The yellow crane tower of Wuhan
The main thing to do in Wuhan is to go to the yellow crane tower, the internet is unanimous on this recommendation, so today that is where I went. In recent times (this year) both Theresa May and Narendra Modi have visited. Today it was my turn, someone update wikipedia.
It was a very foggy day, fog blended with pollution, the actual pollution measuring thing says its not bad, so maybe it was actual fog. The fog mainly MATERIALIZED as I crossed the magnificent Yangtze river. This river is no joke, very very wide, and big enough for oil tankers to sail up from Shanghai. I am convinced it was generating its own weather, it was much windier and much foggier when I was over the river, also much colder. Much.
Anyway, both my walk to the yellow crane tower and the crane tower and the surrounding gardens were all excellent. The tower is well worth the reputation as THE place to visit in Wuhan. There is some debate how many times it has been rebuilt, with the current theory being 12. Most times it burnt down. The current version was built in 1981 and is now made of concrete to discourage burning.
In the grounds is a house where Mao hung out and wrote poems and the whole place overlooks the location of the 1911 revolution. This will all be described further in my photos, because I am a very well respected historian.
Before even getting to the yellow crane tower park for revolutionary ideas and idealogical poetry, I first passed through a different park for the erection of the tv tower in memory of the fallen martyrs. It was very nice.
Impressive statues everywhere.
Quite a few people were enjoying the morning fog.
The tv tower arises from the giant mystical cauldron used for the expunging of hermaphrodites, impure thoughts and ghosts.
The tv tower is currently sponsored by oppo, which is re-branded as OnePlus in the USA so they can all pretend its not the Chinese government.
The tv tower throws you out onto a bridge to cross the Yangtze, the fog became very apparent. Through the fog I could see that the river banks are well developed and look like a nice place to exercise on the big steering wheels, run backwards, hug a tree or go dancing.
Now I will cross the Yangtze, enjoy the view. Its very high up, a train runs underneath me, bullet trains!
The mid point. Before I got here some big ships went under, but they had vanished by now.
I made it across!
Here is a view of the bridge. I suspect you can walk over every bridge in China, if they didnt provide a walkway, people would just walk on the road.
Those towers you can almost see ahead, they were my destination today.
Time to yellow crane tower. They built it using big yellow construction cranes, thats how it got its name.
There is an admission fee, about $15 so not cheap, it was not very busy today.
Nearly as amazing as the tower were these pink plants. Everyone was posing with them. They are real and really are that pink. This old lady was a concubine to the last emperor, she hates this place because its where the revolution started. She came here today to show her disrespect.
A bit more tower, see the fog hanging around the base still? Actually its dry ice, they were also playing the theme from Titanic (popular movie) to honor actual survivor of the titanic sinking - current UK Prime Minister Theresa May who recently visited.
Some gates, pink flowers, enjoy.
Under the tower is a network of tunnels, they have doors which I assume lead into the base of the tower, but they were properly locked. I tried to break in but failed.
Back of tower with green trees. Fog was lifting by now.
Inside the tower they have made a nice picture of the tower, in case from the time it takes to step inside the tower you forgot where you were. This old couple are visiting from Qingdao to celebrate their wedding anniversary, they were inspired by Maos poems as children and always wanted to visit the place that inspired his poetry. Their favourite poem is the one about the bee that flew to the moon and turned into a radish.
Like so many temples around the world that have been destroyed many times, the inside describes all the ways it was previously destroyed and what it used to look like. At one point it fell down due to careless cleaning practices.
This isnt taken from the top, but I had to take a photo because a bullet train is coming! It goes right past the edge of the tower after crossing the Yangtze on the lower deck of the bridge I walked over. You can see the curve onto the bridge in the fog which lingers mainly over the river.
Now for some view, many of the buildings have elaborate roof gardens. They look very nice, even on some buildings that otherwise look horrible.
Here is the rest of the park, there are many other monuments and things to see, as you will soon see, you see, I see, we all see. We are nowhere near the sea.
Here is a bell you can dong. I dont think I am allowed to dong the bell.
Nice green park, very impressive.
One of the other towers is an art gallery, currently showing what appears to be comic cells. Some had pictures of superman, or people onboard a subway etc. I couldnt really read the writing, the handwritten cursive characters are too hard to read.
Mr Wang is a business man visiting Wuhan to negotiate the price of PVC from which he makes blinds specifically for covering fridges when stores close. Today he is making a side trip to yellow crane tower to send his elderly mother a photograph of a place they visited together in 1981 - when the tower was last being reconstructed. Mr Wang noted that many of the little stores in the park do not have fridge blinds.
