Day 41 (12-04-2009)

Our last day in Wuhan.

Here comes the day where we hope it comes quickly when we first arrive here in Wuhan yet we wish it will never come after the bonds we had over the 6 weeks.

I seriously have enjoyed myself to the fullest in Wuhan. All the fun times I had together with my trip mates. I am glad to know the local students as well. People like Journey, Charlotte, Yep, Kidd, Jason and many others.

I cannot believe that 41 days just past by like that. It does not feel like 41 days have passed by.

41 days ago, I was wishing to go back to Singapore asap.
I was scare of not being able to survive here. What if I could not get used to living in a hostel?
What if I fall sick? What if I am sent back home halfway through the trip?

41 days later.
I dont want to leave room 217.
I love it here too much.
I have got used to the cooling weather that I dont want to go back to Singapore.
I am going to miss my friends here.
I miss the fun times I had with my trip mates. Our mahjong playing. Our karaoke sessions.
I miss having lessons here in a class room.
I miss the cheap food from back alley. The cake shop auntie, auntie from bubble tea store, the not salty noodles stall.
Every little memories in Wuhan are missed by me.

Goodbye is the hardest thing to say to my friends in Wuhan.

HOWEVER.

I believe this is definitely not going to be a good bye.

We will definitely meet again. Through Video calls, during holidays, in the future.
I'm certain.

Friendship are for life.
WE will definitely meet again. =)

See you soon my friends in Wuhan!

Hello back to Singapore!

A BIG THANK YOU TO WUHAN!

Day 40 (11-04-2009)

Whole day of shopping at Mouse street.

We still have bags of items went we went back to dormitory. We are the queens of shopping.

Mr Chong's treat of our last meal in Wuhan. Too many dishes and lots of wasted food. However, the food are considered quite delicious after all.

After the dinner, we went to get items for Charlotte, Yepp, Journey and Kidd.

2 bouquets of 7 Africa sunflower and 2 white lilies for Charlotte and Yepp each.
1 teddy bear for Journey.
we decided to get kidd Breezer and pocky from walmart tomorrow morning.

Back to dormitory after buying the gifts, we start to pack our luggage for tomorrow. It is amazing how much stuff we have buy there in Wuhan during our shopping trips. My luggage is totally filled.

It is the last night and we invited Charlotte, Yepp and Journey into our room to talk. Ended up, we spend the whole night playing with laptops after packing our luggages. =)

40 days down. 1 day left.

Day 39 (10-04-2009)

We sang Karaoke the whole night until 0500. Initially we decided to extend our karaoke session. But it turns out that they are closing. What a weird time to close business at dawn.

We went to McDonalds for breakfast as the dormitory door opens only at 0600. Finally I tried the ham and egg pie. It is rather delicious. However, its big breakfast and hotcakes cannot be compared with Singapore's McDonalds.

A very funny scene happened in McDonalds. Both Jasper and Hardy are sleeping and guess what? Jasper places his hand on Hardy's face. What a gay scene. What about Yongqi as he is not there.

We took cab back to dormitory and i slept my way until 0930 before going shopping.

New shopping area called 司门口. there is nothing nice there after walking around. I guess we did not arrive at the correct area for shopping.

I was so restless today. Try not sleeping for 48 hours and when you finally sleep, it is oly for 3 hours before you are awake.

We change our location to Book City. Journey together with, Hardy, Jerald, Xin Hui went to Computer City while me and MeiYi went to book city. Initally, both of us are restless due to lack of sleep. However, after staying there for some time looking at books, we both got energy. When time is up for us to meet the rest, we were unwilling to leave.

Took a black cab back to WUST from Book City. It costs us 50 Yuan for the trip.

Farewell party is all the party, dancing. It is rocco's birthday as well. So we sang birthday song for him. Karaoke session again all the disco songs and dancing.

We were forced to leave the building as the person wants to lock it up and leave. So this is the end of the farewell party.

Slept right through the night.
More shopping tomorrrow.

39 days down. 2 days left.

Day 38 (09-04-2009)

As we are doing project, two lousy actors are trying to kid Alan into believing that they are arguing. It will be Alan's birthday in 15 minutes time. So Xin Hui ran out of the room after the fake argument while doing project to get cake for Alan.

A small celebration and off we are busying with the slides again.

Before that,

Happy Birthday Alan!

We finally finished our presentation slides on time.

Our presentation in 506 starts at 0900. I do not think that I had did well in my presentation part just now. But whatever it is, what gone has gone.

After presentation, we had a quick lunch and went back to complete our report by 1700. After the submission of it, we will be finally free!

Others went to Shopping Mall after 1700. Only Hardy, Mei Yi, Yi Sheng, Jasper, Yongqi and me are left behind. We ate our dinner, discuss about farewell party that is tomorrow collect Alan's pool table cake and took taxi to Shopping Mall with Journey, Charlotte and Yepp.

Our last hour celebration of Alan's birthday in the pool room.

