David has kindly done a blog post for our trip. His recall is better than mine!!
First of all, we thoroughly enjoyed the entire trip. We were well treated and were kept busy all the time. In fact, at the end of the day we were worn out.
THE TOUR
If you are ever interested in touring, especially internationally, I would suggest that you look at the several on line travel sites and see what they have to offer. The one that we look at on a regular basis is called travelzoo.com. These web sites are offering special deals at discounted rates. You can book the tour yourself and you don’t need a travel agent. Our China trip was booked through Sinorama, a Canadian Travel Company, specializing in China travel. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect some sort of association with the Chinese Tourist Ministry.
The cost of the 12 day tour was $1399/person, plus another $265/person for Chinese tourist visas and about $200/person for air fare from Phoenix to Los Angles and back. All and all, the trip cost us just around $2000/person. Our tour was booked for the late spring, before the major tourist season.
What did we get? The 12-day tour was actually 10 days on the ground in China. Day 1 was spent flying east to west across the Pacific and day 12 was the return flight.
Besides the two (2) Trans-Pacific flights, we also had four (4) domestic flights within China. All of the flights were on a Chinese airline called China Eastern. All of the aircraft were new, clean and well-maintained Boeing or AirBus aircraft. The crews were well trained, courteous and dressed like US airlines were in the 1970’s when flying was a dress up event. The Trans-Pacific flights were tiring and long. Going was 13 hours and the return was 12 hours. Coming back the jet stream pushes the airplane along. We were fed 3 times in each direction. Since this was a "cheap tour" we were confined to economy class in the back of the airplane, along with a lot of other folks. The "cheap seats" were all pretty well filled up. So no open seat to spread out on. A seat in business class was an additional $600/person (nearly half the cost of the entire trip).
In Beijing, we spent 3 nights at a 5 star hotel and in Xi’an 2 nights in another 5 star hotel. Both accommodations were very nice. All meals were included in the cost of the tour. Breakfast was in the hotel and it was buffet style with western offerings (eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, dry cereal, coffee, tea, juice, toast, rolls, pastries, etc). There was also an offering of Chinese breakfast foods. The specific Chinese breakfast food was called "congee"---basically it was very much like our hot cream of rice cooked cereal. They also offered a corn based "congee" much like our corn meal mush. You could "doctor" up your congee with honey or sugar or you spice it up with chili peppers or the like. Also part of the breakfast offering was a collection of green and vegetable salads along with Chinese noodle soup. The soup was really yummy!!!
Lunch and dinner were served at a different restaurant each time and each day. These meals were served "family style" by placing the food dishes on the big lazy susan in the middle of the table and you would spin it around to find your items of choice. All of these food selections were of the Chinese variety. If you don’t like Chinese food, then you need to take a different trip!!! I was a bit disappointed in the taste of the food offerings---they were all on the bland side but soy and pepper spices were available to put some "kick" in the food. Food portions were very adequate. Chicken and beef were the main meat offerings, but there was some duck also offered. The meat dished included vegetables (green peppers, onions, celery, etc) and a gravy sauce. Also there was an offering of just vegetables in a gravy sauce. Steamed rice was, of course, the base on which all meals were founded. Desert was an offering of watermelon or cantaloupe. I am uncertain if the food taste was designed for the western pallet (bland) or that way just the way it was prepared and you individually spice it to your taste. At the table, you had your choice of chopsticks or a fork. I started out with the chopsticks (I didn’t want to looking like a tourist—ha ha), but switched back to a folk, I was more adept with a fork. One of our tour guides made the comment about the Chinese people and food----"If it has 4 legs, they will eat it, except for the table and if it flies, they will eat it, except for an airplane."
