Arriving in Wuhan

We managed to sleep this morning until 3:15 am which is an hour later than yesterday. We read and watched CNN which is the only thing we could find in English on the hotel television. We made our way to breakfast at 6:30 joining a nice couple from Denton, Texas. Mark and Cindy joined us around 7:15. The breakfasts at the hotel have been very good with a nice mix of Chinese and western choices. Since we had sent our checked bags out to be loaded the night before, we only had to gather our carry-on items before checking out of the Shanghai Four Seasons. It is a very elegant downtown hotel that obviously caters to well-to-do business people.  Viking typically uses exceptionally nice hotels for their land based touring.

Bronze container at Hubei Provincial Museum

We boarded the bus at 8:15 and made the drive to the Shanghai airport about an hour away. Security at Chinese airports is very tight. We were sent through security screening just to enter the terminal. We had a second screening to get to the departure area that was similar the TSA screening in the US except was much more extensive. After passing through security we walked around the concourse for nearly an hour until time to begin boarding for our flight to Wuhan.

Unlike our flight into Shanghai, the majority of the passengers other than our group were Chinese who were traveling between the two large cities of Shanghai and Wuhan. We were pleased to have an interesting seatmate in an older lady, Joan, from New Zealand who currently resides in Nova Scotia. Her brother, Mike, was accompanying her.  He resides in Australia.  Joan is quite a character and provided interesting conversation during the 80 minute flight. She was upset because she had a small spike under the tip of her cane that was helpful when walking on ice in Nova Scotia.  The Chinese security clipped the spike off with wire cutters when she sent it through security.  Lunch on the flight was very traditional Chinese. Mary had chicken with noodles and I had a spicy beef with rice.

Ancient bronze bells at Hubei Provincial Museum

On arriving at Wuhan we only needed to confirm our checked bags and get on the bus to go to the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan.

A special exhibit at the museum is on the Warring States period around 475-221 BC. A feudal lord, Marquis Yi, had an impressive set of 64 gold inlaid bronze bianzhong bells that are perfectly tuned to a five octave range. We also saw a number of artifacts from the period including many jade carvings and bronze castings. Our guide, Patrick, took us around the museum speaking to us through the earpieces we were issued earlier in the trip. We spent about 90 minutes in the museum then boarded the bus for our short drive to the Emerald Viking River ship moored on the Yangtze River. 
Even though it is mid-September, the weather was very warm in the upper 80s. Because of the typical heat, Wuhan is called one of the three furnaces. The population of Wuhan is “only” a little over 10 million although the metro area has over 18 million people.  We still can’t get over the staggering size of Chinese cities.

Ancient bronze bells at Hubei Provincial Museum

We unpacked in our staterooms then walked around the ship a bit. There are a number of differences in the ship we took on the Rhine. The Emerald has only one dining area unlike our prior ship which had a formal and informal area for meals. The sun deck is much smaller but the cabins may be larger and each cabin has a small balcony with a couple of chairs. We sat on the sun deck briefly and watched some of the kites that people were flying to heights that were pretty impressive.

The western style dinner at 7 pm was very good. There were several menu choices and we were all pleased with our selections. We were joined at our table by two interesting couple, Willie and Mary with Minnesota and Dave and Sandra from York, England. Dave, a retired York police officer, was interesting and Willie provided entertaining dinner conversation.

Jade carving at Hubei Provincial Museum

After dinner there was a cruise briefing by the program director, Angie Wang, and the hotel manager, Enrico. We concluded our evening by siting on the observation deck and watching the light show on the buildings of Wuhan along the Yangtze. The ship cast off at 10 pm to travel up the river, so we made our way down to our second floor staterooms and turned in hoping to be able to sleep in longer. Mary and Cindy were planning to attend the Tai Chi classes on the fifth floor deck each morning at 7 am.