Day 16 May 23rd: Going Home

We woke up at 6:00AM  to a bright and clear day.  Thank goodness!  There was a worry of more Black Rain and airplane cancellations.


Our bags were out the door by 9:45.

We grabbed a Starbucks coffee so that we could get the free wifi and met up with the rest of the group for breakfast.

That's when we learned that McDonald's had free wifi too!

Our flight took off for Incheon on schedule and we went to the Korea Traditional Cultural Experience Center as we promised at the start of our trip.  We got to decorate little mirrors with mother of pearl.  Only foreigners are allowed to do this.


There was free wifi at the airport so we were happy to see that my brother would be able to pick us up at Honolulu International Airport when we got back home.

We ate bi bim bop on the flight over from Hong Kong to Incheon.

We had another bi bim bop on the flight from Incheon to Hawaii.

The newspaper on board the flight headlined the Black Rain.  What a surprise!  We had no idea it was that serious!

It was wonderful to be home again.  We passed through immigration without a problem and said good bye to our tour mates while promising to see each other in another month or two.  It was great to see my brother's smiling face greeting us at the airport.  We went home to reassure mom that we'd happily survived the trip with many wonderful memories.

Day 15 May 22nd: Kowloon, Tian Tan Buddha

We were startled by an explosion of lightning at 4:00 in the morning.  I peeled one eye open to see an incredible light show going on outside the window but couldn't muster enough energy to stay awake.  Besides, we've seen this before in Chicago.

At 6:00 we woke up and went to Starbucks to get the (sort of) free wifi.  We did have to buy coffee and muffins to get 20 minutes of Internet connection.

What a surprise to see my blog suddenly pop up in Kowloon!  (Thank you everybody for commenting and keeping me company throughout the trip even though I couldn't visit or respond while in China. I did read the comments on my e-mail whenever we had connection.)

Marilyn and Mandy would be going to Macao on a tour.  Allwyn would be visiting friends and Janet was feeling ill so she and Richard decided to rest in the morning.

That left Pearl, Guy, Art and me to figure out what to do. When we walked out the door, we discovered that the spectacular lightning and thunder storm in the early morning hours (which is called Black Rain) in Hong Kong and Kowloon was serious.  Schools and stores were closed.  The hotel shuttle was not running.

We've dealt with other metro systems, but the MTR subway was a little confusing.  We walked from our hotel to the subway and had to transfer from our Hung Hom station stop on the purple line to the red line.  Pearl and Art worked together to figure out the transportation system.

With a little help and luck, we managed to find our way to the red line's Mong Kok stop for the Ladies' Market shopping area.


But it was raining...a lot.

I was puzzled at first about rooms being sold for only 2 hour stays.  It didn't make sense until my naive brain figured it out.  Could this be the other reason they called this the "Ladies' Market?"  (Just kidding)

We stood in the area for the longest time trying to decide what to do in the rain.  The market stalls were all closed.  Should we wait hoping that they would open up eventually?  Should we take the ferry and go to Hong Kong and see Victoria Peak?  Should we go back to the hotel?

Finally Guy said, "Here's my suggestion.  Let's go see the Bronze Buddha on Lantau Island.  This is our last day and we should do something."

Guy was teasing me about my poses and smiles for the trip photos.  His earlier photos were so serious.  I love looking at these.  It makes me laugh every time I see it.

Back on the subway we traveled from the Mong Kok stop to Tung Chung which is the last stop on the orange line to Lantau Island.  Along the way they announced that the cable car to the Buddha was not operating due to the bad weather.

Tour guide, Daniel had told us the day before that we'd have no trouble because most people spoke British English instead of what he called Chinglish.

However, Calvin at the Tung Chung stop was the first person we'd met who spoke easily understood British English.

I asked him to point us in the direction of the mountain where the bronze Buddha was so I could just take a photo of it even if we couldn't see it up close.

