Grad Tripping
Here are some of my favourite photos from my NY and Vancouver trip. Just click on the corresponding link for the picture you’d like to enlarge. Special emphasis on food for you, Limin! haha
i guess scarcity makes you more appreciative
I’m reeling from the prospect of 15 days of annual leave (pro-rated in 2007 to 7 or hopefully, 8 days)… SMU truly spoils you with 4 months of summer vacation. In some ways I feel that I could have done more with the summers I’ve had but in any case, looking forward, I’m going to make those 15 days off the best 15 days off possible! Haha. So I’m looking forward to a possible India trip in December and have been booked for Greece in 2009. So far in the future but I can’t imagine any better people to island-hop, party and gorge on olives with. (okay, I’ll gorge on olives, you all can watch haha)
Brr. Burp. Blessed.
It’s getting cold here in Wuhan… Typical of the weather here, the temperatures just suddenly posted a drop from the nice cool weather we had been enjoying here for about a month. It’s about 7 degrees during the day now and I guess the worst part is that it’s raining so it makes you wet and gets everything else wet at the same time. We were standing along the road by the East Lake yesterday and I couldn’t tell if the water droplets landing on my face fell from the sky, bounced up from the road or flew over from the lake. All equally gross prospects. This is where a scarf comes in handy.
We went to Show Cafe yet again, which is this nicely decorated cafe near the main gate of the university. Just when I despaired of ever finding somewhere nice to chill in Wuhan, Alex brings us to this place and yeah, it’s become a regular hangout. The food isn’t too bad…(28yuan for a set dinner including soup, salad, chicken filet, dessert and a cup of ‘wine’) but what we’re really there for are the couches! It’s nice to just chill and talk there. I’ll miss that when I go back to Singapore; the accessibility of friends (all my intl friends are 5 min walk from me) and the luxury of time to just relax.
What’s coming up in the week ahead are… a sushi eating competition tomorrow with Masa and Shogo (from Japan… Shogo knows only a little English so it’s hilarious when out of nowhere he shouts, "Fu*king japs!"), Hanum (Korea) and the usual Americans and Dane. 
The same Huang Shan group will be going to Guilin as well on Monday night (train ride! and karst peaks and cycling and rice terraces!)… will definitely be fun and I’ll come back with plenty of photos.
Also, I went through this period where I was getting worried about the job situation, but I released everything into God’s hands and stopped worrying. But He is good, He brought a phone interview my way on Monday..
累死了！
It was a really, really long weekend filled with curious Chinese people, endless amounts of muah chee, peanuts and bak kut teh, ji gu pa and very little sleep. We had the International Cultural Festival over the weekend and boy, it winded most of the foreign students. Singapore was represented with a booth manned by three very tired Singaporeans but I think we did good despite the hiccups along the way and people enjoyed it.
I was in charge of the muah chee given out free to people who stopped by and I can say my little muah chee spiel on command. “这是我们本地的小吃，叫做麻薯或是muahchee。这个小吃是用糯米粉做的，加花生和糖。”Sorry to everyone who doesn’t have Chinese software. But yeah. It’s fun making muah chee once, but once you dug up your 349th piece of muah chee and said that pre-recorded voice message yet again, it’s rather tiring. But at least pretty much everyone who ate it liked it. I like that we gave it out free, rather than charge for it like some of the other more entrepreneurial countries.
I put my ambassadorial skills to good use by giving a ‘tour’ of the different aspects of Singapore using the photos around the booth. It started innocently enough with an introduction to Deborah and Jun about Singaporean food and morphed into 1.5hours of non-stop talking and fielding questions with the Chinese crowd that came by. Heh.
Sunday was the same thing again, exceptwhen we ran out of muah chee, we played ji gu pa to give away the goodies that STB had sent to us. That was draining but at least that it was fun. The Chinese people felt that the game “很有意思” haha.
All in all I’m glad for the experience and for the chance to correct the notion that Singapore is just a police state. Heh.
