Day 3- Free and Easy

6March, Saturday

Hi everyone, as usual, woke up earlier in the morning and get prepared of myself. The previous night, after checking the weather forecast, it showed that there will be snow today. However, we didn't manage to catch any snow fall. Heard from some of the guys that they saw a minor snow fall that falls like rain. Today's temperature had go as low as -3 degree and in the afternoon, it is freezing cold, colder than what we have experienced in the past 2 days. It was drizzling lightly in the morning.

Collected our cards that could called back to Singapore and within local this morning. It cost us 50rmb for about 170minutes of airtime.

Met our usual group of nine at 9.30am at the hostel lobby with the student leaders. After which, they brought us to the local food stores at the food street behind our hostel for breakfast. We had red bean buns and porridge, where the prices are relatively cheap too!

The porridge store. A bowl of porridge only cost less than S$0.40 as shown from the picture.

From left; Winnie, Ron, SoonLing

Hailing the private cars outside the hostel, we were divided into two vehicles and set off to a Jiang Han shopping mall that needed about 30minutes of the journey time to reach there. On our way there, due to the constrain that the driver didn't really know the way there, he stopped at the road side to check out the map. Between 5 of us, plus 2 student leaders, we all shared and paid a total of 35rmb for the trip there. Explored and did a little of shopping over there till lunch time.

Interesting poster; Imitation of ZhangBoZhi.

We passed by a bakery and was introduced that it's the most famous of all in Wuhan. Therefore, everyone went in and grab the bread for either tea or breakfast on the following day. We stacked the bread on the plates, and from what I see, all the workers in the shop stared at our actions. I guess we were one of those that cleared their breads stored inside the tray with minutes. Haha!

We had our lunch at 3plus pm in the afternoon, which is rather late because I heard that they people always eat their lunch at about 11am and their dinner at about 5 or 6pm everyday on time if there isn't any thing else from the local tour guides from the previous trip I had in China. Had steamboat for our lunch!

Spicy and non-spicy soup base. The ingredients of the steamboat are only ordered and served based on what we want in plates.

Deciding if we should go shopping again or do else thing, we had our finally decision of going to sing at the KTV at the shopping mall we went last night because we saw that the rates as compared to Singapore is cheaper and that we could book a private room and sing for hours. Took two public bus to reach there. The bus was packed and we had to take good care of our belongings. A good experience because I have never take any public transport before when I visited China.

Everyone was so cold that they stood in circles to get some heat.

Difference between Singapore's and Wuhan's public buses:

1. The bus drivers do not have their uniforms worn in Wu Han.
2. Each ride has a standard pricing. We spent a total of about 4rmb; S$0.80 for two bus trips.
3. When reaching a certain bus stop, there will be something announcing the name of the bus stop.

WeiQin, Daryl, LingLi

Ordered Starbucks before we went in as the weather was really very cold. All of us had three hours of fun singing. Everyone enjoyed themselves and only realised that we exceeded the time for about 20minutes when someone suggested going down to the arcade to play bumper car again. There was some misunderstanding between the counter and us because they wanted to charge us extra and they thought we had not foot the bill. However, with the help of the student leader's explanation and bargaining, we did not need to pay any extras. The total bill was about 338rmb, about S$68 for 13 people.

We skipped dinner but got a little bite from MacDonald. After which, we ended our day by taking a taxi back and getting some more necessities from the shops behind our hostel with the accompany of two student leaders.

Reflection:
I discovered and experienced certain situation that we would not see it in Singapore such as the announcements called out in the bus. I think that this system is rather good as one can be reminded of which stop is it at the next destination and that it also can alert people on the bus when to alight especially when one is seated and that the bus is full. If Singapore was to adapt this kind of system, I am sure that we Singaporeans will be able to have a higher standard of customer service in public transport.