Day 1 - Arrival in Wuhan

Arrived at Changi airport at around 1030 am. Most of my classmates are not there yet when I arrived. To be honest, I do not look forward to this Wuhan trip, mainly because we are going there to study. And the worst thing of all is we are going over a few days after examinations. But looking at the bright side, we do not have to take Project Management and one IS module next semester.
At the airport, everybody came with their HUGE luggage and their parents. My parents are not available because they got something to attend to. So, when I looked at my friends who came with their parent, there is definitely a bit of sadness in my heart. ):
Checking in was another problem for us because we have to check in as a group, and I do not know why the service at the service counter is very inefficient. We waited for more than one hour to check in and bag in. We even have the time to take a group photo! Bagging in was another main concern because i am afraid that my luggage might exceed the weight limit. When my luggage was on the conveyor belt, I heave a sigh of relief because my luggage weight is 21.4 which is 8.6kg to the weight limit.
I truly believe that every parent loves their child. And it is tested and proven that when we are walking in the checkpoints, I saw a few of my friends tear because they are not going to see their family members for 1 month. Thankfully, my parents are not there with me, if not, I will sure cry.
We went to the gate C22 and took Flight CZ345 (China Southern Airlines) to Guangzhou at 1225. Frankly speaking, this is the first time that I’m travelling to China. I have travelled to Thailand many times, because my mother is Thai, so every two years, we will head back to visit our grandparents. Normally the flight duration will be around 3 hours in total, but to my amaze, the flight duration to Guangzhou is like 5 hours. And I really want to know how is it feel like for people to fly from Singapore to U.S.A. because the flight duration is like 18 hours.
Onboard the plane, I find that the plane’s aisle is too narrow for people to walk comfortably. (Maybe because we board a smaller plane) To compensate for that, the food onboard the airplane never disappoints me because they are simply delicious! And to make it better, I kept eating beard because my friends do not want it. We played card games on the plane too.
After alighting at Guangzhou Airport, we are guided to a chartered bus at the airport ground to send us to the airport to check out and claim our luggage. We do have enough time for some quick bite, we went to MacDonald’s to have a quick bite because our flight to Wuhan is at 2000 hours and we arrived at Guangzhou airport at 1800 hours. Ordering at MacDonald’s is another challenge for me because my Chinese standard is not very good, and I will need some time to look at the menu because the menu is all in Chinese characters.
We took Flight CZ3367 from Guangzhou to Wuhan at 2020 hours. The flight was delayed and it means that we will be arriving at around 2340 hours at Wuhan Airport. We are thankful that our luggages are among the first to come out when we are claiming our luggages. We met contact with Ms Alicia Hock over at Wuhan Airport. Two chartered buses were chartered to send us to WUST campus. The journey was about one hour from Wuhan Airport to WUST campus. So I can conclude that we have been travelling for 12 hours straight! Once we reached our hostel, my friends and I are too tired to do anything and we went to bed after we showered.

Reflection: Once we have landed on China, it is really the start of our Overseas Immersion Programme already. We have to update our blogs and exchange cultural experiences with the students over here. We might meet up with some obstacles within the way, but with understanding and thinking for one another, it will take out to be a fun – filled experience! And I really hope that all my friends can be as united as before through this OIP experience! (: