Oct 15-19th 2024 AMCHPR China Tour / Wuhan: Watch hunting and wandering...
My first stop after arriving in Beijing and staying a few days was scenic Wuhan, capital of Hubei and home to about 11 million people. Here's the Wiki for folks who want background.
My main host in Wuhan was Ailing, mother of my guide, Tina, from years ago when I visited Zhuhai Rossini Watch Factory, and with whom I'd become friends since. Among the sites she took me to was the beautiful Yellow Crane Tower, and these next shots are of the tower...
(Note: photos link to full-size versions)
My main host in Wuhan was Ailing, mother of my guide, Tina, from years ago when I visited Zhuhai Rossini Watch Factory, and with whom I'd become friends since. Among the sites she took me to was the beautiful Yellow Crane Tower, and these next shots are of the tower...
(Note: photos link to full-size versions)
...some shots inside...
...a view from the top floor of the temple...
...and, now, photos from the grounds...
Ailing also took me on a couple of great walks along the Yangtse River. These scenes are in order from day to evening...
Ailing also treated me to some superb street food eating. I have zero hesitation eating in these places. The food is cheap, delicious and very safe--it doesn't last long enough to spoil, and the cooks are very experienced, surviving in a very competitive business.
...and a couple of shots of wandering around that night, after eating.
The next three photos are from the garden/courtyard of the apartment complex where I stayed, just to give an idea of some typical urban living.
This is the morning market on the street just outside the apartment complex...
All the remaining photos are from the wonderful day I spent with Ailing and Yang, my watch hunting guide (who wrote a Watchuseek post on our day) and who is a *very* knowledgeable historian/write working full time with an agency tasked with reserving cultural heritage all around China. Yang lives in Wuhan as his home base.
Yang and Ailing as we start watch hunting and walking through the Taining Market area, a second hand goldmine, as Yang described. Lots more than just watches.
The next two photos (first mine, second is courtesy Yang) show what the market area is like.
Courtesy Yang
When we met, and before we started hunting. Yang gifted me a watch...
...and here it is...note the beautiful textured dial...
I also managed to find two other watches: another Wuhan with a caseback Yang described as somewhat rare...
...and a Xiangshan watch, which I'd recalled had a connection to Mao Zedong: According to this link, Xiangshan has "revolutionary history as a temporary headquarters of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1949, where Chairman Mao Zedong lived in Shuangqing Villa ."
After we'd hunted watches, Yang took Ailing and I on a tour of the concession districts of Wuhan, areas described this way by Google:
"Concessions in Hankou were granted between 1861 and 1896 [during the Qing Dynasty period: ed] to British, French, German, Japanese, and Russian interests, and a number of foreign commercial, trading, and shipping firms opened offices there during that period."
The rest of the photos here are taken from that walkabout.
Which ends my time in Wuhan. The next day I was off to Luoyang. One last warning before I go...
Watch out for cats in Wuhan--they're huge.
