Travel Tips

Here are some things I thought of after my trip.  Maybe they'll help you too.

• Take any liquid lip color in checked baggage.  Bring lipstick and lip balm solid on the plane.
• Consider taking a modest size roller carryon which can transition to checked luggage if needed.  Pack soft side tote/backpack as a backup carryon.
• Limit the size of the larger bag to about 27” to stay under the weight limit.
• Bring baby powder.
• Bring cold medication(s).
• If going on a Columbia/NYU upscale tour, bring nicer travel clothes and have something nicer than jeans for evenings.  Bring decent shoes if I can wear them.
• Consider laundry - focus more on clothes that can be washed and dried, and clothes that will dry quickly if handwashed.  Bring laundry powder packets.
• Bring a lightweight daybag with enough room for camera, sunglasses, bottle of water, sweater, maybe with smaller bag for valuables.  Have a small bag for evenings.

Souvenirs - Items to help my LR feel more Chinese

 Snuff bottle, painted from the inside.  Tiger on both sides, my Chinese name is written in Chinese on the other side.

 Purple pearls.  Very overpriced, and didn't realize I should bargain.  Oops!

 Bamboo scroll

Tiger scroll

Impressions

I hope it's safe to post this now.  I learned that China pretty much orchestrates these trips.  Many are like mine.  Hotel quality varies.  Some add Tibet.  The path is similar for many trips.  They require the tour company to take us to some government factories where they show how pearls, jade, carpets, and silk are made.  And then provide us an opportunity to shop at what might be high prices.  I bought a beautiful pearl necklace and earrings for myself, not realizing I should bargain there too.  So I'm sure I way over paid.  They bargain almost everywhere in China.  We ate in restaurants with our own room often, which means we didn't see a lot of real Chinese people eating out.  We also ate in restaurants where there were no customers but us, Western or Chinese.  They want us to see what they want us to see.  Not how I have ever experienced China before, and not how I want to do it.  It was nice to have everything organized for us, all the internal flights, most meals, hotel checkins, luggage, etc.  Except that I want to see the country as the Chinese see it.  And I wish I could speak Mandarin so I could chat with the people.  Maybe I will have to live there sometime.  Beijing and Xi'an are too polluted.  But Shanghai is pretty nice, somewhat humid which is negative, but the air is much more clear.  Chongqing actually looked kind of nice.

Our Group's Final Dinner

A final western meal in the hotel with the group.  Don't ask me why the final dinner would be western.  The tour company doesn't seem to get the notion of going to China to experience China, not a westernized version of it.  We had a lot of meals in the hotels, or in tourist restaurants where we were sometimes the only ones there, or in restaurants with our own room.  Partly it's an issue of China orchestrated much of these trips so we see the picture they'd like us to see.

 My tourmates:  Wes, Joanne and her mom Ruth

 More tourmates:  Marc and Kristy (the newlyweds), Dick and Pat

 Our Tour Director, Peter, and tourmate Eve

 Tourmates Chris and Dick, Instructor Ding

 Tourmates Sharon, Pia Lindstrom and Jack

The Group Photo.  Newlyweds in front.

Three Gorges Photos

Here are some photos of the Three Gorges along the Yangtze river.

 View from the front of the ship, Victoria Cruise Lines, Victoria Anna.

 One of the new cities, where the displaced people have been moved.  They kept communities together.

 A mountain.

 Mountains after mountains.

 Here you can see the water line, showing the changing level of the water in the gorge.

 There's a covered walkway here along the side of the mountain.

 The rebuilt walkway, being built for tourists along the river.

 The little peak here to the right of the 2 large ones, the one that looks like a little person standing next to the peaks, is called "Goddess Peak".

The color of the water.  Greener in the lesser gorges.  Yellow in the Yangtze.

Pandas

These photos are blurry because it was dark and my camera couldn't deal with it.  But the pandas were so cool so here they are:

Terracotta Soldiers

There is a lot written about this 8th wonder of the world.  And I actually don't know that much.  I know that all the faces on the soldiers are different, representing really people.  They are part of the king's gravesite.  It is fascinating.

Beijing Hutong

The old part of Beijing.  We took a touristy "tricycle" to visit a family.  They had these really large and loud crickets in a cage, because they like the sound.  The family lives in a small house consisting of a few buildings around a lovely courtyard.

 The son raises carrier pigeons.

Two big crickets in a bamboo cage.

Temple of Heaven

I went to the Temple of Heaven for the second time.  So here's what the temple looks like.  The funner part was watching the folks doing "morning exercises" in the park.  Like tai ji.  I joined in, with some members of my group.

To prove I was really there.

Dad, recognize the back of the woman in the skirt?

Three Gorges Dam Ship Locks

I just thought this was such an amazing part of the trip.  My pictures don't really tell the story.  The locks got us from 175 M water level down to 90M, through 5 locks.  If you don't know how this works, you can probably find it somewhere online.  Or I can explain.  But it's neat.  To watch from inside the ship.  And it would've been cool to be able to watch from the top, outside, but they didn't let us hang around the "museum" long enough for that.

This is a view overlooking one of the lock chambers with ships, from above.

Another aerial view.

A bad picture.  But it gives some idea of what it looks like to be in the locks on a ship.  Taken from the balcony of my cabin.

Camera just didn't do well in the locks.  An attempt to show the water level dropping.  The white band is a marker with water levels indicated.  The wall is wet where the water was.

Home

Greetings All!  I am home.  I thought I was ready to come home but now I'm not so sure.  This cold or allergies that has plagued my trip is pretty bad.  Still coughing, congested, and, to top it off, I only slept 2 hrs in 24 on the way home and could only manage 6 hrs last night.  And I have to go to work tomorrow.  I don't even feel like dealing with laundry.  Maybe food.

I have a journal I've been keeping as posts to this blog, after the fact.  And over 200 pictures I just uploaded to my computer.  It's nice to be reunited with all it's capabilities.  If I can manage, I want to review the journal first and clean it up and fill in any gaps and thoughts.  I may post pics to this blog, or I may post them to my Apple space.  Either way, I'll try to get something together in the not-too-distant future to share my trip with you.

What this day before going back to work holds is uncertain at this point.  Probably a nap! And I don't nap.  Maybe work on the photos.  Now that I'm home, I am realizing the amazingness of the trip.  We covered a lot of ground, saw so much, about which I had a lot of impressions and thoughts.  We did it with a wonderful lecturer who really added a lot to the trip, a great tour guide who was with us every step of the way and took great care of us, and really nice, if difficult, bunch of people.  Let's face it, most of the greatest people are tough.  I think I made some friends, some of whom are now in Hong Kong.

China is a really interesting place.  The old of Beijing, mixed with the new, the neon lights, the pollution.  The even worse pollution of Xi'an, with the 8th wonder of the world, the Terracotta Warriors.  To smell the clay ..... The magnificence of the Yangtze River, the controversy of the relocated towns that could never have happened anywhere but in a country where the government has such control over the people.  The gorges are so beautiful.  The Three Gorges dam is an engineering feat, and I had a lot of fun going through the locks in the ship.  I never even knew what locks were!  Shanghai is a great and large city.  So much more modern than Beijing, and huge.  Unfortunately, my bad foot was flaring up by then and I still wasn't feeling great so I didn't see nearly what I would've like to explore there.

Well, that's it for my first morning back in the US.  Stay tuned for trip journal and picture posts.