Ian's Blog

Week 1

The first week was tense. Nobody knows how to go anywhere. Settling down was hard, but I think what everybody’s got shopping in their mind. For the first few days, we tried out many different foods. Shopped at different places.

I think the first week was the toughest. We have to get used to the behaviors and habits of the locals, such as littering, spitting, jumping queues, snatching cabs. Well, “When in Rome”.

Week 2

We had major events such as the Mooncake Festival and the Three Gorges Tour. I believe we should have settled down by now, we found several hot spots for food and shopping.

A typhoon had hit somewhere in China, thankfully not here, and temperatures dropped drastically. Then, began the era of cold weather. Although the Mooncake Festival was a mess, I feel that our class had truly bonded throughout the whole experience. As for the cruise tour, I realise that one person can really make a difference in a class, it’s just not OIP dvfx without Jia Qi.

Week 3

Unfortunately, there was nothing really interesting for this week. But we did had some frequent irritating visits from our Yemeni  neighbours. Their Mandarin is flawless with the chinese slang, and they are able to speak in their mother togue too. Being extremely bilingual at their age is a talent. I guess it’s never too young or too late to learn a new language.

Week 4

Well, for the 4th week, we went to Lu Shan and met some pretty Kazakh women. Lu Shan was freezing but it has amazing sights. I thought that the Singaporean gifts that I bought was useless as there were no Chinese students to show us around, but in the end, we did a little gift exchange of our own with the Kazakh students. It’s cool that the people choose studying in China. This shows that China’s nation is growing to be more educational and social.

Week 5

It’s our last week. I can’t believe it’s already over, it feels like a few days ago, we just stepped into our dorms that we grown to love. We did our final week of shopping. But most of all, we Graduated from Wu Han Normal University! I feel that somewhere deep down, we’ll miss China. We should not remember China only for their screw ups, but we should remember China for their friendly locals and amazing places.

Extremely stressed. Everybody’s studying madly for their 20% in scriptwriting. Unfortunately, there’s a dilemma of either completing the draft of our animation script or studying the notes for the upcoming quiz. On top of that, the lack of sleep last time did not help me concentrate at all.

I woke up with my Mac in front of me. I think everybody is worried about the test as I am. But, worrying was redundant as the quiz was actually quite simple. A guarantied B. So, I guess it’s safe to say that studying like a machine last night was a waste of time. Anyway, we went to an art school for our IS trip. It was Kinda interesting, there were character designs and interior designs. However, the first thing they showed to us was about a game the made. We actually have to watch the woman play that stupid game. It’s very obvious that everybody in the room was bored and criticizing about the gameplay. Then there was some 3D animations with no story plot at all, just some random shit with a Chinese New Year thing at the end.

3D, but sucky

We were then divided into 3 groups, Maya, Character Design, and Graphic design. Some of us decided to go to Graphic design, whatever that is. It’s storyboarding. What the hell. And the teacher just explained some crap about past students work and he gave us homework… I bet no one’s turning up for his class at 8am to even submit his nonsense.

Boooooooooring

We got back and sent our scripts. We played arcade until they chased us out, but at least I got my first actual prize. Then we went to KTV. Crazy night we had.

Tai Zhong's excited!

Tai Zhong's exhausted!

A month went by, just like that.

The last class of scriptwriting. I don’t know whether to be glad or sad. Anyway, the feared scriptwriting quiz is tomorrow and I think that everybody’s going to study it till the last moment.

We had a trip to 黄鹤楼. An area where the Wu kingdom’s palace was from the Three kingdoms era. When we just arrived, we saw 2 old people writing the square tiles with awesome calligraphed characters. Now that’s what we call genius.

Genius

We climbed and explored the pagoda.

The Pagoda

Long way down

There’s also a huge bell. It doesn’t look very old as one of the carvings show an atom, DNA, black hole, and some other scientific shit.

Huge Bell is huge

We starved ourselves in the night to work on our scripts and/or quiz. At a certain time. Xiao Hai  and Xiao Lin came over to mine and Azdreen’s room. I really want them to go away so i can continue doing what I was doing. But I really can’t just strangle them and throw them out and slam the door, right? They play with some things, like my alarm clock, Azdreen’s horn, MY MAC. They keep pestering me to let them play Plants vs Zombie. I had to call Gigi for help to chase them away. Thanks Gigi!

Cold and lonely day. Azdreen and I went shopping alone at the men’s street again. Bought some stuffs.

Trinkets. What's life without them?

