It was a great weekend again even though for this weekend, we did something that was more relaxing as compared to last week. We had a tour in Wuhan City, which comprises of Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang.

So on Saturday, we went to the famous landmarks in Wuchang, which is the East Lake, Hubei Province Museum and Yellow Crane Tower. As usual, we need to report early for our excursions. However, I suppose that everyone have got used to it already. The sad thing was that Milllison was sick yesterday such that she missed out all the fun.

So, we set off at 730am and for the trip this weekend, we had Lei Jing and she asked us to call her Xiao Lei as well. This surname reminds me of my secondary school Chinese teacher who had the same surname as well and she is from China too. It seemed that in China, the tour guides prefer the tourists to call them xiao something instead of calling them their surname and with dao, or in English guide. Just like last week, we got Xiao Chen or Candy who also asked us to call them by that. The reason that they gave was that they find that it will actually close up the gap between us and them as it is more personal rather than official. Well, that is a good thing to do as in this way, it will make them more approachable and it will leave a deeper impression on us.



We reached the vicinity of Hubei Province Museum and Xiao Lei was introducing us the East Lake. The sight was really spectacular and I envy the students of Wuhan University as the school is just beside the lake. Ok now, I am in Wuhan University of Science and Technology. So there is a difference between this 2.



When we reached the museum, it was only 845am and the museum opens at 9am. So we had no choice but to go to East Lake first before going to the museum. As you can see, the environment is just like those scenes where you see in those ancient Chinese dramas. It is really very tranquil.



The East Lake is also where Qu Yuan killed himself to prove his patriotism towards his country, when the Han was conquered by the Qin. So, a statue was erected to commemorate his death in the park.



Then we saw a crowd gathering near the statue and we saw a stall selling crystal ornaments which in actual fact, from what I see, it is not just statues made from acrylic rod as I saw the acrylic rods on the table. Another thing to prove is that, the person claimed that the ornaments won’t crack when it is dropped on the ground. How can crystals actually not crack or shatter when they drop on the ground? However, they ornaments that were made were elegant and beautiful, especially the grand piano.



We didn’t manage to finish the tour in the park as time was up and we needed to go to the museum next.



I still remembered a few months ago when I was watching the Eclipse in China on the television where they featured the Hubei Province Museum. Just from the television, I was really intrigued by the exhibition here and I really wanted to take a look at the artifacts which they mentioned on the television. Finally, my wish really came true!



We went to see the exhibition of the artifacts which was the most famous or the icon for Wuhan: The Tomb of Marquis Yi. The history really came alive and I was totally amazed by the exhibitions there even though some of them are replicates.



This was one of the artifacts that the tour guide mentioned, even with modern technology, it is impossible to replicate it. It is the same thing as some things in the world. There can be only one and it cannot be replicated with no matter how much money. This is actually a ice bath and a warmer for the Marquis to drink wine in the past.



Then here comes the highlight of the whole museum: the bells. This set of musical instrument can play up to 5 and a half octave in the musical scale and it is the heaviest musical instrument in the world. All the bells weigh 2400kg and with the supporting structures, it actually adds up to 4000kg. Imagine that! I think one of the bass bells is enough to kill or knock someone out.



Apparently, we have been grading every toilet that we went to.



After the tour at the museum, we went to the Bu Xing Jie (Walking Street) to eat our lunch. On our way there, we observed that the traffic of the road is really bad or rather worse as it is in the city area. Look at this.



Doesnt this remind you of the trams in the olden times?



It was much worse than the scene we saw back on the way to Lv Lin Resort. Just a taxi doing a U-turn at the junction could just jam up the whole lane for like 5 minutes. As compared to Singapore’s city road, China’s one might be narrower as we can see in the picture. Singapore usually has 3 or 4 lanes but China only has 2. I suppose that this is another factor that is jamming the traffic up.



To add on, the frequency of the traffic light is also very fast. So, it will not be very fast before the traffic light turns red and we need to wait for the next green light. Not forgetting the fact that the Chinese will also cross the road even when cars are moving, this delayed our progress even more.

Finally, we reached our destination. Walking Street is really a street where it sells a lot of snacks and food that are famous in Wuhan. One interesting fact there is that they make use of the card system just like what we do in the University. I find that it is very rare for a street selling food like this to implement this kind of system. By the way, the feeling that the street gave me is just like Singapore’s Bugis Street. Imagine paying for your food in Bugis Street with the card system. That will be kind of cool?



Even Singapore has the card system in some of the dining area also, it is usually where they give you the card to buy the food, they will credit the payment to the card and then you pay at the exit when you finished your meal. I think that this is the major difference between China’s and Singapore’s card system. Definitely, there will be pros and cons to each of the system that the country adopts.

However, I find that by depositing the money into the card first and getting back the refund of what you have left later is a better system. Why do I say that? Sometimes it just happens that we did not bring out a lot of cash for our meals and we decided to go the restaurant. We might order food and exceed the bill unknowingly, creating embarrassment for ourselves when we are not able to pay up. Therefore, when you actually deposit the money into the card first, you can be more certain of how much you can spend and if you exceed the amount of money that you have in your card, the system will not allow the bill to be processed and it will spare you from all the embarrassment.

So, as we walk down the street, we definitely saw some mouth-watering food. For me, the dim sums over there stimulated my stomach gastric juices. However, one of the foods that surprised me was the Siew Mai. It was totally different from what we see in Singapore and unknowingly, I ordered 6 instead of 3 because I was under the wrong impression. The Siew Mai in Wuhan looks like Xiao Long Tang Bao and it is actually filled with glutinous rice, some diced meat and mushrooms. Distinctively different from the yellow skinned, filled with meat and topped with roe Siew Mai from Singapore.



