Wuhan - Day 25

Okay so visiting Wuhan is a must; if only to sleep in the amazing beds in Pathfinder Youth Hostel, 6 room dorm. We slept like babies for 13 hours straight.
After finally getting up, (the showers here ACTUALLY have warm water. It's not just something stated on their hostelworld website) we jumped on a bus (no subway system here yet, but most of the time we don't mind walking however far it is... When not thinking twice about booking a 14 hour train ride every other day, your perception of distance get's a bit twisted. Bus 2 yuan, and taxi, which is simpler as long as you have your destination written down in Chinese, since you just stand by the side of the road and wave your hand until a taxi stops, costs about... 6 yuan per 3 km?) Oops, got a bit off track, but as said, we jumped on the bus which took us to "Snack Alley". Sort of like Megabite (see earlier post) but genuine. And just as delicious.
In China there is food and public toilets everywhere (except for in Shanghai, where we actually had to look for food, but when finding it there was plenty, didn't see many public toilets though) which suits us fine, since now we never have to walk around hungry, and we honestly lust after the food here. If only we'd get hungrier more often, so we could try out even more of the food.

After eating we wandered down to the Yangtze river in the sunshine (Yes! Sunshine! It was actually rather warm today. Bliss.) and planned how to spend the rest of the day: sightseeing.
But those plans were soon forgotten, when we were approached by a group of University graduates: 1 guy from Singapore (who knew quite a lof of English) and 1 guy and 3 girls from Wuhan. They all work with testing different computer software. After talking to them for a while (and posing on a bunch of pictures, which is why they approached us in the first place) we decided to join them on the ferry to the other side of the river, wander back and forth on a shopping street for a while (some big Chinese celebrity made an appareance there as well... it was "rather" crowded) and then spending the rest of the day at KTV with them.

KTV. Every Chinese youngster seems to live there, at least that's how it feels when talking to them. Bars and nightclubs are apparently not as popular as getting a bunch of friends together, booking a KTV room, and spending the night drinking, eating snacks and, most importantly, singing Karaoke(or "sing song" as they keep saying). Ever since hearing about KTV's for the first time in Beijing, we've wanted to try it, and now we got to.
(So no worries parents, didn't get robbed this time. It was our suggestion to tag along, and they didn't let us pay zilch)
It was... interesting. Like having a karaoke night at home with your friends, except that you had people in suites serve you popcorn and chips, and the rooms were oozing 70's glam. Pictures and videos will come up.
Eventually we got tired of singing along to Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne (which are the English songs they chose for us...), and listening to them sing sombre Chinese lovesongs, so we excused ourselves and took a ferry back to the other side of the river.
Ate at a Taoist temple (sadly the temple was already closed, we hadn't realized we'd been that long at the KTV, luckily the restaurant was not) and now back in the familiar internet lair.

We decided the warmer weather and the amazing scenery in the south tempt us more than a 4-day boat ride with a bunch of Chinese and loud speakers (and a fee to be allowed on upper deck!) even though it would have been very interesting to see the fought over damm, the "ghost towns" and the gorges. However, we now have train tickets to Guilin, the train departing from here tomorrow morning and arriving at Guilin already tomorrow night. Sophia and Ruut are trying to book us a hostel for tomorrow, so I still have a little time to blog before we head back to the hostel and our heavenly beds...

In Shanghai there where quite a lot of Western looking people, so we didn't feel all to special. But in Wuhan, it's back to 'normal'.
Laowei, laowei is something we hear quite a lot, and most don't want to pass us without shouting a 'hello', 'nihao' or 'how are you?'. Parents bring their kids to be photographed with us, so they can show the pictures back home, and brave teenagers all want to take pictures with us. Ruut has even been made to pose in different positions (think ballerina and victory signs, nothing dirty here, you pervs).
They're mostly interested in Ruut and Sophia, though, both of them being fairer and more lighthaired than me. And perhaps the Chinese agree with my former classmates: they didn't call me 'Chinese' through high school for no reason. Sophia's length, well, the length of all of us, is also endlessly fascinating.
One of our newfound friends, "Cindy" said: You're like stars. Everyone's staring at you, taking pictures of you. (Not so discreetly if I might add).
We don't feel like 'stars' however, more like the main attraction in a freakshow. How can we be so interesting?
Sometimes we don't mind this at all though, like today, when we didn't find anywhere to sit and eat our lunch bought from the 'snack alley', and suddenly this cute Chinese family, running a little tobacco shop, had pulled out three chairs and a table. While eating our lunches they also offered us nuts and pomelo as dessert, and gave us tips on how to eat with our chopsticks. They were apparently not impressed.
While sitting there we couldn't help but still be amazed by the Chinese. They might find us interesting, but we find them a hundred times more interesting. There they all sat, outside their little shops, and chatted away, shouting to each other from across the street, and walking around in their pyjamas. Then a man walks by, pushing a carriage full of living fish, and suddenly everyone's standing around it, watching him kill and rinse the fish that one of the pyjama heroes ordered.
I don't think there are people anywhere, quite as nosy as the Chinese.
//H