The Yangtze River

We crossed the Wuhan Yangtze Great Bridge on a day that we thought would be clear because it had rained quite a bit the day before. It didn't turn out to be very clear, but this will give you a better idea of what it usually looks like anyway.

The Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia and is the 3rd longest in the world. It starts somewhere from the glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and empties from Shanghai into the East China Sea.  Because Wuhan lies on this river, its one of the reasons that the city has played an important role throughout Chinese history.

This bridge is a double-decker bridge with car traffic on the top and rail traffic on the second level.

Here's another view of the Yellow Crane Tower from the bridge:

 

This is the Wuhan TV Tower:

 

This is a view of Wuchang:

 

In front you can see the Hanyang district and the buildings behind are Hankou.

 

The Yellow Crane Tower 黄鹤楼

The Yellow Crane Tower is the most famous historical monument in Wuhan.  It was originally built in 223 AD, but the tower that we see today was rebuilt in 1981.  This tower has been rebuilt and destroyed many times, which tells a lot about the history of Wuhan as there's really not many historical sites left.  The city has always played an important role in China's wars as its the countries most important central city and lies on the Yangtze River.

The tower stands on Snake Hill on the bank of the Yangtze River in the Wuchang District, which actually used to be a separate city until it was joined together with Hankou and Hanyang.

The tower is an important site for the Taoist religion. Lü Dongbin, a Taoist diety, is said to have ascended to heaven from here. Their are some legends that are associated with this tower as well that include immortals flying on yellow cranes to and from Snake Hill.

It is also been made famous by some Chinese poets. Here's one poems in its English translation that is written about the tower.  This is Cui Hao's 8th century melancholy poem called "Yellow Crane Tower":

Long ago one's gone riding the yellow crane, all that remained is the Yellow Crane Tower.
Once the yellow crane left it will never return, for one thousand years the clouds wandered carelessly.

 The clear river reflects each Hanyang tree, fragrant grasses lushly grow on Parrot Island.
At sunset, which direction leads to my hometown? One could not help feeling melancholy along the misty river.

 

 

 

Wuhan Foreigner's Party

We were invited by our university to attend the Wuhan Foreigner's Party at the Wuhan Citizen's Home, which we posted about back in April.

This party consisted of two different parts. There was a very impressive exhibition of the city's future planning and development and after there was a show that was broadcasted live on one of the local TV stations. The show was put on by some of Wuhan's foreigners giving either their own or Chinese cultural performances.

Most of the exhibition was made up of small-scale representations of what the city should look like with all of their plans.  Some of these miniature cities were rather large. At the end of the exhibit we got to see the largest that was accompanied by a film as well. 

They were most definitely aiming to impress us and impress us they did.

 

These are some of the planned skyscrapers for the city. The taller one would be the tallest skyscraper in China at 666 meters (2185 feet).

 

This is the miniature of the famous Yellow Crane Tower that is an important landmark for the city.

 

 

This was the opening performance.

 



 

 

These were the hosts for the evening. Dressed in their Oscar gear.

 

 

Here's our group from the university. Yellow and some other's made their way on to TV too apparently.  The week after one of Red' students was asking if we attended this event and that they saw Yellow on TV. Yellow of course was thrilled and looks forward to finding some opportunities to develop an acting or modeling career. Hehe.

 

Wuhan Railway Station

China is rapidly building speed train lines throughout the country. We've now taken the speed train several times and thought we would share some about the Wuhan Railway Station which is the newest railway station in Wuhan and serves the Beijing-Hong Kong high speed railway, the Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu passenger line, and Zhengzhou/Jiujiang-bound passenger trains. 

It was designed with the yellow crane in mind, which is the symbol of the city of Wuhan.  You can see that the roof resembles a crane's wings. It's quite large with 9 separate parts of the building that represent the 9 provinces of China.