O.k. I’m finally sitting down to finish this blog – it’s the day after Thanksgiving!
So on Monday, October 17, we finished our tour of Chongqing and boarded the President No.2 ship.
http://www.yangtze-river-cruises.com/ships/president-no2.html
In Chongqing there is a host of men called ‘stick men’ who will carry your luggage for you. I’d say 90% of these guys are what we’d call retirement age or more – much more. Most of them use a pole across their shoulders and put one suitcase hanging from each end of their pole. They must be very very strong to carry this stuff up the hills of Chongqing!! Our guide warned us that these guys could be very insistent, so we let him do the bargaining for us. He also told us not to relinquish our backpacks and small things to them, or they’d try to charge us a fortune for those. We went through the gate and boarded a small cable car. It was basically a cable car-type car, but it was on rails on the ground, not suspended from overhead wires. The floor of the car stayed level while the car moved down the sloped bank of the river. Everything went smoothly and all our luggage arrived on board before we did. We got our room situation all sorted out. The rooms were actually larger than what I’d expected for a tourist cruise ship. We ended up paying a little more to get a large room for the boys so they’d have room to walk around the mattress on the floor. (The rooms had either a double bed, or 2 twin beds.) Our rooms were next door to one another, but not adjoining.
The boat itself was pretty nice. My overall opinion of it is that 15 years ago it was REALLY nice. But in between now and then it hasn’t had a lot of re-decorating or maintenance. It wasn’t worth complaining about, but it wasn’t exactly the 4 star interior that they advertised. The crew was fabulous and more than made up for the tired interior. Each day we received a printed itinerary listing the activities on the boat as well as the optional shore excursions. The paper always said in bold print, “Don’t buy poor quality food and drinks from vendors ashore.” I mean, just because they’re less than half what you’d pay on the boat doesn’t make them poor quality. A can of coke is the same, right? Several of the Chinese passengers bought fruit ‘ashore’ anyway. We had our lime sherbert ice cream oreos to fall back on. –At least till we opened them and realized how gross they were.
A word about the Yangtze River: It is the third longest river in the world and is about 4 thousand miles long. It is only called the “Yangtze River” by foreigners. The Chinese call it Chang Jiang. One theory on why we call it the Yangtze, is that there was a mix up when Westerners asked the name of the River. The interpreter thought they were asking about a village. So we call the river by the name of the village those guys were looking at. Oh well. No wonder they think we’re a little “different”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_River
The first night, we walked around the ship exploring and then went to bed, tired. We wanted to stay up and watch the lights on shore slip past, but we were beat. In one day we’d toured a bit of Xian, flown to Chongqing, toured Congqing for half a day, and boarded the boat. I think we all slept well. ☺
Tuesday, October 18: We woke up to find that the boat had stopped moving. When we looked out the window, all we could see was the side of the next tourist boat. We had stopped at the “ghost town” of Fengdu. My first thoughts on seeing the river in daylight were “it’s pretty brown and has a lot of trash in it.” Not exactly romantic. We went down to breakfast, which was a buffet. It was a good mix of Western and Eastern foods. We all got plenty to eat. At the end of the buffet they even had some little cookies. I guess they figured Westerners eat a lot of sweets, so they probably like them at breakfast too.
After breakfast we got in our groups for the shore excursion. They grouped us by our travel companies. So we were in a group with all the other Travel China Guide customers who spoke English. We were a group of 15 or so and we had our own shore guide.
The shore guide led us off the boat and up the steps on the bank of the river. There was another cable car there. But it wasn’t necessary, because the river is now high enough that there aren’t very many stairs to get to the top.
Maybe this is a good place to talk about the changes in the river over the last 10 years. Most people have heard of the Three Gorges Dam Project. This is very controversial outside of China. In China, you don’t find a lot of people who will speak out against it. Maybe because it’s a communist country and bad things can happen to you if you oppose the government too vocally, but it seemed like most people just didn’t care one way or another. Some facts: China is becoming more and more technology dependant. We’re talking about millions and millions of people needing electricity. Right now, the skies in China’s big cities are very terribly polluted from the coal power plants. So getting electricity from hydro power seems like a great idea. And it is. But there are down sides – big down sides. 1.3 million people were displaced when the waters rose behind the dam. That’s a LOT of people. Also, China’s dam failure rate is much higher than the rest of the world. Let’s hope this one is well built!! Of course everything we heard was positive: “Look at the new village of XYZ, isn’t it nice how the government built all those new houses for those people? Such a pretty new town!” In fact, they did get nice new houses out of the deal, and the towns were probably a lot nicer than what they had. BUT what about the history of your family being in that town 40ft. under water? The waters covered a LOT of history and beauty. I can’t attest to what is under the water, but it was very clear that the height of the river was a new thing that everyone was still getting used to.