The entire tour group had over 300 people in it, but we were assigned to a smaller group. Our small group has 24 people in it, mostly Americans but with several Canadians. Most of the small group was 55+, but there were a few 30 something age group. We had an English/Chinese speaking tour leader who was with us for the entire 10 days on the ground in China. Our tour leader was a 30 something gal who did this work as a living. She was with us all day every day and stayed in the same hotels as we did. In addition, in each local city we were in, there was a local guide (assigned to our small group) who spoke English and Chinese. The local guide would tell us about what were going to see and give us some insight into the local history and the modern day status of the locale. And then actually took us through the attraction we were viewing that day. The local tour guide would explain to us what we were looking at and what its significance was. Our tour leader was also with us and she would quietly "herd" the group in the right direction. Our tour leader, gave each couple her business card with her cell phone number on it with the instructions at if you got "lost" or couldn’t find your fellow tourists, find another tour leader and have them make the call. This situation happened only once---but Dianne and I were NOT the lost ones!!
Our road travels were all defined and arranged. At each city, our small group was assigned (same bus) to a 40+- seat, air conditioned, touring bus (big windows and comfortable seats). The bus was relatively new, clean and well maintained. The bus did NOT have bright colored designs on it, tassels and beads in the windows, multiple funny sounding horns and nobody rode on top of the bus. And the driver drove the bus like he wanted to go home that night. We were picked up at the airport, taken to our hotel, transported to and from the various attractions and taken back to the hotel or airport on the bus.
While on the land tour we saw the following attractions:
The Temple of Heaven, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, The Terra Cotta Warriors, The Great Wall and the Red Pagoda. All of these sites can be considered to be similar to our National Parks or like the attractions in Washington, DC. These attractions are run and maintained by the government and there is an admission fee to each. ALL admission fees were part of our tour cost. The local guide would secure the admission tickets and escort the entire group through the turnstile.
We also walked through Tiananmen Square. The access to the square was by way of underground tunnels under the four-(4) major roadways that bound the square. These tunnels served at least 2 purposes. First, it kept the crowds from running through traffic and secondly each person was put through a security check. Back packs and the like were x-rayed, you walked through a metal detector and could be individually checked with a wand. This same security screening was done to us before all of our domestic China flights. However, we didn’t have to take off our shoes. As the name implies, Tiananmen Square is a large paved "parade ground" area covering about 100 acres and all four (4) sides were bounded by government buildings. More on this later.
The last five (5) nights of the tour was spent on a river cruise ship on the Yangtze River. Let me call this a ship even through by strict definition it might be classified as a boat, don’t get picky!!!
The cruise ship had a capacity of about 350 passengers and a crew of 175. It was self contained and diesel powered. We had a modern air-conditioned cabin, toilet, shower and vanity, satellite TV, small fridge and coffee/tea station, twin beds and our own private balcony. For a fee you could get Internet service in your cabin. But we didn’t need that. I believe the ship was less than 5 years old, it was clean and well maintained.
While on the ship, ALL of our meals were provided in a buffet dining room setting. We had assigned tables so there was never a need to wait for someone to leave to find a seat. The food was a mix of Western and Chinese offerings. Breakfast was similar to what was offered in the hotels. Every meal (lunch and dinner) had some different items, so it wasn’t same same. They did offer few things that I have had on a very limited basis or never, like goose, rabbit and some seafood creatures that I’m not sure what they were---but I tried some anyway and I am still here to talk about it. They offered sushi. This was the California type with veggies and the like, not exotic fish. I know sushi is Japanese, but so what. When you have sushi, you need soy and Wasabi. Well, I understand that here in the states, most of the time the wasabi you get is actually horseradish that has been colored green and that’s OK. The wasabi, on the ship, was in a plastic tube, you took the top off and squeezed a bit on your plate. There was writing on the tube, but I certainly could not read it. Well, I put just a little teeny tiny dab on my sushi. As soon as I got it in my mouth, I knew it was in trouble!!! My nose squeezed shut, my breath was taken away, my eyes began to water and I thought the top of my head was going to blow off and I couldn’t control my coughing!!! That was some mean wasabi---I’m guessing that was the real stuff!! Several others of my tour mates had the same experience with the wahabi.
We traveled on the river for 4 days, traveling both day and night. All and all we made over 500 miles on the Yangtze River.
