Day 1
After lunch, we took the train to Wuhan. Very crowded as people were returning home from a long National Day holiday break, the founding of the peoples Republic of China was on October 1, 1949 and the annual holiday to celebrate that is a full seven days long, which creates massive amounts of internal domestic travel. Within China, the saying is that during the national holiday break there are 1 billion people from Beijing that go to Shanghai and Chongqing, 1 billion people from Chongqing that go to Shanghai and Beijing and 1 billion people from Shanghai that go to Chongqing and Beijing.

In Wuhan, we stayed at the Eastlake hotel, which is currently a convention center type hotel but previously this was a communist party guesthouse and included a private residence for chairman Mao Tse Tung.

It’s a great location close to the city center, but because it is in the protected Eastlake area, it feels completely isolated and quiet from the city chaos. It’s beautiful to walk around the lake, there is a wonderful walking path and it is very quiet, (except this morning when we walked past the military barracks which are right next-door at the exact time they were doing their morning drills and exercises, clearly a lot of testosterone in those barracks!).
The hotel is very close to the provincial museum and the art museum and right next to Wuhan University. Wonderful place to stay!
We had dinner at a close by restaurant, delicious but extremely oily… every bite was a mouthful of oil!

Day 2
We went for a walk around East Lake this morning, the weather was nice and the scenery was calming.

Tofu Skin 豆皮
Tofu skin for breakfast! It’s called Tofu Skin (literal translation from Chinese) but it is comprised of 3 layers, tofu skin, glutinous rice, and meat, pan fried until a little crispy on the outside. This is a popular breakfast dish in Wuhan and it’s really tasty.
Yellow Crane Pagoda 黄鹤楼
Today in Wuhan, we visited the number one tourist attraction in the city, the yellow crane tower. This tower was originally built in A.D. 223, but has been destroyed 12 times through battles and fire, and has been repaired to its current state, most recently in 1985.

There are also many legends related to the structure, the most popular being the story of an immortal named Wang Zian (王子安) who rode away from Snake Mountain on a yellow crane for which this tower was built to commemorate his heavenly departure.
The other story is of FeiYi, becoming immortal and riding a yellow crane and stopping on Snake Hill to take a rest. Snake Hill is the location of the yellow crane tower. A beautiful structure, be sure to walk all the way to the top for a fantastic view of the entire city!

It is a beautiful classic pagoda structure made famous through references in an eighth century poem written by Cui Hao entitled yellow crane tower. It was also referenced in many other famous poems, such as one by LiBai, a famous historical Chinese poet.
This is a relief sculpture with Cui Hao’s famous poem Yellow Crane Tower inscription.

昔人已乘黃鶴去, 此地空餘黃鶴樓。
黃鶴一去不復返, 白雲千載空悠悠。
晴川歷歷漢陽樹, 芳草萋萋鸚鵡洲。
日暮鄉關何處是, 煙波江上使人愁。
Overlooking the Yangtze River from the first bridge built across the river in 1957.

These are lives of the Wuhan street vendors trying to earn a living.

There are shops and street sellers under the Yangtze bridge… there’s also a woman enjoying her knitting with all the commotion going on around her.

Dinner at the hotel…

On to our next destination in Xian …