Day 26, today is the 27^th March 2010. Count down 16 days to Singapore, I miss everything in Singapore! The food, the people, the places, and other than my parents and friends, the next important thing is driving! I can’t wait to pass my practical test, hope that I can pass on my first attempt. Today we went to yellow crane tower and a lot of beautiful places. How I wish Singapore can be like this, then every day I can go for sightseeing.

We took a lot of pictures and the place was full of people, all the tourists were there at the same time with us. We took quite some time to go up the tower and it felt like I am on the top of Wuhan! There were many different things to see in the tower as well as outside the tower. In Wuhan, I still see beggars everywhere. I can’t believe there are still beggars. The rich are getting richer and the poor is getting poorer. I donated some of my spare cash to them, hoping that this little money to me will be a great contribution to them.

Out of a sudden, I realized that how fortunate I am to be born in Singapore, to have such great parents to provide me schooling and to become what I am today. Thank you Dad and thank you Mom. We went to have lunch at a nearby eatery place, that place is crowded and full of small snacks, ranging from rice to dumplings and many more, mainly are food that people in China love to eat. I tried a couple of food and I would say that they taste not bad, it’s quite nice.

After our lunch, we went to the museum to visit about the historical events and things, and also the engineers who built the 3 gorges. Some of them are not in this world but some of them are still alive, thanks to them, we will be able to see these 3 beautiful gorges. Due to the shortage of time, I can only browse through the 3 levels of museum in a short time and took all the photos that I could within the short time limit. I have a little bit of regret for not being able to visit all the 3 levels of museum to read about all the information. They have the ancient bowls, plates and cups and the ancient weaponry. It is very fascinating.

After the museum trip, we made our way to the Eastern Lake (东湖), we paid 20 RMB for a tram to bring us around the whole place, it is very big, people can rent bicycle and there is a small amusement park in it, go-kart, roller coaster and others, it is very hard to find amusement park in such a park. I don’t even see them anywhere in Singapore. There were people shooting wedding photos, so sweet of them to take in such a place, we even cheered for them! It was very funny at that time, some of the locals are friendly while some are not.

Today is a very tiring day for me and I think for everyone as well. Tomorrow we are going to do some shopping! I feel that I have adapted to the environment here, the food and also with the people here. That’s something good! I think I will be buying a lot of things tomorrow.

Day 25, today is the 26^th of March 2010. We completed chapter 5 today, it’s far too hard! I think I need some time to revise and read through what Dr Tan has taught us if not I will be lacking far behind. We finish chapter 5 in few hours, our lesson was postponed to afternoon class, and some of us need to go to the rehearsal for tonight’s performance, thus lesson ended an hour before the expected time.

We went back to our rooms and got ready for the rehearsal. We went to the performance hall an hour earlier than the others and practiced quite a bit and went for dinner, the good thing is that dinner was provided for us! We gobbled our food down and but the time we finished our dinner, the crowds started to come in, same for our teachers and our fellow students. We got a bit nervous before the performance starts but we gave ourselves encouragement and during the performance, we could see everyone from the stage, it felt so scary. We held each other’s waist to encourage each other and this is something that we didn’t experience before in Singapore. The performance was very smooth, we can see that everyone below the stage was enjoying the performance from their expressions.

Everything went smoothly and I realized that I have gained something, team spirit or team work, never felt anything like this before. I must say that everyone has worked their best and everyone enjoyed this performance. Especially Dr Tan, I noticed him laughing and smiling all the way from the start of our performance, way to go Dr Tan!

I must say that today I have learnt a lot of things, more than what we can learn from our lectures and tutorials. This is something that cannot be purchased by money. I want more of such events!

Day 24, today is the 25^th of March 2010. We started chapter 5 today! New chapter, more stress coming to my head, have to manage stress soon. Dr Tan went through part of chapter 5, which covers a bit of combined stress and also we have to bring compass and protractor for drawing of diagrams, luckily it is only 2D.

In the afternoon, we went to BlueStar company which is a IT company selling IT gadgets which can be installed on moving vehicles, something like GPS and also touch-screen computer and also television on the front or back of the car.

We went for a short briefing followed by a short visit to the gallery showing what are the products that they have designed and then we went back, it’s a rather short visit and I felt a bit disappointed, I thought we will be going more into the company like where are the different areas for manufacturing different products and other things. But still, it’s a rather nice industrial visit. Thank you teachers for organizing this trip.

After the trip, we went back to school to play basketball! One of my favorite sports, managed to borrow a ball and we headed straight to the basketball court to play, had a splendid time with friends but I didn’t sweat, only felt that my body is warmer but didn’t managed to sweat, I think the weather is still too cold. I feel that people in Wuhan are very healthy people, every time when they have their own free time, they will be at the basketball court playing basketball, if not they will be doing sports, in such a cold weather.

Tomorrow we are going through chapter 5 and I think we will be finishing it. There will be a performance tomorrow by our school and also the local students, I hope there will be lots of fun.

Day 23, which is the 24^th of March 2010. Today we completed chapter 4 and we have to do some tutorial questions as homework. I love the way Dr Tan teaches his lecture, full of animations for his PowerPoint slides unlike other lecturers, there is no animation in the slides to attract our attention. Thank you Dr Tan! I feel so honored to be in his class. I hope when I am taking Oil and Gas module in year 3, Dr Tan will be teaching me on that module again.

We were briefed on virtual lab 2, what we need to do and other stuffs, then we were told to go back to our rooms and start doing our virtual lab, thus afternoon classes were cancelled for virtual lab. I feel that this virtual lab is better than the real lab practice as we can just read the information and the different readings, from the virtual lab itself and not go personally to the lab to do our experiment.

After finishing my virtual lab, we headed to the nearest biggest supermarket for shopping again, bought detergent and other snacks which will be able to last us till we are back to Singapore, I realize one thing about the supermarket, if you want plastic bags, you have to pay for it, unlike in Singapore where you just have to buy something and they will even give you a small plastic bag. I think that both countries have their pros and cons, in Wuhan, people will then use their own plastic bag or recycle bag if they don’t want to spend the unnecessary money on the bags, and thus people will not throw plastic bags everywhere they like to do.

After which we went for dinner, these few days the temperature at night is dropping, it’s getting colder and colder! That’s what I feel in Wuhan compared to Singapore.

Day 22, 23^rd March 2010. Finally, we had IS again! Today we went continued on our Chinese culture. I must say that today’s lesson is much more interesting than last 2 week’s lesson. I learnt about Buddhism and the good thing is that I am a Buddhist. I learnt about the 4 noble truths and sufferings.

In the afternoon we had Strength of Materials, I got back my common test result, not too bad, but can be better. We were taught chapter 4, not everything but part of it. I need time to absorb all these theory and formulas, how to apply them and many more. I heard that tomorrow we have to do virtual lab 2, I guess this week is going to be a stressful one, really stressful one.

After this week, I think everything will be over in few weeks time. I can overcome this obstacle. Nothing is impossible I guess. Tomorrow we will be continuing our chapter 4 and a bit of briefing on virtual lab 2. Suddenly, I feel a bit stress but I think this is normal to most of us.