Anyway, we went up the stairs and walked a bit to the gates of Fengdu. Then we boarded a tram (think parking lot tram at Disney World or Dollywood) that took us halfway up the hill. Clearly, they are used to fat and/or old American tourists. The expectation was that we would have to go pretty slowly up the hill. I’m proud to say the Percells (even the little one) made it with no problems. Several people in our group were griping about the steep hill. Wah for them.
Once we were up the hill, we entered Fengdu proper. This is the place the Chinese say your spirit comes to after you die in order to be judged. We didn’t see any spirits around there, only tourists. (I doubt the spirits buy as many souvenirs….) Anyway, there are some cool temples and statues up there. Our guide told us that there are three tasks to complete on the way into the temple. I think if you do well on all three it proves you’re a worthy person. The first task was to properly cross a bridge. You were to cross the bridge in 3 or 5 steps. If you were a married person, you should cross with your spouse in the required number of steps while holding hands. Girls start with left foot and boys start with right foot (or maybe the other way around) I think this is to cement your marriage for all eternity or something. The picture is worth a thousand words. You’ve got me chuckling at the idea of the whole thing, Erin looks like he’s about to roll his eyes (he wasn’t, he just didn’t realize there was a camera), and the ‘ancient guard’ with the fan who looks so thrilled to be there. LOL.
The second task was to step over a door frame without touching it. I was busy taking pictures during the explanation, so I didn’t hear all of it, but we all succeeded at that one too. (A. claims he intentionally failed all three tasks just to be ornery. I don’t remember.) The third task was to balance on a small stone for three seconds. It was fairly easy unless your foot was bigger than the stone (i.e. all the grown-ups).
After the ‘tests’ we entered into the temple. Sure enough, there a few Chinese people in there praying to the ‘gods’. There were some colorful statues in there, and we enjoyed looking around. I missed the intended exit, so I didn’t see the ‘torture chamber’ where the evil spirits meet their doom. Erin and H. said it was pretty gruesome. After the tour, we made our way back down the hill and through the line of gift shops. H. walked away from a medium-good deal on a very cool dragon kite because she truly didn’t have that much money. The guy ended up chasing her down to give her a better deal. So she got to protect that kite for the rest of the trip (it was too fragile to put in the suitcase). It was worth it though, because it is really cool. AND she got a good deal on it. It looks good hanging in her room.
We got back on the boat, and sailed on down the river. We had an excellent lunch – all the food on the boat was good. They brought out several courses of all sorts of excellent Chinese dishes. We got full at every meal onboard the ship! We were seated with 7 other China Travel Guide customers. We enjoyed getting to meet other folks from the US, Australia, and Germany.
The next stop was for an optional tour of the Shi Bao Zhai Pagoda. H. and I decided to try it, but the boys had clearly had enough pagodas. H. and I were the only English speakers going on this optional tour, so we had our own private tour guide. ☺ We got off the boat and walked up to the gate of the new town. It was neat to walk through one of the newly built towns. The government had done a good job laying out the town. They had a nice new community center and several other ‘gathering places’ for the residents. In fact, it looked like more ‘town’ than the current population required. There were some displays there that we stopped to look at. One of them had some Chinese currency from the Chiang Kai Shek era. Note that it was printed in the U.S.
