Shanghai, Days 7-10

Now that we are home, I can finally finish off the China Experience. In all, I took 480 pictures! But don't get too excited, I'm only going to show a fraction of what I took. I know it's always more exciting when you have actually experienced them yourself.

Days 7-10 took place on a River Cruise down the Yangtze River. Four very strange things happened to me while on this cruise that I have to tell about first:

1. Getting deathly sick--from the plane food, from the bumpy plane ride, from a flu--I don't know, but I had to have the cruise doctor visit me in my room. He gave me some Chinese remedies which I have no idea what they were and can't begin to describe how disgusting they tasted, but they really did work!

2. Doing a perfect "10" tumble to the ground. Trying to find the hand sanitizer for Parker, I was looking in my purse and didn't notice a step in an old Chinese building where they hold operas and went flying through the air! I got the wind knocked out of me, but luckily except for a little swollen foot and a few bruises, I was okay.

3. Getting paint all over my jacket in a Chinese temple which they had told us not to lean against. Right after John reminded me, I noticed it was sadly too late

4. And finally, the most freak thing of all, starting my hair on fire while trying to use my curling iron on the cruise ship--which again they warned us NOT to use even with a converter box. In one curl, my hair was smoking so badly, George came running over to me as I was pulling the cord and trying to release the curling iron which was wrapped with my badly burned black hair and now bent into a 'v'! The smell was horrendous and we had to open all the doors and windows--but at least I didn't burn the ship down because of my vanity!

Saying all that, we had a great time these four days on a river cruise ship down the Yangtze River. We flew from Shanghai to Yichang, a ride of about 2 hours, where we caught the cruise boat. Again, we couldn't believe that huge boat with a staff of 110 and there were only 30 people on it. We really got the royal treatment!

One Chinese man tied all our luggage together (John, Alison, Bracken, Parker, George, and mine), put them on the end of a big pole and carried it from the dock to the boat. Those suitcases were very heavy! How did he do that? The trip was just amazing down the river where we first started seeing the Three Gorges Dam which has been built by the Chinese government at a cost of $28 billion to fill a two-fold purpose: 1. Help with the terrible flooding that has always taken place along the river, and 2. Provide electricity to this country which has the most people in the world. In the province that includes all of the people along the river and the city of Chongquing itself, there are 33 million people. Since we were going upstream to higher ground, we had to go through a series of 3 or 4 lockes, sort of like the Panama Canal.

The Chinese government has a beautiful garden area where they have a building that tells all about the dam project and a mock-up of it for you to get an idea of what they have done. Outside, the boys (and their grandpa) had fun running the steps--thinking they were Rocky!
The park in front of the Three Gorges Dam.
The Family in front of one of the spillways.

The government has already relocated all of the villages that are now underwater since the dam was built and are continuing to build more and more apartments to move the people because the water still isn't at its highest mark which will be 175 meters. It is sad to see that the people had to be moved from land that their families have lived on for hundreds of years, but so many were in such distant areas with no running water and hardly any contact with the outside world (maybe sometimes that might not be such a bad idea--you wouldn't know all the bad things, right?), so the government has given them a place to stay and tried to find jobs for them--as meager as they might be. Their dead have either been removed from their little tombs or the government will cement them over. It is all very interesting. Along the river, you would see stretches of hardly anyone living there and then see a small city. The little mounds are burial sites. Some have been opened and the bodies relocated. Some are going to be cemented over and left. This will all be covered over as the water rises.

At the end of the cruise, when we arrived in Chongquing at night, we felt like we had arrived in Las Vegas, it had so many lights and was so unusual after four days of basically being in the wilderness.
Locals in the small cities were pitching everything--so many looked destitute, but you couldn't help them all!
George skipping along with the front-desk girls from the ship. (Is anyone thinking "Wizard of Oz")

Aboard ship, the kids, George, and John had fun playing Hearts;

We visited Chinese temples and tried some of their tests for worthiness to enter.We took Chinese speaking lessons--Alison came along, but she is already so good, we can't believe it! We took Chinese cooking lessons and learned about the history, culture, and basically any question we had about China. The boys had a great time flying kites up on the top deck.

At night, the entertainment was fantastic--all done by the people who worked on board--the cooks, the cleaning people, the servers. They put on fashion shows, did dances, sang, played instruments, and got everyone involved. (When the two-man lion below came running in to the dance floor, he biffed it right in front of where we were sitting. Parker laughed so hard he was crying!)

And of course, we ate--at the end, I had to take a picture of George--he absolutely was so stuffed he couldn't move! We definitely need to get back to eating regular food and less of it!

But what a great experience the whole cruise was. We flew back to Shanghai where Mike, the driver, was waiting for us. We came home and saw Preston and Tyson who had stayed at home with Anna, the nanny, and she had dinner all ready for us. We had popcorn and watched 'August Rush', one of my favorite movies, and then went to bed.