Muah Chee in the Making
1. Shell peanut
2. Skin peanut
3. Grind peanut using mini mortar
4. Add sugar
5. Repeat ad infinitum, or at least until 4.5kg of nuts are done.
Huang Shan Holiday
Over the weekend, I went to Huang Shan with 3 other foreign student friends: Alex from Montana, Jun from Denmark and Debra from Hawaii. The trip was prefaced with uncertainty and certain irritation because of some hiccups. I’m glad that we went this week.
I can’t say that I knew any of them really well before this trip, but I really enjoyed their company and conversation as we hauled ourselves up and down the many peaks and took in the gorgeous scenery. We’re each so different and yet we managed to sustain conversation for the entire time and have fun.
Day #1: We woke up early, but ran a little late and missed the timing for the driver that we had arranged. He compromised and drove us to the main gate, where we flagged down a moving taxi from our moving car in a breathless rush. We made it to the bus, scrambled on and found seats. Alex got his fair share of stares being the lone white guy accompanying three Chinese girls. I sat with Alex at the back of the bus, right over the back wheel, bouncing along with every small bump on the road. Those 8 hours felt like a long, long time. We finally made it to Tai Ping in one piece, dumped our bags and headed for dinner! We found this outdoor eating place and ate yummy wantons, snails and dishes, finishing off with sugarcane and beer. We talked about politics, religion and love… Felt like I don’t know enough about the rest of the world, in terms of current affairs, politics, heck I don’t even know concretely enough about Singapore. Really should work on that. It was interesting to hear all their different points of view, American, European with me giving some Asian, Christian representation. It kinda emphasised how different people overseas are, and makes me think about how different it must be to traverse that cultural divide and find a partner, or even a friend. But in any case, it was interesting conversation. We headed back to the hotel and continued talking.
Day #2: It was up early the next day, where we headed to Fei Cui Chi for some walking around on the rocks and taking photos. It was nice and pretty, though I slipped off a rock and landed one foot into the water. We went to a second place and walked off by ourselves without the rest of the tour group. We reached back to the meeting place exactly on time but some of the group accused us of being late and one pair of ladies grumbled and said “we should leave them" which really pissed me off. We went up the cable car and with each passing moment I was more and more glad that we didn’t choose to walk up. We reached the top and were greeted by great views of peaks, trees and mist. The clouds that swirl around the peaks were sadly missing though. We dumped our stuff at the crappy dorm and decided to walk around the peak ourselves. We chose a route and set out… It was pretty tough going at some points because of the steep stairs but all it cost us was a little heavy panting. We made it in the nick of time to Pai Yun Ting for the sunset where we “chinesed” our way to the very front row and grabbed some photos. After that, we headed back to the dorm for a much appreciated hot dinner of instant noodles and sausage then took a 2 hour nap, brushed teeth at the nice hotel then went back to sleep.Day #3: We woke up at 4am, half an hour earlier than the supposed wake up time by kiasu Chinese tourists, went to the nice toilet again to brush teeth and wash up… We then scrambled up the stairs to head to Guang Ming Ding for the sunrise… all the while anxious that we would miss it and that all that climbing would be in vain. We made it there finally and perched ourselves on the top of this big rock and took in the scene. We then went further up to see the crack of dawn, with Debra sitting on Alex’s shoulders. We walked around the southern portion of the mountain, this time obediently following the tour guide. We reached the cable car area then decided to walk ourselves down to the foot of the mountain. It was a long, long climb down that made me so glad that we didn’t climb up. We then headed to Tang Kou to our hotel, where we ate a good lunch. A Chinese guy at our table challenged Alex to drink pure bai jiu with him, a competition where there was no winner. We went to a tea place, a snake medicine place where we got a foot massage and a jade place. Back at the hotel, we dumped our stuff then went to the town centre to eat. No shaokao. We found this a little more pricey place to eat, then went to another place for beer, bai jiu and coke. We sat around and talked and drank till about 11 something… We headed back to the hotel, to find that the main glass doors were locked with a bicycle chain! I called the tour guide who told me that there was a security guard but he couldn’t be found. While I was making those calls, the two girls managed to squeeze their way into the lobby through the 20cm gap in the doors. They told me to try as well. It sounded like a bad idea. I managed to fit my head through the gap, so far so good. Then, I wiggled my way through and got stuck at my butt. Just when I thought that all was lost and I would be found there the next morning half in and half out of the hotel, a pinch of flesh made its way in, and pinch of flesh by pinch of flesh I made my way into the hotel! Haha, it really doesn’t pay to be curvy sometimes. Alex managed to get in without much trouble and we collapsed in a fit of laughter into my room. That’s definitely a memory I’m gonna keep for a while. We talked some more then headed to sleep.
