The Big Piano

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New photos on:
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg311/draftwrite/

…..Australia has competition for its collection of 'Big' attractions, those excuses for a road trip that rarely seem worthwhile if that's the only reason you've gone to visit an area. The Big Banana, The Big Lobster, The Big Koala, The Big Orange etc. China now has the Big Piano, though it's not called that. A sizeable building, like a grand piano with the lid open, a huge glass violin at the front accommodating the staircase. I'd seen photos on the internet & checked to find it's relatively nearby, in Anhui province. So I'm sucked in to making a trip, knowing the coal mining city of Huainan is not likely to be high on the list of desirable destinations.....

…..via Jiangsu's capital, Nanjing & the Anhui capital, Hebei, it's around 250km from Yangzhou. However as I don't drive in China the route is as follows: no.66 bus from the school to Yangzhou West coach station, coach to Nanjing, 75km, buses running every 20 or 30 minutes during the day. From Nanjing East coach station to the main train station, then get the subway to Nanjing SOUTH railway station. Nanjing to Hefei, an hour on the fast train, Hefei to Huainan, about an hour & a half on a slow train.....

…..my first visit to Nanjing South station. I should be used to this in China by now but honestly, coming from a country with a small population, (that's everywhere else now except maybe India), it's hard to accommodate your mental image of what the station (the second station!), in a provincial capital should be with what it is in China. The outside looks as though it's inspired by China's massive pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. In through one of 5 or 6 electronic scanners then up one of a set of 8 escalators to an upper level that is bigger than the International airport in Adelaide. The waiting areas are modelled more on an airport than a train station, all 22 of them.....

…..I have spoken many times to other foreigners in China about this. Am I just playing up to readers overseas who won't know if I'm exaggerating just a little? The answer is always a shaking of the head that mirrors my own as we all realise we're here during a period of infrastructure construction that can't have been equalled at any other time in the world's history.....

….I have been here long enough to know this but I hadn't spotted the “D” on my train ticket refers to the “Dong Che” or fast train. It's not the 300km / hour bullet train, which has its own stations & elevated lines, kilometres of concrete columns supporting a seemingly endless ribbon of concrete suspended above the Chinese countryside. It's at ground level but looks very similar & still gets along at a respectable 200km / hour. The “D” trains are constantly arriving & departing from Nanjing South. Economies of scale that Australians or even densely populated Britons can only imagine.....

…..Huainan, as expected, is not a great tourist destination. When the park with the “Big Piano” is finished it may be a local attraction for the smaller towns in the area but really, having almost been driven to tears by the world's saddest beach.....

…..having taken some photos of the Big Piano I take a walk around what appears to be a large work in progress. A path through a grove of bamboo opens up to a pond. No, a brown, muddy pool. Some sand has been dumped & levelled on one side of this unappealing, murky little lake. Groups of kids are busy with plastic buckets & spades while parents sit on the grass nearby wondering why the only foreigner, (as far as I can see), in Huainan is shaking his head sadly. They have never seen the Great Ocean road or Coffin Bay & even Bondi is a paradise in comparison. A girl in a wedding dress poses on the barren shore. I take a photo & move on, before I see someone trying to swim in there.....

…..the unmistakeable staccato fart of a Hardly Ableson, sorry, Harley Davidson, which I have never before heard in China. On the main street of Huainan after being ripped off for a pretty average dinner, I head for the source of the sound. It appears a small restaurant or cafe owner has either imported or built a pretty impressive chopper. I see, (& hear), him later riding through the streets.....

…..2 days in Huainan is enough. I meet some interesting people on the train & manage to have a sort of conversation, with some breaks to translate now & again. Everyone seems surprised to see a foreigner this far out but happy to ask me where I'm from, what I'm doing & how I like China. A product designer, 2 brothers with their mum & teacher, a man in his forties & a woman travelling to Hebei, a little girl who offers me a whole pack of pastries, (see photo!). I have my tablet out switched on ready to read a book but we're too busy talking so, apart from showing the kids some pictures of Australian animals & then the adults, who also want to get in on the action, there's no time to read. Still, at least they know what a REAL beach looks like now.....

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