YaN TinG [@] WuHaN: March 2010

Friday, March 26, 2010

Day 20 – 23 Mar

Day 20 – 23 Mar

Lesson day…

Dinner for the day… Starting to eat…

Left with…

Day 19 – 22 Mar

Day 19 – 22 Mar

IS day again…

The Deputy Director of Ngee Ann came to visit us!

We went to the 1 hour ride shopping centre “Guang Gu Guang Chang”… this time round the trip was fruitful as my hands are full after half a day of shopping…

Day 18 – 21 Mar
Alarm clock rang at 5.30am… same as the previous day we will need to gather for breakfast at 6.30am… right after breakfast, we will get down the cruise with all of our belongings and continue our excursion on land… so that’s the end of our cruise journey…

After alighting from the cruise, we went to see the top view of the dam… we have to go through security check before entering that area. When inside the area, there are buses which will will you to the 3 main spot to see and take pictures…

First stop… miniature to show and overview of the entire area, and what is it like from the top of the dam we been through the night before.

This is a much better view of how the dam works…

Here is the explanation about the most crucial material for the “San Xia” project…

Next stop… the actual top view of the dam…

Final stop… a memorial garden…

I believe this is one of the equipment used during the construction… it’s very rare to see such big machine in Singapore…

After the last stop, that’s the end of our “San Xia” trip, we head back to our own bus and begin to travel back to Wuchang. Long journey back… exhausted…

But still we reached our hostel at around 6pm, which is early as compared to the ETA the tour guide told us before the trip. So we went to Jian She 2 Lu for dinner with Ms Neo, and tried the western food… the portion is quite big and the taste is acceptable.

After the fulfilling dinner, we went back to our “home sweet” hostel to rest after the long trip out…

Day 17 – 20 Mar
We had to gather at 6.30am for our breakfast which means that we need to wake up at around 5 plus in the morning. It can be really torturous as it has been a while since I woke up at such timing. The tour guide had told us last week that the food on the cruise may not be to your preference and not as good as those on land.

It is very true…

The purpose of us having to wake up so early is that we will not miss the scenery. The most important thing is to see the 3 gorges! Lucky for us, the weather seems good; it was not too cold even there is wind. It is a nice and new experience on such cruise. While travelling on the cruise, you will spend most of the time in the room. It is only when the cruise passes by certain point, and then there will be announcement to inform you to go to the deck to see and listen to the tour guide description.

Our first stop was “Bai Di Miao” but there is a distance from the jetty to the temple. We came to land after a night of travelling on the water.

We have to pass by this stretch of walkway and then reach the stairs which leads us to the temple…

It seems a long way up but our tour guide told us we can complete it within 15 minutes. I also believe that this is nothing compared to the way up to Wudang Shan. We can treat it as a training process for the trip to Wudang Shan.

There is also another option… pay money and they will bring you up!

I am on top of most of the people!! Hurray!!

We have finally reached! Look at the two mascots in front of the temple… Haha!

This is the coffin was placed in between the cliffs using wood planks as a support… until now no one know how did the people in the past carry the coffin up to the mountains when it is so difficult find a path up.

I am really amazed as I can’t imagine how they built their houses or buildings up on these huge and magnificent mountains.

In Chinese there is a saying “Yi Shan Hai Bi Yi Shan Gao”, it means that you are not the best; there will be someone that is better than you.

Look! Even Maersk is travelling on the Yangtze River. If I did not come to Wuhan, I don’t think is will know about this river and I will not know that this can be also a path to deliver goods to another place.

Our lunch… it’s really not very good…

These people are known as “Qian Fu” who row the boat which look like long bean.

Safety still comes first… wearing the life jacket is a must…

This is why they are called “Qian Fu”, when the boat were rowed to a certain point, the boat men will hop onto the land and started to attach the rope to the boat and started pulling.

