Part Two : THE CITY OF WUHAN

A City of Parks.

Qin Chuan bridge at night, and an old but beautiful ship at the mouth of the HanJiang river flowing into the Yangtze.

In this article we will look particularly at three parks in Wuhan, namely, MoShan Park, ZhongShan Park, and Hong Shan Park. Additionally we will revisit the Qin Chuan pavilion and mountain top park.

I have in fact shown photographs from these places in other articles as may have been warranted, but this article brings all those unfamiliar venues into one place.

While we will visit three different parts of Wuhan, in actual area, we are only covering a small distance within the city as a whole, and were it not for photographic limits, I would give you a better look.

In the top night time photograph to the right, we can see the bridge joining Hankou and HanYang. ZhongShan park is just a few blocks on the other side of that bridge, and the Qin Chuan pavilion is just one block this side.

The ship in the bottom photo sits on the Hankou side at the mouth of the HanJiang river where it joins the Yangtze.

But on the other side of the Yangtse only a few blocks away lies HongShan park, with Moshan park being another 15 minutes beyond that by bus.

I say this just to point out not only how limited is this presentation of Wuhan, but just how close everything is, and I have not even covered so many other places within this radius.  I hope you like this presentation.

MoShan Park (East Lake)

Tobias and Eunice in my hotel room

On April 10th 2004 my friends Eunice and Tobias took me to visit MoShan Park out by the East lake in Wuhan. Eunice originally comes from Xi'An and moved to Hong Hu many years ago where she taught English in a Private school and co-jointly ran a ladies clothing shop with her husband Tobias.

Today, they both live in Wuhan. I am not going to talk much about MoShan Park in this article, because I have an article about it on my website at KingsCalendar.com www.kingscalendar.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=107 but I have provided some photographs here to give you some idea of the place.

We caught a local bus from the Wuhan University out to the lake, paid our 30 RMB entrance fee, paid another 25 RMB to take the chair lift up over the first mountain to the top of the next, and made our way down on foot. This is a highly recommended method of seeing the park.

One thing I never mentioned in my KingsCalendar article was that you can also pay to ride the luge. I have previously done it at Coo in Belgium and it is great fun, but on this occasion, we really did not have the time.

The chair lift takes you up near the Tower that you can see in the next photograph, and the view is spectacular. The tower itself (the name of which I don't remember) has many floors containing many different exhibits, including both a shrine, and an entertainment area. You enter at one level, go up into the building, and exit on the other side at a lower level than you entered, right into the food court.

Top 2 shots are of the Chu Historical village. The middle shot is taken from the Guard tower overlooking the lake. The last photo is taken from the chair lift and is of the East lake.

Feature piece in the Bonsai Gardens and a view from the chair lift. Quite steep, and runs over two mountain tops.

This is the plaque outside one of the temples at HongShan Park. Photographs are not permitted inside.

HONGSHAN PARK WuChang

In Article Seven entitled Bus Trip to Wuhan, I mentioned that I spent some time with Qin Yan at HongShan Park. There are quite a number of buses that go past it, but the only one I definitely know that does is the 715. The front entrance is just a stone gateway behind which are a big pink statue and some steps leading up the hill.

I must point out here that these temples are really just tourist attractions. They are not the real thing. There is one however in this park which is.

This is the real McCoy folks. An old temple made of wood, filled with paintings, statues and incense. Monks and worshippers can be found in abundance and it is obviously the heart of this community.

The two photographs on the left are of the entrances to HongShan park and were presented last issue in a larger format. The one on the right is of the phoenix motif in the roof of a pagoda. This is the spot where I was clowning around when the monk caught sight of me.

Once you go up the steps at the entrance to the park, you enter a completely different world. It is bushland - a rain forest of types and it goes a long way. At one point Qin Yan and I had the choice of following some steps back down toward the street, but he decided that we should travel horizontally. 30 minutes later we were backtracking to the pagoda with the Phoenix motif.

Top: It was at this point that Qin Yan decided to explore horizontally. The only thing of interest that we discovered before backtracking, was these graves.

It is difficult to remember up on the mountain that you are only one block from a busy city street. The mountain was filled with people playing checkers and cards, and there was the occasional young couple 'hiding out'.

As we came down toward the second entrance to the park where the Real McCoy temple was, we encountered some monks being trailed by a young boy. He told me that he 'believed in the god', but didn't know yet if he would become a monk.

Top left some young monks: Top right, the young apprentice (maybe!). Bottom left is of Qin Yan descending toward the big tower on the left. Bottom Right, the statue that greets you at the main entrance.

While these temples look really great, given China's past repression of religion, it is difficult to say how many temples were originally on this site, but I do intend one day to talk to the monks and find out. In the meantime, you might find the following article quite interesting reading. www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/2004/3/10_8.html

The tower you see in the next photo is definitely legitimate, extremely tall, and quite old. It is possible to climb it for a fee, and I did see the odd person up there, but was disinclined to follow suit.

The old tower as seen in the background from the front of the temple below.

While the modern sites are every bit as ornamental as the old temple, the environment is extremely sterile, although I was fortunate to talk with two girls who went there to pray.

