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Day 17 Travel Home

If you want to read these in order by day, scroll to the bottom and click on each day from the archive list.  They are in reverse order.

The van picked us up at the hotel at 6:00 a.m. and drove us to the Shanghai Pudong Airport (about an hour drive through Monday morning traffic).  We made our way through airline check in, the foreign departure counter, security (twice), and boarded the plane at about 9:00 a.m. because it took about half an hour to board the 400 passengers.  The departure was scheduled for 10:00 a.m.  And there we sat on the plane until 11:30 a.m. before departure (we were told traffic was heavy).  The flight to Detroit was about 13 hours in the air.  We arrived in Detroit at about 12:30 p.m. EDT after we had been on that plane nearly 16 hours.  Our schedule had us in the Detroit airport 3 hours before our flight home, so the delay was not a problem.  We retrieved our checked bags and went through the U.S. foreign entry line.  Some people were selected for secondary inspection of bags, but I think we looked harmless and were not required to have our bags inspected.  We had a hamburger at Wendy's at the airport, having had only airplane food that entire day.  This flight had the worst food of any of our flights.  We proceeded to our gate only to find out that the flight home was delayed by a flat tire in Charlotte, so we did not board that plane until after 6:00 p.m.  The flight home was uneventful and we arrived home at about 7:30 p.m. CDT.  It had been about 28 hours since we had left our Shanghai hotel.

The entire trip had been fun, but home looked good.  Most of the trip went well and was a wonderful experience.  The internet in China is different from much of the rest of the world (at least the world where we have been), so getting this journal on-line was not easy.  And after we left Beijing and Xian, it became increasingly more difficult.  We finally had to resort to emailing the text to Creighton, and he posted it on-line.  At one point, I tried to upload a picture of a panda and received a security alert message and the picture did not upload.  Photography was also difficult every where we went because the air was always hazy with moisture and pollution (some days it was so thick that it was almost foggy).  Only a few of the 3,000 photos I snapped are good quality.

The group (28) we traveled with was a varied and friendly collection of people.  It included a family from Mexico and a family from Canada, with the remainder from various places in the U.S.  Everyone was congenial and on always on time (no grouches or laggards).  Our guide was great.  He was a young man from Beijing; he was pleasant, funny, and very knowledgeable about everywhere we went and everything we saw.  He spoke and understood English well.  He told us quite a lot about himself; his family (he is married and has a 3-year old daughter), his education (all in Beijing), and his philosophy of life.  He seemed very happy with his life; he owns a condominium but no car.  Getting a group such as ours everywhere we needed to be, with what we needed, was a complex task (busses, hotels, entry tickets, water bottles, food, planes, and information), but he did it well.  We were often stared at when we were in crowds of Chinese people, but no one seemed bothered by our presence.  We were not the only tourists; there were groups and individuals from all over the world.

Our main impression is that China is rapidly growing and developing; it's economy is booming with construction of new office and residence buildings everywhere.   There were lots of new elaborate public buildings -- all of the airports we were in (5 of them) were new with interesting architecture. People seemed happy (many of the ones we saw were visiting all the same places we were; some had traveled from other places in China); they seemed comfortable with the crowds, the traffic congestion, and the construction.  We saw lots of new cars (many were luxury cars), lots of fashionable clothes, and many luxury residences.  We also saw poverty and government control, but our guide told us that both issues were improving.  China was a great place to visit. 

Pictures (Click on picture to enlarge, use back arrow to return to normal):  Our guide (2)

Day 16 Shanghai

We stayed in the historic Peace Hotel (Fairmont) in Shanghai that had been built in the 1920's.  It has maintained its historic feel while being a modern luxury hotel.  It is located on the street facing the waterway in older Shanghai in a long row of historic buildings most of which were banks.  It is in the middle of the Bund where thousands of people stroll along the river and up and down the streets leading to the river. 

