Exploring Wuhan

Continuing to Wuhan

On the flight from Auckland to Haikou, I had about 4h30 sleep then sat with my eyes closed for a further 1h30.  We landed about an hour earlier than the scheduled time of 0500.

Immigration at Haikou was super-fast.  KL & M had missed the arrival cards on the plane as they were seated amongst Chinese passport-holders who didn’t need them.

In the five minutes that they took to find and fill the forms, the queues from Russian flights had built right up.  I waited for them before exiting the arrival hall together, heading upstairs to the departure area.  It was nice not to have to collect our bags and re-check them this time, unlike last year.

KL, M and I went through security into the domestic departure area and continued our catch-up in the lounge.  Having refreshed and fed ourselves adequately, we explored the airport a little before boarding the 0900 flight to Wuhan.

Arriving in Wuhan

After less than the scheduled flight time of 2h30 and a hot meal, we landed at Wuhan.  The airport is connected to our hotel on a direct metro line but it was quite a long ride.

We reached the Lavande Hotel Jiqing Street around 1315 and was able to get a room straight away.  Naturally, our priorities were to have a shower and a rest.

Exploring Wuhan

But all three of us are the highly-charged type and were ready to head out at 1500.

First up was the nearby pedestrian mall on Jianghan Street.  It was the usual deal of people-watching, looking at new and interesting things in the shops and enjoying the vibe.

What caught me was a chain of shops selling Russian products like milk, chocolates, cookies, alcohol and caviar.

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We took dinner in the basement food hall of a building before grabbing a car to the waterfront area.

Surprisingly, the waterfront was quiet, unlike in other cities.  It looked somewhat new and built on reclaimed land.  The road that we had come on, flanked on one side by historic buildings may have been the old waterfront.

We wandered back through the back streets to our hotel and retired around 2100.