NEW CHINA: From Yichang, at the end of the Yangtze River tour, we had a 4-hour car ride down the motorway to Wuhan, to a luxurious hotel, in a city of 8 million people. We ate in a fabulous, 4,000 seat restaurant just down the road and in the morning, out of our room, we could not believe the view: The World Trade Center twin towers still stand on main street, Wuhan, except only about 30 stories tall ... Click to see a large image.
OLD CHINA: Next morning, we went to Mao Tse Tung's villa. He spent, many times, several weeks at a time, by a nice lake in Wuhan. He's not very popular right now in China, so we were the only visitors and the taxi driver could not find it. In Wuhan, he took a couple of famous swims in the Yangtze, when he was already quite old, predicting the Three Gorges Dam upstream ... in these swimming trunks ... Click to see a larger image.
Barbara with Mao's nice car, preserved next to the villa, where he often spent long periods of time. Now, two girls take care of the villa and were amazed to see visitors and quickly turned all the lights on for us. We took the taxi driver in with us, because he'd never been there ... Click to see a larger image.
Mao's dining room, with an old radio/gramophone and a basket for steamed dumplings. Across the hall from this was a conference room, where party officials visited him to get instructions ... Click to see a large image.
Several of Mao's old jackets on display. Everything is in Chinese, the two girls speak only Chinese and all the signs are in Chinese. We may have been the first Western visitors in a while ... Click to see a larger image.
Fading photos of Mao, security camera to the left ... Click to see a larger image.
After Mao's villa, in a nice lakeside neighbourhood of Wuhan, we had the choice of visiting the local SeaWorld or, as we chose, a bird park, with a huge aviary and a theater where various birds performed for families with lots of children. Barbara with a peacock showing off ... Click to see a larger image.
A well organized parrot, who holds his cup of food and, between bites, talks to visitors, but in Chinese, I think ... Click to see a large image.
In the show, parrots flew to children holding up banknotes and brought them to their trainers. Barbara held up a 1Yuan banknote, but they did preferred the 10 and 20 Yuan notes held up by children. I think they are trained by colour of money and pick the higher denominations ... Click for a large image.
Barbara and Emu communicating, in English and Chinese. After this, we left and flew off to Shanghai ... Click to see a larger image.