The government also had to build a large retaining wall around the base of the island that the Shi Bao Zhai Pagoda sits on. Otherwise, the water would flood the base and bottom floors of the pagoda and most likely wash it away. Climbing up the pagoda was not easy. Parts of the climb were vertical. For the top floor there was a ladder. The top floor could only hold about 4 or 5 people comfortably. But you really can’t tell that from the penultimate floor. So after we got up there, people just kept climbing up. The Chinese people up there with us were telling them ‘no more room’, but they came on anyway. It was like being in an elevator. Finally someone got the message and we could start to work our way down. We made our way back to the boat just in time for supper. Supper/Dinner that night was the “Captain’s Welcome Reception” which makes it sound like a big deal. Everyone had a complimentary glass of wine at their seat. The captain came in and made a toast, but we just toasted with our water – the waitress thought we were quite strange. :-P Anyway, the poor captain! You could tell he was uncomfortable being in the dining room with all the customers. They made him pose with each group. (When it was our group’s turn, several other tourists came up to snap a picture of our group. I’m certain that it was the Car Wreck effect in action because the little car wrecks were the only kids onboard and ours was the only group that other people wanted photos of.) Anyway, the Captain’s expression was clearly, “I’d rather be back on the bridge!” But he did smile and shake hands with everyone. The crew did a short show including a funny skit about a fake statue. The kids loved it. They also did some traditional Chinese dancing. I sort of felt sorry for the dancers. They were college-age kids trying to make some money on a tourist boat and as part of the deal they had to dress up in these ancient (but kinda goofy to a college kid) outfits and dance for a bunch of old fogey tourists. It made it a little better that most of the old fogeys were Chinese old fogeys but still. You could tell that the boys were not really getting into the dancing thing.
After the show we went back to our rooms and hit the sack.
Wednesday, October 19: There was another optional tour this morning, but we all decided to stay on board. One of the best parts about cruising down the river was the slow pace. There were many hours of just relaxing on the deck watching the scenery go by. Of course we couldn’t do that when we were docked, but it was nice to have a morning with no plans. It was a welcome break from the rush-rush of touring Beijing and Xian. Shortly before lunch, the announcement came on that we were about to enter the first of the three gorges. This one is called “Qutang Gorge”. I have no idea how beautiful it was before the dam, but it was certainly beautiful enough for us!! Unfortunately, it started to rain right as we were sailing into the gorge. It didn’t matter to me though. I put my rain jacket on and went out to take pictures. It was pretty cold standing out there in the wind and rain, so after a while it DID start to matter and I came inside to take more pictures. My pictures aren’t very good because of the weather (the ones I took inside have the reflection of the lamps on the windows), so check out the pictures here:
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/picture/yangtze/qutang_gorge/:
We heard that before the dam, sailing through the gorges was tricky. But our trip through was very smooth. Or else the captain was just that good. But it looked like smooth and easy sailing. We really enjoyed the scenery in spite of the weather. Well, most of us did. At one point I looked inside to see the boys sitting at a table playing Nintendo. I had to put a stop to that! They were not so happy. They said, “It’s a mountain, mom”. I said, “Yes. It is, and I’m not bringing you back to see it, so you better enjoy it the first time!”
After we’d passed through the Qutang Gorge, there was a scheduled demonstration of Chinese painting and calligraphy. H. and I went in to watch. The man did an excellent finger painting in about 10 minutes. It was really cool. Then he did some calligraphy based on the character for dragon. He drew it in five different styles of writing from most ancient to modern. After the demonstration, I bought his ‘sample’ for $15. I thought it was a steal! I had it framed after we got home. Like I said before, I know just enough about calligraphy to know how difficult it is. This guy wrote this like it was nothing. I’m so impressed. Another day H. and I went to a demonstration of snuff bottle painting. This is such a unique thing. The girl painted the bottles from the inside! She has special brushes because they have to fit through the narrow neck of the bottle. These things were beautiful. I wish I could’ve afforded more. I bought one small bottle that is actually a toothpick holder. It has a wider mouth than the others, but it is still cool. Check out some pictures here:
http://www.chinasnuffbottle.com/snuff-bottle/snuff-bottle-products/snuff-bottle-firstgrade-2.htm
Not long after Qutang Gorge, you come to the second gorge, Wu Gorge. I don’t have my pictures labeled, so I honestly don’t know one gorge from the next. But here are some pictures online:
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/river/yangtze_attraction/wu_gorge.htm
After Wu Gorge we had lunch and then the boat stopped at Badong for an excursion down the Shennong Stream. First we got on a ferry boat and rode for an hour or so down the side stream. It was very beautiful scenery – at least as good as the gorges. The ferry had a couple of little shops on board – little souvenirs and some snacks. The souvenir shop lady had her son with her. He looked like he was about 3. At first he was very shy. I don’t think he’d seen a lot of Westerners before. But eventually my kids were able to coax him out from behind the counter to play. He still got kind of skittish if I looked at him, but he was willing to play with the kids. They all really enjoyed making him smile or laugh. The ferry dropped us off at the sampan dock where we were loaded on the little boats. We took a sampan upstream for about 30 more minutes. There were four guys rowing and one man handling the tiller. When we got near the turn around point, two of the men rowing our boat jumped out and pulled our boat from the shore for a while. Before the river rose so much, this area was full of rapids. It was necessary then to pull the boats from the shore. I’m not sure why they do it now, except that it’s a tourist photo op. I don’t know about you, but many times I feel kinda weird when people do unnecessary and difficult things just so tourists can take pictures. These guys were already working up a good sweat by rowing us up the river. At least it wasn’t summer time. In the summer time they wear only loin cloths. Ewwww. I bought a set of postcards of the scenery – but one of the postcards is a (from behind) picture of the loin-cloth-toting rowers pulling the boat on the shore…
On the way back downstream to the sampan dock, our boat was passed by the boat behind us. It quickly became a contest to see which boat would get back first. Our guys were giving them a run for their money when one of ‘our’ oars snapped in half! Got to give them an A for effort!