We had four (4) stops while on the river. The first was a religious settlement. The second was at the Three Gorges Dam and the third was a side trip on an excursion boat that took us up a tributary river of the Yangtze. And the last was at the Red Pagoda.
I was particularly interested in see the Three Gorges Dam. It is the largest hydroelectric power station in the world. At peak output, it can produce 22,500 MW of electricity. 32 turbines at 700 MW each and 2 turbines at 50 MW each just to generate power to run the generation complex. The dam is 7,660 feet long and it is 594 feet high and contains nearly 36 million cubic yards of concrete. Its construction cost was around $26 billion. About half of that figure was for actual construction and the other half was the cost of relocation 1.3 million people to higher ground and reclaiming historical sites and artifacts.
The Yangtze River is navigable, but before the dam the river traffic was effected by drought and floods and this river traffic was basically in small boats. Since the dam is a blockage in the river a set of ship locks were also built to raise and lower river traffic past the dam. There are two (2) sets of locks (one set for upstream traffic and the other for downstream traffic) each set of locks contains five (5) lock chambers to raise and lower the traffic. It takes about 4 hour to go through the locks. Our cruise ship (and us too) went through the locks, it was at night and you couldn’t see much. Even if it was during the day you wouldn’t see much except the concrete lock wall.
Most likely, for security reasons, you could see the dam and the locks but you could not get close.
For you electrical folks reading this, producing 22,400 MW of saleable power, there were many, many 500kv-transmission lines in the area. And if fact, I guess just for the hell of it, they also built 3 500kv-DC transmission lines.
In 2008, all of the power generating equipment was completed and the Chinese expect to achieve cost recovery for the project in 10 years from electricity sales and river traffic.
THE PEOPLE
Today the population of China is said to be about 1.4 billion people. That is over 4 times the population of the US. That’s a lot of folks!!!
Obviously in a 10-day trip you can’t meet many of them much less speak with them.
China has many ethnic groups. The largest is the Han group (said to be about 90% of the population) and 56 other groups are classified as minorities. China speaks many different languages and many dialects within those languages. They have issues with communication. Mandarin Chinese is supposed to be the official version, but most don’t speak it. Believe it or not, but English (the American version) is the second language of China. According to our tour leader, the first thing children learn in school is western numbers and the English alphabet and some English words then they learn the Chinese picture words. I asked our tour leader how many picture words an educated Chinese person needed to know by heart to be functional---she said around 5000 individual and unique picture words. WOW
China has 9 years of compulsory education paid for by the government. By testing and scholastic achievement you can move onto secondary education. Some is financed by the government through scholarships and the family participates in the cost of this education. Only the best and brightest get to this point. And college too is partially financed by scholarships and family funding. These folks are even brighter. And lastly, if you are super smart and a hard worker you might get the opportunity to study in a foreign country. Their favorite study abroad locations are the US and Great Britain. The Chinese always seem to be enrolled in the STEM classes and degree programs---Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
The Chinese are on the metric system and they have wholeheartedly adopted the western number system and its arithmetic. Any written numbers are western, street signs, advertising, news information, etc. Their money is based upon 10’s. Their money is a YUAN (yan or uan---not a yen, that is Japanese) a yuan is worth about $0.16 US Dollars. The street vendors and the small shopkeepers will approach you with paper and pencil in hand and begin the barter process by writing down a western number of what they want for their item, then you take the paper and pencil and make a counter offer. The paper and pencil goes back and forth until a deal is reached or the negotiation fails.
Knowing just a little Chinese history, the everyday Chinaman has been on the short end of the stick for thousands of years. Up until the early 20th century, China was ruled by an emperor who achieved his power by birth or killing off the last emperor and his closest friends. A rule by the sword. The Chinese Emperor did not claim to be the sun god like the Japanese Emperors did, but they were close to it. The emperor was all knowing and all-powerful. And by the way, the emperor owned all of the land and he let you work it for him and when he called for some project, like building a big wall to keep the barbarians out you jumped to the occasion and "enjoyed" every minute of working yourself to death, and a lot of them died "serving" the causes, whims and desires of the emperors.
