China 2011: Day 53-58

Yes, we are still here in China and approaching the 60 day mark. Hard to believe we've been gone so long. We are beginning to anticipate our return home which will be on Nov. 7th. We hope there is no snow on the ground when we get home! Kari was telling us that it has already snowed in New Hampshire.

So, here's an update on what we've been doing since we last wrote. We were in Shanghai for 3 days and each day got better and better. It is a fascinating city and as I said, a completely different feel from Beijing. We took the subway to the Bund which is the waterfront walk along the river. We saw it at night and during the day. At night the lights on the buildings were phenomenal and quite the show. It was lit up more than Vegas. During the day we not only saw all the skyscrapers but also the fantastic European architecture which lines the entire Bund. The city is so modern, futuristic, western and rich. There is money, money and more money there. It didn't feel like the China I expected to see there. It's China's major port and a huge financial center and very interesting to explore which is what we did on Wed. instead of going with the tour group. We took the day off to explore and take Sandy and Jim bargain shopping. I love to bargain and we found some good deals and some fun souvenirs. We took the bullet train to Shouzo. 299km per hour, which is a smaller city that has been compared to Venice and is called the Venice of the east. It's filled with canals, arched bridges, beautiful gardens and known for silk production. We went to a silk factory which was really interesting and saw the process from silk worm to silk fabric. It was the first factory tour that we actually enjoyed as the rest of them were major tourist traps.

On Thursday we took the fastest train in the world to the airport. It's called the mag/lev train (magnetic levitation) and went 439 km per hour. It took 7 1/2 minutes to get there. We flew to Wuhan which took 1 1/2 hours and then a 5 hour bus ride to get to Yichang which is where we got on the 'luxury" boat up the Yangtze river. It is not so luxury but much nicer than the economy boats that we've seen which most of the Chinese people take. The first night one was pulled up next to us and there were people walking all around in their pajamas. Kind of strange but apparently they got on their relaxing clothes to stroll the decks! This river trip has been very interesting especially seeing the largest dam in the world which is the 3 gorges dam. It cost 30 billion to build, there's a 5 stage lock system that we went through which took 4 hours, it's very controversial especially since it displaced 1.5 million people and it's strange knowing that we are riding over flooded cities. This has been a relaxing 3 days which has been nice and we will land in Chongqing tomorrow and fly to Xian to see the terracotta warriors.

We hope all is well at home and would love to hear from you.