-DAY 18-
Have been logging on to Npal with hope that results would be out a few hours before 9am. And YES! Finally at my last try at around 5.45am, I saw my results. Disappointing. A warning for me to push even harder for my next semester.
FOCUS.
Gathered at 6.30am. Due to the long bus ride which we would need to be taking, approx 5-6 hours, thus we had to meet real early to make sure that we will reach our destination on time. Many of us took this time to catch some sleep which we sacrificed for doing our blogging and assignment 1 the night before.
After bumping on the bus for quite some time, it was finally LUNCH time! Came to a city named ‘Yi Chang’ at around 12pm and went to a restaurant for lunch. I must say, this lunch is the best I had ever eaten since the first day in Wuhan. It is the only restaurant that sells STEAMED egg, non-oily vegetables and in overall a more healthy range of food.
Lunch Place.
Steamed Vegetables.
After lunch, another hour of bus ride before we reach 3 gorges. Went around the area using their own tour buses. Moving from one location to another and taking a few more pictures before we head out to 截流纪念园. It was just a simple park with not much in it. After which, we were off again to fill our growling tummies!
Admission Ticket.
Picture at the Park.
Group Photo.
And here comes the real thing! After having our dinner, we are all up and ready to head for the jetty where we will be boarding our cruise. We will be sleeping on the cruise for 2 nights!!! The ticketing area was quite crowded with people and of course smoke-filled.
Waited for quite long before we can actually board the cruise.
Cruise.
The rooms on board was ‘wonderful’. With plenty of smoking, gambling, half naked china men just directly opposite our rooms. Due to our ladies safety, some of us swapped rooms with the guys so that we would have an equal number of guys and girls to protect each other! =))
My room-mate for the next 2 nights is ANYU!!! AGAINNN =DDDD
Meddled with the things in the room for awhile, bathed and settled down straight after that to watch our long lost TELEVISION!!! HAHA!
-DAY 19-
MY DOOR WAS NEARLY BANGED DOWN AT 6AM IN THE MORNING. Our first morning on the cruise. Their morning call was so ‘unique’. At 6am, our tourist went to every door and banged on it till someone went to open the door. They literally bang till the whole door was vibrating and it was not once but 5 times until we made our way down for breakfast. Irritating? Yes, but an effective method to wake tourist up. HAHA! Ok, so we went down for breakfast and a huge discovery! Just one night and we have reached Chongqing, a town which is located quite a distance outside Hubei.
After our breakfast, we alighted at 白帝城 for a short sightseeing.
This is an ancient city which holds a long history and due to the many poems which was specially written for this place, it is also named as the ‘city of poem’.
After walking around for sometime, we headed back to our cruise for lunch followed by free and easy!
CK
Standing at the top of the mountain!
Couldn’t stand the beauty of the mountains just right in outside my window, so we decided to sit on the latch of the cruise to fully enjoy the nice wind and scenic view.
My Legs. Haha!
Roy Fishing!
Headed up to the top deck for an even better view and back to our room again to enjoy the peaceful sea view and breeze. This was a nice time for us to catch back on our sleep since the last week we were all crazily ‘chionging’ our assignments.
Jump Shot at the upper deck.
ME!!!
Anyu's Bed.
Scenery outside our window.
Long nice sleep…
In the afternoon we took another small passenger boat to 神农溪. The journey took almost an hour. So our main objective of going there was to experience river rafting by the locals.
Admission Ticket.
Morning farming was their main occupation and after which afternoon they would take up the job of rafting the boat as their part time job. All the rowers were averagely 40 years old and above but their body is definitely made of steel!
As a rower myself, it was already hard having 20 people pulling their own weight but for these uncles, they only had 5 rowers to a boat and there were 21 of us. This was heartaching. On every pull of their paddle, we can see how strenous this was on the aged bodies of the men.
Strenous.
I would rather exchange positions with them and take over their job while they sit in the raft enjoying the scenery. As what our tour guide told us, in a few decades time, we would not be seeing all this boat men anymore as their standard of living would have increased with their children all pursuing studies or jobs overseas.
Pulling 20+ of us.
The experience of the rafting session was marvellous. Boarded back onto our cruise at around 6pm for our dinner. And it was free and easy again. We were told that our cruise would pass through the water elevator at around 11pm.
Excited!
We would be passing through a total of 5 gates. The process of all 5 would be the same, thus if we were to view all 5 gates it would be from 11pm-5am the next morning. We were told to just view one. It was really a once in a life time experience which I hope that everyone out there would be able to go through. After watching the first 2 gates, I went back to sleep. But at 3.30am & 4.30am, I woke up unknowingly and just nice they were going through other processes which I bet not all were able to see it as they were all sound asleep! WHAHAHA!
Passing Through!
Big Gate.
We went down.
This was how close we were to the wall outside our window.
-DAY 20-
6.30am -> went for breakfast -> back to bunk for final packing of bags -> left the cruise at around 8am. It was raining heavily. Boarded our bus and we were told to grab some snacks on the nearby supermarket as there might be jam due to the heavy rain, thus we would not be stopping over for lunch. And we are back in WUST at about 2pm.
End of the once in the life time experience.
Reflections:
After spending 2 nights on the boat, we had a chance to experience the lifestyle of others and see how simple some of their lifes are. Simple yet fulfilling. I think it is because of their lifestyle thus even until the age of 60+ they are still so healthy. The elderly of singapore is really having a much higher standard of living compared to those over here. It is a right decision for the government to extend the retirement age of Singaporeans so that the elderlys would still lead a fulfilling life and to keep themselves active. By doing so, it helps to keep our citizens healthy.
xanier!
