Fall Trip Part 3

FINALLY!!!! Part 3 of our fall trip!! The moment you've all been breathlessly waiting for is here! I got a little distracted with all the holidays, but the kids are back to school and I am FOCUSED! That's right Ernie, you have to fucus, fucus, fucus....(imagine a Mexican accent trying to say focus and you get the point.)

We boarded our riverboat in Chongqing, and after being pretty tired we were ready to hit the rack when we got to the ship. There were very few children aboard the cruise. I only remember seeing one or two other children, one of which just happened to be in the cabin right next to the kids' cabin and also just happened to be Cooper's age. I'll post a few pictures of her later. Our seating was assigned in the dining hall and we sat each night with the family next door, so Cooper got to be pretty good friends with this cute little Chinese girl.

Here's a picture of our great riverboat. Check out the sophisticated gangway! All free floating planks with no railing at all! Super Safe! We took the cruise from Chongqing to Yichang, spending three nights and 4 days on the boat, passing through the Three Gorges and through a set of dam locks. Really cool stuff! I think this was my personal favorite segment of our tour of China. Unfortunately, the trip was really foggy and we have considered taking the cruise again in the late spring, or just taking a camping trip because the scenery was truly breathtaking. I'll include some pictures of what we saw along the way. Many of the buildings that you will see look uninhabited, but have folks living in them.

The kids had an absolute blast! They had their own cabin and felt like Grown Ups. They had total free run of the boat too! The boat had two game rooms, one with mahjang tiles and video games and another with card games and chess, chinese checkers, etc. These kids OWNED that boat! They made lots and lots of friends over the 4 days that we were there. There were a few tourists groups aboard, one of which was primarily Americans and Canadians. Two couples in that group were young grandparents with grandkids the same age as our kids and both couples fell in love with our kids. Ally learned to play chess on the cruise and I discovered her playing chess with one of the grandpas while the wife played connect four with Eve and Cooper. We actually ended up on the same flight from Yichang to Shanghai at the end of the cruise.

Cooper, like always, won the heart of every Chinese female staff on the boat. One evening Cooper asked if he could return to his cabin because he was done eating. Lee and I finished dinner about 5 minutes later and decided to go make sure he made it to the room. We went up one deck and spotted one of the beauty salon workers, who looked as if she was hiding something - she looked like a kid with her hand in the cookie jar. Upon closer inspection, this is what we found:

What a crack up! Cooper came to breakfast one morning and the table next to us, the one with the American/Canadian tourist group, all said in unison "Good morning, Cooper". Cooper, in shock and amazement, said "How do you know my name?". They replied that EVERYONE knew his name! Here he is with all the entertainment staff that ran the bar and shows onboard:

We passed some truly amazing countryside along the way. We also passed something that both Lee and I found to be beyond comprehension. Lee had been told that there are shipyards all over China, on the riverbanks of major rivers. Here's some pictures of the "shipbuilding" efforts in some parts of China.

I don't know how much you can see in these pictures, because of the fog and the quality of Blogger, but they are basically building a ship with no drydock, out in the open, with the ship on rollers so they can push it down the hill when they are done. Mindblowing!

Here's a picture of our cute kiddos hanging out topside:

We really enjoyed the river trip. I still have tons and tons of great pictures to post, but I think I'll start a new post with pictures from the Three Gorges, the dam locks, and the Shenong Stream, which was phenomenal! Look for more posts in the upcoming future! I'm out of time today, but don't want to put off posting what's here already.