Day 10 - Wuhan City Tour Posted by SuperJuniorF , Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 11:58 PM, in

It's a wonderful Saturday morning and a great day for the Wuhan City Tour! The Wuhan City Tour consists of going to the Yellow Crane Tower, Lute Plaform, Jianghan Road and Hankou Beach Park. A mandarin-speaking tour guide will be accompanying the group throughout the trip today. So first stop, The Yellow Crane Tower! ^_^

On the bus, the tour guide told us some interesting fact abou China. Basically even though Wuhan is actually one gigantic city divided into three parts, Singapore is still a red dot on the world map. ;D Hanyang, Wuchang and Hankou make up Wuhan. In the beginning, these three areas used to be three seperate cities and they fulfill different funtions. For example, Hankou was a treaaty port before the World War 2, and now it is a commercial center. As time goes by, many things change. Most of the universities in Wuhan are situated in Wuchang, which makes it an educational region and Hanyang is known as an industrial region. Although they may fulfill different functions, these three regions share the same culture. They are similar to each other in almost every aspect of their lives. So after about 45 minutes of sitting in the bus and walking, we finally arrived at our first destination, the Yellow Crane Tower! In chinese they call it the Huang He Lou!

The tower has 5 levels and it stands at 51.4 meters. The appearance of the toweris the same regardlss of the direction it is viewed from. Each floor is seemed to have been designed with yellow upturned eaves to resemble a yellow crane spreading its wings to fly. At the highest level of the tower, I was amazed by the stunning view Yangtze River, its bridge and the surrounding buildings in Wuhan City. Although I am afraid of heights, the view itself was so magnificent that I totally forgot that I was supposed to be scared of heights!

The Yellow crane tower is located on Snake Hill. It is one of the mot renowned towers south of the Yangtze River. Its cultural significance led to it being made the symbol of Wuhan City. In the tower, there are many paintings of why and how the tower came about. After looking at these pictures of the paintings, I will tell you a short story that I read about on the internet. (I had to do a research on the internet because I could not understand a word the tour guide was saying) ^_^
The story goes like this. One day, a shabbily dressed Taoist priest came to an old pothouse and ask for some wine. Old Xin, owner of the old pothouse paid no attention to him, but his son was very kind and gave the Taoist some wine without asking for money. After visiting the pothouse regularly for half a year, one day the Taoist said to the son tht in order to repay his kindness, he would like to draw a crane on the wall of the pothouse, which would dance at his request. When people in the city heard of this, they came in big groups to the pothouse to see the dacing crane. The Xin famil soon becom rich and they built the Yellow Crane Tower as symbol of gratidude to the Taoist priest. The picture on top actually depicts cloud, rivers and cranes to represent a romantic mood in the heaven.




The Yellow Crane Tower has a very long and complicated history. It was first built in 223, during the Three Kingdoms Period (220 - 280). It was built by Sun Quan, King of Wu, as a watchtower for his army due to the ideal location. However after hundreds of years, the tower was enjoyed mainly as a picturesque location.



During the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907), many popular poems were written in praise of the Yellow Crane Tower. It was these poems that made the tower so popular and inducing people to visit it. During the following centries, it was destroyed and rebuilt several times. During the Ming (1368 - 1644) and Qing (1644 - 1911) dynasties alone the tower was destroyed seven times and rebuilt seven times. In 1884, it was completely destroyed in a fire and was not rebuilt until 1981. Here are some of how the towers were in the past!

After the visiting the Yellow Crane Tower, we were brought to a 5-star hotel to have out lunch! I will not elaborate much on this because it is going to take a long time if I were to describe how delicious the dishes were that I ate 6 bowls of rice! So here are some pictures of the place and my favourite dish at the hotel. Enjoy! ^_^

After having a great meal at the hotel, we were of to our next stop, the Lute Platform! Here is another story for you to enjoy! According to the myth, during the spring and autumn in the Chu Dynasty, a guy called Yu Boya and a female called Zhong Zhiqi met at a spot. Zhiqi heard Boya playing his flute and was mesmerized by the artist talents. Both of them eventually became good friends and mutual admires. They decided that they would meet again the following year in the gardens. Sadly, when Yu Boya returned, he discovered that Zhong Zhiqi had died. Boya was so grieved that he offered a farewell song on his lute and them immediately ripped off the instrument's string. He also would not want to play a song on his lute anymore as only Zhiqi managed to understand his feelings through the songs he played. Thus, the Lute Platform was built in memory of them.