Qin Yan and I were entering by the small back door as the girls were coming out. It was their first visit to this particular temple, but both had received some religious instructions from their forebears. This pleased me greatly as it legitimised my viewpoint in an argument I had had with Qin Yan an hour earlier.

Another view of the tower, and the ornaments and ornamental front of this temple.

The large gold statue of a woman in last weeks edition is standing just inside this door.

ZHONG SHAN PARK

ZhongShan park is located on JieFang Dadao (Avenue) opposite Wuhan Plaza in HanKou and is very easily missed. It also has a second entrance in XinHua Lu (street) which is one block from the entrance. One can take a number of buses there including the 703 and 519. Crossing the road is as hazadous there as anywhere in China, and it was not until my last trip, that I discovered that there is an underpass below the Plaza that opens up directly into the park.

This is an ornamental 'Dragon' bridge over a dry ornamental cement river bed. In this particular part of the park there are a lot of stone sculptures, pagodas and places where musicians play.

The park is a great place for the family to visit and is full of canals, sculptures, lawns, pagodas, public entertainment areas, and includes an amusement park with many different rides.  There are plenty of places to rest in the shade, and plenty of refreshment stands situated throughout.

This type of rock and stone sculpture is common not only in this park but all over China as far as I can tell.

I have already written previously about this place ('Entertainment') and so I don't propose to repeat myself. The photos here are either new or enlarged for your added pleasure.

Another pavilion over the water, with people congregating, talking, sleeping or whatever. In front of them are Sunday sailors enjoying the ocean waves. Oh I forgot! ocean is a thousand miles away. How I miss the ocean.

These two shots, are just 10 metres from each other. The pagoda is just past the bridge and to the left. Nice music, nice view, nice day, now all I need is for everyone to stop yelling 'HELLO!'

Inside ZhongShan park a White Pavilion reminiscent of the Victorian Era and from it is taken the photo of the archway below.

Top view is of the guard house on the overpass above the road. Bottom view is of the main pavilion as seen from the courtyard of the bar at the hotel nextdoor.

Qin Chuan Pavilion and Mountain Park.

I have already mentioned Qin Chuan Pavilion in my last article. Today I will just give you a little more detail. The Entrance is in the street running past the Hotel. It cost 15 RMB to get in, and you can take your time looking through the main pavilion. The day I visited that part of the complex, I did not have my camera with me.

When you come out the other side, by way of the overpass above the road, you can continue on up the hill to the TV tower, but not without paying another 3 RMB at the ticket box. When you go past the Tower and old fort, you must turn immediately left and walk up the goat track to the top and turn left.

Although it was closed that day I went up there, you can for a fee, travel to the lookout at the top of the tower. Just make sure it is a clear day, and don't hold your breath waiting for one.

Rather than going back the way you came, you will find a cement path that goes down and then up (don't take the left turn down) and will bring you to another ticket booth where (if it is manned) you will be charge another 3 RMB to go up to see the huge phoenix caldron.

Coming back down from there you follow the path to the avenue of Statues, but along the way you will encounter other attractions (also for a fee) including the Cable car across the river.  The trip takes 20 minutes and from memory costs another 15 RMB.

The first of these two photos is taken with my back to the lake, on the main road where the buses converge. Hankou is to the left, WuChange is to the right and around the left corner, and HanYang proper is to the right then right again.

That green sign leads to stairs which go up the mountain. The silver statue is in the park to the left of this entrance. The side street taking you up to the Hotel is beside the park with the statue.

While I have walked a long way along this mountain top, I have yet to travel the complete length to the exit in this photo. Nevertheless the day Tobias, Eunice and I went up there, we were there for over 2 hours.

I've only gone as far as some type of museum. I can't remember what it was exactly, except that there was another fee involved. At that point in our journey, Tobias, Eunice and I decided to scale down the mountain to No. 1 Bridge and head over to the university at WuChang. You can read about that at KingsCalendar.

The day Zhan Yan and I went up there and took the Cable Car ride, we were pressed for time and had to head back to the hotel to check out. There are some more photos of the ride and our visit to ShenZhen in the 'Stories from China' at KingsCalendar.com

Monument on the Avenue of Statues put into perspective by that strange foreigner. Stranger yet, you might see a young warrior from bygone days riding about on the tiniest little horse you ever did see.

I hope you have enjoyed these two visits to Wuhan. When I have seen more of it, I will let you know about it.

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS OF WUHAN

These shots at WuChang were taken in a public square during Spring Festival - January 2004.

This is a scene of the rooftops on the HanYang side of the HanJiang river, as Zhan Yan and I crossed over on the cable car ride.

These shots were taken at WuChang on the way to visit Eunice at her Private School (background of bottom right photo). If you take a look at the photos of the school in last weeks addition you have a good comparison of lifestyles.

On a hot afternoon there is nothing like a swim in the HanJiang River that flows into the Yangtze River in Wuhan. You can't see it but they are also swimming in green algae which has been washed into the river from stagnant canals.

R.P.Bendedek

Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com

Note:  This file was amended August 2007.
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R.P.BenDedek is the pseudonym of the Author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' (www.kingscalendar.com), and he is a guest columnist at Magic City Morning Star News. An Australian, he currently teaches Conversational English in China. Other Stories can be found at:  http://www.kingscalendar.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=128