China was a closed country up until the early 20th century. The emperor decided that the outside world had nothing that he wanted or needed and speaking for his people, they didn’t either. After World War I, several of the old power centers fell apart, namely, the Ottoman Empire (the mideast), the Russian Empire under the Czars and the Chinese Empire. The old Ottoman Empire was held at bay by Britain. But Russia and China went into revolution by competing factions and both ended up with communist philosophies of a form of government. The Russian communists were able to consolidate their power first, ending up with Stalin and the USSR. China took longer because of the competing factions and the Japanese invasion in the 1930’s. But by 1949, Mao was able to take the reins of things.
As history shows us, Stalin and Mao certainly were no better that the Czars and the Emperors they disposed, maybe even worse. History also shows us that Stalin and Mao, even with both of them claiming to be for "the people" under the ideas of socialism/communism and the ideas of Karl Marx---really didn’t like each other and there was no trust between them. That distrust still goes on today.
Now back to Mao. After the communist victory in 1949, Mao ran the country like a commune, with the idea "from each according to his ability and to each according to his need"---that just doesn’t work. Why should I work hard and get the same reward as the one who doesn’t work. Just ask Castro, the bunch in Venezuela, and the little dictator in North Korea. One of our tour guides told us of the story of Mao and Stalin. In the early ‘50’s Mao wanted a bridge to be built across the Yangtze River. China lacked the technical skills and materials to achieve the task. So Mao asked Stalin for help, in return for the help, Mao would pay Stalin back in agricultural products. At the same time China experienced several years of crop failures. Mao refused to be indebted to Stalin for the bridge project, so Mao ordered that agriculture products be rounded up from the countryside and sent to Stalin was payback for the bridge. An estimated 300,000 Chinese starved to death because of this action. They gave their all for the cause of the revolution!!
Back to Tiananmen Square, the only huge monument to Mao, we saw, was the very large portrait picture of Mao that looks over Tiananmen Square. We saw not a single statue dedicated to Mao, nor did we see any other pictures or representation of him anywhere we went in the country!!! The government has venerated Mao by building a mausoleum for him in Tiananmen Square. Mao is "pickled" in a big sealed jar of formaldehyde and on display for all to see. "Pickled" Mao was NOT on our tour agenda. When asked why not, we were told that the lines were too long and our schedule didn’t permit the time!! OK.
Considering for a moment that China calls itself The Peoples Republic of China and its political system only has one party to vote for and that is the communist party candidate, picked by the party. I believe many Americans think or believe that China has armed guards on every corner and people are constantly being stopped and searched and asked for their "papers". We certainly saw nor experienced anything like that. In fact, we could see uniformed police officers, do what police officers do, like directing traffic and responding to a couple of cars running together or just showing a presence in public. These uniformed police were NOT armed. They did have a belt with items on it, but it looked like the items on the belt were handcuffs of some sort, possibly mace and some had a short billy club about 12 inches long and two-way portable radios---no obvious firearm of any sort. The uniformed security staff at the airports were unarmed, also. In Tianamen Square a group of ceremonial type uniformed guards were present. These folks were very young, I would say in their late teens and they stood at attention under a shaded station. They had NO belt items of any sort and were certainly not armed.
I just have a sense that the older Chinese people think a lot more of Mao than the younger ones do.
Since China has a population of 1.4 billion and we were visiting their national treasurers and historic places it was expected that we would see lots and lots of folks there. And they certainly were there. Thousands and thousands of Chinese tourists and a few westerners like us. I can imagine the Chinese folks coming to Beijing to see their history, just as we might go to Washington, DC and walk the National Mall. We were at The Summer Palace of the Emperor, located in Beijing. Our tour guide gave us about 30 minutes for us to look around on our own, but with specific instructions to meet at a particular place at the appointed time. We walked around a bit but settled into sitting on a stone wall and just watch humanity walk past us. We were people watching in China. It soon became obvious, to us, that we were an attraction to the locals. Now, I don’t say this with the idea that we looked like movie stars or that we were dressed out of a fashion magazine nor were we doing anything to attract attention, but lots of folks walking by were just looking at us. There was a short flight of steps on the walkway and the folks were so intent at looking at us that they were tripping up the first step. I didn’t get the feeling that their stares had any bad feelings toward us, just curiosity. I’m going to venture a guess that we might have been some of the first westerners that some of these people had ever seen in real life. We did find out that when the Chinese folks are among themselves they might refer to westerners as "big noses", just like the westerners might refer to them in less than flattering terms. Everyone has their own set of issues.
