Day 3

Day 3 started off with a visit to the University of Science and Technology of China. The school looks really big and it's like a mega town, does not look like an uni campus at all. The buildings look run-down, dark and gloomy. Totally does not provide the atmosphere for studying. We gathered in one of the room where the teacher-in-charge and several local students took time to introduce the school to us. We then took a stroll around the campus, not having a proper itinerary. The local students were kind enough to bring us to the places where locals gather. We spent most of the time touring the walking, rather than visiting the buildings, which is a good thing. We then had lunch with the locals but there wasn't a single local sitting on my table. That was a shame but not a pity. As usual, we took lots of pictures and then we left for the synchrotron lab, which was a miniature version of the one that we will get to see a few days later.

In fact, i feel that such visits were a bit unnecessary, because i did not really learn anything from this visit. The only thing i learn was that the students from this university are really studious, they basically have no social life other than studying. That might be a good thing, might be bad too. Well, as long as they feel good, why not?

Oh ya, the synchrotron visit was ultimate boring. The terms used when they were explaining were all in Chinese and seriously, i did not understand a single bit that was uttered. If only there was a translator.



I guess this entire visit already took up the whole day and it was time to hit back to the hotel . I'm glad, because we could rest and relax for the next day.

Day out with Sumei

Met sumei yesterday, just before she leaves for Phuket. It feels like i've already met her for damn long. There wasn't in any case a difficulty in finding something to talk about. We had lunch, as usual she didn't finish up her food because i guess she had cravings for other stuff. So i finished up my meal, leaving some rice untouched and we walked around in P.S. We then headed to some coffee toast place and she had toast, giving me 2 eggs which she didn't want to eat. I was lucky because im always so well fed when im with her. So i gave her the present i got for her from China, it was a pair of pearl earrings. I could not tell that she was really excited but i guess she liked it because she went to the toilet to put them on after the meal. She looked gorgeous in that earrings. I think i got it spot on this time.

So we continued walking looking for stuff and then left for Chinatown because she needed to change some foreign currency for her trip today. We searched for the exchanger with the best rates and she exchanged 1400 bucks to Thai Baht. After that, we continued walking to Starbucks at the central and that was where we had a lengthy talk about many things, including our families and stuff.

Then i snapped a picture of her with the earrings i bought.





Gorgeous ain't she?

We then had dinner at City Hall and then saw her off back home. It was a sweet as day. Cheers.

Day 2: 合肥

My day started off quite sweet, cos the sleep was good and i talked to XXX the night before while waiting for Clement to be back since he had the room keys. We had breakkie at the hotel, the food was bad but i just had to eat it to keep my system running. We departed the hotel and headed to the 包公 place straight after breakkie. Before boarding the bus, we took pictures and i think my favourite for the day was :



The bus ride to our first destination is pretty long and it took up our entire morning. We had our lunch before heading to the 包公 place and our lunch is a 10 course meal with everything you can imagine: drinks, beer etc.

So we visited the place. The entire place is huge and it basically tells the story of 包公 and his impartial-ness. Plenty of wax figures showing the court happenings and also monuments used during that era. We then took photos on top of a tower.

The day ended fast and we spent a couple of hours at the same place. As usual, we left for dinner and then we strolled the streets in the city centre, in search for 小笼包 and some cheap shopping. We did manage to stumble upon this shop selling 小笼包 and it was good! We had a couple of baskets of them and we were more than contented.

Well, some photos could not be uploaded so i'm stopping here. Day 3 will be continued tomorrow.

CHIP - Day 1: Arriving in Shanghai, Overnight at 苏洲定园宾馆

3rd longest and most tiring overseas trip ever made : 苏洲， 合肥， 黄山， 千岛湖， 上海。 14 days of non-stop travelling really wore me out and i am still very tired as of now. I am going t

blog about this entire trip from day 1, yes day 1.

Day 1: Arriving in Shanghai

, Overnight at 苏洲定园宾馆

After 5 straight hours of flight time, we managed to arrive in Shanghai. The weather was great, neither was it hot nor was it humid. Just perfect for an escape from Singapore. The PuDong airport is mediocre and not as fantastic as the Changi Airport. Some weird Mandarin - English translations were spotted like labelling tourists or non-locals as Aliens. Our tall and hitler-looking tour guide picked us up at the arrival hall and immediately walked us to the tour bus waiting for our luggages to be loaded up.

We loaded up our luggages and boarded the bus. The first glance of Shanghai was shocking. It was nothing like what i had expected. The highways were nicely constructed and were interlocking with many other highways just like a cob web.

We headed straight to 苏洲 and to our hotel, where we spent the night at. After checking into the hotel, we headed to the restaurant beside our hotel for dinner. The first meal was tasty, or rather too tasty. Too much oil and salt engulfed our food and i was not very used to the type of food that was offered. I ate sufficient to last the night and then a big group of us went out strolling the streets of 苏洲.

苏洲 as compared to Shanghai, is so much more backwards. Street vendors, hawkers were sprawled on the streets and heaps of motorbikes were horning their way on the roads of 苏洲. My 4 friends, namely Zhenghong, Zhengyi, Kenneth and Renny stopped by some food stall and bought some chinese BBQ. As usual, the flavours were very and very different from those back home. I bought cup noodles to ease my hunger pangs, fearing that eating more locally cooked food might upset my stomach tomorrow.

My room mate for that night was Clement, a Malaysian student studying Physics in NUS. He is a rather chatty person, after having spoken to him for 5 hrs on the plane. It was nice having him as a room mate where he shared many stories about the educational structure and practice in Malaysia. We spoke for a while and slumped into deep sleep a while later. The real adventure starts tomorrow.

Post Exams

My exams are finally over and I am a free man! It has never felt better than this ever in my university days. My last paper was fine, better than 4 of my other exams. Maybe due to the fact that my help sheet was really very sufficient and i did a few past year papers. Today was intense, i finished my exam, had lunch, headed back to my hall room, packed my stuff, loaded it into the car, took a nap, had dinner and drove back home. Now i'm sitting here comfortably on my wheelie chair, typing on my laptop that is sitting on my brand new table.

Now, it is time for me to sit down and think about my plans for post university. What have i got to do? Firstly, i have to master the technique of singing and drumming at the same time. I have never done this in my life. More importantly i have never tried playing the drums for a gig before. This is definitely my virgin experience. Playing for a bunch of professors who most likely do not understand or appreciate the style of music that will be played seems simple enough. But it is my personal hurdle that i have to overcome. I need to do a decent job. This is my chance to redeem myself, showing to the professors that i am not just ANOTHER physics student. We physics students do have other talents, other than simply working out equations and deriving them.

So yes, the first part of my post exam plan is to finish the physics lunch performance on the 1oth of may at Munchy Monkies. Next comes the real deal. Gotta film a 6 mins band performance for a band competition. This is pretty fresh; film a video of the band playing or jamming and send it for competition. Lucky ones will be picked for semi finals. I was thinking, why not? Since its that easy, just film it down. Nothing to lose. But here comes the tricky part, we only have a few days to get it done, and of course the planning phase which i have to do.

Next comes Shanghai, after all these music things are done. I'm so looking forward to it, can't wait to visit their attractions and eat their food. Not to say visit the really "interesting" places.

Enough said, my hands are cramping up. Typing all these isn't easy.

Cheers,

Andy