Old Shanghai

Our first activity in Shanghai was a trip to the Old Shanghai Gardens.  It is a traditional Chinese garden area.  We were told that there were four required elements:  water, rocks, trees, and  a wall.  The garden was a respite from the surrounding shopping area.  Both the shopping area and the garden were crowded with people, and even though we were there in the morning, it was hot and humid.  The garden was beautiful with bridges and walkways that wound through it.  One bridge had right-angle turns about every 20 feet (we were told that the purpose for the turns in the bridge was to force those walking through to see the garden from different angles).  The water had lotus flowers and large goldfish.  The plantings were carefully trimmed to maintain the appropriate size, but there were still large trees that shaded the area.  We emerged from the garden into the shopping area and had free time to browse through stores where one could purchase any about anything (with expected bargaining). 

Our next stop was a Chinese lunch in a restaurant that was set in an "Embroidery Museum."  Hundreds of elaborate embroidery "pictures" were displayed on the walls.  The detail in the "pictures" was phenomenal -- they looked like paintings.  Many were for sale at very high prices.  We had a lecture on the history of embroidery in China.  We had a traditional Chinese dinner.

Next we went to the Shanghai Museum.  There we saw an extensive collection of artifacts representing China's history and culture.  We saw jade, bronze, wood, and stone items that had been elaborately carved or decorated.  There were also painting, calligraphy, and stamp (used historically to make a person's stamp or signature) collections.

In the evening, we had another traditional Chinese dinner at a different restaurant.  All of the Chinese dinners had some foods in common, but most had completely different dishes for us.  Over the course of 16 days, we have sampled a large variety of Chinese foods.

Following the dinner, we went to the Chinese Acrobat Show.  This was in a very modern theatre (with no Chinese decorations at all).  The show was fantastic, with the acrobats demonstrating an amazing range of agility, balance, and strength.  There were tumbling acts, tower building, magic acts, and vaudeville type comedy routines.  The show was quite enjoyable with beautiful costumes, drama with tension, and comedic relief.

That was the end of a long day, and we made our way through the heavy traffic (both automobile and pedestrian) to our hotel.  We had to pack for an early morning departure.  

Pictures:  Judy and Dwight sitting on a throne, Old Shanghai, Old Shanghai Garden, Old Shanghai Market (2), Embroidery Museum and Restaurant, Shanghai Museum (2), Chinese Acrobats (2).

 

Day 15 Wuhan and Shanghai

Our cruise down the Yangtze River was over.  We left the boat in Wuhan and boarded buses to see the Hubei Provincial History Museum.  This museum contains artifacts from the tomb of Yi of Zeng who died in 433 B.C.  His coffin was a lacquered box inside another lacquered box.  There were thousands of bronze, gold, wooden, and jade items found in the tomb.  These were all on display in the museum along with a set of bronze bells that were carefully made to emit specific tones when struck.  After looking at items in the museum and learning about the era of Yi, we attended a concert played on bells modeled after those found in the tomb.  String, wind, and percussion instruments from that era were played with the bells, and a dancer with the long flowing sleeves performed a dance from the era.  The bell tones were very clear and ranged from low tones to very high notes.  The players and dancer were dressed in traditional, very colorful constumes.

Wuhan is a city on the banks of the Yangtze River of about 9 million people.  There was new construction throughout the city.  It is known for automobile assembly.  Our bus then took us to the Wuhan Airport for the hour and a half flight to Shanghai.  We arrived in Shanghai at about 2:00  p.m.  Shanghai Pudong Airport is a huge structure, and it was strangely empty and quiet.  All the airports we had been through previously had been crowded and noisy.  We were told that Shanghai has another airport that is used for many of the domestic flights.  Since Shanghai has a population of 22 million, we were surprised by the quiet airport.  We boarded buses for the hour drive to Shanghai.

