We had an outing today. Thus, all of us gathered downstairs at 8.30am but the thing is that the bus was not on time making us wait for about half an hour. We were told that we were going to 4 places and for 1 place, we would just go pass in the bus.
This time round, the tour guide, Mr. Liu did not tell us all about the history and stuff about Wuhan but asked us what we taught about Wuhan. Then he began introducing Wuhan a bit more before going into the details of the places we were about to head to.
First stop and first place, was at Yellow crane tower.
Yellow Crane Tower sits on top of the Snake Hill at Wuchang. It enjoys the fame of "the best scene on earth" in ancient times, equally famous with Yueyang Tower in Hunan and Tengwang Tower in Jiangxi.
Yellow Crane Tower was built in 223 with a wooden structure. Fires and wars had caused destruction to it time and again before it was once again burnt down in 1884. The tower, which was first built as a watchtower for military use, developed into a gathering place for scholars to have farewell banquets to friends. It became ever more well-known for a poem by Cui Hao of the Tang Dynasty, Yellow Crane Tower.
It was rebuilt in 1981 and the construction took four years. The new building is 51.4 m tall: 5 stories seeing from outside but actually l0 stories inside. It is really the best place to viewing the surrounding scenery by the Yangtze River.
Yellow Crane Tower is the symbol of Wuhan city. It is now surrounded by a large park featuring many gardens, ponds, and buildings nestled into Snake Mountain. It is a beautiful spot to get away from the busy life of the city. Yellow Crane tower is one of the most famous towers in China. Originally built in 223A.D. this five story tower has inspired poets for centuries.
We stepped in and the tour guide started talking about the place. We walked around the park before reaching the place.
The park area
Climbed up floor by floor, and stopped by certain floors with the tour guide giving explanations.
The place
Models of the different looks of Yellow Crane Tower at different period of time
The second stop was to a nearby place to eat our lunch. We had some Dou pi, deep fried spring rolls, sotongs, and escargots with a cup of soya bean milk.
Lunch time at
The third stop and second place was a park like area.
At the park like area which was called the Myth Garden of Yu the great
Then the next place was when the bus drove pass while the tour guide explained.
while passing by the place
The fourth stop and last place was to the Zoo.
Wuhan Forest Safari Park
Wuhan Forest Safari Park is located at the lakefront of Youzidong of Wumeishan Mountain, Bolin Town, Caidian District, Wuhan. With more than 3000 mu land area and 260 mu water area, it is the first large safari park possessing both forest and animals in the Central China. There are many scenic spots and entertainment items, such as children's heaven, horse ground (for horse riding club), feral beast section including homes for bear, lion and tiger, deer home, rare birds paradise, animal's performance arena and first-class wooden-housed villa section, paradise for hydrophilous plants and animals, fishing platform and painting bout. In this park you can not only enjoy beautiful scenes and pleasant weather but also visit different sorts of wild animals. The number of species of wild animals is No. 1 in the whole country, especially the number of feral beast species including Dongbei tiger, African tiger, and catamount has gone beyond 200. And even more surprisingly all the animals in this park are breed in the open place
We got to see some actions that the monkeys made, peacocks showing off their magnificent feathers, the pandas which were the main highlight of the zoo Xi Xi and Wang Wang, some birds like creature flying out of its own enclosure and wanting to have really close contact with the people actually, I think it just wanted food, as after food was given and it was being chased, it went back, elephants, giraffes, goats.
Pandas
A Lion and dog that went on the newspaper before
But unlike in Singapore Zoo, the animals were treated very differently. In the Singapore’s Zoo, animals were kept in cages which were cleaned and maintained properly, with an artificial environment created for them to be able to adapt to the different environment they are in. The animals looked more relaxed and less bored compared to the animals in Wuhan Zoo.
The animals in Wuhan Zoo have to live in cages which had rusty bars, dirty conditions. The condition that they were living in was like living in jail or even worse off. Just like locked up animals for the sake of people entertainment and putting the animals’ welfare aside.
Also, the surrounding of the Wuhan Zoo was like it was more like of a park whereby you could see people fishing, playing pokers cards on the grass patches compared to the Zoo in Singapore.
At the Zoo, we got to witness two shows, one of them was a seal show and another was a combination of different animals like a circus type of performance. It included animals such as monkeys, tigers, lions, dog and horse.
For the seal show, the seal was really smart, knowing mental calculations.
At the seal show
For the “circus” like show, it was really a very heart-breaking scenario, whereby, the animals are being forced to do the acts they are being asked to, they were doing things in fear. Even when the animals had tried their best, guess the show must go on, they are being forced to continue the act. From this, a picture could be painted of animals being tortured. All this for audiences’ applauses. Is this worth?
At the “circus” like show
“The Dutch design company Jora Vision has been contracted as designer and architect for the new look Wuhan Zoo in China. The winner of an international tendering process, Jora Vision presented a detailed plan to rebuild the zoo to Wuhan City representatives at the end of 2007.
Inspired by Wuhan’s location alongside the Yangtze Kiang/Han River, the zoo will integrate a new theme entitled “The Journey of the Big Rivers.” Six other rivers from around the world will also be represented, including the Zambezi (Africa), Kapuas (Indonesia), Mississippi (North America), Amazon (South America), Darling (Australia) and Rhine (Europe) – all linked to a central lake. Around each river an imitation of the specific flora, fauna and scenery will be recreated.
Dutch zoo designer Erik van Vliet and Chinese landscape architect Benno Wu form the concept team for the project together with Jora Vision managing director June and Jan Maarten de Raad and his wife June.
“For a Chinese Zoo this is a revolutionary breakthrough, since Chinese visitors are used to viewing the wild animals in cages behind bars,” says van Vliet. “In the rebuilt Wuhan Zoo, guests can experience the habitat of animals by crossing the paths and streams by foot, boat or special vehicle.”
The restyled zoo will open its gates in the second half of 2010.”
The Wuhan Zoo is about to revamp, it is such a pity I could not get to have a look at it since it will only be completed in the second half of 2010.
After the trip to the Zoo, it marks the end of our lessons for this whole trip.
We were brought back to our apartments, had some rest before heading off to dinner at Chicony’s Japanese restaurant.
After coming back from dinner to the apartments, we washed up and celebrated the sixth and last birthday of this trip.
We celebrated Eileen birthday at her neighbor’s apartment. They partied all the way till 11am with music such as from drums, guitar and also something simple, from a person voice which was song singing. We ate the cake after the party.
Group photo grabbed from Eileen
I went to sleep over at Bernice and Xiu Jin apartment after we chatted.
