going to Guang Gu but it was not! It took more than 1 hour to reach the Huang Jia Hu Campus from our campus at Qing Shan. When we reached the school, there were more than 50 Chinese students waiting for us. Each of us had been assigned partners to accompany us during the whole trip. After being assigned partners, we were being brought to a room for an introduction session with the China students. There were performances by the China students and also our own students.





After being warmly entertained by the China students, we were brought to their school library. Their school library was enormous! When I entered their library, there was a history area aboutthe library, a computer lab and other normal library sections. There was even a badminton area at one of the section of the library! In the library, there were many Chinese and English books. I even saw an English-Russian dictionary in he library!


At the library, I also saw a model of the campus! The campus was very huge! I was told by my partner that the total population in the campus itself was about 20,000 people! When I looked at the model also, I realised that they have a lot more sports facilities compared to my campus in Qing Shan. As you can see from the model, there are 18 table tennis tables, 10 badminton courts and 26 basketball courts at one area! That is just simply amazing! ^_^

After going to the library, my partner and me had lunch and went to explore the new WUST campus! ^_^

I was shocked that out of the 2 fields that I saw in the campus, both of them are occupied with students playing soccer! Seeing them playing soccer with such passion adds on the to the atmosphere of the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa! ^_^

After that, we gathered to play some games and headed to one of the most important place in the campus, The Central Laboratory of Basic Medical Sciences! In the laboratory, I saw disections of the human body all the way from the fetus, to a newborn baby, toddler and adults.

After the visit to the laboratory, we finally finished and had to head back to our campus in Qing Shan. ^_^

Reflection

After visiting the new WUST campus today, I feel very priveleged to be studying in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Although the atmostphere in Ngee Ann maybe be not be as fresh as the atmosphere in the new WUST campus, the facilities in Ngee Ann are still of high quality. As the time goes by, Ngee Ann Polytechnic is being upgraded slowly so that the students can have the best learning experience during their years in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Just imagine how high-tech and modern the campus will be if Ngee Ann were to built a whole new campus!