Life in Chengdu, China........: April 2012

Day 30 in Chengdu - Biking and video making for OIE!!

The day started off with me lazing around in bed before finally pulling myself out of bed and heading out to the shopping district for lunch with the guys. JJ and I decided that we wanted to ride a motorbike, but WeiJie and Kidman did not want to join us as WeiJie wanted to do his own stuff and Kidman was still doing his research paper. The rental for the motorbike was very cheap, at only 5 yuan per hour, we would be idiots to pass up on such a good deal. Initially I had some trouble riding the bike as I did not have experience riding a bicycle at all, and thus I could not maintain my balance, but after a while I managed to get the hang of it and off we went! After a while, Kexin and Raudhah also joined us we we headed over to the lake to take some beautiful pictures. Then, we rode around some more before Raudhah and Kexin had to leave. BUT the Felicia, Hanis, Zakiah and Thet joined us and we went around the campus again! Feeling the wind blowing against ur face as you ride the bike has got to be the BEST feeling every! However, here come the bad part. My bike had a slight fault, where the brake had a little problem. Thus when I wanted to slow down and turn, my bike skidded and I sustained some cuts and abrasions to my elbow and knee. That made me learn my lesson, take everything slowly and not rush into stuff. After the riding session ended we headed for dinner, before meeting with my OIE group to plan and do up the video and slides. Well, this is the end of my posts about life in Chengdu. It has really made me learn more about the China culture, as well as make more friends from the university. Never regretted coming for this trip. Good bye and good night

PICTURES!!!

The beautiful lake

OH LOOK! A SWAN!

PHARMERS ON BIKES!!

The university we were staying at, UESTC

The local supermarket, somewhat alike to our NTUC or Cold Storage

YAMMMMM SENG!!!!!

Day 29 in Chengdu - Researching for TCM final paper Part 2

So another boring day rolls around, and again it gave me a chance to wake up late as we did not have any classes. Basically did the same stuff as day 28, except we met the girls (Michelle, Clarice, Sera, Jasmine and Joyce) for dinner, before heading to the benches outside the supermart for a discussion on our OIE presentation. We decided to focus on the similarities/differences between Singapore and China, while the other group focused on what we did during our stay in Chengdu. So again, boring day is boring so nothing much happened. Bye bye

Day 28 in Chengdu - Researching for final TCM paper part 1

Today we had no classes, so I woke up late (VERY LATE), and then headed our for lunch with the guys. After lunch and some discussion about how we would go about completing the report, we headed back to the dorm to begin the war with the websites with information. The rest of the day was spent on researching on relevant materials on my topic, which was regarding the effectiveness of Qi Gong together with western medicine in helping the alleviation of Hypertension. Therefore, there is nothing else to write in this post as it was a boring boring boring day......

Day 27 in Chengdu - Hotpot, ROUND 2!!

As some of my classmates were pestering me to bring them to eat the Ma-La hotpot *cough* MYLENE!!! *cough*, we decided to headed out to XiPu town again. As it was April Fool day, we started off the morning by pulling a prank on our dear Mr Ryan. We pretended to be angry with him for being 30 MINUTES late, but in actual fact he was on time and instead we changed the time on our phones and watches to 30 minutes later. Hahaha we had a good laugh out of it and his facial expression was SUPER priceless!! :D Anyway, everyone arrived and we headed out to the town for lumch. When we arrived, we immediately headed over to the hotpot restaurant as everyone was famished. Everyone enjoyed the hotpot lunch, and after we were all full, we headed back out to the streets for more shopping. We separated into a few small groups and went our own way.

At around 6pm we headed back to the university, and rested before heading over to the Times lounge for a surprise birthday party for both Michelle and Jasmine. They were surprised at the cake that we bought for them, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the celebration. Here's wishing them happy birthday once again! :D Soon the party ended and we headed back to the dorm for a rest. And a ton of rest I shall get, as this is the end of today's post. Ciaos :D

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PICTURES!!!

Day 26 in Chengdu - Panda Sanctuary and Happy Valley

The day that all of us were anticipating arrived, and we woke up early before heading out to the meeting point at the teaching block. The reason we were so so so excited about today was that we were FINALLY getting to see actual pandas, instead of just reading about them from books and watching them on the television. We boarded the bus and headed off! The journey to the panda sanctuary took about an hour, and almost all of us were asleep while on the bus. The tour guide who brought us up Le Shan and E-Mei Shan also accompanied us on this trip, and she was telling us about pandas. I guess everyone was just too tired, as almost everyone's eyes were closed. Soon, we arrived at our destination and we were all refreshed after the hour-long rest. Everyone were in high spirits and we quickly entered the place without much delay. After about 10 minutes of walking, we arrived at the panda enclosures! The pandas were SUUUPERRRR cute!!!! How I wish I could abduct one back and hug him :D We also saw red pandas for the first time ever, and they reminded me of raccoon, rather than their black and white relatives. After viewing the pandas we headed to a lakeside, where we took a rest and also enjoy the breath-taking scenery. It was a very peaceful and relaxing place.

After all was done, we boarded the bus once more and headed out to a local restaurant for lunch, and then off we go to happy valley! 20 minutes was all that was needed before we arrived at the amusement park!! True to its name, we were very very happy when we entered the themepark, and wasted no time before heading off to the rides. While a few of my friends headed off to take a spinning ride, I was afraid that I might puke my lunch out so some of my friends and me headed off to the haunted house for a start. But the haunted house was slightly disappointing in that it was not exactly scary, but rather we were laughing throughout the whole walk as we thought about how lame the haunted house was. LOL. After that we headed for a spinning ride as well, but on a smaller scale than what my friends took before us. Although it was comparatively smaller, the thrill was still there and it really made my heart jump! Ohh the fun!! :D After that we headed for more rides including a water roller coaster, conventional roller coasters as well as a sky-drop ride. Before this visit to happy valley, I did not really dared to take all those rides as I have slight acrophobia. But thanks to all my friends giving me courage(Or was it peer pressure?), I finally took them, and boy did I not regret my decision. But all good things must come to an end, so we headed back to the university once it was evening. I thoroughly enjoyed the day!! And so my blog-post for the 26th day in Chengdu must also come to an end......... But before I go, here are some pictures