Clearly we didn’t win the race, but we still got back to the ferry in a timely manner. ☺ Back on the Ferry I tried again to get a good picture of the scenery as we went back downstream. One of the interesting things I tried to photograph was this “hanging” coffin. This picture is MUCH better than mine:
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&gid=685&pid=34754&orderby=dateD
In fact, I couldn’t see it that well with my own eyes. My pictures turned out so blurry, I’m not even going to put them on FB.
After the Shennong Stream excursion, our cruise ship pulled away from Badong and we headed for the third gorge. But first we would have our supper aka “The Captain’s Farewell Banquet” which was exactly like the “Captain’s Welcoming Dinner” the night before – except the food was different. The Captain came in and made a short speech and then was allowed to go back to driving the boat. After supper we had the ‘talent show’. When the talent show idea first came up the kids were all excited about joining. Well, the boys were all excited. No way was H. going to participate! A. wanted to tell some jokes. O. wasn’t real sure he wanted to be in it, so at some point I told him that if he would do his Kung Fu, I would read a poem in 6 languages. Apparently he thought that was a good idea. So for the talent show, a couple of other passenger groups got up and did some Kareoke. Then our family had a turn. Erin helped A. do a short skit which was well received by the English speakers. (The crew’s translator missed some of the punch line, so I don’t think the Chinese speakers got it.) Then O. did his Kung Fu routine. This is what the crowd had come to see – cute kid doing martial arts. They went nuts. Here was a Car Wreck on stage!!! The flashes from the cameras were constant. The Chinese and Western passengers applauded like mad. The girl organizing the show had some clue that this would be popular, because when we went to sign up, she said, “Can you do more than just 3-5 minutes?” So O. decided to combine the one routine that he knows with the first part of the routine he’s learning, then he repeated the first routine. When it came to the part of the routine where he does the cartwheel there was much “ooh”ing and “ahh”ing from the audience. (Honestly, his cartwheel is neither “ooh” nor “ahh” worthy – yet.) Well, after that ‘bringing down the house’ performance, it was time for the fascinating poetry reading. [sarcasm!] I had bought a book of Chinese poems in Beijing and I translated one of the shorter poems into French, Spanish, and German (the book had it in Chinese and English). Then for fun, I also re-wrote it into “East Tennessean”. I read all 6 versions. The English speakers liked the “East Tennessean” version – especially my kids, so that made it worth it.
I had just gotten over being nervous about all that when the talent show was over and the crew said it was time for some games. The night before we’d seen a game of musical chairs for the passengers. They chose a mix of Chinese and Westerners for the game. It came down to One Western guy, One Western woman, and one Chinese woman. Then the Western woman volunteered her seat to the Chinese woman so she’d be out. That left the Western man and the Chinese woman. The music stops and for 45 hilarious seconds each tried to get the other to take the chair. It was the most fun game of musical chairs I’ve ever seen! Eventually the woman “won” the ‘no, you take it’ because the man took the chair. Great fun.