This is the bridge which the people living on the mountain will use to travel to cross to the other side. But it is too dangerous for us to walk on it… we will fall to the water!

Dinner time! Focus on Jean’s face and you will understand the standard of the food…

Here we are… passing the dam… the water will decrease in order to pass this gantry and go to the next… it takes about 15 mins to pass one gantry or gate successfully.

Look at the difference of height from one gate to the other…

The reading on the wall tells you the water level, and we can see ourselves at around 165m high and drop to 155m in a very short time. But we can’t really feel anything until we saw the readings on the wall…

The gates are opening… and we are heading to the next gate… Finally after more than 1 hour of waiting...

The gate is opened and the cruise is moving on… focus on the difference of height again… it’s a lot of difference… and finally we can go back to our room to zzz…

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Day 16 – 19 Mar

Day 16 – 19 Mar
Woke up at 7.30am, as we wanted to eat Mcdonald breakfast and also to do last minute shopping for Yangtze River trip. Then we gathered at 1pm outside of the hostel, before boarding the bus. It was the same tour guide who brought around the previous excursion.

Our school is located at Wuchang and we will take the bus to Yichang which is about 4 hours long. So basically, we slept throughout the whole journey…

But along the way, we saw many of these yellow flowers, its really nice to see them blooming after a long period of winter.

Then we had our dinner at one of the restaurant known as “Shi Jia Zhuang”. We continued the bus ride to the jetty to board the cruise. Upon reaching the jetty, Ms Neo assigned us our room number. Then we walk towards the gate, but for no reason there are 3 groups of us were behind the rest and we can’t enter and have to wait for quite a while.

In the mean time, there are other China tourist entering the gate, we were forced and pushed by these huge group of China people even we are already standing to the side of the gate. They are really scary and so uncivilized. When people say that Singaporeans are a “kiasu” group of people, I can say that they are the ancestor of “kiasuness”.

Finally after going through the “push and fall” game by the China tourist, we entered the gate and slowly walk towards the cruise. The name of the cruise is “Golden Sun”, in Chinese is “Jin Tai Yang”. Once we are on board the cruise, we went to pay RMB20 deposit for our room key.

Here is the room in the cruise…

There is TV!! Finally we have a TV after 3 weeks. The size of the room varies, lucky for me, my room is considered as quite spacious. Actually I am quite happy with the room as I expected then room to be really terrible. But to my surprise, it has a hotel feel with smaller dimension. The beds are comfortable, better than our hostel.

Here is the toilet…

It is still acceptable, but the drainage system and heater is not that good. Also the water is quite dirty, but still we have to use it.

There goes our day, travelling and finally settled down at night. Tired after the whole day sitting in the bus…

That's about it for the first day for our Yangtze River trip as we spent most of the time travelling. But looking forward to the next day:)

Day 15 – 18 Mar

Day 15 – 18 Mar
We had our presentation today but it did not go very well… There are some mistakes made and have to do editing.

We ended early as Ms Neo let us off after everyone had presented. For today… we did some exercise… played badminton. It is our local friend who suggested having a badminton game. They are already there at the court when we went down at 2.30pm. At first, we are quite nervous playing with them because they are very good at it. But once we gotten the hang of it, we start to enjoy ourselves. There is no need to rent the court at all; it is just outside of our hostel. There are so many courts with many students playing. However one bad thing about the court is such that, it is open air concept. So the wind is affecting our game. We did not stay long, as the other locals came to join in and there is only one court. Then we went back to our hostel and then go for dinner.

We went to the small restaurant at the back street, and ordered 3 dishes with 1 soup. The hot plate tofu is nice but the two other dishes were bad as they added some spice which is not to our favor. After dinner, we played board game… it seems like a play day to me… Jean bought it from one of the shopping place at a very cheap price. Our local friend came to join us as they have nothing to do at night. Even they have a laptop there is no wireless or internet connection for them, and there is also no TV in the hostel. So it can be real bored for them at night…

That’s about it for the day… as we are going to Yangtze River the next day…

Day 13 / 14 - 16-17 Mar

Day 13 – 16 Mar
Lesson time!!