He burst out laughing saying it was much too far away.  He suggested we take the bus which would cost us $17.20 Hong Kong dollars.  We thought it was pretty pricey until we figured out it was $2.25 U.S., one way.   We decided to take a chance.

We were glad we came despite the unexpectedly long 45 minute bus ride when we disembarked and saw the huge bronze Buddha.  It was constructed in 1993 and located near the Po Lin Monastery.

From Wikipedia:

The statue is named Tian Tan Buddha because its base is a model of the Altar of Heaven or Earthly Mount of Tian Tan, the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. It is one of the five large Buddha statues in China. The Buddha statue sits on a lotus throne on top of a three-platform altar. It is surrounded by six smaller bronze statues known as "The Offering of the Six Devas" and are posed offering flowers, incense, lamp, ointment, fruit, and music to the Buddha. These offerings symbolize charity, morality, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom, all of which are necessary to enter into nirvana.

The scenery was still overcast but lovely.

 I always prefer going down stairs than up.  We took the photo on the right of our daughter's zodiac sign, the rabbit.

Just as we were leaving the area on the bus, the heavens opened up with another downpour.

We decided to have dinner at the Citygate Outlet Mall's Pizza Hut.  We'd seen it earlier before we boarded the bus going to the bronze Buddha.

The seafood pizza wasn't quite what we expected.  The sauce was Thousand Island which we weren't used to on a pizza.

We got back to the hotel at 7:00 PM and got ready for the busy day of travel ahead.

We were tired and ready to go back home.

Day 14 May 21st: Yangtze to Chongqing to Shenzhen to Kowloon

It was to be another transit day for us.  We got up at 4:30, had our bags outside our doors by 5:10, ate a quick breakfast at 6:25 and left the cruise ship by 7:00.

The day was very smoggy.  I felt sorry for those poor porters who had to carry our suitcases up the never ending stairs.  This fellow is probably carrying about 200 pounds in luggage here.

We'd all given Charlie $150 a person at the start of our trip to tip all the people we came across.  This made it a lot easier for us.

When we got to the Shenzhen airport, Charlie's little nightmare began.

The girl at the check-in counter said we couldn't board our flight.

Our flight had just been cancelled because of too few passengers!

Charlie called the main office and they had not heard about this.

They rescheduled us for a 4:00 flight which upset Charlie who had a flight at 3:00 to return home.

Charlie never let on to us when anything went wrong.  He would hide behind pillars or corners where we couldn't see him reaming out people.

We could see by Charlie's round eyes and gritted teeth that he was really upset and that things were looking bad.

Still... none of us were exceedingly worried because we knew it was all in Charlie's capable hands.

Charlie said he felt so bad about the last minute tension that he paid for a KFC lunch for us whether we wanted it or not.

Everything had run so smoothly up to now.

Charlie was frustrated that our last day with him would be marred by this airline snafu.

By the time lunch was over, Charlie had somehow gotten us seats on another airline for 1:30.

We sadly waved good bye to Charlie after we passed through security and were on our way to Hong Kong.

At the Shenzhen International Airport, we were met by Jessica who took us to the check point between China and Hong Kong.  There was pretty heavy security there with screeners watching for people who looked sick or had fevers.

Another tour operator named Daniel met us when we got through the check point and drove with us to Kowloon's Harbour Plaza Hotel.

The hotel was five star again and very nice.  HOWEVER (and that's a big however) breakfast was not included, nor was wifi.  Unlike the rest of China where we received two bottles of water every night, we did not receive the water bottles on the second night here at the Harbour Plaza.  There was a hot water pot to boil your own though.  We were spoiled.

Daniel changed some of our money for us which wasn't as great as Air and Sea had indicated on their information card, but his rate was still better than the hotel.

We were told that we were pretty much on our own now.

"Don't worry," said Daniel.  "Kowloon and Hong Kong are easy.  You'll have no trouble getting around by yourself.  Everyone speaks English."

