Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Yangtze River, April 23, 2009

A trip of a lifetime.
Not the best weather.
Not the best accomodations.
Not the best communications.
Worth the trip.
This part of China is very remote and yet there are millions of people that live there. It is really inconceiveable the amount of people and the happenings on the river.
When you reach a city that has more people than the entire population of California and you have never heard of it...
When a "shop girl" tells you she can't afford to go to college because it costs $1,500 US/year.
When you see baby chicks roasted on a stick for a snack.
When you see stairs that seem to be endless climbs that are just for people that may have been up river for shopping and have to climb 50 or more flights or stairs to get to ground level. The to climb another ten flights or so to their apartment that has no air conditioning.
The Chinese people were very welcoming here and very happy to see our children. They don't get many children on these trips so they went out of their way to accommodate them. You will see an artist giving Kathleen and Nicky caligraphy lessons with ink and brushes on rice paper.
We too Chinese 101 from the river cruise director and both Kathleen and Nicky know think they need to learn how to speak Mandarin.
I can tell you we had many an unusual experience, wonderful experience...it wasn't perfect but glad we went for sure. The crew on the river boat went out of their way to make us happy.
Our pictures are not in the best of story telling order as we are packing late tonight to head out for Bejing in the early morning. Any stories will have to wait.
Two things.
The Chinese invented paper.
The Chinese invented porcelin. When porcelin plates became popular in the West, people just started calling it CHINA!!! Did you know that???































The Weldens with their new panda! Nicky and Kathleen would have liked to take this guy home but there is not enough bamboo in Alabama to keep him happy. All they do is eat and sleep.


In Chongqing, they not only have 33 million people, they have pandas!! We went to the fabulous zoo there and saw giant pandas! Of course, a trip to China is not complete unless you have a panda puppet or purse, like the one our friend Wolfgang is modeling for us!









It took us 29 hours to get to Yichang, where we were to get on our river boat. Fog rolled in and in 14 years of these people operating this trip, they were not able to bring the boat to shore for us to board! We had to go to a nearby hotel that was almost one hour away! When you travel, you can't expect everything to be a Ritz-Carlton and it wasn't. However, it was clean but hot and we had a place to sleep. Never had a pillow filled with RICE before! The internet here has been down all day. It is now almost 8:00p.m. We will try to post some stories and shots tonight but may not be able. AND just as a quick note...for some reason Japan has very strict internet restrictions. We may not have Internet service for a week when we are around and in Japan.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Yangtze River Trip

We made it back from the river trip safely to Shanghai. Will post to the blog as soon as we can sort through the millions of photos we took and notes we made to share. Hopefully today/tonight sometime. It is Tuesday April 28th here almost noon.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Goodbye to our "Rocket Scientists" 4-22-09

There are not many people that can say that they have stood between two guys that have been to the moon! We have had the pleasure of spending time with two wonderfully brilliant men, Buzz Aldrin of Apollo 11 and Al Worden of Apollo 15. Their lectures we fascinating and their fun stories that never make the newspaper were great. Al became part of our trivia team! He was really good, imagine that!!
Travel safe, our space travelling friends and thank you for sharing your experiences with us all! American heroes.


Inland China Trip April 23-27th, message on 4-21-09

We will be leaving the ship for 5 days starting on April 23rd. We will be flying to inland China to take a river cruise down the Yangtze River. We probably will not have internet access. We will post our experience when we return to the ship on the 27th.

Hong Gai, Vietnam 4-20-09

Halong Bay is in the Gulf of Tonkin on the map. There are over 3,000 islands rising up out of the sea here. We took an early moring "junk" cruise through these magnificent rock formations. They are made of limestone and dolomite and have foliage that seem to drape the rocks. Many of the rocks have names. the monkeys or the toads etc... Ha Long means "dragon descending into the sea". The legend is told that there is still a huge sea monster that resides there. We didn't see it. We will have to come back. This is one of Vietnam's most visited attractions because of it's incredible natural beauty. These islands stretch over 80 miles. On our "3 hour tour" we did not see them all and it was not a clear day. It was overcast, thank goodness or we probably would not have been able to stand the heat! I am sure the photos would be even more glorious on a clear day...in winter...they never really get winter though!
The "junk" was quite large and we had a smooth sail in between the formations. We passed many a floating village where people mainly fish for a living and live day to day. The only "pirates" we encountered came in the form of really cute small children selling bananas. A small family pulled up next to our "junk" and wanted us to buy their bananas. The boat captain bought a few and we were on our way. It was a wonderful way to see the bay.
Kathleen found a balancing eagle at the market and firgured out that it could balance on almost anything!