Just one more people story. I mentioned before that our small group has 24 tourists in it. One of them was a lady of Asian decent. I wanted to say Oriental, but I’m told that’s not correct in today’s PC world. Since when did this happen and just who sets the rules---anyway? Cindy (that’s her name) was from California (that doesn’t make any difference). We were in a domestic Chinese airport waiting to go through a security check to get on a plane. We had our boarding passes in hand---well one of our group dropped theirs. This is a little supposition on my part. A young man, who worked for the airline picked up the boarding pass, saw the name in English, looked around, and saw a line of westerners ready to go through securing screening. Possibly, this young fellow was drawn back to directly ask the westerners who might have lost their boarding pass, so he elected to approach Cindy for obvious reasons! He begins speaking to Cindy (in Chinese) about the boarding pass and she draws an absolute blank with him! She says to him (in English) that she can’t understand him, he then switches to his English and they solved the lost boarding pass---yes, it belonged to one of our group. Cindy explained to us that her parent had immigrated to the US years before and that she was, in fact, born in the US. Growing up she learned some Chinese but it was Cantonese (the kind of Chinese they speak in Hong Kong), we were in northern China where they speak Mandarin. They could not communicate with each other. Jokingly, Cindy said why did he single me out, what made him look to me? Was it discrimination or profiling?
And the very last story. People usually don’t concern themselves with mundane things like toilets until they are confronted the unusual, especially the ladies. Our hotels, the river cruise ship, the airplanes and the airports all had western style sit down toilets. Nothing unusual here. But the public accommodations mostly had asian/oriental style toilets. Remember, those kind are not much more than a hole in the floor that you straddle over and squat on. No reading a magazine or newspaper while you are there. And incidentally, you bring your own tissue with you, none provided. You don’t flush it, you put it a waste basket/bucket. The western ladies just didn’t think much of this arrangement! Wonder why? Our tour leader had a story on this subject. She and her husband and son moved into a new apartment in Beijing. They had a western toilet installed—no big deal, just pick the style you want. Her parents came from out in the countryside somewhere for a visit. She said her father didn’t think much of the western toilet but had to use it anyway---she never mentioned her mother’s thoughts. The folks went back to their home after awhile. Upon our tour leaders next visit to her parents home, to her surprise, Dad had a western toilet installed in the old family homestead. Wonder if Mom had anything to say about that?
THE COUNTRY
Mao died in 1976, about 4 years after Nixon’s trip to China. Under Mao’s directives, China went through all sorts of 5-year plans, Great Leaps forward and the Cultural Revolution, communal societies, etc., all of which were failures.
Folks were sent to work on the farms to produce more and better food, but they were there to work for each other not for themselves. The good worker got just as much as the poor worker, so who works hard with those rewards. Items were only available at the communist party store and what they sold was what they thought you should have, not what you wanted and the biggest thing was that all things were available in limited quantity at a price you could not afford. There was no incentive and hence no initiative.
After Mao’s passing, the new communist leaders looked around for new models to follow. In close view were the growing successes of South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong other Asia countries even Europe and the US.
The communists adopted a capitalist approach but still with the communist approach of a managed society and that turned things around. Private businesses could be started and run. Farmers could sell their crops for what someone was willing to pay and then the guy selling fruits and veggies on the street could buy from the cheapest farmer and sell to the city dweller and make a PROFIT and put that money in HIS pocket and buy better stuff for himself and his family. Money---that’s what makes the world go around and now the common folks had some in their pockets.
Our China travels (limited as they may be) did show us several areas of the country. Business, Building more Business and more Building is what is evident.
