Day 17 - Streetlight, Street Snacks

We decided to try something new today! Got bored of the usual dishes at Happy Lemon Restaurant or Happy Kitchen (they must really want their diners to be happy), so we decided to have some China-made KFC, also known as 派乐汉堡 (Pala Burgers), found along 旅大街.

 With the usual dining group, Eudora and Michelle.

Guys before and after food. Note the considerably happy faces when with food. 

They serve their set meals with warm milk tea, weird.  

Wasn't that bad at all, actually! The buns were really fragrant and it tasted a lot like KFC's Zinger burger. Nom nom nom.  

Since my Bossman Hanhui is vegetarian, he frequently frequents the nearby vegetarian restaurant who also happen to do deliveries, right straight to the comforts of our dorms. Because of this, sometimes we all get our meals delivered from the vegetarian restaurant and end up eating vegetarian. The boss of the restaurant also happens to be the deliveryman, so he knowns Hanhui on a first name basis and are really friendly to us since we're repeat customers.

Today, the boss apparently closed down his restaurant for one evening to treat us to hotpot, to show his gratitude for our frequent orders.

Sadly enough, the soup arrived and looked really spicy, and there weren't enough space to accomodate all of us. So Edward, Yuchuan and Nicholas had to leave to search for dinner in another place, and Eliza and I followed them since we have absoulutely zero tolerance for spicy food.

We ended up eating 米线 (Mi xian), which was what we ate during Mid-Autumn Festival.

After the huge pot of noodles was finished, the boys (minus Nicholas cos he was sick) decided it was time they tackled some of the street food, which had been blacklisted by most seniors and Mr Chia.

They went full speed ahead though, without any fear of food poisioning. Mad respect to them!

 First up, some waffle that were circular spheres where the squares of usual waffles are; 蛋仔 from Hongkong, it's apparently a trend from Hongkong, I think.

Decided to try some China satay after the waffles were done. Walked to the gate of 旅大街, where we found some mutton satay from 新疆.

There was only one boy who looked our age manning the push cart. He actually looked Caucasian, but didn't speak Mandarin nor English. The whole time he only spoke some sort of dialect (from Xinjiang/Wuhan?!) and there was some crazy hand signalling from Edward until he understood what he wanted: a photograph.

 He was super amused when Edward wanted to take over barbecueing the satay, and after some more crazy signalling, promptly replied (or at least that's what we intepreted) that he has no future in making satay. Too bad, Edward, I think you actually have the face for it!

Spices on the mutton satay. I don't have the strongest stomach in the word to stomach the street food, so I let the guys polish them off. It was apparently pretty spicy due to all the spices he put but still good. Nothing's happened to them by far, but I'm still paranoid. Sigh, I miss real edible satay so much.

-

Personal Reflection

Ah, I'm really starting to miss the times where we can eat some food where we didn't have to inspect every inch of it and wonder where it's been or what's been done to it.

I think my motto in Wuhan, "Ignorance is bliss" is basically about food. I gave up checking on the insides of the kettles because sometimes it's really better if you don't know, unless the water was suddenly brown (like on the cruise). I think that's actually one of the biggest things I miss about Singapore. The clean food, where you can trust that they haven't been cooking dog meat in the same wok.

Ahh, Singapore.

Day 16 - Industrial Visit: Coca Cola

More autumn leaves are falling on the ground this week. I think I'm incredibly lucky to be here during autumn, to see the leaves change their colours and fall onto the ground. Spring and autumn are probably my favourite seasons; just a pity that we can't see them back home in Singapore.

Anyway, main highlight of the day: Coca-cola industrial visit!

Took at 40-minute bus ride to Coca-cola Beverages Pte. Ltd. No idea where it was, but it took that long. Talked to Yuhaw about random things all the way, which was weird because I was supposed to be sleeping throughout the bus ride instead.

Anyway, we were first brought to this viewing room, where we were sat down and made to watch a short video on the history of Coca-cola, just like how we usually sit potential freshmen down and make them watch an introductory video of Ngee Ann.

Was given a bottle of Coca-cola after watching the short video.

We then went to watch the production of Coca-cola through a corridor above the actual production area, from the drink and into the bottle and then to the delivery area.

All around the Coca-cola building, they had these posters reminding people to recycle. This one is about recycling water and how they should safely return the water they have used to produce their beverages, or something along those lines. I like how they seem to be quite focused on saving the environment, since their use of both glass and plastic beverage containers probably harm the environment quite a bit. Impressive.

They had a whole hall ful of Coca-cola memorabila! This is a giant coke bottle, and hello A-Team hugging it.

Yuchuan and Coca-cola through the ages.

The trip ended after this and we all had to make our way back to WUST. It was strange how it was so short, but I guess we shouldn't expect too much either. Another 40-minutes worth of bus rides and I really slept this time.

