This week, our research project started idea generation to develop a smart shelving solution for warehouses in China. Overall, I feel that the progress is going rather smoothly although I’m sure most of us still hope to visit the big Tao Bao warehouse sometime in the future to discover any more potential areas of improvement in the whole parcel delivery ecosystem.
Weather this week was quite unpredictable. One day it would be raining cats and dogs while other days it will be scorching hot. This made it hard to make any trips around Hangzhou other than visiting malls to window shop (which I’m not a fan of). In the end, I decided to visit the MMA gym I signed up with regularly and frequently. Initially, being the only foreigner in the class I mainly kept to myself and communicated in rudimentary Chinese when doing partner drills. I didn’t know the technical terms for moves like spinning back kick and up elbows etc… But having been there 5 times in a single week, the coach and regular members started warming up to me and asking stuff like where I’m from and how long I’ve been training and such. The real ice breaker was when the instructor ‘helps’ me stretch my inflexible legs while I yell and squirm in pain. They never fail to get a good laugh out of it. Having made a couple of local training friends made training much more enjoyable, and I’ve been able to have fun and train hard for consecutive days this week and feel less guilty for abusing the ‘Wai Mai’ culture so much.
Speaking about food, together with a couple of friends, we went to this place near West Lake to have Singaporean Cuisine! Having been in Hangzhou so long, most of us were longing a taste of home. We managed to find the restaurant just before closing time and ordered local delights such as Laksa and Hainanese Chicken Rice. Laksa was kind of a disappointment but the rice was so good and tasted like legitimate Chicken Rice. They even had Chicken Rice chilli and dark soy sauce to go along with it. I even got an additional bowl of rice to go with the chilli and soy sauce. A part of me is missing home but I also don’t want exchange to end just yet! Looking forward to traveling to other parts of China during the upcoming recess week!

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