I could barely awaken myself on this day; I think the travelling and constant province hopping was catching up with me. When I eventually got up, we took our bags to Hankou station to leave them while we were being tourists. Liam vaguely remembered thinking that the sites we wanted were in Hankou as well, but I didn't think that was the case and it turned out not to be so. We definitely liked Wuhan but one of the tedious things about it being three cities were the bridges being the only connection between them. To control the situation, the municipal government have put into place a strict traffic system concerning the bridges. On alternating days, only cars with odd numbered final digits on their number plates could legally cross the bridge, and vice versa. We got to Hankou from Wuchang with no trouble. If the tourist sites had been in Hankou, then no problem. But they were in Wuchang (Wuchang, by the way, is the site of the Wuchang Uprising, where Sun Yatsen kick-started the revolution that created the Republic of China. Just so's you know.) and today was an even numbered day. Naturally, then, every single even-numbered taxi was either already in Wuchang or flagged by someone else wanting to get there. A driver at the train station had offered 90 kuai to get to the Yellow Crane Tower, but we turned him down. When we FINALLY got a taxi, it was only 25, but my, did it take ages to find one!
We felt that for once we could relax on our speed tourism because we had loads of time, so we determined to look around Snake Hill Park, where the Yellow Crane Tower is situated, as thoroughly as possible. The Yellow Crane Tower is a famous landmark in China, though it has actually changed pretty drastically through the dynasties. On entering the park we witnessed a bit of a fight; the people behind us had tried to get in on student tickets but didn't have the student documents, and the guard was having none of it. Cue high-pitched Chinese-style screaming match for an inordinate amount of time.
We indeed did look around thoroughly, until we realised it was nearing 5pm and therefore closing time. We wanted a picture made out of our names, as on entering the park we'd seen a stall that offered this (in the ancient street in the park's complex), but by the time we left the stall had packed up and gone. We were disappointed but figured we'd find something like it elsewhere. Being bad tourists and having spotted a Starbucks in Hankou we decided to take a break there. There are very few tourist sites in Wuhan; one is the Yellow Crane Tower, and two others are streets that 'come alive' at night, so we still had time to kill until nightfall. To avoid the taxi dilemma we caught a bus that went over the bridge, and hunted out the Starbucks. To our dismay, it was a new store. The opening day? Tomorrow. Gutted.
Starbucks was in quite a westernized complex and next to it we found an import store, not unlike the one in Youhao Supermarket, but far superior. It even had Kellogg's cereal! I restrained myself to Lindt Lindor chocolate and Walker's shortbread fingers and triangles. I struggled past the imported toiletries (how I miss them). In the cafe there, I had a pizza-like pastry and a raspberry danish, neither of which were fantabulous but closer to the real thing that some items I've had the displeasure of tasting in China. My stomach started to kick up a fuss at this point but in true masochistic style, when we left the store and passed a Pizza Hut, we couldn't resist going in. We had to wait to be seated, Pizza Hut in China being what it is, but when we got in and ordered our usual Hawaiian they brought over pineapple and pepperoni instead, yuck. I ate about two slices before my stomach gave up and I had to run to the toilet and vomit copiously. AGAIN. For god's sake.
Neither of us were then in the mood to go hunting for these streets, which could have been in Hankou or Wuchang (though not Hanyang, that is the industrial section of town) so we retired to the train station. At the station, a family started talking to us (mostly the three men, plus the older drunken man). They asked us one of our stranger questions yet: "do you know where you are now?" Erm... in China? In Wuhan? In Hankou? In a train station? In a waiting room? Sitting on a chair? We had no idea what answer they were expecting so we answered both Wuhan and Hankou Train Station. They seemed pretty delighted with the answer so I suppose we guessed correctly.
Our train was due at 10.12pm but it was really delayed. I guess we were much closer to the scenes of destruction by the winter snow seeing as we were pretty far south compared to our other destinations, and so the trains were messed up. We got on just after midnight. For the first time, Liam and I were split into different sleeper carriages. A young man had been laughing with us at our frustration at the train's delay and I placed a bet that he'd be next to Liam. I don't know where I get my psychic ability from... but it's sometimes startlingly accurate. He was in the next bed along, albeit split by a thin compartment wall. The people in my compartment (each compartment is split into 6 beds) seemed alright but stayed up for ages talking. I have got much better at sleeping with noise and light and it didn't really bother me that much. I got to sleep sometime on the way to one o'clock in the morning.
A sample of Mao's calligraphy in the Inscription Pavilion in Snake Hill Park. Now is it just me, or does that look like scrawl?
View of the Yellow Crane Tower amongst the trees.
In the background is the Yellow Crane Tower, and in the foreground is the two ton original bronze top of the tower (it burnt down in 1884 and this was all that survived).
The view from the top of the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuchang over the bridge into Hankou. Note the mighty Yellow River as well.
1 comment:
nice blog about wuhan, dude, wuhan is my hometown, kinda of bring back some reminiscence there.
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