After which, we split into two groups where one group stay to play pool until 0300 and the other group went for overnight Karaoke.

Only Yongqi stayed back in the dormitory.

38 days down. 3 days left.

Day 37 (08-04-2009)

Our last lesson in Wuhan classroom 506 by Mr Chong. We got back our Common Test papers.

After rounding up the lessons, we spent the whole day doing presentation.

There is this English speaking session at 2000 tonight. Every one of us is force to go even though we are all busy with presentation.

After we are back from this interaction, we celebrated Shan Mei’s Birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHAN MEI!

A short celebration and we are back to project discussion.

37 days down. 4 days left.

Pictures are still down. =(

Day 36

We had leadership-training programme today. It took us about 2 hours to reach the WUST that ECE is staying due to traffic jams.

When the programme started, we split into 4 groups. I am in the group Afro with Ian, Kumaran and MeiYi.

We spend the morning deciding on the name and end up Afro become our name. We also had cheers and motto, which I had forgotten. =/

Lunch at school canteen that tastes so much nicer than the one we had. We went to tour their dormitory. They had nice apartments with beds. And I mean real beds with mattress. However, if I have a chance to choose, I would still prefer living in our current hard beds. So what if they have apartment flats? Ours have a sense of cosiness within our room.

First task of the day. Build a conveyor belt using limited resource of newspaper to transport everyone in the group from one end to another end. Objective of the game is to find a way to connect the newspapers together. After trial and errors, we decided to link them together with a small piece of paper in between the newspapers like a bind.

We won the second in this game.

Second game of the day is to support the person in front. The instructor will shout what he wanted and as backups, we have to pass the items to support the person in front. This game tests on our observation skill to provide the necessary items.

Third game is Trust fall. We have to fall from a height of 1.6meters and trust that people below will be catching us. This is a game of trusting your teammates. In a team, we must have faith that everyone will play their respective roles. Therefore this games emphasise to us time again to trust your teammates with faith and confidence that they can get things done.

Fourth game is the broken bridge. From a height of 8 metres tall, you have to jump over the broken bridge to the other plank. The gap between both planks is about 1.5 meters. This game is to tell you that you must have confidence to step over any obstacles. Even when there is no route, you can jump.

Last activity of the day is rock climbing.

After all the activities, we are dismiss for the day. We went to the campus lake to take photos and we are back to WUST.

ENV project presentation still not done.

36 days down. 5 days left.

Still no pictures due to internet connection.

Day 35 (06-04-2009)

There are two trips to visit today. One requires climbing again just like Mountain Wudang. Another is 空山洞.

古兵寨
天下好汉出绿林 is what greeted us when we step out of the bus. Here, there are many scenic places to see. From one spot, we can see a sleeping Buddha. It is nature made. This proves that Mother Nature is mystery and full of surprises for us. You never know when you might spot something extra ordinary out of the nature once again.

As we climbed, a flight of steps is about 80 degrees to the mountain. The worse thing is that we are supposed to climb down the steps. The steps are small and narrow. It is truly amazing how olden people built such staircases for use.

There are vines everywhere in this area. We had a photo with the largest vine in the world that is there for two thousand years. This vine is so huge that most people mistake it as a tree.

There is another spot known as the eternal love. We also climbed up the camel’s peak. Passed through the 饮血石 and many other spots.

Lastly, we arrive at the fortress. It is the highest point of this place about 800 plus meters above sea level. I wonder how they transport their necessity up to the peak in the days of war?

After lunch, we travelled on the bumpy bus to 空山洞.

空山洞
It is natural once again. But after touring it, it looks man-made to me. The stalactite and stalagmite forms water fall, toad, tortoise, crane, eagles and many other animals. It is amazing and up to your own imagination to determine if it looks like the animal. The most amazing thing is sea palace where you see through the reflection of water. Above the water, it is the sky palace. Beneath the water, you see the words 海底神宫, which means sea palace.

The trip ended with spiral staircase up to see the daylight.

Back at WUST, Li Ying, Shan Mei and Velverie came to our room to say that there is someone bathing in their toilet. We are all away at Lulin and here is a person bathing in our rooms. It turns out to be the janitor of the dormitory.

I had thought the janitor is a kind woman who takes care of us. Now I realise I was wrong. Perhaps she helped herself into our rooms to bathe when we are away on other trips for the past 35 days.

The day ended with project discussion again.

35 days down. 6 days left.

No pictures this time due to faulty internet.

Day 34 (05-04-2009)

Our last trip in Wuhan is to 绿林 resort. Due to partying last night, all of us were almost late for this trip.

I slept for another 4 hours in the bus. The bus ride is super jumpy. Everyone is jumping out of his or her seats.

We had lunch at a restaurant as usual and the tea tastes super weird.
Firstly, our table’s tea got the deep orange colour as compared to the other tables.
Secondly, it tastes funny with fish smell.

After lunch, we went to check out our room for the night. Our accommodation is the same as the one we had in Mountain Wudang. Comfortable beds, heater, water heater.









