Cruisin'

My mom and I are having a great time on the Yangtze River cruise. Good news is that we do have Internet access (although it's rather slow). Bad news is that my camera battery has stopped working. Thankfully, we brought a backup camera (my Dad's), but I can't take the pictures off of it. So, I'll need to figure out how to get the pictures off of it later (or, worst case, we'll have to wait until my mother gets back to America).

On Monday we had our last day in Beijing. My mom and I ended up going to Beihai Park in the morning. The cab drive was a lot longer than I thought it would be since we got stuck in rush hour traffic. However, when we got there, we found it was well worth it. The park was definitely not a typical tourist attraction; I think we saw about four other Westerners total. The chief attractions at the park are a large lake, the Round Temple (with a White Buddha statue inside), and an island in the lake with a large White Pagoda on top of it. Along with the scenery were numerous retired people practicing dancing and T'ai Chi. It was a great way to cap off our Beijing experience.

At noon we went to the airport, where we took a plane to Yichang. In Yichang we visited a museum, ate dinner, bought some things for the ship, and then boarded our boat. It's a four story tall boat and well furnished. The Yangtze River is the longest river in China, and runs through many of the more southern provinces. On our cruise, we are travelling upstream from Yichang to Chongqing. After getting settled and having a meeting with the cruise director, we turned in for the night.

Tuesday morning we woke up and practiced T'ai Chi with the ship doctor. After breakfast we left the boat at the Three Gorges Dam. For those who don't know, The Three Gorges Dam will be the largest dam in the world once it is completed next year. It will power 5% of China when it is completed and has displaced 1.3 million people. It was truly epic in scale. After that we entered the five stage ship lock, at which point I fell asleep. I had a rather relaxing evening, capped off with a Dynasty Fashion Show (different clothes for the different Chinese dynasties), at which point I fell asleep.

Today we started off a little earlier, because at 8:30 we went to the Lesser Three Gorges. We boarded a smaller boat to go on a tributary of the Yangtze, then broke off into smaller groups to go on an even smaller boat. We saw a lot of beautiful scenery and even a few monkeys on the shore. We took a leisurely ride back to the boat and boarded back on the cruise ship.

We have one more full day left on the cruise. On Friday morning we leave the boat and take a plane to Xi'an. The cruise has definitely been a welcome diversion from walking around all day in Beijing, but it will be nice to get back to more active tourism. I'll keep everyone updated pending on my Internet access. Later!