Wuhan: My City of "Firsts"

A classmate from grad skoo, Li, is from Wuha, in Hubei province, and invited the group up to be shown the city by a local. While the planning aspect of this trip completely broke down- imagine a bunch of future urban planners being able to coordinate a trip- I was still able to take Li up on her offer. It was a bit stressful due to the fact that the internet went down in our building the day before I was scheduled to depart. That's right, I had almost no communication with Li while I still figuring out where to go to pick up bullet train tickets, planning my metro trip, and making sure I could get through the station without being able to read the signs.

Fast forwarding past the journey (described in previous posts) we have my actual arrival in Wuhan. There was no greater sight than a familiar face to meet me at the train station. I think Li and I were both surprised at me making it there and ran to hug one another. I could already tell I was going to enjoy whatever happened that weekend. My first excursion was underway!

An Instagram post of me and Li from my trip! Follow @Simoniesees for frequent China updates

I was told that Wuhan was a very old city, so my expectation was to find a city that was stereotypically traditional, but was met with a huge and busy city; I was in love. It's much like Guangzhou in many aspects, but bigger and hotter! (I later found out it is one of the 3 brick ovens of China, 100% sure if thats correct but yeah, it was hot) This being only my second full week in China, my understanding of Chinese cities in general is quite poor, but Wuhan is very nice and busy!

Wuhan City Center around 5pm

Li has arranged for us to meet with several friends who are more familiar with this city, as it has changed a lot from when she was last there. It's still early evening when we arrived to meet Li's friend, so we stop at an arcade. Like most things, Chinese arcades are on another level. The prizes are bigger and better, there are tons of people- always a surprise to me to see so many people interacting in a downtown- and it's connected to a underground mall!

We don't stay long but walk around and see everything. Li informed me that she spent a lot of time and money at these arcades when she was younger and  I can definitely see why!

There was a line to play what we call Dance Dance Revolution

The awesome prizes!

Me after finding some tickets on the ground!

After goofing around for a bit, it's time to meet our first tour guide, a childhood friend of Li's, for dinner. It's good because all I had to eat up until that point was my traveling schnacks and was starving. We meet and they ask me if I like spicy food, which I love, so we cross the busy street- crossing the street more or less resembles a life size game of frogger- and go to a hotpot restaurant. I have never heard or tried a hotpot, but figured why not?!

For those who are like I was, then you need to try a hotpot as soon as possible. It was amazingly delicious! Its basically seasoned "broth" that you place on a burner at your table and cook thinly sliced meats and veggies. You order several things to "cook"in the hot broth and share with the table. It was so cool that they chose to take me there because it was my first time trying a hot pot and they went all out! I will say this about the Chinese; they really love to entertain guests! I have had some of the best hospitality here, and Wuhan was my first taste of this; very Typical Chinese. We had quail eggs -my first time trying, but delicious-, crab, lettuce, beef...you name it! It was sooooo much food but I will never forget my first experience. It was nice to meet new people, talk, and joke around!

During our conversation we swapped our language barrier horror stories. Mine all started and ended with...I said this...no one understood me...so I sad Xiexie (sorry) and walked away. My new friend went into one of his stories and it really made me think. I put this next part as a Facebook post recently, so feel free to skip ahead if you've already read this, but here is the post again for those who have not:

How many of us actually listen to others? Like listen, not wait to find an opening to talk again, or offer an answer based on what we assume is coming next, but listen?

A friends I met in Wuhan told me a story of how he always believed his English was so terrible. It was to the point that he stopped practicing it for a long time, and eventually forgot a lot of it entirely. It was based solely off of 1 incident. He was waiting for his friends to arrive from American at the airport and saw a lady, who was very clearly American, and most likely to be coming on the same flight, He politely walked up to her and said, "Excuse me, are you coming from New York." She replied, "No, thank you." He then went into a very funny story as he thought to himself, "Oh my Gosh. My English is so bad, she couldn't understand me!"

It was quite funny, but quite sad at the same time. He went around for years, thinking that he had a problem, when really she just was not listening. Grant it, she didn't expect it, but I always notice when someone speaks more than a "Halllooooooo!" to me when I go out.

This rally made me think about myself. How often do we turn away someone without helping them because we simply did not listen to their need? Or, how many times did we "help" someone according to out limited understanding, but not give them what they actually asked for?

I'm not deep

Just food for thought.

Speaking of food...

Hotpot food! (The picture doesn't do it justice, I was too busy eating to get a good shot)

After dinner, we walked off some of those very yummy extra calories from dinner. We walked back through downtown, which seems to have transformed into an even more lively area after the sun went down. With bright lights and people everywhere, its nothing like any American downtown I've experienced. We then headed towards the waterfront and then took a shuttle along the water. Apparently Wuhan's waterfront park is one of the longest in the world; it would have taken hours to walk the entire thing!

Some of the few pictures I got on a very smoggy night

In the morning, we start out fairly early to grab some breakfast at an awesome bakery before heading to Li's undergraduate university. Breakfast was very yummy as we walked and ate on our way to Wuhan University!

Some of the tasty treats at the bakery and our yummy breakfast (above)

At Wuhan University, we met several other students. Some are planning on coming to Georgia Tech in the fall and some of them were friends, both old and new. We toured the campus as a group and saw so many places that it would take too long to mention them all. While in Wuhan, I tried many local food items, including the hot, dry noodle, of which, Wuhan is famous.

Since this post is getting fairly long, I will just post the some of the pictures I got before I filled my Sim card, enjoy!

Some of the beautiful scenery on Wuhan University's campus

The campus was very busy with families and graduates taking pictures

The group headed to visit the library

Some of the historic architecture on campus; these are dorms

Before we went to the highest and oldest part of the campus

As you can see, my trip to Wuhan was a whirlwind of excitement! I saw and experienced so many firsts from travel to food. I am so happy to have made a friend like Li at Georgia Tech. She was so hospitable and accommodating during this trip, and thus, was what I have also learned to be very Typical Chinese. It was truly an experience of a lifetime. I'm actually sad that I will miss out on our second year of grad school together as she will be going back to Tech and I will go to Shanghai. Thank you again Li, I had a blast!