Visiting China's Revolutionary Martyr's in Xiangyang | 襄阳 | Travel Vlog

Maps were wrong and we were able  to cut across from that way we came up the stairs across to the  road to the Martyr's Tower bad news is... well I found some lunch and I've gotten some  directions on another place we can go Lie Shi Ta I don't know what it is but we will go investigate now  we got a full belly. All the kids back there like heading back to class cuz it's almost 2:00 if that  school is like most Chinese schools they'll get a break from 12:00 to 2pm they'll either eat at the  schoo

l canteen if they've got one or more likely head out to this little Street which is full of  little milk tea shops and fried chicken shops and noodle and rice shops soon as I saw a school I  figured I would be okay for lunch so um yeah also it shows you how much everyone uses their phone  to pay for stuff cuz I paid by cash it was a 16 Kuai dish I gave him 21 so he only has to give me  a five instead of four ones and uh he has to go change the money he had to go get some change  he had to go bre

ak a 100 at the shop next door because he didn't have any change on him. Right  having just plugged in the words that our man at the noodle shop said about as a good place to see,  it occurs to me think he means the Martyr's monument Lie Shi of course means Martyr I knew that. And Ta is a tower  but I guess maybe in this case it's a monument so yeah he reckons it's a good look he's a local guy  let's follow his advice and see if it's uh worth a gander Now to get to this Monument we got  across b

ack of the mighty moat this side we've not been on until now but the Han river  is on that side so the river seems to kind of flow a circle around the moat to keep the moat  full it's also interesting to hear our noodle shop man say that he used to work in Wuhan but he  uh gave up the business I'm assuming in some kind of mortgage trade maybe a broker cuz he said  he was doing mortgages uh but because of the pandemic came back to his hometown and opened  up a noodle shop. Like everywhere else ho

using market and all kind of other jobs were influenced  by by the pandemic so that guy was no different and the map is saying to go that  way and then turn right but I am Keen to go this way and I think it's  that sucker way up the top I think it's going to connect all in this park  let's go check out whatever that stuff is 1948 something Memorial sorry that's not the clearest  writing I've ever seen but I'm guessing some Martyrs or some soldiers or some workers 1948 that's  World War II uh Civ

il War sorry for China that's the Martyrs Pavilion and we're heading  up the hill to the Martyrs Monument having just sat here for a few minutes thinking about  it I reckon that's probably liberation of Xiangyang if it's 1948 that would make  sense Civil War that would have been when the People's Liberation Army  rocked on up into Xiangyang but anyway I can see some stairs  in our future at least nice and shaded. Somebody's balloon got stuck up there now as I'm about halfway up these  steps mayb

e a bit under uh map tells us this is not the way to the monument but  something else apparently to get to the monument you have to go down and up that way  I check both Maps the one that I've been using and then the one that the guard recommended to  me a few weeks ago I'm... I'm come this far I'm still going to see what's up there there's  some people coming down so maybe I'll ask them yeah they confirm this is not the way to the  tower but some other kind of Memorial so we might have two trip

s up this hill  not supposed to check in to my hotel till 4:00 and it's only half past  2 get some more steps into ya son whatever this place is it looks closed  which is fitting with me coming to visit places it's like the visitor center for this Martyrs Park if I'm not mistaken "heroic  revolutionary Martyrs" or some such there they are lot of steps looks like we got  the tombs of some actual specific named Martyrs some of these aren't even  that old some of them are from like the ' 70s some f

rom the '90s and they  just keep going on it's like a Martyrs graveyard right do you want the good  news or the bad news good news is Maps were wrong and we were able to cut across  from that way we came up the stairs across to the road to the martys tower bad news  is that is a lot of steps to keep going up I did just speak to a chap off camera who reckons we are more than halfway there, so... let's keep going no harm double checking before I go up all these bloody steps Now I can't speak that

much for the Martyrs cuz  I don't actually know if there's any specific event that these Martyrs are linked to but these  gardeners, they're keeping this place a spick and span well suitably emasculated for complaining about  the hike she says it's not too bad she's up a few steps here we are well this is the monument folks and I'm kind of  glad we did get all the way to the top I've had a brief read of that as much as I could and  um if I'm not mistaken this Marty's Memorial memorializes soldi

ers who died during the  Civil War in a campaign to liberate Xiangfan or Xiangyang so it's kind of similar to what  we kind of guessed at the bottom I'm looking at the year 1948 it talks about chairman Mao's  leadership and um using kind of Guerilla tactics and uh eventually kind of destroying 20,000  nationalist soldiers into the liberation of this city so there you go that's what this  monument and all the accompanying stairs is about revolutionary Martyrs who fought in  the Civil War to live

liberate this area from those dastardly nationalists. Let's keep  going there's a little bit more to see over there Revolutionary Martyrs tomb There's been some flowers laid at  the tomb they look pretty fresh but it was Qing Ming Festival which is like the  festival for remembering your dead only a week or two ago probably two weeks  so it's possible they were laid there that would have been the time to do it  but like I said they still look really fresh one of them is from a middle  school whi

ch probably would have come here on one of their spring trips  maybe? Brought some flowers with them. More stairs... One last placard to read and if you're  thinking hey it's more CCP kind of propaganda I think it's just kind of fire management stuff  for the park don't set fires and things like that so something non-political that's the end of  the road that's the martys Memorial monument Tower which we didn't even know was here until  we talked to a noodle shop owner who said it was worth a lo

ok there's a lot of stairs but  it was certainly kind of a satisfying way to end the day coming to the top of this hill  seeing that big old Monument which kind of sticks its head at the top asking to be looked  at and uh at least kind of understood as to what it's all about so there you go I'm going  to chill out here this nice park bench for a few minutes before heading back on down those  stairs and in search of my hotel and probably a quick shower Do you want to see quickly what  170 Yuan or

about 25 bucks American got me here in Xiangyang? Like literally there's  a baby about to come past a baby baby... why is that baby not in bed?