As Jin Quan was sick, he stayed in the hotel while we were off to Beauty Valley 美人谷.

Beauty Valley 美人谷
It is beauty place with waterfall. The water also looks clear for drinking. Let the pictures tell you about the place.




















After beauty valley, we went to see the life of villages before heading back for dinner.

We walked on suspending bridge to get to the village. The rule of crossing this bridge is that it can only hold 10 people on it every one time. How many times do you get to cross such bridges in your lifetime? To me, it seems that only olden people have such bridges in their generation. From our modern world, we cross such a bridge into a world of village life.

People there grew mushrooms, rear pigs and chickens for a living. At the end of the village, there is a small stream where we tried throwing pebbles into the water and making them jump.



I really envy the lifestyle of these villages. They are not influences by the modern technology of computers, handphones, mp3 etc. Instead, they can find joy in the village. Adults find joy I playing mahjong with their neighbours, rearing animals and growing mushrooms. Children find joy in playing with chickens, throwing pebbles into the stream. They are happy because of their simple life.

Why city-dwellers are using material items to be happy? They find happiness through the amount of money they earn. They get the latest gadgets, having the grandest and biggest house. City-dwellers are comparing their wealth with one another to strive for a bigger goal. Do they really feel happy doing all these?

Perhaps one day they will realise the simplicity of life to be happy.

After dinner at the same restaurant, we had a welcome party for us. There is a campfire for the cold night and performances. A man stepping on hot iron and not get hurt. Another man steps on sharp knife and glasses yet not getting cuts. Lastly is using a leaf to blow as musical instrument. After performances by the locals, we had Karaoke session. We made Yi Sheng go up to the stage to sing 勇气 by 梁静茹. People from MDE started to sing as well.

After all the singing, we went back to our rooms for the night. ENV project due on 09-04-2009. So we gathered in my room to discuss about it before we turn in for the night.

34 days down. 7 days left.

Day 33 (04-04-2009)

Happy Birthday to Jin Quan.
Happy Birthday to Jasper.

This is the outcome of cake smashing party.





We went back to 老鼠街 to shop again today. We brought Charlotte out to shop with us as well. The deeper we venture into the streets at老鼠街, the more I realise it looks like Bugis streets. We had a great time shopping there. This time, our shopping bag becomes bigger than the one we had yesterday.


Us having dinner.

Meiyi is the photographer

Yummy scallops.

褒仔饭 that I shared with YongQi

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Hard at work making red eggs for birthday party after back from shopping.

We went back to dormitory to celebrate JJ’s party in Velverie’s room. This is their birthday cake. Did you realise anything different in the photos?


Jin Quan's Chocolate cake


Jasper's strawberry cake.


Spot the difference.



We eat cake, and having speeches from the birthday boys. Present to them a picture presentation that Ian made; sing songs and lastly a treasure hunt for their presents.


Cream on his nose after using his mouth to take out candle from his birthday cake.


Charlotte and Jasper


Charlotte







Treasure hunt for their presents

33 days down. 8 days left.

**I notice I forgot to take Jin Quan's photo from my hard disk =p**

Day 32

I spent the whole day shopping. In the end, all of us had one whole bag of trophies from shopping.

Shopping area is 江汉路. It is the entire wholesale place where we must buy in bulk. Fortunately, a shop keeper brought us to老鼠街where it is said to be teenagers heaven for shopping. Indeed, there are so many places to shop at 老鼠街.

Back at dorm, we begin to plan how we are going to prank Jin Quan and Jasper as in 45 minutes time it is their birthday. The JJ party is going to start. Charlotte and Yep is here to attend our cake smashing party for them too.

Shall be off to prepare. =)


Jin Quan's cake for smashing at him.


Jasper's smashing cake.

Both cakes are decorated by us from the cake shop.

32 days down. 9 days left.

Day 31

Today’s most significant event is to have common test right after April Fools Day. I am still in a pranking mood.

After all, I am crapping throughout the common test. Somehow or another, I did regret not memorising the definitions in Chapter 3. Thankfully, there are calculations questions to pull up my marks.

Dinner time is to give ourselves a treat as Common Test is over! The four of us, Jerald, Xin Hui, Yi Sheng and I went to the restaurant that Mr Chong reccommended for dinner. Actually, the food there is delicious. I guess what Mr Chong had ordered the other time was not to my liking after all.

Reflection on Common Test: Time Management.

I started studying for Common Test like 2 days ago. I almost cannot finish reading through all the lecture slides. I guess in future, I need better management in time in order to complete my work. Time is a very important factor in life. However, I am wasting time past 2 days doing things that are insignificant to studying for common test.

Pictures for laughters.

Jerald
Xin Hui
Jasper
Me
Yi Sheng
Velverie
Jin Quan
Li Ying
Hardy
Yong Qi
Shan Mei
Jeremy
Alan
Ian
Mei Yi

Short of Jonathan and Kumaran. Shall get them to wear it tomorrow.

Shopping day tomorrow! =)

31 days down. 10 days left.