Took bus 606 to Wuhan University. A big proportion of bus drivers in China are female and this lady was wearing a high heel shoe navigating the bus.

Wuhan University

Took bus 413 to DongHu (East Lake)

and MoShan.

Took bus 401 all the way from the eastern part of Wuchang to the last stop at HanYang district.

Visited Wuhan uprising museum.

During Oct 10th 1911, Wuchang Uprising broke out and that led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.

The left is the military flag during that time and the right is the 5 color flag of Republic of China then. The five colors are representing the five major nationalities of China, the Han (red), the Manchu (yellow), the Mongol (blue), the Hui (white), and the Tibetan (black).

Decided to take the high speed train (GaoTie) to Changsha instead of the normal one. From Wuhan to Changsha it’s around 350 km. Normal fast train takes around 3.5 hours (58 Yuan) and the high speed train (175 Yuan) will take only 80 minutes. Actually it will take almost the same amount of time to get to Changsha from Wuhan because the high speed train runs from the new Wuhan station located at the northeastern part of Wuchang which is a far from Wuchang city center to the new Changsha south station located at the south eastern part of Changsha which is also far from Changsha city center. To get to the new Wuhan train station, it will take almost an hour by public bus. Took bus 315 and switched to bus 311 to get to the new Wuhan station.

There is bullet train every 20 minutes from Wuhan to Guangzhou.

Infrastructure project in China are amazing. The country is modernizing its infrastructures in a rapid pace and the train station look first class. However, behavior of human is hard to change and still needs time. The floor in the station is super clean but people still throw guazipi (skin of sunflower seeds) on the floor.

Got on the G1059 5.40pm train (175 Yuan~USD$26). For high speed train, it cost roughly around USD$9 for every half an hour ride.

The top speed is over 350km/h.

The train arrived at Changsha sharp at 7.08pm. The bullet train is similar to a metro system, the train stopped at in between stations on the way for less than a minute.

Automated exit procedure.

Automated ticket machine.

Changsha south station.

It’s weird that the south station only sells high speed train ticket. The new south station is quite far from the city center. Took a bus to the main train station in the city and switched to bus 132 to XiaDaLong stop in order to get to Changsha Hostel (35 Yuan~USD$5).

I was surprise to meet LingChao again at the hostel. We just met few weeks ago at a hostel in Beijing. He is from Changsha so he was my guide and brought me to try out Hunan cuisine which is called XiangCai.

On the left is LuShuiShiHeYi (4 combination) and right is a kind of spicy shrimp. Hunan cuisine is spicy and actually Sichuan cuisine originated from the combination of GuangDong cuisine and Hunan cuisine.

HuoGongDian is one of Mao’s favorite restaurant.

Mao loves stinky tofu and he mentioned that HuoGongDian’s Tofu smells bad but it tastes good.

Changsha is famous for its bar culture. There are many bars around the city and this is one of the bar street, HuaLongChi.

Wuhan is one of the biggest city in China with a population of around 10 millions and is actually the combination of three smaller cities, Hankou, Hanyang and Wuchang, each separated from the other by a river. Hankou is located at the northern party and is the business center. Wuchang is the education center separated by the Yangtze river (ChangJiang). Hanyang is the industrial center. The 3 cities were combined in 1927 to become Wuhan. The city is famous for its hot summer weather and flood.

There are 4 train stations in Wuhan. One each in Hankou, Hanyang, Wuchang and a brand new train station at the Northeastern part of Wuchang..Arrived at WuChang station around 9.40am in the morning.

Took bus 511 to Hostel Pathfinder which is located at the Wuchang district. Got a dorm room for 35 Yuan~USD$5.

There is a street in Wuhan called HuBuXiang which is famous for street food.

Wuhan is famous for ReGanMian (2.5 Yuan~USD$0.4).

Yellow Crane Tower (HuangHeLou) was built around 2000 years ago. Just took a picture from the outside.

The first Yangtze river bridge was built 1957, during the first 5 Year Plan of China and is 1.6km long. There is also a railway track within the bridge.

The river bank is always flooded.

Walked across the bridge

Took bus 401 to Hubei Provincial Museum.

The museum is divided into 10 different exhibits. There is an exhibit about ChuGuo which is a country around Hubei province more than 2000 years ago during the Autumn Spring period in China before QinShiHuang unites China.
Sword used in ChuGuo

There is also an exhibit about the tomb of Marquis Yi which was buried 2400 years ago.

Big bells used as musical instruments discovered in the tomb.

Even during more than 2000 years ago, Chinese are paying a lot of attention to offering sacrifices to God. I am not sure what kind of God do they believe in then but it’s interesting and has some similarities to the Old Testament.

Replica of the skull of Peking man (500,000 years ago), Nanjing man (350,000 years ago) and Java man (more than 500,000 years ago).

Jiang Han road, a famous pedestrian mall

and just perpendicular to it is JiQing street, another street selling clothings and stuffs.

View Wuhan in a larger map