Dinner was a bowl of dumpling and noodles.

We missed Charlie.

Day 13 May 20th: Fengdu- Ghost City

Got up at 6:00, did a little tai chi at 6:45 and went to breakfast at 7:00.

Our morning was to relax and repack because we'd be leaving the following day for Shenzen.  Art had gone off to explore the ship and buy a t-shirt so I repacked.  While I was weighing the suitcase on the scale and lifting it at an awkward angle I felt and almost heard a click in my lower back.  Then pain!

You have got to be kidding!!!

No way!

I spent the morning stretching out my back and praying for strength.  Art came back and massaged my back for quite a while.

When Guy heard about my back, he asked, "Is there any part of you that isn't broken?"  Guy and I also have shoulder problems and even went to the same physical therapist.

By 3:00 in the afternoon, stretching, the massage and a double dose of Motrin pushed the pain away in time for our excursion to Fengdu, the Ghost City.

Charlie warned us that there would be 400 steps to the top of the Ghost City mountain top.

Groan...

That was in addition to the steps from the dock to the town.

We rode these little trams to get to Fengdu's Ghost City.  I was glad I wouldn't have to walk.

We were met by another city tour guide, Merry.  I wonder if they get to choose their own names.  I know our server, Chocolate didn't have a choice with hers.

This is the entrance to Ghost City.  That sculpture reminded me of Merlin.


When I saw the painting of the path we'd be climbing to the pagoda at the top of the mountain, my back gave a twitch.

The spirits must have been helping me because I was OK so far.

The masks were probably catering to Western tourists.  They looked more like Halloween masks.

There was a marriage bridge.  If we wanted to spend eternity together we'd have to cross over the bridge with 7 steps.  Men had to start on their left foot and women their right. (Because women are always right, right?)

These guardians of the temple entrance looked exactly like what we saw in Japan. The open mouth signifies the start and the closed mouth, the end.

Men were asked to volunteer to try and lift this HEAVY weight.  I asked Art to try so I could use the photo for my blog.  Since we're planning to spend eternity together, he complied to keep me happy.  He said he couldn't even budge it.

Then this villager (who didn't even look like Arnold Schwarzenegger) came and rolled the weight around the mound until he got it to the top where he balanced it to stand on its own.  Remarkable!!!

There was a LARGE diorama depicting what a Chinese Hell would look like.

It was pretty gross.

Someone mentioned that Dante must have come here to get ideas for his Inferno.

"Hey!" said Guy.  "This broom really works!" 

Darn!  I have no idea which god this was.

Yahoo!  We made it to the top.  The entrances to temples often had these high thresholds everywhere in China to keep out evil spirits that might slither in.  Women had to enter with their right foot, men with their left.

On the way out of Ghost City we ran into this HUGE very silvery and gold longhorn beetle.  I should have asked Art to put his finger next to it so you could see how LARGE it was.  We thought at first that it might be an ingenious little toy that somebody was selling.  But no, it's the real thing!  We could hardly believe it!  It was hard to get a good photo of it, but it was so silvery that it didn't look real.

6:30 was dinner and at 7:30 Charlie gave us our final instructions for the following day.

Because of the low water level at present, the ship would not be able to travel to Chongqing where we were supposed to catch another flight to Hong Kong.

Charlie said we'd have to get up early the next day, grab a QUICK breakfast and use a bus to get us to the airport to catch our flight.

We were feeling sad that our time with Charlie was coming to an end.

Day 12 May 19: Wu and Qutang Gorge

I woke up at 6:00 and wiggled my foot.  No pain!  Hallelujah!

We went up on deck and tried doing tai chi (Charlie said the Chinese called it taiji) with a few other ladies.

I loved it that I could more or less follow what they were doing since we'd learned the basic moves from Mr. Pong in Hawaii.

Breakfast was fine.  They tried to prepare dishes for an international passenger list.

We took a tourist sanpan to get to the Shennong Streams where we would board even littler boats they called peapods.  We saw people going to work on these little boats.

We took a million photos of the beautiful gorge scenery surrounding us.  I just wish we had clearer skies for better photos.

When our sanpan arrived at Badong we transferred to the little peapod boats.


Our tour guide "Mary" comes from a nearby village and sang to us.  She had a beautiful voice and sold CDs of village songs.

On the left was the largest river cave in the area.  On the right is an ancient hanging coffin.  Coffins were placed high up in the mountains to be closer to heaven.

Charlie told us that the original hanging coffins with all their artifacts have been sent to museums.  These have been reconstructed for tourists.  Again, I was thankful for my telephoto!

In the past, peapod boats had to be pulled with bamboo ropes by men because the river was too shallow.  They were naked because of the heat and humidity.  Our boats were oared by three or four extremely strong villagers but a couple of them demonstrated how the boats used to be pulled (with their clothes on however).

Mary mentioned how the Shennong Stream corn wine is 60% proof alcohol.  I wonder what their liver looks like... or was it their kidneys that would be affected?

In the afternoon there was another snuff bottle demonstration, dinner and then a "minority" dance show.  This Spanish looking dance was not what we expected.

I was feeling a bit like I was coming down with something so I drank a whole bottle of tea, some Airborne and  more water.  I figured I was probably dehydrated.

There were only three more actual days of touring.  I needed to stay healthy.
I kept my fingers crossed.

Day 11 May 18th: Three Gorges Dam

It was fabulous to finally be able to RELAX!!!  We could see the beautiful scenery of the gorge from our balcony.  Charlie warned us NOT to open the doors at night because we'd be inviting insects into the room.

Our bed was two double beds stuck together which made it bigger than a King.  Such luxury!  Again... hint to American hotels?  Why not provide clean, washable duvet covers instead of bedspreads?

In the past, the Chinese flag looked more like an enemy flag.  Now we knew that it was the flag of the country that our Charlie loved.

The buffet on the President Prime was lovely.  Not great, but certainly good enough.

The river cruise ship is not as big as the ocean cruise ships, but still very large.

We went up on the deck, but it was a little chilly and pretty hazy.  I don't know if it was smog or fog.

We could barely make out villagers repairing a wall using sledge hammers.  I had to use my telescopic lens to see them breaking the rocks and then carrying them one by one to the wall along the mountainside.

We were traveling up river to the left and were at the Three Gorges Dam.

We were at the first gorge, Xiling and could see temples and other ancient looking structures on the mountains.

Our afternoon outing would be to see the famous Three Gorges Dam.

From Wikipedia:

The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping,  located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW).

There was security screening before we were allowed onto the dam site.  I was really grateful for the two long escalators up!

I was enjoying the flowers around us, but of course Art had to find something high to climb which he did.

However, I'm really glad he was able to get this photo which showed the entire area.

And then we walked down to see the dam itself.

If there is ever an uneven surface anywhere, I WILL find it!  I managed to wrench my ankle where two tiles were missing. I missed one, but the other one came up and grabbed me.  I've done this twice before on tree roots and ended up in the ER and exiting on crutches.

When I heard that little painful click on my ankle joint, my heart sank!

We got back to the ship and watched how boats were being raised through the locks.  We were awfully close to the side of the canal.  (Don't tell Art because he found it all so fascinating, but for me it was like watching a water kettle and waiting for it to boil.)

For the rest of the afternoon, Charlie sent a large bag of ice to our room and insisted I ice my foot, which I did. (Bert, my physical therapist told me later when I returned to Hawaii that it was the best thing I did.)

I was even able to enjoy the evening entertainment by our ship's crew after dinner.

You can see our lovely Chocolate here in red.

Once the show was over, I was back in the room icing my foot.

My fingers were crossed when I went to sleep that night hoping all would be well the following morning.