We are happy, because at last we're flying to Wuhan!

1 of our 2 meals on the plane.

We reached Chengdu at 11something am. Unfortunately, there were no direct flight from Singapore to Wuhan, and hence Chengdu was our transit point. Anyway, we were to visit Chengdu after the exchange, so it doesnt matter :) If we were to transit at Guangzhou, we wouldnt have to spend sooooo much time waiting for our transit flight in Chengdu airport.

The interior of the airport may look nice and modern, but the service shook us! We had heard that there were food outside the airport, so we approached the Customer Service for help. As it turned out, the pretty ladies at the counter were more like salesladies than customer service crew. They happily showed us this internet bar/cafe where we could chill out and wait, while enjoying some food or using the internet. Part of the cafe was quite ok, but the rest of it was smoky. Anyway, we were not interested in eating there anyway, and I really felt dumb following them.

While looking for a decent place to eat, we passed by some other areas in the airport. Basically, the 1st floor of the airport was just the departure hall for international flights. It was a long stretch of space. On the floor below it was the arrival hall, and the cafe was 1 floor above it.

We saw this amazing sight at 1 of the transit counters. Just amazed that they could stack so much baggage together. The sight kind of comforted my thought that my baggage is heavy and overweight. Hahas. Note that some photos were taken at my own risk, because it IS weird to see a girl shooting such a scene in an airport.

Fruit stall in the airport

Again, this picture of pipa was taken at my own risk. The sales lady was glaring at me after I took the shot. I was ignoring her happily while she advertised about the fruits, and then I just took a shot and ran off. So, you can imagine her reaction.

Guan & I infront of a counter.

Besides the internet cafe, there were 2 other eating places in the airport. Of course, we chose KFC over another restaurant :D The service from the crew inside KFC was superb. I dont know why, but all this felt propagandish to me, its like, everyone was working happily, and they were shouting to welcome you. At the counter, you see pretty ladies at every counter serving you. It felt great. Its really different from what we got in Singapore.

This is Guan's meal. See the packet of chilli? Its not chilli sauce but chilli powder, in the Sichuan flavor! It felt weird to be eating powder, but still.... Guan tried it, and she was quite ok with it... The ingredients of the salad was also different from the Singapore version as well. They added corn and some other stuff I think.

The best part about my meal was the drink! They have this really cute straw cum spoon for you to drink the drink and scoop the ice cream. There were 4 different designs I think. At that time, I even swore to Guan that I would collect all 4 designs, but anyway, I didnt get to doing that :/

After our meal, we were fretting over what to do, when I suggested switching on my laptop to try out the internet (if there were any) Turns out that there were no wireless connection around. But, something worse happened when I was switching on my baba. There was a super loud screech coming from my baba while I was waiting for it to load. In panic, I pressed alot of buttons to switch it off. The same thing happened as I attempted to switch it on again.

Just when I was chiding myself for such an embarrassing event to happen, I noticed this guy from another table. He was smiling at me. At that moment, I realized (with horror) that he saw the whole thing! After smiling, he actually came to our table and offered to check my baba to find out the source of the problem. Guan & I were staring at 1 another, unsure of what to do. After that, Guan politely declined his offer as I looked blur and unsure. he didnt seem to mind, and walked off.

We continued to stone, and decided to let the guy take a look after some discussion. But then, we spent sometime trying to find him! I felt like I did another stupid thing previously by rejecting him. Luckily, we spotted him just as he was about to leave for his flight. We chatted with this Nice Guy A after he managed to repair my baba, and as it turned out, he was working in HP! He was from Tianjin, and he was in Chengdu to attend some meeting for his company, while having a holiday at the same time. I was damn touched, because I could just meet a nice stranger barely hours after we touched down at Chengdu!

Soon, we were hit by extreme boredom, and we took a brave step out of the airport, even though we were half expecting nothing but highways.

I first saw this clock. The panda is a trademark of Sichuan Province, and this panda toy could rotate! Cute.

There were quite a few of such posters outside the airport, promoting Chengdu as a tourist city. Think uniquely Singapore posters. hahas.

Guan & I posed for a picture at this wide big square.

We continued to walk away from the airport since there was still time to kill. As it turned out, the area outside the airport did not constitute of expressways only... We had seen a row of taxis near the airport, where drivers were doing all kinds of stuff. Some were washing their cars, while some were smoking etc. What amazed me was that some drivers could wear shorts together with their taxi uniform!

In the picture above, there are some hotels for the transit tourist. There was even a Southern Airlines office I think (or Air China). Pardon my short memory. :D

Pretty flowers along the roadside... Seldom see such nice flowers back home.

There were just a couple of eateries outside the airport. All looked dirty and empty, and you could see people trying to rush you into their shop. Worse still, we could see aunties parked along 2 sides of the road, and some of them were speaking to you in their Chengdu dialect which you couldnt understand a single thing.

We made a roundabout back to the airport after some walking, as we needed some rest before catching our transit flight. We saw this horrific looking restaurant (top picture), which sells rabbit head!!!! I seriously hope they were really selling the heads of rabbits, but anyway, Guan & I were really freaked out by the sign.

Interesting sight. Hmmm. I wish I can be as relaxed as him.

Box for storing rat's poison.

While we were back at the airport, we saw a man carrying his child in this traditional looking bamboo chair! As usual, the 2 of us tried to chase the man all over the airport just to catch a shot of this discreetly. LOL.

All the walking around and about the airport has made me so sian-ed, that I could recognize any spot of the airport, even by closing my eyes! The picture above is a posed 1, exaggeration here. Hehe.

We were also tired by all the walking and waiting. When is our flight ever going to come?!

When you're thirsty and grumpy, Kang Shi Fu's drink is the solution! It not only appeared in Beijing, but in Chengdu as well!

YES! Our flight is going to come.... After a drink and some pinball on my baba, we were happier... and more spastic. :D

The clear blue skies outside our plane...

The meal we had on the transit flight. The tomatoes were superb. Since our combined baggage had 3 more kg to go, we were thinking of storing and buying 3 more kg of tomatoes once we are in Wuhan. KEKE.

It was night when we reached Wuhan. Just as we were preparing to leave the gate, we saw this guy whom looked like a student, and who kept staring at us. I was betting that he was Liu Hong Sheng Wuhan Uni mentioned, but as it turned out, he wasnt the guy. When we left the departure hall, we saw a girl and guy holding the university signboard. -_- The girl was called Helen, and well, you know the guy's name. Both of them were super friendly, and we were amazed, again. We took a school van back to the school, and we actually oohed and aahed at this temple like structure, thinking that it was the university, when it wasnt -_-

After we reached, we were surprised to see that we would be staying in a hotel instead of a hostel! We headed for a late dinner after registeration, and managed to see some others from the exchange. I felt really weird and embarrassed, as the Chinese kept asking me questions. I actually had no appetite, but Guan was surviving. She IS a friendly girl ok. On the other end, my mum was complaining that I had only called her at such a late timing.

We managed to see Nice Guy B, whose name is Juwen. He had set up our internet for us at a late hour-11pm? I was surprised that he could carry my heavy baggage single handedly upstairs to the 2nd floor. -_- Anyway, the internet help happened after our dinner. We managed to know a new girl, Ruyi from NUS. The 3 of us were going up to our rooms upstairs. Ruyi went to our room to check out the internet as well, when we realized that Juwen is nowhere to be seen.

We went out of our room to find him, and he was standing right outside our room, waiting for us. I just found that hilarious.

When everything was finally settled, I went to sleep. It was a tiring day...