Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Classes
Continuing from last weeks Muay Thai gym experience, my friend and I discovered another martial arts gym nearby school (just a 20 min walk from school) and we decided to go for another trial session. I went for the Brazilian Ju-Jitsu trail session and since I trained in Judo before, I immediately felt at home. We learned holds and ground techniques from a Brazilian coach (who spoke English!) and I was just overwhelmed with new techniques that I wanted to bring back home to Singapore. If my stay in China were longer, I would definitely have signed up for classes there as they had a package for 6 months of unlimited training.
Haidilao
When you come to China, you have got to try their Haidilao, especially when they’ve made such a name for themselves back in Singapore. I mean, I wanted to see if the service here was better and cheaper than in Singapore (and maybe change my phone screen protector — turns out they do not have this service here). It was also coincidentally my friend’s birthday on the day that we went to Haidilao and thus we took this chance to celebrate his birthday there. Birthday celebrations here in Haidilao were as extravagant as they are in Singapore. Big LED boards with “生日快乐!” and the whole service crew singing Happy Birthday comes out with a fruit platter for the birthday boy. I think we paid a grand total of approximately 25 SGD for this meal here, so yeah it is a lot cheaper to Haidilao here in China.
Nanxun Ancient Town
Seeing that we have extra time to kill on our hands, we decided to pay a visit to a nearby water town, called Nanxun. It is very similar to its counterpart, Wuzhen, with lush greenery and old housing buildings along a canal (?) and cute boats travelling on it. It is a scenic place that really brings you back to ancient China and it was just really beautiful (or maybe I just really like this kind of scenery).
Walking around Nanxun, we had tickets to enter temples and exhibitions along the river canal. What struck me was this wishing bell in one of the temples we visited. There was this barrier around the bell, and you had to use a 1 cent coin to try to hit the bell in order to make a wish. I think I wasted 3 cents on this one (I did not hit the bell even once), but it was fun.
Volvo Factory visit
After an excruciating 4.5 hour drive to Taizhou for our factory visit, we finally reached the promised land — the Volvo Factory! When we went in we had to put on bright neon vests, and wear shoe protectors, and this makes it seem like they take safety very seriously here. Entering the factory, we saw numerous colossal machines and many unfinished car chassis. Unfortunately, they have somehow stopped production at 3pm and we could not see the real work in action. Nonetheless, it was a pretty eye-opening trip, getting to see the production line of a car here in China.