Well tonight the game was ‘chop stick skills’. Guess who got picked? Yeah. Me. Apparently I’m pretty intimidating as a chop stick user, because the next few people chosen refused to leave their chairs. Finally another Western woman agreed to take me on. The contest involved moving slick flat-sided marble pieces (think Pente playing pieces – but flat on both sides) from one bowl to another bowl 15 feet away with also slick chop sticks. I did o.k. – I moved about 8 pieces and then my nervousness combined with my neurological tremors took over and I couldn’t pick up any more pieces. It’s a shame, because the other woman beat me by 4 I think. As it turns out, the prize was a big cocktail drink. So I’m quite happy to lose on that one!! ☺
Next they put on some music and tried to encourage people to get up and dance. They had songs like the chicken dance and hokey pokey. Finally when they put the limbo music on, O. and A. decided to join in. O. said, “It’s just lame that NO ONE is dancing!” A. did a perfect knee slide under the bar that made the crowd cheer. A couple of the teenage boys from the crew did a good job of getting under the bar in the correct way.
They played a few more songs and then I looked up and saw concrete buildings close by and said, “Ooh, I think we’re going into the locks!” So we all ran up to the top deck to take pictures. It was so neat to float into the lock above the street lamps and then sink down to 30 feet below them. It was also fun to see the huge doors open and close. They had a neat system for tying the ships to the side of the lock. The guys would toss a loop around the peg which was recessed in the wall of the lock, then as the water went down, the peg would also float(?) down, so that the tension on the rope remained constant. We stayed up on deck through the first two or three locks. They told us it would take 3 hours to go all the way through and we were pretty tired. I finally went down to bed around 11p.m. (Yes, if you know me, you know I must’ve really enjoyed going through the locks to stay up that late.)
Thursday, October 20: The next morning we went on our shore excursion to the Three Gorges Dam. When I was looking for a tour of China I asked Erin what he wanted to see in China. He said, “I’m sure I’ll like whatever you pick, but if we could, I’d like to see the dam.” Well, that’s the first time he’s EVER shown any advanced interest in seeing anything in any country we’ve visited. So I made sure we had a chance to see it. (Don’t get me wrong, he enjoys seeing the things that we get to see, it’s just that he’s not picky about what we go visit.) Erin clearly enjoyed the locks and the dam. You don’t get to actually walk on the dam itself or go inside it, but it was fun to go look at it up close. You could walk to the top of a little hill for a bird’s eye view. From up there you could see the dam, the locks, and the ship elevator that they’re still working on. Even for a non-engineer it was very cool. The whole dam is like a mile and ½ long (7,766 ft.) so with the fog it was difficult to see the end of it.
After the dam, we went back to the ship and entered the third gorge, XiLing Gorge. This one was very nice. Then we ate lunch and quickly packed up our bags. After lunch we disembarked at YiChang (population 4.15 million). Our guide picked us up and we drove to the Yi Chang museum. Frankly, by this time even I was getting a little tired of ancient Chinese artifacts. Which is sad, because the little museum had a good collection. They were even selling some of the real deals in the gift shop (with govt. permission) to fund the museum. I couldn’t afford any, but they were neat none-the-less. On the way to the Yi Chang airport, our guide did his best to show us interesting things about his hometown. But 4 of us went to sleep in the van! I forced myself to stay awake. It wasn’t easy because we had all stayed up past our bedtimes the night before and we’d already been touring ½ the day. The guide said that this was normal for the groups getting off the boats. Everyone is tired from going through the locks the night before. He was a very nice guy. He showed us pictures of his little girl.
So we caught our flight to Shanghai (population over 23 million!). Our new guide, (can’t remember her name right now), picked us up at the airport and took us straight to the hotel. Boy did the guys luck out! Their room was huge! The girls’ room wasn’t shabby by any means, but not huge. We stayed at the Ya Fan Long Men Hotel. http://www.bwlongmen.com/en/index.htm
Once again, we asked the guide if there was a Papa John’s in Shanghai. She said, Oh sure there’s one at an area called “Xian Tian Di”. So we took a taxi there and walked around. Trust me, there’s no Papa John’s there. We asked a couple of times, but no one acted like they’d even HEARD of Papa John’s. It was a much more swanky part of town than you’d think a Papa John’s would be in, so we weren’t very surprised. So, we took a taxi back to the hotel. –Which isn’t as easy as it sounds. Apparently, the taxis aren’t allowed to take 5 passengers at a time. The first one didn’t seem to mind, but the second guy was ready to refuse to take us when he saw O. getting in on my lap. Erin pulled the “what? I’m a stupid tourist and don’t understand why you’re objecting” card (“yes, 5, we have 5 people, we need to go to …..” which worked, although the driver grumped about it more than once. We weren’t really ready to split up in such an unfamiliar city. We got back to the hotel, and the girls just didn’t care about food anymore, we just wanted to sleep. The boys ordered some room service. They ordered pasta which turned out to have mushrooms in it, so they didn’t enjoy it as much as they’d hoped. So we all went to bed feeling defeated by Papa John’s once again. Sigh.