Day #4: We headed to Hong Cun, a village with architecture preserved from the 18th century… it was nice walking around and checking out what the art students had drawn based on the village. It was another long 8 hour ride back to Wuhan, where we ended off our trip with a dinner of shaokao together.
I’ll tell you more about Alex tomorrow.
I’ve met people from all over here, and it’s funny how things pan out. First impressions can be wholly unreliable, but for each disappointment in finding out someone isn’t as nice as you think, thankfully there has been the joy in discovering a connection with the least likely people.
Instead of bitching about my grievances (haha), I’m thankful for the people that God has brought my way…
It’s been 2 months in Wuhan!!
Return97 & YaoPaPaYao (Clubbing trip 3)
Well, really there hasn’t been much up this week, besides a thwarted spontaneous Hong Kong trip and book shopping, but I did decide to go out clubbing with some friends last night. It was pretty good and I think that it was one of the more fun clubbing trips that I’ve ever had. I really appreciate that while my friends would jio me to go out, they don’t push me to drink.
Wuhan clubs mostly have a mix of English R&B songs, Chinese songs and live music song to a dance track. Most people open a bottle (SGD80 for a bottle of whisky), mix it with red tea and drink shots. The taste is pretty ok and drinking in shots helps you to know and regulate how much you want to drink. The evening ended in shao kao and crabs at a street food place somewhere near to school.
I observed how my white friends will get approached by other people in the club, but not my Asian friends. And it’s not even always getting "picked up" but Chinese guys approaching my white guy friends to befriend them. I wonder why. Is it just wanting exposure to something that is different and that other people can’t readily lay claim to? Novelty? Improving English?
Going to Huang Shan next weekend with a growing number of people; it’s gonna be cold!
Justified Expenses
Haha it’s been an expensive week for me.. My Viet roommate has a tiny little fridge that is meant for just one person so my other roommates and I are sharing a bigger fridge (with a freezer compartment! meat!) which cost RMB280 (=SGD56). So all was well and good until we went to Metro, the biggest, baddest, best supermarket in all of Wuhan. Forget Carrefour, forget Walmart, Metro is the place to be. Floor to ceiling displays of imported food, more Western cheeses than even Cold Storage and cheap, cheap liquor! Looking at the variety on display, I mourned the time and money wasted at other inferior supermarkets when I could have been cavorting in Metro. We went a bit nuts and spent a grand total of RMB640 (=SGD128) at Metro, inclusive of a RMB120 (=SGD24) bottle of Bailey’s. Only in China does the food cost more than the fridge.
While we have been enjoying great fall weather, daily ranges between 17-27 degrees Celsius, the weather is going to take a turn for the colder pretty soon and I wanted to be prepared. I went shopping in the area near school and bought 2 sweaters, thermal underwear and a black wool short trenchcoat all for the paltry sum of RMB1000 (=SGD200). Haha, ok so it’s not paltry but I think it’s pretty good buys and I’m happy with the price I paid.
Here’s to more rescue operations for the Wuhan economy!
Thank You, Lord!
Just want to say, with a smile on my face, that my early exam has been approved! It’s been a long drawn process, hampered by the fact that offices don’t communicate primarily by email but by phone and face-to-face conversations and that the econs school doesn’t actually offer essay exams.. But what can I say, bureaucracy and inefficiency is no match for God. I thank Him that He placed helpful people and teachers along the way…
Will check out when I can take my exams and when I’ll be home!