Wuhan - 10.28

The final door knocks came at around 3:30am. On the dock of Yi Chang I quickly found the guy holding a paper containing my name, and boarded the bus to Wuhan. This one was even more cramped than the Chengdu - Chongqing bus, and they told me at the CQ boat office what a luxurious spacious sleeper this was to be.

We didn't get on our way until 4:30am. I slept uneasily. We were greeted by a cold gray day at downtown Wuhan at 9. When I got off the bus at some hotel, the guy told me "oh the Bu Xing Jie is only 5 minutes away, just make a right then left." Bu Xing Jie was the ped-only shopping street the Wuhan ladies told me about in Chongqing. Well 5 minutes later I was at a magazine kiosk purchasing a map and finding out that it was actually another 15-20 minutes walk. The blatant lies...

Here I met I think the first real kind stranger in China. Far as I can recall at least. He detailed the route on the map of how I should go and the alternative options to walking. Then after I left he came up behind me to make sure again I was on the right track and to tell me to watch my bags for "Xing Jiang child thieves." So off I go to find the Bu Xing Jie around which was the Wuhan street food street, my true destination.

Passed a sign that said "Auntie He's sticky rice You Tiao wrap". One woman, assumably Auntie He, was pressing the rice and spreading the condiments and flavorings, then putting in a length of You Tiao and tightly rolling the whole thing. A girl was helping out with passing the rice and other miscellaneous tasks. Another woman just sat and collected money. Already several people stood waiting for their wrap. A throng of teenage girls whom I overtook earlier also stopped in. A sweet wrap and a soy milk made me feel all fuzzy inside. Well it didn't taste exactly like what I used to have, but it was good in its own right.


Just down the street I picked up some more Lao Po Bing (wife cake). One black sesame and one duck egg (yes, duck egg). These were supposedly Taiwan style. Had a bite of each and they only made me crave the Leshan ones. So I saved them for later when I get hungry. Must leave room for street food.

Checked email. Called my aunt in Shanghai then my uncle. No one could give me clear instructions on how to recharge my phone sim card, which I just discovered was out of money. Why is the whole cellphone thing so complicated in China?! I sent another email to syl updating the situation.

The Bu Xing Jie was basically like that in Shanghai or Chengdu except not as busy or classy. There were enough McDonalds there I could get a heart attack just walking through. Basically each was no more than 2 minutes walk from its neighbor. At least the chinese mcd didn't smell as greasy as their american brethren. No one I asked seemed to know about this "snacking street".

Well I found it nevertheless all by myself! First there were a series (didn't I tell you everything comes in series in china, right next door to each other) of junk food/preserved prunes store. I tried everything sour they had and well I barely blinked. Got 2 bags nevertheless, one Bing Lang Mei (ice guy prune), and one Zhen Zhu Mei (Pearl prune). A Yong Le chain fast food store blasted chinese-sung english hiphop and other modern youth tunes. But the real attractions were across from that.

Preserve stores lined up

Unofficial snacks street

Half a block of grimy hole-in-the-wall shops selling all kinds of Wuhan and Chongqing snacks. I tried a Qi Wei You Yu (mystery taste squid), deep fried on a stick and rolled in sauce. Yummy spicy. Next a Wuhan local specialty San Xian Tofu Pi (tofu skin wrapped around sticky rice with mushroom, meat, sausage etc, reminded me of the cantonese lotus wraps). They were two huge pieces of tummy-loading rice! Where was that sinyee when I needed her! She was supposed to be my appetite expansion pack.

I walked down the ally way. The stores gave way to regular residential buildings, aged and worn like the ladies playing cards out in the street corner. One woman tended a lonesome snack front too far from the main street to get popular attention. Another told me in comprehensible mandarin that the building I was photographing was built in the 1920's. And that it was set to be torn down. A story all too familiar. Behind a metal barrel oven, a little boy fingered his toys while staring at me taking pictures of his dad's Shao Bing station. When I bit into the flaky crunchy shao ping, time turned back and I was a boy just like him, eating a shao bing in my grandparents' alleyway, watching the world dance to a slightly different tune. For a moment, I have found what I symbolically sought.

Looks like cards, but not cards	Nor are these majong

I wholly did not recognize the games the old ladies were playing, not even the cards they were using. Likewise with a group of men at a majong table engaged in something definitely not majong. I should have been learning all these new games. But alas more food beckons. A Cong You Su Bing was basically an onion version of the Chengdu "Guo Kui", with a touch of that distinct Sichuan spice. A bowl of three Tang You Ba (Sweet oil pastry, made from sticky rice flour) was a gooey sticky stringy yummy mess. I saw the cook toss in strange blocks of sugar like things and scoops of other powders. Finally I sat down for a bowl of the famous Wuhan Re Gang Mian (hot dry noodle). Yes the picture shows that the store call it a Chongqing food, but the Wuhan ladies insisted that was Wuhan stuff, and I certainly did not see them in CQ. This old dude in faded army uniform was manning the wok expertly cooking up orders with a dizzying array of spices and sauces. He would visit all his pots and bowls and containers scooping a bit of this and a tad of that. His wife, presumably, handled other orders in between breaks of hand-folding wontons. Their shop was barely the size of a one-car garage with the two of them and diners all squeezed in.

Tofu skin thingee
Da Bing	Tang You Ba

The noodle unfortunately did not win me over. It was dry, as expected, but tasted only of the typical sichuan spices. A few dashes of the table vinegar failed to remedy it. Should've gotten the wontons or the soup noodles the other diners were slurping. There was also this Yu Wu Mian (fish base noodle) that seemed to be a local favorite. But already I had to stash some of the food I got away for later perusing. I blame sinyee.

