PHOTOS
All right. Let me recount briefly on what happened today. =)
4.45am --> Arrival in Changi Airport T1 with my mother and grandmother
6.30am --> Started to check in and cross the immigration counter after the final sent off by my family and dear classmates, who stayed overnight at the airport.
8am --> Board the plane the journey to China starts =)
Seriously, nothing much has happened UNTIL we reached Guangzhou for transit.
I remembered that everyone was worried because Suelyn lost her luggage. Fortunately, her luggage was taken (mistakenly) by someone from ME dept. Everyone was relieved when the luggage was found. ANYWAY, both luggage looked very identical!
Morale of story --> It is always important to check your stuffs before you leave, anywhere/any situation. Haha, in this context, always check the luggage tag (don't assume the particular luggage is yours when it looked like YOURS). Use prominent and unique tags to 'identify' your luggage. When i mean prominent and unique, I am refering to rafia strings or those used to tie rice dumplings, no ribbions pls.
Anyway, after that, there is something more 'exciting'. When we were preparing for transit, there was a commotion at the transit luggage counter. It involved the transit officers and a group of Chinese tourists. Initially (based on the exchanges between them), the officers, who wanted to minimise the queue length, requested the Chinese tourists to leave the luggage at the counter. However, the tourists refused to do so as they want to see their luggages being checked in properly. Hence, the quarrel started. Nevertheless, everything was sorted out and everyone was happy.
Apparently, on the surface, onlookers may think that Chinese people may be selfish and crude in nature, reason being they do not want to co-operate with the authorities for the benefit of others. However, later I realised that there might be another side of the story. Apparently, it seems to me that the Chinese tourists are rushing for their transit flight. As such, they would only feel safe if their luggage to enter first as they do not want to board the plane w/o their luggage. Hence, their actions may be justified. However, they could have negotiated 'peacefully' with the officers instead of quarrel? Maybe this could be the 'cultural difference' between Singaporeans and Chinese? hmm..
Anyway, we should not place judgements on people based on the first impression as it would be unfair to them as we do not understand what is happening.
So, journey to wuhan continues.. Ohya. Guangzhou Airport stuffs are expensive. A can of coke can go as expensive as S$5.
Upon reaching Wuhan international airport, we boarded the shuttle bus to WUST. On our way there, it is rather interesting as Wuhan looked entirely different from what we expected. Disorganisation and non-uniformity of roads, buildings and public structures can be seen everywhere. So are poor maintenance. Air pollution (Guangzhou too) are evident everywhere. However, attempts for a 'greener environment' can be seen as trees are being planted along the roads. Although this journey to WUST is rather short (approx. 30 to 45 mins), a lot things can be observed and allow students to further appreciate Singapore. For instance:
1) Poor management and planning of estates as old, run-down shophouses and new shopping centres etc are together
2) No proper traffic laws being respected
3) No 'CLEAN' environment along the streets etc
I was rather glad that everyone learnt to appreciate singapore during this SHORT journey. HOWEVER, there is something which I would like to comment. Personally, although it is good to appreciate singapore, I feel it would be unfair for Wuhan if the students have a bad impression about the city. Reason being, the areas we covered in the journey could be just the small /rural areas of Wuhan. Yep. Anyway, the city of Wuhan is developing, so some areas would be that poor. Maybe in 10 years time, the whole city would be different? =)
Yep. Nothing much for the rest of the day, except everyone feeling 'stunned' by the state of the hostel rooms. However, despite of all the complains by everyone (initally), personally I felt glad to see everyone working together to make their rooms as comfortable as possible. =)
Dinner at MacDonald's and our first night was full of screaming and boiling of drinking water. =P
