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Thursday, September 23, 2010

Some Stops on the Itinerary...

Good evening, reporting again tonight from the kitchen table (that would be the large one).

Our travel itinerary is firming up, and nearly locked in.  Nearly every day while we are in China we have at least one official event/appointment/interview/meeting/visit/examination...  But, we also have the opportunity to do some sightseeing during our free time.

Some of the stops we will be making while in Wuhan:

Hubei Provincial Museum
(http://www.travelpod.com/ad/Hubei_Provincial_Museum-Wuhan)


Located on the East Lake, Hubei Museum is one of the best-known museums in China, showcasing numerous State-level historic and cultural relics. Since the establishment of the museum, many exhibitions have been held here. The collections currently hold some 200, 000 objects among which the most astonishing are the objects excavated from the Zenghouyi Tomb. The Zenghouyi Tomb was built about 2400 years ago. The richness of the objects excavated from this tomb and their exquisite beauty has made them one of the rare sights of the world. The musical instruments alone have been called an underground musical palace. Among these instruments, the bianzhong or Chime bells are most famous. In 1978, 15,000 articles were excavated from the Zenghouyi Tomb in Suizhou, including bronze ritual vessels and weapons, horses and carts, articles made of bamboo, lacquer, gold, jade, bamboo tubes, coffins, and musical instruments. Exhibited in this hall are very rare items such as the chime bells, gold cups and jade plates. The Zenghouyi Chime Bells are the most historically important relics. The complete set includes 65 bells hanging on a three-tiered rack weighing over 2,000 kilograms. On the bells are gold-plated inscriptions about music. Each bell can emit two tones. After over 1,000 years, the bells still sound perfectly, ready to play melodies. The Hubei Provincial Museum made a special exhibition room for this set of Bell, and specialists at certain times give performances of ancient music for visitors. The Sword of Gou Jian, a king of Yue Kingdom, and the spear of Fu Chai, a king of Wu Kingdom, are both over 2,000 years old but still shiny and sharp. The lacquer wares used by ancient Chu people have exotic shapes and are truly marvelous.


The Yellow Crane Tower





The tower at night:



From wuhan.com:
As one of the most famous and spectacular towers in China, the Yellow Crane Tower is a "must-see". Originally it wa built in AD 223, during the Three Kingdoms Period as a Wu Kingdom military tower. The tower has been destructed several times and is today placed one kilometre (0.6 mile) from its original site.

The tower is today 52 metres high with five stores and the architecture of the existing tower is from the Qing Dynasty and it was completed first in 1985. Placed on the top of Snake Hill you have a 360 degree view from the top of the tower over Wuhan and a magnificent view northwards over the great Yangtse (Chanjiang) River.

On the first floor you find a description that made the tower well known throughout China, written by Cui Hao, a famous poet of Tang dynasty (618-907). The tower has fascinated poets through the centuries, only in the Qing dynasty, as many as 300 poems were written about the tower.


East Lake





From wuhan.com:
This is a lake that offers scenic attractions in and around the lake. Even on a foggy day, the lake has a magic touch, so why not take a trip with one of the locals in their special designed boats and experience the magic of East Lake.

In the spring time the shores of East Lake became a garden of flowers with the Mei blossoms as the king and the Cherry Blossom as the queen among the species. Another famous flower is the lotus. The lake has a long history and especially the Chu Kingdom is well represented around East Lake.

At East Lake you find fascinating gardens like the Mei Blossom Garden, Forrest of the Birds, Cheery Blossom Garden and monuments from ancient times, beautiful hills and green nature. Moreover, in the Moshan Botanic Garden there are all possible types of plum blossoms, as well as lotus flowers.

The East Lake is the largest lake inside a city in China and has lot of scenic spots along its shore. The total area is more than 80 square kilometres of which the lake is covering an area of 33 square kilometres.


More Wuhan sights to follow soon...


In addition to our China tours, we are also fortunate to have the chance to spend some time in San Diego/LA area after the China legs of the trip to normalize and to have some family time before heading home to begin our new life as a family of five.  More on this later as well...


The boys are very much looking forward to leaving, and are asking Mom when they can start packing!  Whenever we go out to eat, Kyle has taken on the task of informing the host/hostess at the front podium that we need a "Table for Four, please."  He has already been practicing his "Table for five, please."


Kyle's birthday is approaching at the end of September so he got a couple of early presents.  A hand-held DS game along with some actual games to play (THANKS Grandma & Poppa - from Michigan).  So as you'd expect, Dylan has benefited as well with an early Christmas present - a DS of his own.  Those of you out there with twins know exactly how that goes!!


Anyway they're practicing very hard and hope to make extensive use of these on the planes, trains and automobiles on which we'll be traveling.


Lots more to do and say before departure day (1 week from Tuesday).
Stay tuned and thanks for following along.


C

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