Hello Panda!

Itinerary:

Panda Research Base

Lunch

Du Fu Cao Tang

Wu Hou Ci

Jin Li

Dinner

Shopping + Sichuan Opera (Fu Rong Guo Cui)

It was a fun-filled and tiring day; being able to see the panda the second time was great! They were all very cute but dirty at the same time; they were lazing around throughout the time when we were visiting them, I guess they were tired. After Panda, the lunch that was provided was very sumptuous and there were a lot of their delicacies being served as individual portions of up to 10 bowls each.

We rushed over to Du Fu Lin Tang and Wu Hou Ci to check out their memorial places for their olden days heroic characters. I was feeling extremely bored while listening to what the guide has to say, I am not a person who love history thus I ended up roaming around capturing beautiful moments of the group and the place. Jin Li was a shopping street where it was set in a very traditional Chinese cultural setting. There were many things that we do not see back in Singapore which included their foods, handcrafts and their talent shows.

After dinner was the opera show which I chose over shopping in the city, I thought it would be a waste to not get an eye opener experience since I am already in Sichuan. The show was not exactly fantastic due to some unprofessionalism but I have to give them my due respect as they trained so hard for it. “10 years of training, 10 minutes of performance”.

-Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted-

Preparation for the “freshies” night~

The boys managed to borrow guitars from the students from the guitar club via the help of this very nice lady, Yun Xia, she spend her time after her morning classes to help us settle things that included maintenance of room, internet enquiries, and borrowing of guitars etc. We were glad that she was very willing to offer help to us when she was not obligated to do so, even for the last batch that were here.

After lesson that day, I was suppose to help organize the group in preparing the performance to put up on Wednesday night, but I decided to pass that job over to Harold so that he could experience some sense of leadership through this. The whole thing was in a mess and time constraint was another limitation that was making us all stressed up.

-Anything you are good at, contributes to happiness-

GuangHan town = Orchard!

M-Zone is our M1!

The mini-bus that we took to town and squeezed 40+ people!

Our clique loves this place, we have adapted to this place quite well since we arrived. We purchased the local phone card so that we could be easily contactable; the good thing is that they have a private network opened for us so that we could have free campus calls! From now on, I shall skip all my logging about studies unless I have something special to do so. We headed to Guang Han town after our lesson in the noon, it has everything we needed and could ask for but on the note that everything is lagging behind times. Our transport to the town was a 10 minute mini-bus ride which was suppose to seat max 20+ pax, but however we managed to squeeze all 39 of us, together with volunteer students in it with most of us standing. There were not many things which I could get from here, the things are very “outdated” and I am not willing to part my money for those things.

It was very an attention grabbing whilst walking down the street with subaa, she was the “rare breed” here, people could not understand why she was there and why is she darker in terms of skin colour compared to the rest of them. I believed she was not feeling very comfortable, not even in Singapore. I hope it all turns out well for her.

-Breathe in experience-

Old is the new thing!

This was how old-school we could get!

Here comes the main objective of the whole trip, to clear 2 modules within these 5 weeks. The whole teaching was done with chalk writing on black-board; it brings me back to the days when I was back in primary 1 when all the teaching was done the same way. System Dynamic & Controls was one hell of a module which I think I might struggle through. The studying condition here is relatively different from what we have back in Singapore; we do not get enough space, comfort level and right room condition. It makes me even harder to concentrate during lessons but nevertheless, I will do my utmost to achieve it.

We tried to model out our lifestyles back in Singapore over here, bringing our daily routines and habits along. We managed to train for our upcoming fitness test with the running track that they have, it was a good experience for me as I have never tried running overseas. There were much we had to do for subaa, including the translation, finding vegetarian foods and helping her explain “why is she Indian?” to the locals.

-If you’re going through hell, keep going-

I Hate China’s Weather!

This marks the day for me to inculcate independence in myself and to step out of the comfort zone, I had to wash my own clothe, pack our room, and plan our own activities. The weather was unbearable here in Guang Han, ChengDu, so bad that it was driving everyone mad and moody. I was impressed with their hospitality, offering to carry out luggage up 3 levels to our rooms. We were toured around the campus by some of the volunteer students and was arranged to meet the directors of the school. Being the official photographer of this OIP trip, it was a little tough as we had to lug the tripod around and was not briefed on what is coming up next for us to plan the shots. I know that this is a trip I am going to enjoy because my friends are here with me throughout these 5 weeks of suffering!

-Jumping for joy is good exercise-