First day in Wuhan

The night following my journey down to Wuhan officially counts as the 7^th because of my late arrival but that only meant that the beer I was greeted with at my friends hotel was even more appreciated. We quickly left the hotel and made our way down to a small bar in Optics Valley called Prison. Fortunately this bar was not named in relation to its appearance. After a few bargain beers and shots the early morning quickly crept up on us and more crucially the lack of sleep encroached. Nevertheless I powered on to the final destination, Burtons. Although slightly more expensive it was obviously more cosmopolitan and the best part of this place was it still served  food, which without noticing had been skipped since my flight arriving in Beijing. Finally next we headed back to the hotel.

At last I got to sleep.

Although promising myself I would try and be up early to get out and see Wuhan I couldn’t quite pull myself up. So 3pm I finally got up and my friend took me over to Guiyuan Buddhist Temple to pretend that this trip is really cultural! It was actually really good fun and although neither of us understood any of the signs we still managed to improvise our own descriptions. Turtle ponds and corridors of hundreds of golden statues were the highlights here and for only 10Yuan entry.

Turtles at the temple

So now for some food! We managed to navigate a bus down to Hubu Alley, rows and rows of street food vendors line up and hawk their delicacies. I didn’t want to jump in at the deep and have anything too unfamiliar just in case the shock to the stomach left me bed/toilet bound so grabbed some dumplings and a meat skewer which resembled a sausage I guess? Worryingly phallus shaped.  Washed down with possibly the greatest drink I have ever had. There are stools all over selling iced fruit drinks made fresh so we tried out the mango. Best thing ever. Although the fact ice was the main ingredient probably helped when even in the nighttime the temperature rarely drops. In fact it feels hotter somehow.

Lisa and her coconut

Once back at the hotel dropped off all our things and then head straight back out to a local night market. I resisted buying anything somehow but as expected there were stools of practically everything at such low prices. Bartering is difficult as a newbie, it was clear that nothings value was close to the price tag and depending on how much of a foreigner you seem the more you will end up paying. If you offer too little some sellers seem to be offended and walk away sneering, that may perhaps be something to do with my invisible 100% tourist badge that seemed to be pinned on me.

The Yangtze river

Altogether my first true day out in China was a success, which tied in a bit of everything I wanted to get involved with here. Still no closer to understanding a word anybody says to me so now looking forward to actually learning some mandarin next week in Zhejiang.

Bedtime! Night!