The first day of school! Woke up to the sounds of the streets again. Note to self: get used to it!
Heading out to class excitedly like kids after washing up and having the most important meal of the day: breakfast. For one, anyway. The Roomies don’t have a habit of having breakfast, but I’ve been conditioned to have breakfast before I leave the house every morning and risk getting chided by my mother.
Reached classroom 604 with about 15 minutes to class and had to wait for the rest who came a little later.
Our holy grail equivalent. Free water dispenser! In! The! Classroom!
Didn’t do much in class since it was the first lesson, and the Project Management lecturer Ms Alicia Hock had another class somewhere else. Mr Chia took over and went through a little of the fundamentals of Project Management, but unfortunately I was way too tired to listen. Ended up spending ¾ of the time trying my best to look awake. I’m pretty sure I failed. :/
Got released early for lunch too, and while The Roomies went back to the dorm to have instant noodles (no Halal food on campus; the previous one closed down), I went to 春华餐厅 (Chun Hua Canteen) to have lunch with the rest of the trip mates. It was almost 1PM by then, and apparently the norm for the university was to have lunch by 1130 or 1200. Most of the food stores were closed by then and all that was left was a rice/noodles store. They’ve already ran out of rice, though, so most of us paid RMB 4 for a bowl of 炸酱面(Fried Sauce Noodles “Zha jiang mian”), which is basically noodles topped with minced meat with soybean paste. It wasn’t too bad, but the noodles were a tad much and the soybean paste too little, so I wasn’t able to finish the meal. Had a fun time trying to figure out the drink names too, like 七喜 and 美年达(See the answer at the end of the post).
We had a little bit of lunch time left to spare, so we headed out to 旅大路(Lü Da Lu), which was the street I was talking about on Day 2. Our main priority there was to look for a drink store where one of the local students had bought a drink for Zhenzhao. Took about ten minutes before we found it, and he was right, for about RMB 2, it was really pretty good. Edward threw mine away before I could finish though. ): That’s what you get for forgetting about leaving a drink in someone else’s hands.
Haoteng! Michelle! Eliza! Nicholas!
I still haven’t figured out what the lady with the foodcart was selling, but I did see a load of other road-side food stalls that all looked none too hygienic. We’ve been warned time and again how we shouldn’t get food from such stalls, but after actually being at that street and seeing and smelling everything, I don’t see why anyone who wasn’t a local would want to try.
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A car that kept trying to squeeze between the narrow streets.
It was an eye-opener nonetheless, at the variety of food they sold there. We even saw 茶碗蒸し(egg custard steamed in a tea cup), but obviously didn’t have the guts (literally) to try.
While waiting for the other guys who took forever, with Yangtao (in white, left) and Ziwei (?) (in grey, right).
We were allowed back to the dorm after class to leave our cumbersome laptops and to rest before heading out shop at Walmart, which was about seven bus stops away. This time we were accompanied by Yangtao, Wudi, and Ziwei.
Funky-haired friends on Bus 702 to 销品茂
(Xiao Pin Mao, yes it is a play on the English words Shopping Mall)
View from the bus. It was a warm sunny evening, and I was really thankful for the air-conditioned bus.
Why this logo looks uber familiar! I wonder why.
Their ice cream truck is so much cooler (hurhur geddit?)
A sink (or the lack thereof) found in 销品茂.
Didn’t have much to buy at the shopping mall since the prices were similar to Singapore’s and wasn’t really worth it. Starbucks, on the other hand, was cheaper. I paid RMB 21 for a grande cup of Java Chip (~SGD4.20), and RMB 22 for a piece of chocolate truffle cake (~SGD 4.40), and this was pretty much my dinner.
Headed to Walmart with the other girls with much excitement. We maybe a little past 18 years old, but we’re all supermarket-crazy aunties on the inside. We went off in search of different things for our own rooms and The Roomies and I basically went nuts at the amount of things available.
The highlight of our whole day was the finding of the foldable toilet seat! It’s this amazing contraption that allows you to sit over a squatting pan to do whatever business you’d like, which is perfect for The Roomies who aren’t used to squatting pans. Took us two days to find it! We thought it was available in the supermarket near the dorm, but it wasn’t, nor was it available along旅大路. Found some cute bedroom slippers for our room too, an extra cushion for my bed (me and my love for hugging something to sleep) and some snacks to accompany future late nights.
Toilet seat test runs...in public!
Guys had a lot of fun improvising with the toilet seats, as seen above.
ARGH YUHAW WHY DID YOU MOVE.
Showing off the new stuff in our dorm! Yes, I was really quite excited about the toilet seat. In case you're on your way to OIP as the next batch and would like to know where to get this, it's from Walmart! It'd be in the hardware section with the foldable chairs, and it was RMB 48.00 when we got it. If you can't find it, have fun describing it to the Walmart staff though. :D
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I always thought Singapore was a really fast-paced country, and I knew courtesy, patience, and good service wasn't really the most obvious traits of most of the Chinese, but today's experience still surprised me. Boarding the bus, we were all hesistant and I suppose we were a little slow. It was our first time boarding a bus a China, afterall. The bus driver actually shouted at us to hurry up, and it wasn't exactly done in the softest volume. I was told beforehand that we didn't need to be polite to any of them, but I was still a little jilted.
It makes me think about how nice the bus drivers back in the homeland are, and yet we take them for granted, to the extent that we even throw punches at them. I've been here for three days, and I'm already being thankful for all the small things we had in Singapore but took for granted. I can't wait for the other surprises Wuhan is going to throw my way. New experiences, new perspectives!
Oh, and something else I've noticed; despite it being a school cafeteria, the canteens around WUST doesn't see the importance in a healthy diet. The meals come in big portions with too much oil, little or no fibre, and no fruits whatsoever. The only drinks that are served in the canteen are all fizzy drinks with excessive sugar.
As a school cafeteria, Makan Place have offered many choices of healthy eating. Most of my friends have lamented the lack of fastfood in Ngee Ann, but I, for one, am glad. Subway is a healthy eating choice, and there is an abundance of healthy sandwiches, fruit juices and fruits available not only around Makan Place but in all the other canteens.
I think China should start picking up on the importance of healthy eating as well, as having healthy diets is the foundation of a student's welfare.
Well now this is the end to a very, very long post!
