Blogs from Wuhan, Hubei, China, Asia - page 9

Thanks to Catherine's Dad's heroic driving we've been able to get around the city pretty well. But I would be lying if I told you I wasn't just a bit terrified of the daily commute. Last time we were here in early 2009 the traffic was really bad. Now it is definitely horrendous! Wuhan's been developing at such a break-neck pace that it's transportation system hasn't been able to keep up so the roads are clogged with cars, buses and black smoke belching transport trucks. It's really kind of hard to describe what driving is like in China so I'll try to sum it up by giving you what seems to be the unofficial "rules" of the road: 1. There are no rules, just drive however you want. 2. Red lights are only a suggestion for ... read more

My wife and I are making our 3rd trip to China to spend time with her family in Wuhan. As usual we spent the night at Toronto's Airport for our 6:30am flight to save some money as the tickets are very expensive for such a long flight (about $3200 total cost). We could have taken a direct flight to China but decided to take the best deal with Continental which involved making a connection to Newark in New York, Shanghai then to Wuhan. This was our first flight to New York and thankfully the sky was clear allowing us to get a glimpse of the Manhattan skyline. It was a bit far away to see many details but it was still an impressive site to see the wall of skyscrapers along the horizon. Our flight from ... read more

My second week in Wuhan was better. I was reunited with the internet! I had gone about a month without regular contact with friends and family and it was comforting to be connected with the outer world again. Also I after a week of bumming around I really wanted to hit the lab. I was told to wait until our weekly group meeting on Monday afternoon. Then everyone would make introductions and I could get set up with some work to do. Well group meeting time came around and I was completely overwhelmed! Turns out there are 40 people working under this professor - a handful of assistant professors and 30+ grad students. Only 2 of the grad students are girls. Unsurprisingly, the whole meeting took place in very fast Chinese. Also some people had rather ... read more

And so another year ends...three nights, three parties! Saturday night found us at a new restaurant down the street from the school for a year-end staff party. Along with the great food, we had the first Maple Leaf Teacher Award ceremony. Although with certificates for Least Punctual, Most Social, Most Elusive, Best Laugh, etc., you can see it wasn't the most serious awards ceremony around. We ended the evening with a couple of boxes of fireworks. Sunday night, the grads organized a "prom' at the Fringe Bar. For an all-inclusive price, we got tons of food and beer. They invited the Grade 12 teachers to celebrate with them. A good time was had by all and we all decided the students looked a lot better in their finery then in the "turtle suit" school uniforms! Monday ... read more

As the end of the university year is almost over, we were invited by one of Trevor's classes to join them for an end of year trip to a rainforest mountain area north of Wuhan. The tradiiton around Mulan Mountain is it was the fortified area of the first female general of one of the early dynasty's, General Mulan. The bus trip took about an hour and a half, we still have trouble getting use to vehicles travelling on the wrong side of the road whilst trying to avoid pot holes and barely making it back to the right side of the road, (which is still the wrong side) after both vehicles constantly blasting their horn. The 33 students and us stayed in hotel accommodation which was originally the farm workers accommodation from years ago. We ... read more