Finally, a late wakeup. Anyways, this morning after breakfast, we left the hotel and went to the Wuhan museum to see artifacts found in the tomb of a Marquis of the Zeng state. When they opened the tomb, the entire thing was filled with water. This was not on purpose, but it was regular groundwater. However, this water was what helped preserve all the artifacts. The stuff in this museum was also at the National Gallery of Art when my Chinese school went (I even saw the bowl I drew for homework back in Wuhan =P). The most amazing thing here was the bell chimes. Each bell could make 5 different pitches when hit in different places (I think). The whole set was gigantic and had its own room. On the walls, there were like analyses of the pitches made by the bells and stuff. After the whole tour of the museum, we went to see a performance of these bells along with a chime set, gu zheng, and a Chinese flute. Of course the bells and chimes were replicas, but the performance they put on was amazing. The smaller bells are played with mallets, but the bigger ones are played with these huge wooden rods. The performance was like 4 songs including Auld Lang Syne =P.

After our museum trip, my family parted the tour group again. My two uncles picked us up from the museum and we first went to my uncle’s 2nd store (opened January 1), then took a drive around Dong Lake (I finally learned why all the trees’ trunks are painted white…so that at night, cars can see them =P). Then we went to his 1st bakery and finally drove all the way back to his newest store (the one we went to yesterday…opened May 1). This whole trip took like over an hour, and I, like always, took the opportunity to sleep. For lunch, we ate at the café above the bakery (pretty good) and then left for the airport.

My uncle told us that the Wuhan airport is a very lousy airport, and he wasn’t all too wrong. Well, they weren’t necessarily lousy with us, they were a bit too stringent with the regulations. In China, bags that are checked in for domestic flights must be under 44 pounds or 20 kilograms. However, being tourists, of course all the parents’ bags are gigantic and weigh like 35 kilograms (Eric’s mom’s…and she has two like this). Okay, so 11 people, 20 kilos per person, 220 kilogram maximum for all our checked in baggage. Of course with all these gigantic bags, all of them put together definitely surpassed this limitation, causing us to have to take all the small bags on as carry-on items. However, my bag was like the only one that didn’t make it in, and it’s too big to be a carry-on item (only 14 kilograms). Therefore, there was a charge of 140 rmb (10 per kilogram), which we had to pay. (Note: this exact same thing happened with the other GAT tour group that was on the boat with us. They were also at the museum a little later than us, and we met them again at the airport. They were also taking the same flight to Shanghai as us, and are also staying at Jin Jiang Towers…figures.

Once we arrived in Shanghai (the old airport this time), we drove to the hotel, checked in, went to our rooms, and then it was off to dinner. Sadly, this was probably the last time we would have a meal with Jack (Pei, our tour guide…I finally found out his English name). He’s been pretty good to us, at least in my opinion…the parents may think otherwise. However, we’ll see him again on Sunday morning…he’ll send us off to the airport.

After dinner, all of us except Terry’s dad and my dad went to the all walking road in Shanghai to go shopping. I think that Wuhan’s walking road had much better stores than Shanghai’s, but what can you do. I didn’t get the chance to see Wuhan’s at night, but Shanghai’s was filled with neon lights. This road also wasn’t as good because people had to worry about crossing the street rather than having a bridge to cross like in Wuhan. The one in Shanghai also had trolley cars running up and down the street…kind of interesting.

Well, it was mostly all women’s clothing stores, so that’s all we went to. It was in and out, in and out. The moms had a goal though. They were looking for things that our Chinese school’s chorus could wear. Finally, when all the stores started to close, they spotted this qi pao store and spent like an hour in there ordering a dress (guessing peoples’ sizes and stuff). However, the problem is that the store clerk wasn’t very trusting that we would actually come and buy the qi paos because we said we would come back on Saturday night to buy them (they didn’t have the number they wanted inside the store, and so therefore they have to pick up more from the manufacturer). Eventually after what seemed like forever, they finally agreed, I guess. Hopefully they’ll come back on Saturday to buy the dresses, or else this hour of talking and fitting and stuff will be to waste.

Finally, we took a taxi back to the hotel (Oh yeah, forgot to say that our hotel yesterday was the Holiday Inn Riverside Wuhan, room 1121. Today’s room is 3806). The taxis are kind of interesting, well at least the one we rode in. The taxi has like a plexiglass (I think) covering around the drivers seat in order to protect the driver from customers. It’s smart, but it also opens your mind to the things that some people will do.

Now it’s 1:00am and I have to wake up again at 6:00. We’ll be going to Hangzhou and Suzhou tomorrow and then it’s back to Shanghai on Saturday. Then it’s the flight home…yea!!!