Our boat the Victoria Empress

When I was researching our cruise options it was very difficult to find pictures and explanations of the different boats and cruise lines so I thought I would show you our boat and room. It is rated a 5 star boat, but that is Chinese 5 star. We saw a few other nicer ones, but ours was very good. It is about 10 years old and has been updated. Our room was very small, I included a pic of the Shangri-la suite to compare with. Overall we had a great time on the boat and the staff was very nice and accomidating. Most spoke some english and could grab us whatever we asked for. Our cruise Director Chris and River Guide Gary both spoke excellent english and made the trip very enjoyable. We had a balcony in our cabin which was nice, but too cold to stay out on. They also had a dance floor that was right above our cabin so it was a little noisy, luckily the chinese are not big partiers. I also included a pic of our internet station that was as fast as dial up, but at least we had internet access to check email.

Chongqing at Night

We got into Chongqing (pronounced Chong Ching) at about 9pm on thursday and we convinved the boat to let us off and to go explore the city. Our river guide Gary is from Chongqing and so he took us to the downtown area and then showed us where to look around as he went home to visit his family. Meigan was really tired and so Jodie stayed in the boat and brian went with the Dawn and Sharmaine, the two Aussies on our boat. We had a great time, it is my favorite way to explore a new city is by night and by yourself. You can discover so many neat things and if you get into trouble or something you just plead ignorance and keep on going. We went to a very ritzy part of town and a very poor part of town. There is so much money in Chongqing, it is the fastest growing and largest city in China with a pop of 33 million. It is also a very mountainous town, kinda like San Francisco. Also it is very Foggy here, there are two large rivers that meet, the Yangtze and some other one I don't remember and with the mountains it holds the water vapor in and is very foggy. I'm sure the smog doesn't help either. Gary said they maybe get 5-10 days a year without fog and blue skies.
We saw a Ferrari parked in front of the Starbucks where we bought Meigan some Soy Milk, it was pretty cool! We even found some local areas to eat in the poorer part of town that included ducks head/bill, cow's tail, and many other interesting things. We settled on french fries from McDonalds!

Yangtze Day 4

Taday we started off with a tour to the Ghost City of Feng Du. We hiked to the top off a small mountain to a pagoda and 3 Budhist/Toaist temples. They believe that the spirits travel here after death to await judgement to see if they will have a good next life or a tortured one. The area was very beautiful, very green and lush. The temples were beautifully done and Meigan had a good time. We played ring-around-the-rosies in front of the temple for about 20 minutes and all of the Chinese were taking our pictures. Meigan loves to jump and do ring around the roses or the Baby-Bop Hop from the show Barney. She's got some legs to be able to do it for as long as she does! Now we are cruising up the Yangtze to our last stop. We should arrive in Chongqing about 10pm but we will stay the night on the boat and then get off tomorrow morning and go to the airport.

Photos from the Yangtze

We have just completed our third day on the Yangtze and I have tried to post some pictures of our adventure. I don't know if they have turned out, how big they are or in what order. But they are pics of the Three Gorges River Dam, a few of the Gorges and then of Meigan and us. We have had a great time, it has been very relaxing for Brian, not so much for Jodie, she worries about too much. Meigan is still trying to get onto China time, she sleeps all day and is awake all night. She has been a really good traveller, much better than we thought she would do. We have one more day on the Yangtze and then we will visit Chongqing after that, the largest city in China, with over 33 million people. Most people have never heard of it. I am looking forward to seeing it. Anyway I'm off to bed and we wish you a great day! Brian

Yangtze River Cruise Day 1

We are writing from our ship. We are unable to use our own computer and do not think we can upload photos from theirs. If we can we will.
We are three out of five white foreigners on our boat. There are two women from Australia and there is a group from Singapore as well. Usually it is half and half but it is the end of the cruise season. The area is beautiful. It is very similiar to the photos of the Li River from our first China trip. Today we visited the Three Gorges Dam which is the largest Dam in the world. It has been under construction since 1993 and is almost finished. We then had to go through 5 ship locks to get over the dam in our ship. We hope to figure out how to send photos.
We are all doing well. Meigan is warming up to the people but giving plenty of eye rolls too! Meigan slept in till 4am today and has had normal naps today so we are hoping for a full nights sleep. Tomorrow is a big tour day.
 
We still can't see our blog, email us if you need us. We also can't skype till Friday/Saturday.
 
For some reason the smells here are much worse for us this trip. Maybe its because we just haven't gotten used to it, but I suspect it is because we have been sick and every little smell makes us want to hurl. The upside of having allergies is that with all of the congestion and stuffy nose it is harder to smell.

WE MADE IT!

We made it to Hong Kong safely sunday night. Meigan and Jodie slept from about 9pm until 2am when Meigan decided it was time to play. She watched LOTS of Barney while we tried to get more sleep. Needless to say, she slept for 5 hours this afternoon and we were in airports and airplanes so we let her. We were unable to connect to the internet in Hong Kong and we are currently writing from a restaurant in Guangzhou airport as we wait for our flight to Yichang to board the cruise ship. Brian went down to eat dinner last night when we went to bed. We were staying at a Marriot and he was able to watch the Utah Jazz game.

We are being stared at quite a bit already. One man looked at us from one side and then walked around us to get a better look at Meigan sleeping in my arms. These are definitely not friendly looks. Can't imagine how many looks we will get once there is two little ones with us.

So far travelling has gone well. Meigan has been a trooper. Hopefully it won't take us too long to switch our days and nights around. We are unable to view our blog so we are posting via email. Hope it is working and hopefully we will be able to see it in our next city. We will hopefully post again soon, but we are unsure when we will have access again.

On our way!!!

We have successfully checked our luggage and are awaiting our first of 3 flights today. We will arrive in Hong Kong sunday night. Monday we will take 2 more flights and then board a cruise ship on the Yangtze river until friday. We hope to post all week but we are not sure which days we will be able to access the internet. Again, Monday November 23rd is the day we will meet MEILIN!