Shanghai is an international city.  It has older buildings dating to the 1800's and new skyscrapers built recently.  The older buildings were ornate five- to six-story stone buildings with all kinds of decoration.  Looking at that street, we were reminded of Budapest and Vienna.  But in the blocks behind that street and across the river, the glass and steel towers gleamed (or would have if there had been bright sunshine -- the air was thick haze).  These were the tallest buildings and the largest grouping of tall buildings that we had seen in China (Beijing and Chongqing have tall some tall buildings, but not this many in one place).  When night fell, both sides of the river were lit up with spotlights on the old buildings and outline lights on the new buildings.  It was a spectacular scene.  There is one structure that is simply an ornate tower extending from a globe structure at the base.  Throngs of people were milling along the river walkway (Bund).  The crowd was like a flowing river; you entered the flow and went with it.  The crowd contained families with children, but most seemed to be young adults.  Everyone seemed to have a camera and picture-taking was the activity of the day.  We went back to the Bund in the evening and the crowd was even larger; it extended for perhaps a mile up and down the banks of the river.  While we were walking, three people stopped us to visit.  One was a young woman from Beijing on vacation in Shanghai.  She spoke clear English and just began talking with us as we leaned against the rail looking across the river.  The second was a young man who began talking with us as we walked by him.  He was an engineer who lived and worked in Shanghai.  He also spoke clear English.  The third was an American college student from UCLA who was doing an internship in Shanghai.  I think he really enjoyed visiting with us and was surprised at all the places we had been and all the things we had seen in China.

The crowds finally became oppressive and we retreated to our hotel room.  Tomorrow will be a busy day in Shanghai.

Pictures:  Wuhan Museum (4), Wuhan Museum Bell Performance (2), Judy with lady in Wuhan Museum wearing a Route 66 shirt, Judy and Dwight in Shanghai, Shanghai skyline (2), Peace Hotel (green pyramid on top), Crowd outside hotel door (blurred because the crowd was in motion).

Day 14 Yangtze River -- Jingzhou -- Viking School

We left the boat early to board a bus to the Viking Elementary School near Jingzhou. This is an old city on the banks of the river. It is an industrial city with the industry primarily based on chemical manufacturing. Historically, it was a center for salt trade. Now its output seems to be detergents and related products (shampoo). The city looked older and more run down than any city we had seen previously. We had seen people cleaning streets with mops and brooms everywhere we had been, but that didn't seem to be the case here. There were piles of trash scattered about; there was litter all around; the streets and sidewalks were dusty; and the stores we drove by were just sheds. There were only a few new high-rise apartment buildings.

This school is partially supported by Viking River Cruises and its passengers. This is summer break for the school, so I don't know how they managed it, but there were lots of students present. First a small band played for us as we walked from the bus to the school. On an outdoor stage, several groups of girls performed dance numbers for us, and invited members of our group onto the stage during the last number to dance with them. Then we went into a classroom and sat with the children. As we came in, the children (first graders) rushed toward us and each took the hand of one of our group and led us to his or her desk. As we sat with them, they sang several songs to us, the last of which was the ABC song. They asked us to sing a song to them, so one of our group led us in "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." I saw several of the children singing with us, so they were familiar with the song. We had been told to visit with the children in English so they could practice their English. We found that the children in our classroom didn't know English well enough to visit with us. The boy that I sat with was eager for me to take his picture, and he broke out laughing each time I showed him his picture on the camera's viewer. The little girl that Judy sat with was so shy, she hardly would interact at all.

By the time we left, all of us were dripping with sweat from the heat in the classroom, but it was an interesting experience. The school building seemed old and in need of repair. They were building an addition onto the building, but the school yard and rooms were sparsely furnished. The children looked healthy and happy, and they were well-dressed. The event was well-rehearsed and staged just for us, so we suspected that the children were all on their best behavior and in their finest dress.

Pictures:  Jingzhou, Viking School

Day 13 Yangtze River -- Three Gorges Dam

This morning, we toured the Three Gorges Dam at Sandouping. This was not a tour of the dam itself, but we saw the dam up close and from a high vantage point. The day was foggy and hot, which allowed us to see only the nearby parts of the dam. The dam is the largest concrete dam in the world (not the longest dam, the highest dam, or the greatest capacity dam), but it is a significant dam in flood prevention, electricity production (largest hydroelectric power station in the world), and in aiding shipping on the river. The Yangtze's amount of water flow is exceeded only by the Amazon and the Congo, so the dam has to manage a huge amount of water. About 50% of Shanghai's electricity is produced by this dam's generators. We were able to see the shipping locks well from the high viewing area. The locks raise and lower ships about 60 meters (at the highest water levels). This is done in a five-step lock system with one system for each direction. Each lock will handle as many as six large ships/barges at a time allowing it to handle a large volume of shipping. Apparently, there is no charge for using the locks. The appearance was basic utilitarian. Now that the dam has been built, it is fulfilling its functions, but still 1.4 million people were displaced from the former river valley, and whatever river life existed before has been changed forever. A major concern I had in looking at the river and the dam is that even with the great depth of the water, there is so much silt in the water that will settle out behind the dam that eventually it will fill up.
 
