One way ticket to Wuhan

In the travel books on China they tell you that train tickets often must be purchased days in advance because they sell out. Unfortunately, when Chris and I were in Shanghai, we found we could only buy tickets to Wuhan, we would have to buy the tickets from Wuhan to Nanjing while at the station. That would mean we would have to cross our fingers that we could buy tickets out of Wuhan for the same day as our arrival, or else we would be stranded and I would miss my flight out of Nanjing. Naturally, we bought the one way tickets and trusted to our luck. While we ended up taking a 10 hour train ride to spend a half day in Wuhan, the experience was worth it. We got to rought it like the natives in hard berth, and then see the sprawling city of Wuhan. And our luck held and we got tickets back to Nanjing. On our train from Hefei to Wuhan we were stuck in hard berth. For the over night train we had to sit in straight seats that had little padding and that did not recline back. There was no air conditioning. The fortunate part was that we were across from two cute college students who spoke a bit of English, so we played cards and chatted for a couple of hours before trying to sleep. Trying to sleep is ridiculous. They never turn off of the light in the train car. At two AM they have still have sales people coming through hawking toys for the kids and socks for the adults. A policeman comes along every hour and wakes you up, and tells you to watch your belongings. We got so little sleep that we checked into an hourly hotel next to the train station (not for prostitution, this one is for the exact purpose of travelers needing rest) and slept most of the morning. We then took a taxi around the city. I'm convinced that China has about 10 cities the size of New York that no one has ever heard of. Wuhan is an absolutely massive city. From the top of the Yellow Crane Tower we could see in all directions, but could not see an end to the sprawl. Construction is everywhere, and a new skyscaper is ascending in the sky that will dwarf all the others. The city is very modern and properous. The streets are wide and filled with trees, much different than Hefei and Shanghai. It was more like LA in layout. As we were coming in on the train though, we could still see the povery of China. For several miles all the buildings were ramshackled, broken down, had caved in roofs and fallen walls, and trash was everywhere. But in the city itself everything was prosperous. I would love to see a histogram of individual wealth in China and see what percentiles are at different levels of wealth.