Resting up in Wuhan

Resting up in Wuhan

I’m back on the road having spent the past five days in Wuhan taking it easy. I haven’t written anything on the blog because I didn’t really do that much except act like a bit of a slob during my time there.

It was so nice just to be able to chat to someone again and as Adele is new to the city too I think it was also nice for her to be able to talk to someone. I talked about bikes she talked about babies. She and her husband Fly have a lovely boy named Rylan. If I’d thought I’d be enjoying relaxing days doing nothing reality soon took a hold of me. I don’t have children but I know how much work they can be what with having two nieces. An 18 month old boy is another matter and spending five days in his company made me realize I have the easy end of the deal simply riding my bike.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s cute and a smart little thing it’s just all that crying that I can’t handle! I think he took a bit of a shine to me and I made the fatal error of introducing new games to him. The problem with this was while I was happy to play it for five minutes or so he’s opinion differed greatly; as soon as I stopped the tears started. I had intended to do a little bit more writing but Rylan enjoyed the game of pressing the shiny blue off button on my computer every time my back was turned.

During my stay there I was reintroduced to the delights of Western food. I’m not sure why but I get full really quickly these days and often after eating have the feeling of being very bloated. Is it possible that my stomach is shrinking?

In terms of sightseeing I didn’t see too much of Wuhan. Adele informed me that Wuhan didn’t have too much to offer in the way of sights and I didn’t really go out of my way to see if this was true or not. My excuse that sightseeing with an 18 month old baby isn't the best idea.

They have a car so we did take a drive around the city at night and take a walk along the banks of the Yangtze River and let off one of those red Chinese lanterns into the night. Every other person seemed to be selling them and Fly informed me that they cost perhaps 1RMB but were selling them for 10RMB. They seemed to be doing great business; just another example of how good Chinese people are at making money. The problem is that once one person starts doing it everyone jumps on the bandwagon. This is why you will often see two shops selling exactly the same things in China next to each other. One obviously opened up and having seen what a success it was their neighbors do exactly the same. It’s also why near my old school we had four shops next to each other all selling Chinese tea.

Being in Wuhan also gave me the chance to locate Wuhan International Christian Fellowship and spend some time in prayer with brothers and sisters mainly from Africa. I’ve really missed going to Church so it was great to be able to visit there.

I was really fortunate while being in Wuhan that we were blessed with some really nice weather. Wuhan has a strange climate varying from very cold and wet in the winter to extremely hot in the summer months with temperatures regularly hitting the 40 degree mark.

By the time Tuesday came around though I knew it was time say goodbye to my comfy sofa bed and bacon sandwiches in the morning and get back out on the road. I’m sure once I get to the more central regions of China I’ll start running into a few more foreign faces and who knows perhaps some fellow cyclists heading my way.