We cruised on the river below the dam after our tour, coming to another dam in a few hours.  It was much smaller, lowering the water in its single lock only a fraction of what the Three Gorges Dam did. By now, the mountains alongside the river had become hills and then flat land. Of course, the fog and haze remained, so it was difficult to determine what was beyond the banks of the river. Although, there was still farming on the river banks, we saw more and more industrial sites along the river. Shipping also increased. We stopped during the night at Jingzhou.
 
Throughout the trip, we have been provided three large meals a day. Breakfasts at the hotels and on the boat have been elaborate buffets providing both Chinese and western fare with omelets and waffles or pancakes made to order, many kinds of fruits, and breads and pastries. The lunches before we reached the boat were often at a local restaurant in the areas we were touring; these were mostly Chinese dinners with a number of courses served on a lazy-susan table. On the boat, lunches have been a salad bar, with soup and small sandwiches followed by a small entree and dessert (if you wanted these).
Dinners before the boat were elaborate Chinese dinners with many courses. On the boat, dinners have been a choice of several salads, soups, entrees, and desserts, mostly western food. We have had an abundance of food, most of it was tasty and interesting. I tried almost everything at the Chinese dinners (I can't remember what all we were served), but I only needed a very small serving of some of the foods. The foods in the Sichuan Province were especially spicy, and there were many new flavors.

Pictures:  Three Gorges Dam and Lock, Lock on lower dam on Yangtze (waiting for lock to unload), Fishing boat

Day 12 Yangtze River -- Three Gorges

Early this morning, we transferred to a sight-seeing boat for a cruise on the Danning River, a tributary to the Yangtze.  This cruise took us through scenic Qutang George where the walls were close and almost vertical.  We went under the new Dragon Bridge, which had replaced the historic Dragon Bridge as the water behind the Three Gorges Dam rose and inundated the old bridge.  Wildlife and birdlife has been scarce everywhere we have been, but in this gorge, there were some birds flying overhead; we saw goats near the river climbing on the cliffs (I inferred from my observations that these were feral goats rather than mountain goats as the guide kept calling them); and we also saw Rhesus Monkeys.

The gorge was scenic with rock outcrops showing highly tilted layers of limestone with cave openings (we told that some of the caves had been used as burial places).  I noticed a faults in the rock layers, some of which indicated major movement in the geologic past, but most were just tilted.  The vegetation substantially covered the mountains with trees and shrubs in contrast to the treeless mountains that we had seen in other places.  The water in the Danning River was a greenish color, but it was not silted to a light chocolate as the Yangtze was.  The air in the gorge was much less hazy than in the Yangtze valley.

After returning from the three-hour scenic ride, we returned to our boat and continued down the Yangtze.  Here the mountains were mostly bare of trees and had farming plots on terraces and on the sides of the mountains.  There were several crops in the small plots; all I could recognize was corn.  The slopes were steep but not vertical as in the gorge, and houses were abundant.  There were several mining operations visible on the mountainsides -- noticeable by the talis slopes below the mines.  The afternoon and early evening were spent watching the scenery go by.

All three meals were on the boat, and during the day, we only interacted with our own "boat people."

At 9:00 p.m., our boat approached the locks at the Three Gorges Dam.  We watched as the boat eased into the lock after waiting for other boats to enter and leave.  There were five boats in the lock with us.  It took about an hour for the lock to clear of traffic and for our group of boats to enter the lock.  At that point, we stopped watching as closely and returned to our room.  But from our window, we could see the side of the lock, so even though we could not feel the motion, we could see the boat lower in the lock as the water drained out.  This lock lowered us about 60 meters and we went through two more locks to descend to the river level below the dam.  This took much of the night.

Pictures:  Scenes along the three gorges of the Yangtze River, Lock at Three Gorges Dam