My Trip to WUHAN!!!: Day Two in Wuhan

It’s day two now. We all woke up freezing cold in the morning. Well most of us since the heater in most of our rooms weren’t working so well. We headed to the Foreign Language School for an Opening Ceremony where the vice president of the school gave us a welcoming speech IN CHNESE!!! Of course I did not understand a word but my friends tried their best to translate what he was saying to me. According to my friend’s translation, we are the 6^th batch of Ngee Ann Poly students to visit Wuchang University of Technology for OIP but we are the first batch from LSCT. One of our students, Irfanah also gave a speech.

We were then given a tour of the campus. There were a few local students who could speak Basic English. A language which is a norm to us and we use in our everyday life is a struggle for them. The campus is situated by a lake, Tangsun Lake, and the view is amazing!!! We were shown a few canteens and the library. As we were walking to the library, there was this amazing colonial looking wall right by the bank of the lake. The library is HUGE!!!! It has a whole building dedicated to it and it has 6 floors!! There is a mixture of both Chinese and English books. At the entrance of the library, the was a large electronic sign which said welcome Ngee Ann Polytechnic students and teachers, come let us exchange our knowledge. I was so touched when I found out what this sign meant. This actually shows that Wuchang University of Technology and Ngee An Poly have a good and bonded relationship. There is also a rooftop garden which has an amazing view of the lake.

As we were touring around campus, we managed to have conversations with the local students who were bringing us around. Apparently a few of them went to Hong Kong to tutor primary school kids in either English or Chinese. Most of them are from provinces around Wuhan. None of them were from far cities. Some of them have been learning English for 5 years since their High School Years or more. One of the female students mentioned that she visits her family only once every 6 months as the university is quite a distance from her home and the other holidays that she gets are not long enough for her to spend time with her family. She also mentioned that she actually wanted to study abroad but her parents disapproved of it. Another female student and I have one thing in common and that is that we both like the Korean band Big Bang!!XD Haha. It’s good to know that though we may have a culture difference and some communication barriers we still have common interests.:)

As we walked around the campus more, I noticed that there were these weird plants which look like miniature purple Christmas trees. I have never seen them in my life. Maybe it’s because these plants only grow in temperate climates. A lot of the buildings also looked like they were from the colonial times and there was even a building which looked like the old Supreme Court of Singapore!!! Seems like most buildings from the colonial times are similar in structure.

We then headed off campus to the same street we went the day before not only to see it in a different light but also to have lunch and buy a few necessities for ourselves we have lunch at another shop along the stretch of shops. This time I have chicken and egg fried rice. Another thing I notice about Wuhan is that their serving proportion of their food is very generous. For the same price in Singapore, I get three times the serving of what I would get in Singapore here in Wuhan. Another thing, I’m not sure if it’s my friend’s Chinese accent or the blend of different races of our group but everywhere we go the locals seem to know that we are from Singapore. Like for example the day before, we were just standing outside the shops and this guy turned to his girlfriend as soon as he saw us and mentioned to her that we’re from Singapore in Chinese. Today at the restaurant, after we ordered our food, the two waiters were in a discussion and we suddenly overheard one mentioning to the other that we are from Singapore. When my friend asked how he knew, he just smiled. I’m guessing the reason that they know we are Singaporeans may also be due to the fact that we are the 6^th batch of students here and they may have gotten used to the idea of Singaporeans studying here for a certain period of time.

We headed to the big supermarket after lunch and bought necessities like bowls and spoons and some snacks. I noticed some difference in the food products here. Like for example, in Singapore our large bottles of soft drinks are 1.5 litres but here in Wuhan their large bottles are 2.2 litres which are really huge. The shapes and labeling of the soft drink bottles are also different as to what we see back home. We headed back and bought more mineral water on the way home to stock up on our supply. We rested for a few hours in our dormitory and then headed out to explore the night life of the night stalls.
We headed out to have dinner first. Now let me tell what my 2 other non-Chinese friends did. Since they can ony eat Halal food, they insisted that they go by themselves to eat while the rest of us go to a non-Halal restaurant to eat. Since we have a communication barrier here with the locals, they came up with a tactic where they just point at a random item on the menu and hope for the best. They had no clue what they were ordering but they took the risk. They ended up getting a plate of fried noodles with a whole lot of capsicum and a small portion of beef and fried noodles with egg and capsicum. I have noticed that a lot of dishes in Wuhan have capsicum in them. I think it may be a thing in Wuhan to add capsicum to their dish. The rest of us decided to try some Japanese food. I had the Japanese curry chicken. Two of my friends, Rachel and Tricia, had Bibimbap and Priscilla had some weird noodles dish that looked like spaghetti but had a taste that I could not describe. Rachel and Tricia were suffering with the spiciness level. Especially Rachel, we all thought she was going to explode from the spice level.:P Haha.I think we should start learning some more basic Mandarin now...

PHOTOS!!! :