Inside the Most Controversial City in China (They NEVER Show This!)
people in Wuhan have been asked not to leave the city and Outsiders have been told to stay away. Evacuating American citizens from Wuhan! Wuhan Wuhan Wuhan There are a few places around the world that we've all heard of for the wrong reasons. That as soon as we hear the name, it drums up images in our head that we associate with the certain event, forever. Well this city does exactly that for so many of us. When most people around the world hear 'Wuhan', the first thing you think
back to are those early days of 2020 when the streets were empty and the Panic was real. But what is this place really like beyond our stereotypes and the headlines? What is the real face of one of the most famous but also unseen cities in the world? Well, let's travel to Wuhan China and try to find out. Welcome to Sunny Wuhan a very hot Wuhan it's 38° today, I don't know why I'm checking the time, but it is 38° today so we're going to see what we can film hopefully not melt, and uh, let's just show you where we are at the moment. This
is the old Russian concession area of all places. And it's a place to be here. It is the place to be. The place to be there are so many people here taking photos, there are lots of actually photographers we've seen walking around, and they've been offering to take pictures of us and stuff and this mental it's crazy so many people it's taking photos and it's a really pretty part of the town. Chinese influencer Central. For sure. We just wanted to
show you this as well as we're in the Russian concession area of the city on the drains here you can see old Russian written here Yeah that looks like a 'Samovar' kind of thing. Yeah this is the old or train the old Russian tea trading route right, I think a lot of Russian tea Traders came here to Wuhan back in the day, and um yeah that was the main trade that came out of this region towards Russia. That makes sense that explains the train saying the name of the Tea number one, and um Railway.
Fascinating you have it written in Chinese here and in Russian here and this is old 'Ruskiy' right old Russian right because you still got the the old 'i' that isn't in Russian anymore. It's, it is an old ruski old ruski. A piece of History here in the middle of Wuhan. Something I didn't expect to see at all. So we've just walked to the end of this road and actually here there's like a big Market along here I don't know if it's only on weekends, it's Sunday today, but yeah it's absolutely gorgeous there's like a full-on handycraft market just set up along the street [Music] So, Wuhan is actually China's ninth biggest city. Only the ninth biggest city,
and the population of Wuhan is about 13 million, 13 million people, in China's ninth biggest city, that's bigger than London! There's more people in China's ninth biggest city, than there is in the biggest city in Western Europe, crazy. And actually we were reading the name Wuhan actually comes from the two separate towns that used to sit either side of arguably the city's Main Attraction which is the Great Yangtze River, Hankou, where we currently are now, on the north side of the city and Wuchang which is on the south side of the Yangtze River. And we're walking up towards the river right now and to be honest it is absolutely massive it's incredible! hello, hello, how are you? Fine thank you. Good. Have time in Wuhan. Thank you, thank you very much This is the Yangtze River, the longest river in Asia, the third longest river in the entire world, and also the longest river to start and finish in the same country. So by the way, the reason that Wuhan in particular grew into such a big city is because of this River and the fact that the main tributary into the Yangtze meets the river itself here. So throughout the centuries there were so many ships and trading boats Etc that met here in Wuhan. Hence why this grew into the city that is today,
and it is absolutely massive. Once again we're in the ninth biggest city in China and it is colossal [Music] that's not something you expected to see in Wuhan. During China's Century of humiliation as it's known from the 1850s to roughly just after the second world war a lot of the European powers at the time including the British, the French and the Russian Empire, prior to the Communist Revolution, took advantage of China's situation at the time and open concessions and trading ports all over the country, including annexing different bit of territory and here in Wuhan there was both a British, French and a Russian concession where we just were, and this statue here is to do with the tea trade that was sent from China at the time from here in Wuhan up to the Russian Empire, this was the old Russian concession right here on the banks of the yangtze river Right next to the main Square just here is Jianghan Road which is what we're on right now. This is like one of the main pedestrian streets here in Wuhan, and it is so loud, there's so much going on, there's people everywhere, there's people advertising boat tours, there's for some reason a France football store, and an FC Barcelona football store, and then just yeah, shops everywhere, people riding their little electric bikes, it's all going on here and this goes on for about 2 km so it's a very long Street, and there's yeah all sorts along here. When we were walking by the river we were saying
that considering it's Sunday it seems quite quiet, I guess the heat is the reason for that, you can see that as it cools down more people come out on the streets [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Honestly I know we've come to like a more busy part of the city in general, but the change from just a few hours ago is insane right! Honestly, you can hardly hear yourself think let alone move [Music] is this a piss-take, did they know you were coming? honestly this is so funny we didn't know this was here I promise it's just so funny this is so funny, look at all the Russian sausage this is so Random. I need to record a video for my family i think! vodka lots of vodka, oh my god. Georgian vodka from Kakheti. No, Georgian Wine, sorry, from Kakheti, with the world's most famous Georgian on the front it looks like they're doing you on a free delivery. In the shot it looks like you're on a free delivery [Applause] wild Siberian plums [Music] I don't know why it feels a bit awkward like we're searching for those places but everything happens by accident i swear.