Yu Boya and Me.

I love his music because the music makes me feel calm. ^_^ In my opinion, I think Yu Boya might have been a great musician. Looking at how the people have built Lute Platform in memories of him, he must have been someone very talented, may be even as talented as Mozart! Putting myself in the shoes of Yu Boya, waiting for someone for a year and knowing that the person died at the time I most wanted to see her is something really painful. Losing the person who understands you is something every one does not want, and for Yu Boya, Zhong Zhiqi was the only one who understands him through the music he plays.

Next stop, Hankou Beach! Along the way to Hankou Beach, we passed Jianghan Road. At Jianghan Road, the stalls have everything. Whatever are the issential needs of a normal person, it is sold there. These does not include weapons or even ridiculous things such as airplanes. It was said that Hankou used to be a harbour but now, it is a place where people can buy cheap products from. ^_^




So finally I reach my final destination, Hankou Beach Park. As I step down from the bus, the first thing that caught my eyes was the beautiful scenery. Although it was similar to the Chinese Garden or the Botanic Gardens in Singapore, the Hankou Beach Park more than thrice bigger than the two gardens in Singapore. As I was walking through the park, I saw a very interesting statue of three men and a few boxes. I think the three men are actually workers carrying boxes which contain goods as Hankou used to be a treaty port and I think that the statue is built in memory of their help before the World War 2. Pardon me if my thought is wrong. ^_^


The next thing I saw was two people taking photographs in a white wedding dress and white suit. They can either be two couples in love or just models having a photography session. What got me thinking was the manpower for the photography. Normally when I see two people in wedding dress and suit, there will only be a photographer and nobody else. In this case, there are 3 people working during the photography session; the photographer and two other helpers. It is amazing the difference in effort the chinese people put in their work compared to Singaporeans. Eventually, it all depends on the person themselves.


There were also kites of many shapes and sizes being sold at the park! It is nice to see children running around with their parents laughing while flying their kites. It reminds me of the times I spend with my family. The park is also so huge that the park even offer a transportation that can take you from one point to another! It is similar to the trams we have in Sentosa and the Singapore Zoological Gardens. The difference is that the trams in Singapore are free, the tranportation in Hankou Beach Park is not. It is free in Singapore because may be the fee of the trams are all ready included in the entrance fee but in Hankou Beach Park, there is no entrance fee.

So as I did not want to waste money, I took the most efficient and free transportation, my legs. ^_^ As I walk through the park, many flowers were blooming. As spring is coming near, flowers are quickly coming out to greet the spring and bid farewell to winter. ^_^



So after strolling around the park for a while, my friends and I headed to Victoria Coffee Bar to relax, have a drink and rounding off the day before heading back to WUST. ^_^

Reflection

After the Wuhan City Tour today, I now understand why Singapore's merlion icon is not as popular as the Yellow Crane Tower. May be the Yellow Crane Tower has a long history behind it unlike Singapore's merlion. However, the Yellow Crane Tower is also presented in a way that it is very special to the chinese people. Singapore's merlion is not presented in the same way. The merlion is a national icon. So in my opinion, presenting in a more creative way rather than just placing it near the esplanade or building a large merlion in Sentosa would attract more tourist. May be Singapore can build a gigantic merlion so that tourist can enter the merlion, have large painted porcelain picture to allow tourists to learn more about how the merlion came about, may be put a few telescopes in the merlion so that people can view the surroundings with it or even have shops in it so that people can buy souveniors and other things. It can also have an entrance fee to make it more special. ^_^

Other than symbols and icons of a place, I think having small places such as the Lute Patform is something unique. It is not a place we can see in Singapore. The place also tells a story which makes it more interesting. For Singapore, most of it's stories are in the museum. May be for example if Singapore builds a place to tell the story of Sang Nila Utama and Raffles, more people will understand how Singapore was came about as the place is able to make them feel as if they were in the past, thus allowing them to remember the facts easier.

In term of parks, I think Singapore is doing a great job in using limited space of land to create a beautiful park for tourist and even locals to relax and enjoy. ^_^