We are not in Kansas anymore Toto.
One thing about this tour that's beginning to get on my nerves is the lack of information. our promoter here seems to think that any travel info is on a need-to-know basis. In other words, we have no idea where we're going or how or when we're getting there until it's happening. That would be perfectly fine if we were in the States, but we're here in China where none of us speaks the language or knows our way around. Fuck.
We got up at the crack of dawn this morning to set out for Wuhan. The whole airport experience was a huge clusterfuck-- we had no idea of where to go or what to do and were running the whole time to get it all done. Passports and tickets werre flying back and forth. We made it onto the plane by the skin of our teeth and settled in for the short flight to the city of Wuhan, which provided much-needed time for a short nap.
Now, Beijing was a pretty dirty city, but it was pristine in comparison with Wuhan. In Beijng the dust and dirt seems to have more to do with age, but in Wuhan it seems to just be dirt. We arrived at our tiny hotel on a dark side street, the Swiss-Belhotel International, and promptly took advantage of a couple of hours of nap time. My roommate popped in her earplugs and was soon snoozing away while I grabbed the opportunity to send some email and catch up on a little blog reading.
We took off super early to the venue, the Royal Opera House, and got there with about three hours to spare. This seems to be a trend here-- after our first day, where we were an hour late due to traffic, the powers that be have decided that we should be there insanely early just in case. This, of course, gives the percussionist time to set up and the cellos time to make the best of a bad situation and the rest of us time for pictures and walking around outside the venue, which is exactly the course we decided to take.
We stopped at a corner shop for some water and then headed around the corner to find... a music shop! Even though the proprietress spoke no English, we got along and tried out a bunch of fabulous traditional Chinese instruments that I still don't know the name for. Each of us bought a couple for a song and scurried back over to the dressing rooms to try them out thoroughly. Sassy Jo and Pixie B found some double-reeded instruments like shawms that even came with tiny double reeds!! Of course, they set about adjusting them immediately and hilarity ensued. We were all laughing hysterically at the honks and squacks the horns made. I bought one instrument that looks like a big bulb of garlic attached to three pipes. It sounds kind of like a single harmonica and it a total hoot to play. The other thing I bought looks like a flute, but has a single metal reed which makes it sound like a little Foghorn.
The hall was not bad in terms of sound, but there were other problems: the risers we were sitting on weren't at all safe-- walking on and offstage we were sure one of us was going to put a foot through them or fall over becasue they shifted. And the poor cellos-- their instruments were even worse here than in Beijing. Cello Chick's was so bad she was almost in tears-- it had a really wicked wolf which made it do this insane reverb thing. Icky.
At any rate, the day was fairly trying but was redeemed by the instrument purchases... who knew? On to Guangzhou tomorrow, in the sunny South.