In less than 40 years of Mao’s passing, the country has been turned into a modern multi faceted economy. We saw the city life and probably the country life too, is getting much better too.
Beijing is said to have a population of 19 million and 6 million motor vehicles on its street and expressways. Well, from what we saw the expressways are multi-lanes highways but with so many vehicles they speed at a crawl. Interesting enough, the multi-lanes expressways are toll roads, but for the consistent users they have introduced and use the I-PASS concept. Lots and lots of luxury European and Japanese cars, as well as, less expensive automobiles. Many of these cars are assembled in China. We were told that purchase taxes to the Chinese amount to 100% the value of the car.
Every where we went the tower crane dominates the skyline. Despite having lots of labor available they have embraced labor saving construction techniques for the speed of finishing the work. They have built a lot of stuff in the past 40 years—maybe Mao would not like what they have done!
I think everyone under 35 years of age has a smart phone and like everywhere else they are constantly looking and tapping at it. Its real hard to communicate on a smart phone using thousands of traditional Chinese picture words---so they use the English alphabet. No wonder, they have us figured out.
I don’t think the young people are interested in the teachings and beliefs of Mao.
As long as they are making money, well fed and able to buy stuff, they don’t care about politics.
But if we don’t get our national debt under control, the Chinese will own us!
APRIL 22, 2015
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| ON THE PLANE |
APRIL 24, 2015 BEIJING, CHINA
SOUP FOR BREAKFAST!!!
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| TEMPLE OF HEAVEN |
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| TEMPLE OF HEAVEN |
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| TEMPLE OF HEAVEN |
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| LUNCH |
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| OUR GROUP PICTURE AT TIANANMEN SQUARE |
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| TIANANMEN SQUARE |
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| ENTRANCE TO THE FORBIDDEN CITY |
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| FORBIDDEN CITY |
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| FORBIDDEN CITY |
APRIL 25, 2015 THE GREAT WALL
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RICKSHAW RICK IN OLD BEIJING HUTONG
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BIRDS NEST SITE OF THE 2008 OLYMPICS
WATER CUBE WHERE MICHAEL PHELPS GRABBED 6 GOLD MEDALS
APRIL 26, 2015 SUMMER PALACE , THE IMPERIAL GARDEN IN THE QING DYNASTY THEN FLEW TO XI'AN IN THE EVENING
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| ENTRANCE TO THE SUMMER PALACE |
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| LAKE AT THE SUMMER PALACE |
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| THIS LAKE TOOK 20 YEARS TO HAND DIG FOR THE PLEASURE OF THE EMPEROR |
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| WRITING CHINESE SYMBOLS WITH WATER |
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| LUNCH |
APRIL 27, 2015 EXCAVATION SITE OF XI'AN RESIDENT ARMY OF 8000 TERRA COTTA WARRIORS
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| ENTRANCE TO EXCATION SITE |
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| SPOTTED A WARRIOR |
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| ANOTHER WARRIOR |
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| SCARY WARRIOR |
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| ATTEMPT AT A SELFIE |
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| I GUESS THERE ARE NO SEAT BELT LAWS!! |
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| MAKING THE FAMILY CIRCLE BALL. MANDY AND STEVE GOT US ONE OF THESE ON THEIR TRIP TO CHINA IN 2009 |
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| HIGH RISES EVERYWHERE |
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| OUR TOUR GUIDE "KRISTEN" HER ENGLISH NAME SHE WOULD ALWAYS ASK US IF WE NEEDED TO USE "THE HAPPY ROOM" WHICH WAS THE BATHROOM |
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| WATER BUFFALO |
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| RICE PADDIES |
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| MORE RICE PADDIES |
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| BUS STOPPED FOR BATHROOM BREAK AND THIS LADY WAS ASKING US FOR EMPTY WATER BOTTLES |
FIRST LOOK AT OUR SHIP
SINORAMA GOLD 8
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| ALL ABOARD |
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| OUR ROOM |
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| WALLS OF THE ANCIENT JINGZHOU CITY |
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| JINGZHOU MUSEUM 2000 YEAR OLD MAN |
