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 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 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.

Day 10 May 17th: Shanghai to Wuhan to Yangtze River

6:00 Woke up and had breakfast
7:00 Set luggage outside door
8:00 Met in lobby for 1 hour bus ride to airport
(Half of our tour group had already left the hotel for another tour package before we came down. We felt the loss of their company.)

That's Charlie #2 in the middle along with Richard and Janet.

Janet is a retired first grade teacher like me.  Teachers are always drawn to each other.


When I mentioned to Charlie about the Chinese herbalist saying Art and I both needed herbs for our kidneys and liver he explained that the term kidney or liver in Chinese medicine is different from Western medicine.  It was good to learn that because it didn't make sense when we were at that Chinese Pharmacy.

We said good bye to Charlie #2 and headed out to the airport where we caught a two hour flight to Wuhan on China Eastern Airlines. 

At Wuhan a three hour bus ride with another city guide named Nancy took us to Yichang.  Nancy told us that Yichang is the center of China.  The Yangtze starts in Tibet and ends at the ocean.

Many farmers burning wheat stalks were really adding to the air pollution.

Just as Charlie told us, the food in this area was spicy.  He said that because of the hot and humid weather, people like spicier food which would make you sweat and cool your body.

We boarded our President Prime cruise ship at Yichang and met our ship's director, Daisy as well as our pretty meal server, Chocolate.

That was the most original name we'd heard yet.  I could certainly remember it.

There were about 100 passengers for a ship that was supposed to hold 350. There were 170 crew members on board. We were told the low passenger number was due to the bird flu concern in the west and the declining local Chinese economy.

We were offered a $130 upgrade for five days.  The regular rooms were just fine, but when we saw the upgrade we just couldn't pass it up.  It was about as big as our hotel rooms.  I doubt we'll ever get anything like this again on a ship.

Although it reminded me a little of the Titanic, I could already tell this was a wonderful start to another adventure.  I was just happy we still had Charlie.

Day 9 May 16: Suzhou to Shanghai

I think I managed to sleep until 6:00 AM.  Success!  By 7:00 we had to put our two suitcases outside of our door again to be collected for the airport. 

We left the hotel by 8:00 when it was raining pretty hard.

We'd had good weather so far so it was OK to have a downpour while we were traveling.

I was glad I'd bitten the bullet and bought the rather pricey North Face raincoat in Hawaii.  It would come in very handy during this trip!

Charlie #2 said Shanghai used to have AM and PM rush hours.  Now it has 1 DAY rush hour.

That ball like structure is actually a TV station.

On the left side is an EXTRA fancy hotel.

Charlie #1 sent us in a few at a time to ahem... sing a song.  (Use the facilities?)

Yes, there was a downpour on the Bund.  The following is from Wikipedia:

"The word "bund" means an embankment or an embanked quay. The word comes from the Persian word band, through Hindustani, meaning an embankment, levee or dam (a cognate of English terms "bind", "bond" and "band", and the German word "Bund", etc.). It is thus named after the bunds/levees in Baghdad along the Tigris, when the Baghdadi Jews such as the prominent Sassoon family settled their business in Shanghai in the 19th century and built heavily on the bund on the Huangpo."

Charlie #2 said in British colonial times there were hundreds of opium dens and brothels in the area.  The communists came in and closed them in 1949.

After a lovely lunch at Fortune Restaurant we were taken to a Tea Shop.


This young woman taught us how the Chinese drink tea.  I was surprised to learn that they throw out the first batch of tea to get rid of the impurities.  She was then able to make three or four more small pots of tea with the leaves.

We got to try Ginseng/Oolong and Pu'erh tea.

These teas were pricey too so we only bought three small boxes.

We walked about this shopping district in the rain, but didn't buy much.  I really HATE haggling and couldn't figure out what was good or bad quality or worth the price.

We were left to our own devices for a quick dinner so we went to Burger King.  One of our dear tour friends (that would be you, Guy) was tired of Chinese food and wanted a quick fix of American cuisine.

At 7:30 we went to an acrobatic show which was a lot of fun.  Some of those acrobats looked like kids!

We stayed this evening at the Swissotel Grand Shanghai.  You can see that peek through window to the bathroom again.  The room was very, very lovely, luxurious and huge.  It's going to be hard to go back to Motel 6.