On the way to lunch after the Coca-cola visit, I saw something interesting. This two people you see in the photo, are actually the local students' postmen (I assume). With this bike overflowing with deliveries, they actually deliver the students' packages. Obviously, unlike Singapore, they apparently don't get motor bikes, helmets, uniforms and metal containers to properly store the items.

Had our first ever presentation in Wuhan after lunch, for OIE, about the differences between Singapore and China. The lecturer seemed quite confused at some of the class' points in the slides, but I guess one really does have to experience it before you can actually understand our viewpoint.

Sheila's stomach has been pretty unwell the last couple of days, so Zhenzhao, two local students and I finally brought her to the school clinic to get a diagnosis after our OIE presentations.

The strange thing about clinics here is that before they do anything to you, be it tests, check-up or examination, they actually need you to make your way down to the counter downstairs to pay, and then return to the examination room to do whatever they need to do. Rather inconvenient for sick people, eh?

A temporary medical record for Sheila.

Local student Shen Ping and Zhenzhao looking at Sheila's medicine.

Turns out Sheila's severe stomach pains were due to constipation. Ended up having to buy lots of fruits and yoghurts for her to ease her bowels. At least it wasn't anything too serious, so all is well.

-

Personal Reflection

Today was my first time ever at the school hospital/clinic, and I have to say it was pretty underwhelming. Healthcare in Singapore is probably world-class, with government-funded hospitals or private hospitals common around the island. Equipment is up to date and easily accessible, and doctors have at least their own office.

The doctor's office I went to today just seemed like a large open classroom, and the doctor was sitting at his own cubicle, a la a teacher's cubicle in a staff room. The examination bed didn't have a division for privacy or anything, it was just placed in a corner of the classroom.

The equipment in the examination room was pretty scarce too, as far as I can see. I guess because this is only an on-campus university hospital, not too much funds are provided for better medical equipment. It's strange, because shouldn't one put more thought into student welfare?

I've seen hospitals around when we're on our city tours or on our way to industrial visits, and most of them are just buildings that one would never notice as hospital if it wasn't stated. I asked the Malay girls at some point, because they couldn't read Mandarin and hence couldn't differentiate a hospital from any other building, if one of the buildings we saw was a hospital. They honestly couldn't tell.

Maybe I'm too used to the grand hospital buildings around Singapore, because the hospitals around Wuhan actually look just like motels to me.

Day 15 - Industrial Visit: WISCO

It drizzled all day today! One thing I've noticed here, it doesn't really rain, it just drizzles. Still loving the cold weather though, whoot.

Today we all gave class a miss to head over to Wuhan Iron & Steel Company (WISCO). Had to wear some safety helmets that didn't look all that clean, but it's one more chance for me to use my motto for this OIP in Wuhan: "Ignorance is bliss."

Edward acting his age, which is about 5-years-old. 

Head cheers buddies! Kept knocking heads with them since we have helmets on. Fun times. 

Just in case you were wondering, these are how the toilets in WISCO looks like. Not world class, that I can tell you. Oh and no,there were no doors and the walls were low. We all had to go cos of the cold weather, and ended up screaming at each other not to stand up even after we were done. Oh, the things we do in Wuhan.

The industrial visit mostly just consisted of us walking along a narrow walkway overlooking the entire steel-manufacturing process. Nothing much too scenic, since all there were were machines, but it was certainly interesting to see how iron ore was melted down and then cooled a few times into steel.

 Melting iron ore.

The melted iron ore (top photo) will be cooled down with water a couple times, until it becomes steel (bottom photo). 

 Rolled up steel being prepared for storing.

 Helmet stacko!

  

The lock on our door actually popped off after one of us tried to enter too violently. 

Had to ask Mr Chia to help us since there was no way we could lock our door from the outside if we didn't try to fix it. Thanks Mr Chia and everyone who had to contribute a screw to our fail lock! 

Opposite, Eliza, Eudora and Michelle deals with door troubles too. They locked their keys on the inside yet again.

-

Personal Reflections

The water pressure plummeted at some point today in the evening, which meant that we didn't have any water all night until it could be repaired in the morning. The irony was, it was raining outside when we all ran out of water. Ended up having to borrow water from some local students we knew in the next dorm building, or run up to the girls' common bathroom on the fourth floor to steal some water.

I think this was the first time most of us had to actually ration water, and it was definitely an experience. We all had to use our pails that were initially meant for laundry, and we were all in a frenzy; worried that we won't have enough water to last us till morning.

So I guess this is yet another thing to appreciate: water running from the tap. It was certainly a challenge trying to wash my face with one hand holding the cup filled with water instead of just using the running tap. :/

Ah, never thought I will be so happy to see water gushing out from the toilet bowls too!