Day 14 – 17 Mar
We have our PM lesson but ended early as Ms Neo wanted us to have more time for the project presentation the next day. So after discussion in the class, I went back to my hostel to do my part. But still before doing the work, we went to the supermarket to stock up and to get stuff for the Yangtze River trip.

Day 12 – 15 Mar

Day 12 – 15 Mar
Monday blues even in Wuhan as lessons are still conducted. But today we had our second IS lesson taught by Ms Grace the local lecturer. She told us that this is also her first time having to teach Singapore students and feeling nervous too.

In this lesson, we get to know more about Wuhan’s geography, population, transportation, tourist attractions and popular food. But first China as a whole has 4 metropolitans cities, 5 autonomous area and 55 minority. Wuhan is split into 3 parts, Wuchang, HanKou and HanYang and is commonly called “Three towns of Wuhan”. They have a population of 9,100,000 people mainly in Wuhan. And it is one of the Three Furnaces of China.

For transportation, their first bridge was built in 1975 which is named the Wuhan Yangtze river bridge. The lower portion is a 2 lane rail way and upper portion is a 4 lane rail way. The second bridge is a cable-stayed bridge, completed in 1995. And the third Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge is completed in Sept 2000.

She also told us a legend saying that there is this creature known as the “Nine Headed Birds”. It is a complimentary nickname for this place. This creature represent the people in Hubei, it is aggressive and hard to kill. The people are cunning but smart. In Chinese its phrase as “Tian shang jiu tou niao, di shang hu bei lao”…

Day 11 – 14 Mar

Day 11 – 14 Mar
It’s such a disappointing and unluckily day as it is Raining!! We planned to go to the theme park today but the sky did not give us a chance. So we changed our plan and went shopping again. We went to “Jiang Han Lu” area to shop, and it is very cold! There are many things to see but maybe I am too tired after so many days of activities, could not find anything that I like.

But we manage to meet up with our china friend that study in the same class as us here. It was nice meeting us with them, and we spend the time hanging around the mall. We had ice-cream together and had a little chat. Tai Yi hometown is in Hubei, besides coming back to visit his parents, he also came back to study a module to improve his English.

After a long day of shopping and walking in the rain, we took a bus back to hostel.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Day 10 – 13 Mar

Day 10 – 13 Mar
Today we have a list of places to go, starting from Huang He Lou, then went to a five star hotel for lunch, followed by “Pu Qing Tai” and lastly the park. Again, pictures will say a thousand words.

This is our tour guide for the day… She sang to interact with us during the journey to Huang He Lou…

Here we are, the way in to Huang He Lou. When I saw this place, I thought I was in one of the film setting. Looks like we went back to the olden days…

The flag says “Bai Jia Tang”, this particular shop can help you to find out our Chinese surname origin.

This both phrases have a lot of meaning to it. I think it can be explained as: With the same blood and the same surname, you are considered as one family. The right side can be explained as: Same ancestors, same race, unity and same heart… The meaning may not be accurate but I believe its close to it.

On the way up to Huang He Lou…

Before reaching Huang He Lou, we came across this place known as the Ge Bi Ting. It is where Li Bai wanted to create a poem but when he saw that a poem is already written on the wall, he feels that this is the best poem for this place. Therefore he laid down his brush. This shows the modesty of Li Bai and we should learn from him:)

The seats displayed at the pavilion have different designs… A lot of effort is put in…

Reaching soon…

Finally arrived!

Faster take a photo…

We wanted to take the lift up… But!! Look carefully at the picture… it is written RMB2 for a single trip… so you take the life up is 2 bucks and then take down is another 2 bucks… I really can’t understand why they want to earn this $$ when it suppose to be a basic service for the tourists!!