Day 41

I was already awake 6plus in the morning to prepare myself, checking the luggage before we leave the place. After which I went to the back street(Duo Luo Jie) to buy their food for the last time. I will definitely miss those foods when I’m back in Singapore! We gathered at around 7.45am before we took the bus to the airport. The local students were there to send us off as well despite knowing that they will miss part of their lesson. I’m very touch by their actions and I will absolutely miss those amazing friends that I make here in Wuhan. Luckily, there is a thing call Windows Live messenger and QQ for us to keep in touch with them:D Our flight is delayed till 1pm as our original flight is being cancelled. At the airport, all of us keep weighing our luggage to ensure that they are not overweight. After we were done with checking in our luggage, we were given free time till the boarding time of the plane. I went to eat the noodles from the only food store I can find. However, our boarding time was delayed, which cause the flight to be delay as well. All of us know that we will need to rush in order to get to the next flight on time when we reach Guang Zhou. When we reach there, the situation was chaotic. As we arrived at the boarding time of the next flight! Thus, the flight to Singapore have to be delay as a result as quite a lot of the passenger on the flight from Wuhan are also for the next flight. We rushed to take our luggage and then for it to checked in to the next plane. I was the first to reach the boarding area of the plane and that give me time to take a rest as I was perspiring a lot due to the rush. I saw a lot of unhappy faces over there though as I’m sure all of them are unhappy that their flight was delayed. Luckily, all of us were able to board the plane. We reached Singapore at 10.07pm!

My Reflection

After arriving back to my homeland Singapore which I was absent for the past forty-two days, I truly miss Wuhan environment and my hostel room as well as the times where all those Wuhan students frequently brought us to shopping spree in some of the well-known shopping streets and malls. I miss those days where I was able to taste those Wuhan local delicacies as well as exotic food that are uncommon in Singapore. All in all, I earned back a lot of valuable knowledge which are applicable to my future for example serving as an icebreaker and opening line when communicating with new China people. I am proud to say that I have the ability to speak proper Mandarin as this Wuhan trip indeed brushed up my dusty Chinese language because China is a country where almost all population are filled with native-Chinese speakers. I will definitely recommend this overseas immersion trip to all the eligible students for next semester as this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to understand more about an emerging large country like China and the wonderful experience that I brought back with me to Singapore could never be learnt from textbooks nor classroom. I had zero regrets about going for this trip as the cross cultural exchange benefited me in many ways that one could not obtain by simply through online research.

Day 40

Had to woke up early today as our group discussion on our IS video is on 10am. After planning and deciding on the theme of our video, we waste no time and took photos and video for the project straight away though. We paused at around noon as we wanted to have our lunch and we need to weigh our luggage at 1plus. Quite a number of people have luggage over 30kg, I’m not one of them though~. We continue shooting photos and videos before some of them went out to do their shopping while the rest went to get their hair done. I did not go out as the local students wanted to meet us at 8pm as to give us some surprise. Their surprises? They booked a room at a motel across the street of the campus and they also bought a cake. It is sort of a mini farewell party for us before we depart Wuhan the next day. We spent the rest of the night watching television, playing cards and mahjong there. It is the last time we are able to meet up together and it is a moment I treasure well:D

My Reflection

Counting down to the remaining final days in Wuhan, those Wuhan students especially booked a large and luxurious motel room that was a street across our hostel for us to party the entire night which they had already paid and covered all expenses. They were really thoughtful and the farewell ceremony that they did for us was extremely touching as these local students had been there for us most of the time during our entire duration stay in Wuhan. We were sincerely moved by their actions of holding a farewell celebration for us and every one of us believed that these Wuhan students were necessity and played an important role during our whole trip. Despite the fact that some of my travel mates visited China before in their previous vacations, each and every one of them were first time travelers to Wuhan. Hence, these Wuhan students provided very thorough assistance to us Singaporean students who were totally foreign to this wonderful city in China. Writing this reflection right now, I will really like to express my kind gratitude and appreciation to these students who taught us valuable insights and the patience towards us while passing on this knowledge.

