Turns out not many of those assumptions/ expectations were true once I got off the plane. No one was talking too fast because English-speaking tour guides picked us up. There weren’t nearly as many people on the streets as I thought there would be. What I noticed is how there were a lot of people but they were very spread out because the city is so huge. I wasn’t confused on where to go because I just followed my group. I WAS extremely jetlagged and the CULTURE SHOCK was very present once I stepped out of that airport.
When I arrived in Wuhan, China I honestly wasn’t even too excited. I was so freaking tired; all I wanted to do was sleep. We checked into our hotel, which by the way was another hour drive from the airport to get there. The hotel was nice but different. I have no idea what the hotel was called because the name was in Chinese. There were lion sculptures on both sides of the entrance. The architecture of the hotel was white and very detailed. When we walked in there was a red carpet to follow inside to the lobby. There were places to sit and smoke. Yes smoke inside, something we aren’t used to anymore. The person who gave Elise and I our room keys didn’t speak any English so we just nodded and smiled. The little store in the lobby was only big enough to fit one individual desk; there was also a little tiny orange tree in the lobby, which I didn’t really understand.
Elise and I took the elevator up to our room, glass elevator may I add, you could see out into the streets of Wuhan. We got into our room and were very surprised on how big the room was. Actually pretty spacious, well to us since we had been on planes all day. I remember the beds being like boards, literally could have slept on the floor and been the same amount of comfortable. The lights got turned on and off by our room key. We had to keep our room key in this slot or else there would be no lighting. The bathrooms were NORMAL like how we are USED TO. Remember this, therefore we hadn’t even seen squatty potty’s yet until our second day. However, the shower connected to the floor. For example, there was a shower curtain but no tub or lift up in the floor to keep the water in. Therefore, at all times water was ALL OVER the floor of the bathroom.
That night eve though all of us were exhausted Rob (our teacher) convinced us all to explore the city of Wuhan, the nightlife. I was not to happy about this little adventure to be honest. Like I said I jut wanted to sleep. But I went. The city was all lit up, very pretty, kind of like Times Square in New York but in China! There were stores and food all along the streets. This night was the first time I purchased something in China, yep, a bottle of water. But we also went to Starbucks and Macdonald’s to get some Americanized food. Yes first night in China, and we wanted food we were familiar with. That night we just walked around to get the feel of Wuhan.
There was music playing everywhere you went, remind you in Chinese. There were stairs to climb in order to get ANYWHERE. There were also these red lantern things that they used for lighting.
This night was the first night we experienced Wuhan traffic. Which was crazy insane! Little kids were just walking the streets around 10:00 at night by themselves. They would cross the street without looking expecting cars to just stop. We also passed a little girl, again by herself, just peeing on the sidewalk but through her pants, it was very sad to pass by. Wuhan wasn’t as clean and up to date like the United States, but you could tell they were working on a lot of things. There were construction sites everywhere.
At about 1:00AM about Elise and I got comfortable on our table beds and passed out for the night.
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