Evening of July 3, 2004 (Wuhan)
That night we were in Wuhan and went to their shopping street, chock full of clothing stores and bright lights. There was some colonization in Wuhan, so there were some European style buildings in the area, but nothing like Shanghai or Qingdao. Two things to note about that city:
 
1. It appeared that a lot of the city residents took advantage of Wuhan's location on the Yangtze River and went for swims. I saw lots and lots of people walking along the street, soaking wet, swimsuits on, and toting inner tubes and the like. They looked as if they were walking through a water park or something. Dudes would walk around shirtless. Who knows the level of dirt and other less tasty stuff in the Yangtze, but I appreciated the Wuhan-ers having some fun.
 
2. Our guide told us that before AC became more common, a lot of Wuhan people would set up beds and living spaces on the sidewalks below their apartments, since cool pavemented outside was preferable to their hot boxes of apartments. I love that imagery. Even if it's less common now, as we walked along the shopping street, people had hauled out a variety of chairs (deck chairs, arm chairs, stools) and had plopped down for the night to enjoy the night temperatures. That's some cheap entertainment.