Day 39

It was raining in the morning. However, I still proceed on to my original plan, which is to go to Wal-Mart to buy some snacks or local products back to Singapore for my family and friends. The three of us, Me, Daryl and Ling li took a private bus to shopping mall. Due to the rain, the weather was very cold and not only that our shoes are all wet despite us bringing our umbrella along. It took me great difficulty to know where to alight as private bus does not have the announcement of the stops, furthermore the ascent in which the lady is speaking means I don’t understand anything:P After getting the things that we wanted, we took a cab home as it is raining and Daryl is meeting his group mates for project. I remain in my room for most of the day as I was lazy to go out due to the rain as I don’t want my shoe to be wet again!

A unusual sight for me. A wild boar in Wal-Mart!we will NEVER Singapore!

My Reflection

Today is packing of luggage day for me as we had only remaining two days left in Wuhan and i could not possibly leave everything to the last minute and had to be prepared for many unexpected issues such as sudden requirement of additional locks or securing loose packages with more strings. All in all, I finally got the chance to settle down and spent the entire day to slowly take my own sweet time along with my roommates to pack all our things after living 40 days of untidiness in the same hostel room. We had a hard time deciding items which have to either remain behind in Wuhan or take back with us to Singapore. The decision were of no choice as our luggage only has this amount of limited space within that we can pack with as well as the weight limit of 30kg that was allowed to be checked in. During the past days in Wuhan where we had non-stop shopping spree and fun purchasing items due to cheap conversion rate back to Singapore dollars currency, we ended up having lots of items that were unwanted due to impulse buying and we had to give away such stuffs to local Wuhan students as these items were of low priority. While having all my items final checked and confirmed, I closed my luggage with a dampen feeling of leaving this place after only staying for such a short duration. 40 days ago, when I first opened up the same luggage in the exact position of my hostel room, I was filled with much anticipation and the thought of returning back to Singapore never crossed my mind as the days seems too far to even begin countdown. However, right now after experiencing rain, shine and even snow in Wuhan for the past 40 days, I had an attached feeling towards this place, as well as the hostel room where I am typing my this exact reflection right now.

Day 38

The local students came to our room at 10am, as we were suppose to set off to Xi Meng Kou. However, we delayed till a bit later as some of them have yet to finish preparing themselves. We took a double decker bus to our destination; it is scary to sit at the top due to the bumpy road in china, as well as the speed in which the driver drive. Upon reaching, we first went to a food street where there is a lot of delicious food been sold over there. I tried the sausage sold over there, well it only cost 10RMB for 3 and it is bigger than those we seen in Singapore. We waited for Ling Li at the local fast food restaurant before we took the speed boat across the river at the port. The ticket for the boat cost 5RMB but the local student normally will took the ferry, which all the passengers have to stand(while we got our own seats) and is cheaper. We walked around at Jiang Han Lu before we proceed to a German restaurant called Golden Hans for our dinner. The food there is awesome if you were to consider that it only cost a mere 38RMB (30RMB with student card). What I like about the restaurant is their barbeque food which they will serve to us. There is also a beer competition while we were there. We took the bus back to hostel after that.

My Reflection

Counting down three more days to my arrival back in Singapore, there are a lot of things that I shall be missing during my 42 days of stay here in Wuhan. One of them is going to HanKou. To me, HanKou is a busting suburbanised island in Wuhan like what Sentosa is to Singapore. One of the way to go there is through ferry and an average ferry ticket over to Han Kou requires RMB 1.5 which is similar to an average bus ride fare price. Hence, it is really an unusual sight for us Singaporean to reach a place by ferry as we do not have a single chance to do so back in Singapore. That was indeed a brand new experience for me, and through some research done on the internet, I found out that HanKou is a business district, HanYang is an industrial district while last but not least, WuChang is an Educational district hosting a variety of universities, colleges, institutes. Imagine across the Yangtze river with only ¥1.5 which is really affordable and reasonable price to pay for and still get to view some of the best scenic location in Wuhan such as the Yellow Crane Tower, Yangtze River Bridge