Pete's Birthday in Wuhan

First, let me start by explaining why I haven't posted in a couple weeks. The blog site has been blocked here and I can't access it. I'm having to go through a proxy server to access my account to post this blog. I can only guess someone posted a blog that wasn't approved for the general Chinese public. Anyways, I'm able to post blogs but can't put any pictures on this site so you'll have to look at my picasa site to see the pictures.

So, earlier this month, a group of five of us went to Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, for Pete's 21st birthday. Me, Pete (21 from England), Ross (37 from Australia), Jack (19 from Denmark) and Chris (20 from South Africa) took a weekend train trip to Wuhan.

It's a tradition in England that when you turn 21, you take a trip with friends to somewhere you've never been so we decided to do something special for Pete since he's away from home. We chose Wuhan because we've been hanging out with a local businessman, Jack (we call him Chinese Jack since there's already a Jack), from Wuhan, and he's been inviting us to Wuhan for over a month now. We decided to take him up on his offer.

We left Friday rigth after school to the train station and took a 12 hour train ride to Wuhan. The train ride was easy, trains in China are great. We arrived a little before 6am to a rainy Wuhan. We hopped on a bus and made our way to the area we would be staying. Chinese Jack took us to a small area where we had a traditional Wuahn breakfast. A Wuhan breakfast consists of hot, dry noodles and a form of baozi, steamed bread with meat in the middle. The noodles were extremely dry because of the sauce and we're just so-so.

After breakfast we went to the hotel and took naps until noon. Chinese Jack woke us all up and we took a 5 hour walking tour of Wuhan. The city's quite beautiful and definitely unique in China. At some point in its history, they had Russians, English and even Americans in the city and they all influenced the city in large ways. The buildings and architecture is all very British while another area was very, very Russian feeling. As for the American influence, they had YMCAs and churches all over the city.

On the walking tour we also stopped into a back-alley shop that had counterfeit products (you can see the video) where I bought myself and Pete fake Rolexs for very, very cheap.

After the tour we made our way back to the hotel area and hung out at Chinese Jack's brother's restaurant and bar until that night. That night we watched a soccer championship game, I'm not sure what because I don't really follow it but of course, the Englishman does.

That night we went to a KTV, karaoke lounge, for a little bit but soon left to find a dance club for Pete. This was the most interesting part of the trip. The first place we went into was packed but over 80% guys so we decided to leave and find another place. We walked into 4 other clubs but they had less than 10 people in each one. We were very confused by this and asked Chinese Jack about it the next day and he explained to us that the mafia controlled this area of Wuhan so they decided whose bars would be successful and whose wouldn't. When we walked back to the first club, we noticed that there were numerous people in the Army hanging outside and were shown that most of the guys inside were mafia so we decided to just call it a night.

Sunday was actually Pete's birthday so we went out for a proper lunch. We found a traditional Chinese restaurant and the food was great and extremely cheap; six of us ate for 251 RMB (roughly $35). During the lunch we all tried, and surprisingly liked, frog ovaries. We also made Pete the insides of a goose head and yes, the Chinese people would eat so it's not that strange here.

After lunch we had a couple hours to spend before our train ride back so went to a massage place next door and all got foot massages for less than $3. The massages lasted an hour and by the end of it, they told us we could have full-body massages for just $4 so we decided to stay for another hour to relax a little more. The massages were great and extremely relaxing. We walked around for another 30 minutes before heading back to the hotel to get our bags and head to the train station.

We arrived back in Shenzhen Monday morning about 7:45am which meant our train was late because it should've arrived at 7:20am. We called the school and told them we'd be slightly late, we're supposed to be there by 7:50 to greet the kids. When we arrived the principal wasn't mad but actually seemed happy we went to another city to see more of China.

The weekend was so fun we've decided to take weekend trips for everyone's birthday from now on.

I'll be sure to try to keep the blog updated, even through a proxy.