Wuhan 29/04/11 - 01/05/11

29/04/11 – Travelling again

I checked out but not before being confused by the reception staff as Mr Shitter after they tried to give me Robs insulin out of there fridge. Then I headed to the train station and stopped off for a bottle of water in a shop. Inside a sketchy Chinese guy standing in one of the isles was trying to sell me an IPhone4 for £80. He bartered himself down to £30 quid when I was leaving so I offered him a tenner which after a cry he accepted. It turned out that if I then wanted to hold my new phone a switch it on before handing over the money, the phone would have to enter his pocket before and after the test. I promptly cancelled that purchase and went to the train station to make the 21 hour journey to see Linda in Wuhan (I met Linda in Shanghai when I first arrived in China)

30/04/11 – Wuhan

I got a taxi to Linda’s campus where she works and lives as a English Teacher. We had breakfast which consisted of bacon, scrambled eggs, fruit salad, fried potatoes, tea and juice. Also some ginger cookies which I made from scratch using only water, an egg, butter and errr…. ginger cookie mix. It was a nice change from Chinese breakfast and really nice.

After breakfast we walked up a hill to a viewing point where I got my first mosquito bite of the holiday. Linda fell asleep on a rock and I went wildlife spotting before I giant bumble bee decided to attack me and chase me down the hill.
After that we got ready and although Linda had arranged for us to go out down Hankou with her friends. We were both pretty tired and just decided to hit a few local bars.

01/05/11 – Wuhan

We got up pretty late and caught a few buses and a taxi to a place called Helen’s for breakfast. Getting around Wuhan is pretty exhausting. There is about a million buses which no-one seems to know where they actually go, and about 2 million taxis, of which 90% of them won’t take you anywhere because they are either off duty, can’t be bothered or there taxi number isn’t odd so cant go over some bridge. We finally made it to the Irish bar (Toucans, located inside the holiday inn) where we ate some free bbq and drank a Shirley Temple each while waiting for Linda’s friends to arrive.

Linda’s friends were all really cool, even the slightly dodgy American who apparently picks up mice on street and talks to them was ok (we played an intense game of fuzzball later on). Linda and Les from England and the American (Matt or Adam I think) made up the group for the night. After giving everyone a lesson in pool (and that included literally giving Linda a lesson in playing pool) and a few drinks we were heading back to Linda’s for sleep.

One more thing about the day, while working our way through the city, we came across a renovated church that had been turned into a bakery. Going inside I was amazed to see all the original windows were in place and pictures of Jesus etc were covering the walls overlooking the baked goods. We had a great laugh about not buying the body of Christ to make our French toast for the next day.