Friday, October 21: Our last full day in China. We started out at the Shanghai Museum. It was a cool museum, and another one of those places that I’d liked to have had a whole day to explore. It was divided into rooms for porcelain, bronze, coins, silk, etc. We only had about 2 hours there, so we only saw a few rooms. Even though I was kinda tired of ancient Chinese artifacts, I still enjoyed the museum. After that we went to lunch at a Western buffet. I didn’t enjoy that as much as the kids did, but they had an excellent dessert buffet. Here’s the quote from the itinerary:
A luxurious western buffet lunch will be
specially served for you today, since we believe that you may
have quite enjoyed the Chinese food during the tour and begin
to miss your western meal.
This was simply untrue. I asked the guide if we could go to a Chinese restaurant, and she replied that this meal was already paid for at this restaurant. Bummer. The kids enjoyed it, so it was o.k. Now that I’m back in Singapore, I really miss the Chinese food we had there. I’ve got to get out and find some places here that are as good. It’s hard though, because everything here is primarily seafood.
After lunch we went to the YuYuan Gardens. This place was awesome. I really loved the architecture. The place was designed by a man in the late 1800’s to honor his parents. Clearly he had a lot of money. I really wanted to stay in this area much longer. Not only were the gardens very very cool, but there was a restaurant there that my Chinese teacher had recommended (She knows how I love the steamed bau!). Also, the shopping was cheap cheap and not fancy – i.e. right up our alley!! But alas, our schedule didn’t permit us to stay as long as we’d like. I’d like to go back, though!
Next we went over to the Bund area. We walked along the river looking at the architecture. This is the area of the ‘International Settlement’ that was THE place in the world to be during the 1920’s. Having read a history of the Opium wars, I had some interest in seeing some of the buildings. We didn’t take time to see all the ones that I wanted to see, but again, we didn’t have time. Next time! ☺
By then, it was 5 p.m. – quittin’ time for our driver. So he dropped us off at a mall where our guide ASSURED us there was absolutely 100% certain a Papa John’s Pizza restaurant. In fact, she took us down there herself! Hooray!!!! Finally we scored some Papa John’s!!! Woo-Hoo!! It’s not a myth! They do actually serve yummy yummy pizza in China. We invited our guide to join us and she did. We’re glad she did, because there was some confusion about the garlic/butter sauce. We did eventually get some, though. She thought it was weird. I guess only foreigners ask for the sauce. ☺ We had enough leftovers that we took nearly an entire pizza back to the hotel. But it wasn’t from lack of trying! Before we went back to the hotel, our guide had gotten us some tickets to the acrobatic show. I’d seen some Chinese acrobats perform at a circus, or on t.v., but this show was a modern twist on the traditional show. I thought they did an excellent job. We weren’t allowed to take pictures. This video is very similar to one segment of the show. The show we saw they had four or five poles, so more guys were up in the air at one time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HT-sYnGILE&feature=related
The guys in the video may well be the same ones we saw. The theater looks very similar. They also had trampoline artists and unicyclists, and all sorts of other acrobats. It was an excellent way to end our time in China.
After the show, we went out and caught a cab (no questions about 5 people) back to the hotel.
Full of Papa John’s pizza and happy from the acrobat show, we all slept happily. Ahhhh.
The next morning we woke up and I nearly cried at the prospect of having to throw away our leftover Papa John’s. I really really tried to eat some for breakfast, but cold pizza (no microwave) just isn’t my thing at 7 a.m. I ate one piece and then gave up. Sigh. Ah well. It was still worth it. ☺
The guide picked us up at 8 a.m. or so and we went to the airport to catch our plane back to Singapore. Yes, the girls and Dad got their Dunkin’ Donuts upon landing.
So, if you ever do get to go to China, I highly recommend “China Travel Guide”. Their prices were comparable, and the service was excellent. We had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the entire trip. We all agreed it was our best family vacation ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment