Daniel's Life in Wuhan

Slept late last night so was dawdling this morning. We decided to visit the nearby foodcourt (which is just below our hostel!) to buy some snacks and drinks. Their milk tastes funny! It's a little sweet and... The taste is just indescribable. Also, the students here are having their breakfast in the canteen, it's simply jam packed. Just another sight that we see daily in Singapore as it's lunch time.

Their milk which tastes funny

WUST students having their lunch

We have immersed into the daily lives of Wuhan citizens today. How? We took their public bus to 世界城, also known as 光谷步行街. It's a very huge shopping mall with lots of shops but more catered to the girls.

Just a picture of peeps from 2L02 before setting off!

Walked to a nearby bus stop to take bus 903 to the shopping mall. It's a long ride and you feel like you are being a sardine packed in a can throughout the whole journey. I had a scary experience in Guangzhou half a year ago where the driver was literally doing "Tokyo Drift" at turns and it made me quite scared as I'm worried I might just fall and injure myself anytime. The drivers at Wuhan are much better with no "Tokyo Drifts" but still it takes some skill to balance ourselves.

The bus is approaching the bus stop

Just look at how packed the bus is!

We've reached our destination!

A horde of us headed towards the shopping mall while speaking our very "Singapore" languages. We attracted a certain amount of attention from the public but we do not find it uncomfortable as we are used to it from the last few days, haha!

Heading up the overhead bridge

The first double decker bus I see in China!

Storming into the shopping mall!

We started to explore the mall. Little did we know, photography isn't allowed in the shopping mall. Therefore, we walked around and did some window shopping and reached the atrium. There are some nice statues and nice scenery, took some photos again!

Group photo outside the mall

Adrian and myself taking a picture with the statue

Yoke May and myself. Double YM!

Rebbecca and myself

Had our lunch at MacDonalds. There's a major difference in the Mac in Wuhan and the Mac in Singapore. They sell Pork Burger!! Last time I had it was in March when I was in Guangzhou but I had actually forgotten the taste. I'll be able to reminisce the taste today!

The packaging!

This is how it looks like inside

Fries - A tad healthier than in Singapore as lesser salt is added

Something Singapore doesn't have - Mango Pie!

As we continued our adventure, we discovered something; A car scrapping yard in the shopping mall. It's my first time getting so close to scrapped cars and it hurts to see them go. They've seen better days. However, good things don't last forever so eventually all cars will go through the scrapping process. Having lots of time, we decided to go to the cinema to see if there are any movies. However, the movies are not very up-to-date compared to Singapore so we decided to give it a miss. The cinema has very luxurious furnishing but cheap ticket prices. Tickets for shows before 6pm and after 9.30pm on weekdays are only 30 RMB (about S$6+). You wouldn't believe it but they actually tell us how long the advertisements before the show are!

Sad to see a car go

More cars ending their lives here

This is how it looks like in the cinema

Lots of time to go, we visited the arcade. We got particularly addicted to the game whereby you control a mechanical hand to grab the plushies in there. After 70RMB and lots and lots of tries, I managed to grab a white and yellow one (after 4 hours!). I kept the white one while I gave the yellow one to Chin Kuang, what he always wanted, haha. Sometimes it feels good to "do charity".

Edy - the first person to grab 2 plushies in just a turn!

Here are the plushies we tried to grab for 4 hours!

The plushie that's going home with me!

The MDE version of Old Master Q (老夫子)!

The time's up and time to go back to the hostel. On our way back, the bus was even more packed as it's the peak hour. The bus attendant is simply a strong lady. She chiongs through the crowd in the bus from back to front to collect the fares and shouts loudly through the whole bus. Another shocking thing was a passenger actually spurted vulgarities at the bus driver when he forgot to open the door for him to alight. This is something we might not see often in Singapore!

After resting for a while in our hostel, we went on to the roadside stalls to have our dinner. The food they sell here is amazing and cheap. I guess no one cared about the sanitary conditions when the food is tasty but it is still satisfactory. Most of the food here is very spicy so watch out when eating. If you're not someone that can take spicy stuff easily, you might need lots of water while eating.

Smelly beancurd! One of the best!

Fried dumplings - 6 for 1 RMB!

Something which I don't know the name but fantastic taste!

葱油饼

Group photo taken at the night market. Adrian and myself has a funny pose. Lol

Overall, today has been a wonderful day of exploring! I've seen a totally different side of Wuhan.

Reflection

As previously mentioned, it takes time to blend into a local's culture. Sometimes it might take even up to a year! We will not get the chance to fully blend into the culture but we will get parts of it. The largest difference today is the public transport. Never in Singapore did I felt like sardines packed in a can like today (probably very very rare occasions) and a driver driving roughly on the road. A thing that puzzles me is the decision to have a bus attendant for each bus. A machine similar to our ez-link machines can be installed and save lots of money for the government and I feel that it will also be more convenient for passengers.

Spurting vulgar to the bus driver JUST because he forgot to open the door for you is something I had NEVER seen in Singapore. Before coming, I was warned by local students that the people here are quite temperamental. This has been proven! The man was really fierce, although it did not really create any shock in me.

11:56 PM