Day 2: Sun, Sweat, Shopping & Spaghetti

After using the laptop to my heart's content to make up being unable to use it before that, I fell asleep at 3am ++. To my biggest surprise, I woke up at 6.30am and started typing out my blog entry before breakfast.

Breakfast for today was Fillet-o-Fish, which tasted somewhat different even though it looks exactly the same as those in Singapore. How curious o.0?

After that we left for a short campus orientation tour. However, the hot weather and the long distance left all of us sweating profusely, so once we finished the orientation, many of us went back to change into something more comfortable, i.e. shorts and sandals. What a huge difference it made.

While walking out to JiansheErLu(建设二路) from our hostel, with the student leaders from WUST directing the way, I realised halfway en route that we are walking a very long way that covered the breadth of the campus as I began to notice some landmarks I had spotted on the campus map such as the Indoor Gymnasium. That was when I fully realised how big the WUST campus is. This is truly a huge contrast to space-constrained Singapore where buildings and areas are built to be as compact and space-efficient as possible, so everything is within a 5 to 10minutes walking distance away.

We reached our destination quite a while later and began to shop for items we needed in our rooms. Speaking of which...As promised, some pictures of my bunk, Room 123!

And also, my bed. Don't those sexy stripes remind you of prison uniforms seen commonly in cartoons?

After some discussion with by room-mates, we decided that we needed an electric kettle and some cups or basic utensils so that we can cook some simple things to eat or drink when we feel hungry, on top of other basic necessities such as water (which we are also consuming very quickly). While searching for cups, we came across this pretty unique item called a Student Cup, or 学生杯, which essentially functions as a mug, small plate, and a bowl, which can be assembled together to minimize space when not in use. In fact, a similar product was branded as a "fast-food carrier", and the picture showed the mug holding soup, the bowl holding rice and the small plate holding some meat and vegetables. I think is very useful not just for students but for many working adults too as they can easily pack their meals this way. So, we bought it because it really is very versatile, we can eat noodles out of the bowl or drink beverages from the mug.

Unique!

After shopping was lunch at a very nicely decorated Western Restaurant. However, upon consulting the menu, I discovered that they serve a huge variety of food, from Steaks to Pasta, Baked Rice, Japanese Set Meals, Chinese/Japanese noodle soup dishes and so on. It took all of us quite some time to decide, but the cosy ambience and the comfortable seats made time pass so quickly. In the end, I decided on something simple and ordered Spaghetti Bologna.

I apologise for the picture because I couldn't resist and took a bite before realising I had yet to take a picture of it. But yes, it was very worth it and simply delicious.

After that han hui and I went to check out SIM cards, because I have yet to get mine. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my passport and even more bad news, SIM cards need to be activated at a certain call service centre (that we are both still unsure of the whereabouts). When can I get my SIM card... It wasn't so complicated just 6 months ago at a small little village in the south of China...

Oh well, after that we went to the street just behind our hostel to explore the food options, and although some of them smell pretty nice, I was pretty put-off by the seemingly unhygienic maintenance of the stalls. As a result us guys all took Cup Noodles for Dinner and then went to work discussing our performance item. After that, the 3 of us are here writing our blog entries.

We'd better finish soon, because tomorrow lesson starts, and we sure don't want to be late! Hurry up people, I'm done already!