{"id":547,"date":"2013-10-06T19:47:03","date_gmt":"2013-10-06T12:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/?p=547"},"modified":"2013-10-06T19:48:01","modified_gmt":"2013-10-06T12:48:01","slug":"547","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"Yangtze Cruising, 10\/2\/13"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wake up wondering if we\u2019re still in Chongqing (5:00 am).\u00a0 I don\u2019t feel any movement at all.\u00a0 I open the window and it\u2019s pitch black.\u00a0 We\u2019re definitely down the river.\u00a0 I start checking our telephone signal, and we still have 3G, so there must be civilization nearby.\u00a0 I eventually head to the shower to get ready for the day.\u00a0 I\u2019m not missing the \u201cEarly Bird Coffee\u201d at 6:30.\u00a0 \u201cEarly Bird Coffee\u201d is not a big tradition, apparently, as I\u2019m the only one in the room, besides the attendant. \u00a0Everyone else must have stayed up late and waited for the boat to leave the city.<\/p>\n

Back in the room, Judy is finishing getting ready, and I\u2019m out on the balcony, seeing what a river cruise is all about.\u00a0 As we pass a town, you can see a small crowd on the far bank, and then I noticed a bunch of people swimming, way out in the river.\u00a0 They\u2019re almost out where we are.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if this is a special occasion, or just their usual Wednesday morning swim.<\/p>\n

Breakfast is good, albeit a little different.\u00a0 There are some fish dishes I\u2019m not used to seeing on a breakfast buffet.\u00a0 But there\u2019s also fried eggs, toast, and cereal, so I\u2019m not going to starve.\u00a0 We\u2019re seated with the only other foreign family on board (out of 420, total).\u00a0 They\u2019re German, but living in Beijing.\u00a0 The husband works for Audi, and met and married his Chinese wife in Shanghai in 1995.\u00a0 Audi lets him live in China for 5 years at a time, and then he must go back to Germany for 4 years.\u00a0 He is then allowed to come back to China if he wants.\u00a0 This is his third time back and he has a son and daughter.\u00a0 His kids attend the German Embassy School, not far from UHN.\u00a0 His kids speak Mandarin, German, and some English.\u00a0 His wife is very good at all three languages.<\/p>\n

We return to the room for final preparations and then downstairs to meet our excursion group.\u00a0 We\u2019re paired with the German family, along with several Chinese families.\u00a0 There are a total of 16 people.\u00a0 Our guide has to do all her narration in Chinese, followed by English.\u00a0 It adds some length to the tour, but we usually need the rest.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re visiting the \u201cGhost City of Fengdu\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s a temple, very high up on a hill (very very high), overlooking the river.\u00a0 They keep telling us it\u2019s 500 steps to the top.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t include some steep ramps as well.\u00a0 There are several temples as we work our way up to the home of the \u201cKing of the Underground\u201d.\u00a0 The main temple at the top honors the guy in charge of deciding where individuals spend eternity after death (in the \u201cgood\u201d place or the \u201cbad\u201d place).\u00a0 There are several tests we\u2019ve taken during the climb to determine if we\u2019re good or bad.\u00a0 For those of you wondering, Judy and I both passed the tests for the \u201cgood\u201d (although I thought Judy was a little iffy on the last one).\u00a0 We\u2019re relieved to have \u201cpassed\u201d, but mostly relieved we don\u2019t have to climb any more steps.<\/p>\n

\"Ghost<\/a>

Mooring for our visit to the “Ghost City”<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Ghost<\/a>

The beginning of the climb (500 steps) to the Ghost City. It looks so restful at the entrance area.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Ghost<\/a> \"Ghost<\/a><\/p>\n

The weather has been great today. \u00a0The crowds on the tour were brutal. \u00a0It\u2019s a holiday, and this is \u201chigh\u201d season for the cruises because of the weather. \u00a0That makes for clogged gate entrances, and lots of tour guides on amplified systems. \u00a0In spite of all of it, the temples are impressive, and the view is inspiring. \u00a0It\u2019s so foggy today our pictures won\u2019t begin to tell the story.<\/p>\n

\"Ghost<\/a> \"Ghost<\/a><\/p>\n

We get back to the cabin, and take a quick nap before lunch. \u00a0After lunch it\u2019s back to the room for rest and relaxation out on our balcony.\u00a0 As the boat travels downriver, there are so many contrasts.\u00a0 The river is gorgeous and the surrounding valleys are as well.\u00a0 The architecture is so drab.\u00a0 Since the government owns everything, all the buildings along the river are square and painted gray or white.\u00a0 There are no picturesque cleverly designed river properties.\u00a0 Everything is the same.\u00a0 If this were in the US, I can\u2019t imagine the property values of some of these places.\u00a0 It\u2019ll be interesting what happens if the government ever turns loose and lets the economy take off.<\/p>\n

We finish up the day with a meal, some deck sitting (very relaxing), and ultimately, bedtime.\u00a0 All the cable television channels are Chinese, so we\u2019re catching up on West Wing off my computer.\u00a0 Thanks Courtney for getting that organized for us.\u00a0 We can\u2019t wait to see what tomorrow brings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wake up wondering if we\u2019re still in Chongqing (5:00 am).\u00a0 I don\u2019t feel any movement at all.\u00a0 I open the window and it\u2019s pitch black.\u00a0 We\u2019re definitely down the river.\u00a0 I start checking our telephone signal, and we still … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}