Honestly you couldn't make this up. The fact that they're playing 'Katyusha' as well the whole time this is so [ __ ] weird. This was really unexpected So we've seen a lot of strange things here in Wuhan today but that's definitely got to be top of the list. Definitely. Anyway. Anyway, onwards and upwards. Onwards, and upwards should we go for some noodles? Yes Wuhan is really famous for its breakfast food apparently obviously it's not breakfast time now but there was one of the dishes we really wanted to really wanted to try which is Sesame paste noodles and we on our way to give it a try [Music] I need to find the name. So we found somewhere online that's recommended but I just need to check the name in Chinese. Well this is the building we were supposed to be eating in somewhere along here was the restaurant, and 'was' is the key word. it's uh is it raining it's closed it's
been shut down not for long we don't think, um yeah, on even on Apple Maps it's still showing the restaurant and it's showing that it's open today, so it can't of been closed long, but it is closed, so we're going to have to find something else for dinner. Oh well we tried, we tried, it's the effort that counts, so close but so far onwards and upwards. [Music] again um [Music] [Music] [Applause] We found somewhere to try sesame noodles. It was a mission. It was a mission, when you don't understand anything, it could be written literally everywhere, but we wouldn't know. We were literally walking around with our phones, with Google Translate. Is it, is it the one. We got them! Looks so good And we ordered this dish no idea what it is noodles with beef, looks good. Let's try it. Which one are you going to go for first? I'll try the beef try one
okay okay, I'm going to sit forward because I'm notorious for spilling things. You and I both. It's obviously really hot temperature-wise but it's very spicy, like good spice, not over the top not Southeast Asia spice, but, nicely spiced. You got the herbs from just over on the side there you can add whatever you want. So we just added some spring onion, and some parsley which gives it a nice like freshness, and then the noodles themselves are perfectly boiled.
Yeah it's a really easy beautiful noodle dish, gorgeous. You going to try the Sesame paste ones? it's really good it's quite spicy. Like too much spicy? Could be, um, it's really interesting I know it's sesame paste but it does taste like pasta noodles in peanut sauce. Like Tahini paste Like noodles in Tahini paste, and spicy, savory. Oh it's really nice it's very
interesting certainly very unusual that's for sure I'm so happy that we got to try them though. Yeah, we were actually really disappointed when that place was closed we were thinking we've been waiting for this since arriving in Wuhan a couple of days ago, but yeah, we got there in the end. Can I have a go? Um. You going to feed me? I'm two steps ahead [Applause] lovely that's good spicy it's so true it was literally like having noodles with Tahini paste that's the closest thing you can kind of match it to right there's like chunks of carrots in there as well it's big what did I say wrong nothing is funny because tahini is a sesame paste. Oh yeah [Laughter] See, I've got a good palette, I knew. Wuhan is known as the windy city, funnily enough today it wasn't windy at all, and I think we came out for a walk way too early, like walking around in 38 degrees Heat, it's been quite repressive, especially in the beginning of the day we couldn't find anywhere to hide away from the Sun. We're just walking back to the area where we staying and we wanted to show it to you because it's quite fun and um it's interesting as well because we're very close to the center it's a local residential area, also we noticed coming to Wuhan it feels very different to Shanghai straight away. Compared to Wuhan, Shanghai is quite sterile. Here is a quite
different vibe. A lot more Rough Around the Edges I say. Yeah yeah. People have so many dogs here, which I don't know why I just didn't expect to see, also we learned that in Mandarin, uh, they call themselves, not 'dog owners' they call themselves 'dog or cat slaves'. Honestly it's like an entire little sub community within the city it's even gated to get in here and everyone here is so friendly there's a proper Community Feel isn't there. Everyone chats to each other we got a taxi earlier into the very center cuz it was so hot, and like there was not much room to drive the taxi down the road, so they're like a lot of the locals were coming out and like helping the taxi driver get through, it was so funny. Yeah such an interesting thing that in the very center of the city there's such
a like Community feel about the place. And also another thing we wanted to show you was the southeast Asian wiring, which is something I did not expect here in China, but I guess you know every Community is getting updated at a different pace, so potentially that's something that may change in the future. But maybe it just looks unusual to us because we're not used to it but it's working perfectly. I'm sure it is yeah yeah I'm certain it is. So many scooters and bikes everywhere it's crazy. And they're all electric as well so you never hear them coming do you
in the previous video we told you that we want to wash our clothes while staying in this hotel because they had washing machines, so we did it yesterday, when we went down the lady asked us if we want our clothes dried, so we were like "yeah sure" I was like "do we come back in half hour?" she's like "2 hours", so we say "yeah cool". We came down and they had packed away all our clothes really neatly in bags, like we didn't expect this at all it is just mental. We expected to just pick up the clothes out the washing machine, and then carry it back. I think they pressed it all as well right cuz it was all so well folded, and it was me it was very creased beforehand, so, incredible and it was included in the price of the hotel which is nuts. So lastly, and I'll show you a clips of what this area looks like in the morning, we just wanted to show you the blocks of flats here that are very similar to 'Krushovkas' like you see in the former Soviet Union, except these are six stories, and 'Krushovkas' are usually five. But yeah so similar, it's so interesting to see, again,
you see so much modernization here in China, and modern buildings big sort of glass Towers, but you don't really see that much of this kind of typical yeah typical lived in residential flat and uh yeah really interesting. Amazing how similar they are to 'Krushovkas'. Good morning from the absolute massive and train station, where we're about to take a train into the countryside for the first time since being here in China, which we're incredibly excited about. We've got a 6 hour train ahead of us, but that concludes our time here in Wuhan. So thank you very much for watching. See you in the next one!
2024-10-12 10:20
