Nobody really drank beer in China during winter, but being the fans of beer that longwei and william are, they managed to ask the shop owner to find beer for us. And this was the start of our daily beer drinking. (Note: OUR, not just them.)

The weather was kinda dreadful on the first day we were there. It was raining, cold and windy. Everyone had to get umbrellas! We visited 东湖磨山风景区。 The trees at both ends of this road gave out a nice faint fragrance.






A hastily taken photo before our lunch with the 'leaders' of the sports school we were visiting. One of the most stressful lunches I ever had. Having to offer toasts (敬酒）to the so called leaders, lots of drinking (i escaped the alcohol), breathe in lotsa smoke etc etc. I think i was the quietest out of the table of 10 over people.

Thank goodness I'm a girl. William and Longwei drank the most out of all the people there. William went back to the hotel to concuss after that while longwei still had to coach!

多流汗。。。汗中藏金。

Athena's near perfect split jump on the beam.

Stretching. Youngest gymnast who trained competitively at the school. 5 and a half years old, he stays at the dormitory himself, eats his meals himself, bathes himself and apparently washes his own clothes??

A bunch of aspiring olympic diving gold medalists. Very very cute.

They jump from a height of 5m at the age of 6+, 7. Yikes. A girl was bragging that she's jumped from 10m high, and when her friend revealed that it was because she got punished, she chased her around the canteen. Hehee.



We visited the gymnasium where the national team gymnasts trained for the 2008 Olympics, and where the Hubei team now trains.

These two little girls were on the beam for almost the whole time we were there, practising their 基本功with minimal supervision. And, they were very good at it.

Chu Lao Shi :)

Huge huge gymnasium. Biggest in China.
A bunch of mottos outside the gym. I could read all but one word!

We had most of our meals in the sports school canteen. Here's one of my (vegetarian) dinners. Lotus is a very common dish in wuhan and i loved it! They cook it in so many different ways, unlike in Singapore where we only find lotus in soups.

One fine morning, i received a phonecall from chu lao shi, "下雪了"!
I drew the curtains and saw this view. It was beautiful :)

We immediately washed up, dressed up and went out to experience the first snowfall of the year for Wuhan! How lucky we were. The snow was falling quite heavily and i was totally enjoying it!

My toes were freezing due to all the melted snow on the ground though.

So I bought new boots! Cute, warm and affordable, just $40+ if i didn't remember wrongly, as opposed to the $129 one i wanted to get from bershka.

多吃苦，苦中有甜。

A couple of cute baby boy gymnasts who are just starting gymnastics.

A bunch of very disciplined boys that went around doing their (enormous amounts) of conditioning.

Random pretty girl.

He's smiling for my camera :)

And I'm guessing he asked his friend to straighten his legs 'cause I was taking photos ;)

Went for my first ever foot massage. It was damn painful. And when she asked me to soak my feet in a tub water, I felt like my toes were getting cooked. Imagine having to soak your freezing toes into boiling hot water. Ouch.

Athena trying on my mufflers. Pretty :)

Guess what's the meat in this huge pot. My favourite animal in the world, dog. :(
My chinese colleagues were all enjoying the dog meat tremendously. They knew I wouldn't eat the dog meat, so they offered me the vege from the pot. Which of course I didn't eat! YUCKS! :(

We travelled 4 hours to somewhere near 长江。宜昌 I think.

Huge truck used to dig up sand during the building of the three gorges dam.

We stayed in a university hotel at yi chang. The hotel rooms were freaking cold and I almost froze to death while showering.

We had supper at one of the roadside bbq stalls nearby. They have a huge variety of food for you to choose from! Unlike the usual chicken wings, satays that we have in Singapore.

We sat in tents similar to those you see in korean dramas where the actors/actresses order piping hot noodles and wine during winter!

I'm holding bbq mantous that i ordered because those I had on the first night were so yummy. But the mantous from this stall disappointed me :(

We visited an area called 车溪 where farming was still the main source of income.

Huge leafy veges!

Solomon and I both in military styled coats :D

Our farm cooked meal of the day. Probably the best meal I had in Wuhan. All the dishes tasted great! The pumpkin tasted like sweet potato. Yums.

Le en spinning the wheel that's used to make pottery.

I got to ride on a horse for just 10yuan! Loved horses!

The caves in China are huge we spent at least half an hour in them.

莲花洞

There was a place with all sorts of water wheels for irrigation.

It wasn't easy turning the wheels!

Fat cat.

Water wheel pulled by a cow. The uncle sang a short song for us and he can sing damn well.

Kids having fun with the water pump.

世外桃源。

Athena with her daffodils. She had one which was nice and full and she offered it to emma who didn't manage to find any. I thought that was uber sweet.

This is the one.

Aborigines

Too bad it was misty, the view would have been really nice.

Poor cold puppy.

Bored doggie.

Caucasian kids are the cutest, but chinese kids are really cute with their rosy cheeks in winter too :)

Singaporean and chinese girls at the gymnasts' dormitory.

With aspirations, hardships can be considered a form of enjoyment.

With hope, pain can turn into happiness.

A group shot with the wuhan coaches and gymnasts on our last day there.

Glad I got to know Chu Lao Shi better through this trip. She's an uber nice and cute lady, and definitely an awesome coach.

We brought keychains from Singapore for our gymnasts to give out ot the Wuhan gymnasts. Although it was just a simple keychain, all the Wuhan children were so happy to receive these little gifts. :))

In return, the children went up to their rooms to get their own personal toys to give to the bazgym gymnasts! Although they were told to do so by their coach, they did not hesitate to do so and brought down a few toys each! Unfortunately, I doubt all of our Singaporean kids would do the same if they were told to do so..

Finally got to do some shopping on the last day of the trip. We visited this street where all the shops sold things wholesale. Too bad I was shopping with two men who weren't exactly interested in the cheap cute stuff sold there.

Went on to 九江步行街 (if i didn't remember wrongly) to shop. Fortunately (for me), lotsa roadside stalls were set up at night after our dinner and i managed to get some things from these stalls! Uber cheap, but again, I was with two male colleagues who weren't as enthu as shopping as me.
We had dinner at this nice steamboat restaurant which was nice and affordable!
It was our last night there and we were determined to make the best out of it. We decided to go back to our hotel rooms to drop our buys then go out for ktv again. But just before we left we got a phonecall from one of the parents.

These darlings were actually waiting for us to be back to perform for us!

Just before we left on the last day, this is 玉校长bidding us farewell. Although he smokes A LOT and I was quite scared of him at first, he turned out to be very nice and friendly.

Wuhan turned out to be a great. The people in wuhan were nice and friendly (much better than those in shanghai), i loved the food, loved the weather (because i was well prepared), we got to experience more of the local culture thanks to our chinese friends. It was an experience meeting the chinese big shots and learning about how business really works in China. Oh and i was pretty slack there, there wasn't much work for me to do. Hehee. Gotta thank my boss for sending me there. :D