I managed to try the Har Kau (Crystal skin shrimp dumpling) also and it tasted just like the ones sold in Singapore. Maybe that is the only one that has the closest resemblance to the ones sold in Singapore. I bought a bun from there too and this is the Soup Dumplings that my friends tried which I missed out.



Time passes so quickly and after which, we went to the Yellow Crane Tower!



This is the historical venue that I have been looking forward to visit for the whole trip other than the Hubei Province Museum. I didn’t have a lot of photos on this as the battery for my camera went flat so some of the photos I took were with Edah.

Nonetheless, the view from the top of the tower was magnificent. I believe that it is almost the same as the view you can see from the Carlsberg tower in Sentosa, or even better. The tower is said to be 5 stories tall but in actual fact, it is 9 stories due to the partition in between the stories. So, we endured all the way up to the highest floor first before going down the levels slowly.



The stairways are narrow and there were a lot of people. So imagine the space densely packed with people. The ironical thing was that, one of the stairways is labeled as the emergency route. However, I just can’t figure out how is that narrow stairway is going to be an escape route if a fire really broke out.

So when I reached the top of the tower, I saw the thing that I have been yearning for! The stamp which I could have my name carved on it. I wanted something that is big however the price is also “big”. So I settled for a smaller one which cost me only RMB50 which is around SGD$10. I believe that in Singapore, the price would be much higher if I were to make the same one.



I suppose that Yellow Crane Tower was the place where I got a lot of souvenirs for my family and myself. That was the first time in China here that I don’t have enough time to shop for the things I want. I got the stamp, a poem made for myself, a medallion for my Father, a gourd for my aunt. For my Mother, I got her something else at Lv Lin Resort last week.



So why did I get so much souvenirs at the Yellow Crane Tower?

Firstly, I was intrigued by was the skill in the carving of the Chinese characters. For the stamp that I got, the characters are required to be craved reversed on the base by the seal cravers so that the characters will appear correct on the paper when we stamp it. I wonder how did they managed to do that and it is within a time span of lesser than 10 minutes. Not forgetting the fact that the characters are in the traditional Chinese form. I think this is really an art that China has and it is very difficult to be learned.

Secondly, it was the poet who made can make poems for you using your Chinese name. He could even make a poem for Malays e.g. Edah by translating her name into Chinese! Isn’t that fascinating? Now I appreciate the beauty of Chinese language even more than what I have in the past and I will continue to love Chinese as much as I do in the past.

The last item that I wanted to get was the fan that has your own Chinese surname on it but due to time constraint, I didn’t manage to get it. It was really a pity. Then, we went back to our hostel.



So Sunday, we had our part 2 journey which is to Hankou. Luckily we set off only at 830am. So we don’t have to wake up so early for the morning.

On the way to Hankou, we went past the Chang Jiang and Han Jiang of China while we were on the Qing Chuan Bridge. The weather was kind of misty so the scenery of the lake was not very clear.



The converging point of Chang Jiang and Han Jiang which separates Hankou and Hanyang



When we were reaching the first destination, which was Hankou Beach, we saw this bustling market selling a lot of groceries and clothes.



Then Xiao Lei was telling us about the story of the Dragon King Temple by the side of the road. Some people might find it utterly fake or false but being a Chinese, I believe in our mythology. The story goes like this.

In the past, people built the Dragon King Temple to pray and protect them from the floods due to the rise in sea level when the river was flowing downstream at some period of time. However, the government after a few years decided to tear down the temple for recreation of the infrastructure. After 2 years, Hankou was struck by flood and it caused huge damage and loss for the city. This was believed to be that the Dragon King was displeased by the demolition of the temple. So, they built it back after they solved the crisis of the flood.

So we reached the beach and we had free time to tour around. It seemed that we always stay at one point and we took a lot of photos before moving on. So, we didn’t really manage to finish seeing the whole beach.



After which, we went to the shopping area which I don’t really have the mood to shop as 2 people were down with an ailment. When we were on the way, I saw the “HDB” flats that they have in China and I find that they looked similar to those I saw on television which is found in Hong Kong.



Then I saw this waste which is going to be recycled. I find that even China is lagging behind Singapore in terms of cleanliness in some ways, their recycling scheme is a much more of a success than Singapore. Whether it is in city or even in school, I could see that there are recycling bins. When I looked into the recycling bins, it can be seen that the rubbish are more or less categorize correctly and I believe that this has got to do with educating or cultivating the habit since young. Singapore has much more to learn in terms of this.



Although Hankou’s shopping centre has the most decent lunch I have ever seen since the first day I came to China, I was totally turned off by the service at the shop that looked like a fast food restaurant there. Despite the fact that the food was not bad excluding the rice. The shop was HCC.



So I went to order Black Pepper Chicken Chop Rice however, after waiting for 15 minutes plus, my order became Curry Chicken Rice. I was like staring at the order that I received and I told the waiter that he gave me the wrong order. In the end when he double checked my number plate and the receipt that he had in his hand, it was reflected as Curry Chicken. I wanted to insist that I was correct as I have witnesses to help me verify what I ordered before that but I just chose to let it go. All I could just say is that, it is either, my spoken mandarin couldn’t be understood, or the waiter was not really paying attention.

Anyway, Week 2 ended just like this... It's gonna be 50% of the overall trip after this coming week. Happy or not?