The Augustana Band Returns to China!: Some HEAT, some HEAT, my kingdom for some HEAT!

Note: VPN is acting up a bit today, so please enjoy the narrative and all the photos lumped at the bottom....not pretty, but its the only thing working from Wuhan tonight!
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Today we enjoyed a BOUNTIFUL breakfast in the hotel - so many places to find food in that room I’m sure we left much of it untested!

We took off sharply at 9 for a full day of touring and concert in the evening. First stop, the new Wuhan City Planning Museum, a beautiful building adjacent to one of the city municipal offices. Four floors of displays of the history of Wuhan and the plans to come. Most interesting were the 3-d dioramas of the entire Wuhan valley, then individual areas of the city. Our hotel was easily found, as was the concert hall in which the Band performs tonight. We also had a clearer understanding of why it’s so COLD and HUMID here - the city has three major rivers and over 100 lakes in it’s boundaries. Here we are in central China and the humidity and fog is worse than along the sea!

Next, a visit to the Hubei Provincial Museum. Built in 1953, Hubei Provincial Museum was one of the eight national museums established by both central and local governments. Now Hubei Provincial Museum is the only comprehensive museum in Hubei province. The museum has collected over 200,000 cultural relics, including pottery, porcelain, jades, bronze wares, lacquer wares, ancient weapons, ancient musical instruments, ancient coins, ancient calligraphy and paintings, etc. Among these cultural relics, 812 are listed as first-class relics of China, and 16 are considered as national treasures. In the museum, there is also the largest exhibition hall of the ancient musical instruments in China.

We enjoyed a quick stroll along the banks of East Lake, then headed to a restaurant for lunch and over to the Hubei Theatre for rehearsal. Was it a good concert? OF COURSE - and a great crowd to boot! Now, if the theatre only had HEAT, it would have been FABULOUS! :-). Ok, there was a little bit of heat, but uffda. It was a cold afternoon and evening until the audience showed up and the heat came on!