Day #2: By Bus Through Wuhan, and Our China Host Family Stays (Sunday, 3/6)

MOJO'ER BLYTHE WITH OUR CHINESE HOST FAMILY STUDENTS IN DOWNTOWN WUHAN.


WELL KNOWN HAPPY CHEF STATUE IN WUHAN'S STREET MARKET SECTION.


MOJO BREAKFAST AT A STREET MARKET IN DOWNTOWN WUHAN.

After a few hours of sleep at our downtown Wuhan hotel, we spent Sunday touring greater Wuhan, a booming Chinese city of 8 million people located where the Han and Yangtze rivers meet. Linda, Lily and Steve proved excellent tour guides, teaching us some basic Mandarin (including a few characters written on the steamy bus window), and sharing their extensive geographical and historical knowledge of Wuhan, a city famous for its role in the September 1911 uprising that led to the fall of the Chinese imperial order and the birth of nationalist China under Sun Yat Sen.


A GIANT BUDDHA STATUE AT A WELL-KNOWN WUHAN TEMPLE (OF MANY BUDDHAS.)

Traveling in China is simply overwhelming – the sights, sounds, and smells are legion. We visited a well-known market area for tasty “street food” – fried rice with meat, hot dry noodles, fried potatoes, steamed buns, and the dreaded “stinky tofu” – and then spent some time at a riverfront park by #1 bridge (built by the new CRP with Russian assistance in the 1950s) and the Hubei province historical museum.


DOWNTOWN WUHAN'S COMMERCIAL CENTER ALIGHT AT NIGHT.

We then returned to the school to meet our host families, and divided into pairs for our 2 day immersion into the lives of well-to-do Chinese families, who were spending mucho yuan sending their kids to one of China’s best high schools. The high school students seemed very excited to meet us, and we seemed a bit tired (but why?) but I was pleased by our Mojo’ers’ willingness to reach out through the jet lag and fatigue to engage with our new friends.


MOJO WITH STEVE, LINDA AND LILY AT THE HUBEI PROVINCIAL MUSEUM.