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| RELAXING AFTER LONG DAYS OF WALKING |
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| BRIDGE AT JINGZHOU |
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| LEAVING JINGZHOU DAVID SPOTTED SOME WATER BUFFALO |
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| CAPTAIN'S WELCOME ENTERTAINMENT |
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| NATIVE DANCERS |
APRIL 30, 2015 THREE GORGES DAM
VILLAGES AND SCENARY TO THE DAM
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| NEED A RIDE ON A SEDAN CHAIR |
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| BEST VIEW OF THE DAM |
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| DIANNE WAS NOT A HAPPY CAMPER WHEN SHE SAW THE STEPS UNTIL SHE REALIZED IT WAS AN ESCALATOR |
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| ONE OF THE LOCKS |
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| VIEW OF TOWN FROM THE VISITOR'S CENTER |
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| UPSTREAM END OF THE LOCKS |
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| THREE GORGES DAM |
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| DAM |
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| ANOTHER VIEW OF THE DAM AREA |
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| ANOTHER VIEW OF TOWN |
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| COOL BOOK |
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| SNACKS AFTER A LONG DAY |
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| GOING TROUGH THE LAST LOCK AT NIGHT |
MAY 1, 2015 EXCURSION ON THE SHENNV TRIBUTARY STREAM OF THE YANGTZE RIVER. WE EMBARKED ON SMALLER BOATS TO ENJOY THE BEAUTY OF THREE GORGES LANDSCAPE.
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| ATTEMPT AT ANOTHER SELFIE. ROLLING ON THE RIVER. |
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| PLEASE NOTE THE HOLE IN THE CLIFF |
KEEP LOOKING
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| IT IS A CLIFF COFFIN!! |
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| PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE WALKWAY |
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| CLOSE UP OF THE WALKWAY |
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| MORE OF THE WALKWAY |
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| BACK ON OUR SHIP AND CRUSING FOR THE NIGHT |
MAY 2, 2015 EXCURSION TO SHIBAOZHAI LITERALLY "PRECIOUS STONE FORTRESS" IS A HILL ALONG THE BANK OF THE YANGTZE RIVER. ON THE SIDE OF THE HILL IS A RED PAVILION OF NINE FLOORS WHICH LEANS AGAINST THE SIDE OF THE HILL PROVIDING A WALKWAY TO THE TEMPLE AT THE TOP OF THE HILL
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| DIANNE AT THE ENTRANCE |
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| ONLY KITTY CAT WE SAW --WONDER WHY |
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| WE MADE IT |
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| DAVID SHOPPING FOR THE PERFECT GIFT |
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| FOUND IT!! T-SHIRT OF OUR DEAR LEADER |
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| THIS WAS THE BEST AREA FOR SHOPPING |
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| LUNCH |
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| YUMMY |
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| ONE MORE VIEW |
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| HEADING BACK TO THE SHIP. OUR LAST EXCURSION |
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| ALWAYS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING |
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| LAUNDRY DAY |
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| SMALL CITY ON THE RIVER |
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| ANOTHER BRIDGE TAKING SHAPE |
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| RIVER BARGE FABRICATION FACTORY |
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| GETTING DRESSED FOR DINNER |
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| DINING ROOM |
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| TABLE MATES -NANA WAS 90 AND COULD OUT WALK DIANNE |
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| I DIDN'T MEAN TO INSULT KIM ON THE LEFT BUT I TOLD HER SHE LOOKED LIKE MICHELLE OBAMA BUT MUCH PRETTIER. HER SISTER ANGELA IS A COMEDY WRITER IN LA AND JUST GOT A WRITING JOB FOR HBO |
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| SHE WROTE FOR BERNIE MAC |
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| DINNER MENU |
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| ONE OF THE DESSERTS |
WELL THIS IS THE END OF THE PICTURES BUT I AM SURE YOU ALL WANTED TO SEE THIS ONE
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| THIS IS WHAT YOU SEE WHEN YOU GO TO THE ASIAN "HAPPY ROOM" |
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