I thought I'd do at least one checklist thing in Wuhan. Having been the subject and setting of so many classic novels and famous poems, Huang He Lou (Yellow Crane Tower) was almost a must see. So I grabbed a cab and paid the not-so-unreasonable entry fee. Well ok I was told it was outrageous so it was cheap compared to expectation.

But man the 1986 rebuilt structure was a blastphemy! It was called "Huang He Lou". Being a "Lou" carried certain requirements, like being airy and open, and having rickety wooden stairs. Well this one's inside was stuffy and dark, lit by the horrible fluorescent lights even in day time. The stairs were typical polished stone ones with that bumped up strip at the end. Totally shattered the illusion it gave at the outside. The freezing cold whether now brought out a tiny but persistently annoying rain. One good thing was to see some familiar poems that I used to read.

	First bridge over Chang Jiang

Three oclock I started walking to the bus station. I passed a nice looking salon with some very eager staff but I really needed to find out the airport shuttle schedule first. As luck would have it I arrived 5 minutes after the 3:30 shuttle, and the next one wouldn't be until 4:30. Two hours was the upward estimated travel time the window clerk gave me.

A cab from Wu Chang area to the airport would likely cost me 100-200Y. I found a public bus that goes to the Hang Kou train station, the closest point I knew of to the airport, for 2Y. From there I snagged a cab for 40Y, without meter. He claims normal metered cab would cost 70Y. Truth or lies, this ride was more than twice as long as the previous Huang He Lou one and involved a toll of 5Y so I didn't feel ripped.

Pleasant surprises surrounded the flight boarding. First the bus at the gate arrived before most passenger did. Two, there were absolutely zero pushing and shoving at any time during boarding! Third, plane took off 15 minutes earlier than scheduled time. And my seat neighbor wasn't smelly or rudely elbowing into my space. The stars must be lined up today!

Xian city lights

Bell Tower and South Gate

Tired from the journey so far and from keeping the flu at bay, I thought I'd sleep in tomorrow morning, for once! So I checked into the China Post hotel (weird eh) right facing the Bell Tower that syl told me about. A standard room with double beds, full washroom was discounted from 305 to 170. I picked a room away from the hustle of the main street. And what a hustle! For the first time in China I was out at night at the right place to see a night market in full swing. God how I missed those from Thailand.

Bell Tower was like the epicenter of Xi An. Four majordomo streets ran into it, aptly named North, East, South and West Big Street. Going out to look for street food, I found some Ba Zhen Mei Gui Gao (8 treasures rose cake - steamed rice flour cake), and I also found a chinese street drag queen. Shocking! Well he claims to have had a wife and to be a normal guy, not a transie. You betcha I donated to him, for encouragement as much as for a slight feel of kinship. A crowd of people waited a while for his act to start, which consisted not much more than runway walks, some model poses, some changes of "costumes", and an accompanying ad lib that was humorous and somewhat rhymed but got repetitive before long. I soon was bored and resumed my exploration.

	8 Treasure Cake cookery

And boy did I hit the jackpot. The Bell Tower area was crawling with people local and otherwise. Most were young and energetic, a refreshing change from what I have so far been seeing everywhere else. Following my hotel receptionist's direction I went down the West Da Jie and turned into a "Xiao Xiang". Et voila! It was so awesome to feel again the energy that only a night market could give. This one wasn't even a particularly spectacular one, repetition began after less than a minute of walking. But I was rejoiced nevertheless. There were staged performers serenading diner with muslim style folksongs, violin sonatas, or a jazzy tune from a sax. The funny thing was that the serenadee were all chinese people. Stands either sold Shan Xi (province to which Xi An was the capital) pastries, dried fruits, Qing Zhen (chinese muslim) food like lamb skewers, lamb Pao Muo, lamb noodle, or Liang Feng (clear wide noodle). But everyone was buying and everyone was eating, and drinking and laughing. There were merrymaking abound.


My pick of the night, an one-and-only stand providing a sort of sweet sticky rice pastry, topped with sesame, marinated rose petals, honey and sweet bean sauce. The sign on the cart read "Lao Bai Jia' (old Bai family). The middle aged woman making the dessert seemed immediately kind and friendly to me, a sort of auntie-ness about her.

For actual meal I took a bowl of beef soup noodle, Qing Zhen style of course, and two skewers of lamb. I decided I must try another place with the same items for a taste comparison. What I got were so salty I could only have half a bowl.

In the darkened square between Bell Tower and Drum Tower, a few free souls flew local style kites, which were pictograms knotted on a string equi-distance from one another. One was so long, it almost seemed to link the bright spiffy Bell tower with the unilluminated near-deserted Drum tower. Magical.



Sticky rice wrap You Tiao 1.5Y. Soy milk 0.5Y. 2 Lao Po Bing's 1.3Y. Internet 1Y/hr. Phone calls 2Y. Prunes 7.4Y. Squid 1Y. Tofu Pi 2Y. Sweet Shao Ping 0.5Y. Cong You Su Bing 1Y. Tang You Ba 1Y. Re Gang Mian 2.5Y. Taxi from end of ped street to Huang He Lou 20Y (start 3). Huang He Lou 50Y. Bus 2Y. Meterless taxi from Hankou train to airport 40Y.

Xian airport shuttle 35. China Postal hotel 170. Eight treasure steamed cake 1Y. Donation to "Nan Da Ma" 1Y. Sticky rice sweet 3Y. Beef noodle 5Y. Lamb skewer 1Yx2.