Didn’t really had dinner. Some people say they have grown a few kilos from overseas trip, I seriously beg to differ. We did our synopsises and step outlines. Then, at 10pm, some MCM and DVFX gave a surprise birthday to Broderick. Not much later, it became a food fight. Huge mess we made. The people sleeping around Broderick’s and Daniel’s level woke up at were pissed at all the cake on the floor. At least I had eaten my share of the cake.

Happy Birthday Broderick!

Erm... Happy Birthday Broderick!

Some guys came to join in the fun

So we ordered Mcdonalds and continued on our script.

I woke up at 2pm. I’m not going to waste 2hrs on nothing. So, I went shopping by myself at stuff which I was eyeing on at first. I love my new leather jacket.

I likeyyyy

For the first time, we had only an afternoon class. But it’s economics for IS again. We whooped out our macs, and ignored the lecturer.

After class, Gigi and some others actually went to 光谷步行街  in the morning and bought Leslie a Xi Yang Yang soft toy. And Leslie gave us a box of moon cakes in return. Another reason was that he just didn’t like moon cakes.

I think we did the same stuff again. Teppanyaki was delicious and more arcade games.

At night we had some fun with our classmates. Then Adzreen and I met some Kazakhstan people. Their names are Магина (Magina) and Инно (Inno). They had been in this hostel for 3 years (wow), and their studies will be completed in a years time.

From left to right: Инно, Azdreen, Магина, Me

We did a little exchange of gifts too. Looks like the seemingly useless souvenirs from Singapore got some use after all.

Our gift, the Kazakh flag

It’s kind of interesting how the foreign students choose to speak Mandarin to converse with other foreign students. It’s like English is not the only universal language, Mandarin is also fighting for the position.

Forth week. Amazing how time passes in China. Funny thing is that I don’t feel homesick.

It’s scriptwriting lesson again. Comedy is serious business. Azdreen and I lazed back at our hostel. waiting for 3 hours for the next class… Eventually, we got moving to the Korean shop. The workers mistook me for a Japanese and I overheard them talking about trying to converse with me in Japanese. And they did.

IS was a major bore. Economics? It’s important, but no one’s really interested. We had dinner in Chicony. Well, I just had a cream puff. We played more arcades afterwards.

Time for us to once again return back to our warm and cozy dorm. But before that, we went to a another mountain. It’s hiking time again…

We took the same bus again with the same high driver. We ate at some restaurant and it tastes pretty good actually.

We had KFC for dinner as we’re all craving for fast food. We bought some notebooks at Lotte world. And arcade at Tom’s world.

Woke up at 7am for breakfast, didn’t take a bath as the water was freezing. Liars…

Anyway we took a walk to a garden pass a lake.

And this is actually Man-made??

We took a mini-bus ride to a mountain. And it’s hiking time!

Huge Rock is not that huge

I saw a those photoselling guys claims that that area is where Mao had sat and took a picture. And they had the picture to prove it. Well, the picture’s fake. Photoshoped in ever so poorly. I tried to take a picture, but the guy was on to me and chased me away. Con man.

Time to pack our bags once more because we’re going for the Lu Shan tour. They said the weather will be around 10℃. In the bus, I sat beside one of the teachers in charge. Pretty nice guy, he gave me a moon cake for breakfast.

The bus ride was very boring… But this time, I’m smart enough to bring my mac along. Futurama after Futurama. The driver is driving very risky, it’s like he on crack or something. Speeding, turning, honking. Anyway, we went to our 1st stop.

I don’t really remember what’s it for. So we waited under the hot sun but freezing temperature. One thing led to another, Adzreen’s eye starts to bleed, probably of his contacts, and then he having a seizure attack. Everybody was worried about him for sure. To have seizure on a mountain? Bad timing. In the end he was back to normal and had to be sent to the hotel ahead of us.

We waited in the bus again and it brought us to  庐山. Stairs. The WuDang people’s and Agnes’ worst nightmare.

STAIRS

We saw the three 1600 years old trees.

Huge Tree is huge

The was something about a dragon under a rock. And I fell into a stream. My only shoes that I brought to the trip, soaked. Climbing back up was a chore. The chilled air makes it difficult to respire.

I got no idea what those are

Nor this...

Next, there’s the Mao ZeDong’s villa. Calm and peaceful place.

Finally after al that, we went to hotel and met up with Adzreen again. The hotel was marvelous. A proper bed and everything. My only complaint is the lack of a heater and limited hot water… 7am-9am and 7pm-12am.

After dinner, we went shopping out at the bitter cold. The market was amazing. There was conviniance storers and everything. It was more urbanized than I thought. Now who says China was a primitive city?