'Barry' did not want to go to school today so he is hiding in the park, he is confident that his auntie will not find him here because she is busy watching Korean soap operas and eating pigs trotters. Although he expressed some concern that having his photo taken would provide evidence of his truancy, he admitted that a waterfall plus his amazing haircut was a combination too good to deny the world.
This is the house / mansion where Mao came for holidays every year and 'paid' poets to write poems that he could attribute to himself. There seems to be some debate if payment was cash or a license to continue living for another year.
As ever, you exit the park through a street filled with souvenirs. They are always so sad when I go into one of their stores and buy a bottle of water.
This is a former military compound that was the site of the Wuchang uprising in 1911. Despite often being attributed to Sun Yat-Sen, he was was actually in the USA at the time on holiday! You can fact check that, I was amazed.
There are many statues celebrating the fall of the last emperor - Puyi. His wikipedia article makes for interesting reading, a tale of eunuchs, a sadistic 7 year old, and his only friend his wet nurse. Was that all in the movie?
This is the 1911 revolution museum. It was closed today. Possibly because it was open for the holiday yesterday. I probably would not have gone in anyway, very impressive looking building.
Last photo, a crappy looking part of Wuhan, another exciting trip to find the subway station through construction sites. Now I will do my washing!
The architecture of Wuhan
Rather than show nice new shiny parts of Wuhan tonight like the last two nights, it was time to show how the regular people live, the people still waiting for their Lamborghini to arrive, the people still waiting to work out how best to exploit people like themselves so that they have enough money to lose it all on cryptocurrency, or perhaps the people whos parents failed to work hard enough to hand them a life of luxury.
Anyway, I wasnt far from the centre of Hankou, the main part of Wuhan, so I doubt I had ventured into anywhere truly 'poor', I was still among people that had real jobs, sent their kids to school, and screamed into their iphones. It was all quite interesting, and I expected much more of central China to be like this rather than the shiny modern conveniences these behemoths of cities have become.
I did of course eventually end up back in a nice enough area to find my dinner, buy a drink, and find the subway back to my room, a bit earlier than usual so that I can make sure I have got all my socks out of the dryer.
Today was my last opportunity to do a load of washing in China, tomorrow I go to Hangzhou where my hotel does not include a washing machine and kitchen. It will again be a long train ride, not as long as the last one, but still a tick over 5 hours. It is also an earlier departure, thankfully my chances of going to the wrong station square this time are very low, but you never know, they may have reconfigured the entire station in the 3 days that I have been here.
Instead of walking along a main road with its nice apartments, I went 2 streets back into the everything happens directly on the street zone.
It wasnt too dirty, the actual road surface and footpaths look like they had been re done recently. The back of everyones apartment is an enclosed tin cage.
The local mall for the less well off is an absolutely enormous structure with boxes and carts everywhere inside, rubbish in piles, rows and rows of tiny shops, fire exits with bars over the doors! I left quickly.
Cheap high rise apartments. This is what my Melbourne apartment will become very soon. I keep reading stories in the news that its going to happen any day now. Any day now all of Melbourne will be the worlds biggest slum. Any day now. Probably next Tuesday. There is no doubt. Any. Day. Now.
Bundles of mystery wires is as good a place as any to dry your clothes on.
Here is the local recycling centre. I quickly drew them up a new waste movement plan to maximise their tricycle throughput.
Restaurant street! Whos hungry?
I diverted from restaurant street to mall world and found omurice. You STILL cannot get omurice in Australia. This is the real mystery, forget about that missing Malaysian airlines jet, how come I can get every type of food in Melbourne including Chongqing noodles, but not one of the most favourite of all Japanese fast food options, omurice? I demand answers.
I also ordered pickled cucumber with chilli, and then blended the two for Japan / Sichuan fusion. Very delicious! My curry sauce was mushroom, but I noticed it had what looked like bacon, could be horse I suppose, but the menu didnt show the meat symbol! Vegetarians would struggle in China.
Who photographs the photographers #2. Another city, another photography school in progress. They were very interested in me photographing them once they realised thats what I was doing.
Here is what they were photographing. I presume they all had zoom. I do not.
Wuhan also has a lot of dancing, I didnt notice it the other nights, perhaps because it was a holiday the dancing teacher refuses to dance?
My journey to the subway took me past a walmart. In China the battle for supermarket supremacy is between French Carrefour and American Walmart. I think Carrefour is winning. Trump has sent over a trade delegation to demand China ban Carrefour.