Wuuuuuuhooooohan

Before Nathan arrived on Friday, Cary, Jennifer, and I had a delicious meal of homemade spaghetti at Cary's place. He is a good cook and at some point I'm going to talk him into a deal where I buy the groceries and he does the cooking. This seems like a good plan.
I met Nathan at the train station around 8pm where we bought our train tickets for the next morning (7:45am) to Wuhan. We decided to stay in and sleep since we were both exhausted and knew we had an early morning on Saturday.

Bright and early we woke the next morning, showered, packed, and headed to the station. Our train actually ended up departing early, but we made it. It was a long ride which we mostly napped through. Upon arrival at Wuchang (a borough of Wuhan) Nathan and I immediately went to buy our train tickets home for the next day. Unfortunately the latest and most convenient train was at 10:15am. After waiting for half an hour to get our tickets it was time to find a hotel. Well, lo and behold, there one stood right across the bustling street.
We made our way to the Crowne Hotel and checked in. It was quite a nice place complete with complimentary breakfast in the morning. We dropped off our bags, asked which bus to take to Hanyang (another borough) and set off.
It was a mighty chilly walk to the bus. On the way, Nathan literally saved my life by grabbing me and spinning me around before I got hit by a bus. It was certainly a close call. We finally found our bus and headed off to French Street to find the Aloha Hawaiian restaurant.
Upon arrival at French Street it took us a few minutes to find the restaurant, but when we did, bliss. The food was amazing, the owner was nice, the area was great, and best of all, it was all heated. Nathan had a huge burger while I scarfed down some enchiladas. Tasty-licious.
We wandered around the neighborhood the restaurant was near for awhile before hopping on a bus back to Wuchang. We went back to our room for a little nap, deciding we would head out to see Hankou (another borough) once it had gotten darker.

After sleeping and watching a movie or two, we headed back out into the cold, misty night. We grabbed a cab to Hankou and asked the driver to take us to the Yellow Crane Tower. He ended up dropping us off in the middle of an intersection, pointing where to go. Except... we took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a busy street food street instead. It was amazing! They served everything! We were tempted to grab food, even though we were still full from before, but held off in hopes that we would find the sushi restaurant we had been planning on eating at. After the food street we found a shopping street with tons of vendors hawking various goods. Nathan asked for directions a few more times, and eventually we found the tower. Only... it was closed. We took a couple pictures of it all lit up, then hailed a cab to take us to Jiqing Street, reportedly a hot spot in the evening time.
The driver dropped us off and we looked around confused. This was a hot spot? No one really seemed to be around, no live music, just a few street food vendors and some cold looking people. We decided to move on and search out the Japanese restaurant. We hailed another cab and off we went.
The driver dropped us off at a giant mall. We wandered inside and I was almost overwhelmed. Floors and floors of glorious shopping! Not only the legitimate stores, but those small street like stalls were set up in the back. Heaven on earth. We looked for the restaurant and after asking where it was a couple times, were turned back out onto the street. We decided we weren't really starving yet, so we went to the walking street we had seen earlier, then on to the street-stall shopping street. Nathan bought nice leather gloves and I bought... nothing!!!! Can you believe it? I'm still in shock. I need to find a girl who will want to go back with me so that I can actually get my shop on.
Eventually I got hungry and cranky, so Nathan and I found a 'French' restaurant. We ordered some food which turned out to be pretty decent then headed back to the hotel, exhausted.

This morning we enjoyed a very Chinese breakfast before catching our train. It was a long train ride, but very pleasant and we had some nice time to talk and nap. Nathan headed on to Nanchang, and I hopped off in Jiujiang.
I grabbed a motorcycle home, and now here I am. It's only 6:02pm, but I am wiped.
My secretary's are watching a movie tomorrow and I need to mail Christmas cards/presents. Shame on me. They will be late. Sorry!

I'm honestly considering moving to Wuhan, perhaps for no reason other than the AMAZING SHOPPING! And... perhaps the western food. Mmmm... enchiladas.

By the way... this is gorgeous in purple and light blue!!!