The Shibaozhai Pagoda

April 19, 2012

We walked from the boat and passed people selling food and fruit. Many people buy their breakfast on the street because it is quick and easy.

 

We were walking to an very old pagoda. We stopped by the gate to take a picture.

 

It was a long walk and the road was very steep. People kept wanting for us to pay to put the “baby” on their chairs so they could carry the “baby” on the long walk.  Nobody in the group was younger than me so they meant ME!  I told them, “Baby can walk.”  

 

We entered a park place where they had the heads of the Chinese zodiac animals. Since I was born in 2000 I took a picture with the head of a dragon.  The Chinese say I am a dragon child.

 

There was a another big gate leading to the bridge.

 

We had to cross a bridge to get to the Shibaozhai Pagoda’s island.  It was wobbly.  They had wrapped some of the red bridge in shiny gold cloth.  When you walked on the bridge it would swing back and forth.  I wanted to make it swing.  It was a suspended bridge. Noni didn’t like the bridge. 

On the way up to the pagoda there was a lookout point with a pointy Chinese roof.

 

The Shibaozhai Pagoda was red.  It had big holes in it to see out. 

 

There were a lot of stairs. There were nine floors in the pagoda. Nine is a lucky number in China.

When we left the pagoda we went back to the boat.  There were some people on the path selling trinkets.  Pop Pop bargained with one of them until they gave up and gave him a good price.

Three Gorges and Wushan

April 18, 2012

This morning we went on smaller boat to go to the Three Gorges.  When you get to the gorges the hills are steep. 

 

Some places there are sheer cliffs. The hills are covered with trees and bamboo plants.  

 

On our way up the river we passed a town named Wushan.  The city of Wushan was built on steep hills and cliffs.  Most of the buildings were high-rise buildings.  They all looked new.  

 

The city of Wushan was actually over 2,000 years old.  The man on the boat said that the Chinese government had to rebuild the city of Wushan up on the steep cliffs because they flooded the old city of Wushan when they built the Three Gorges Dam.  We were floating about 300 feet above the 2,000 year-old city of Wushan!  Here is a picture of the old city of Wushan before it was covered with water.

 

We sat on the front of the boat and looked at the gorges to see monkeys and mountain goats.  The monkeys were scarce.  We could see bushes shaking but the little monkeys did not come out. 

 

We could see the “hanging coffins” of important people into some caves on the side of the gorges.  The higher they were placed on the cliff the bigger the “cheeses” they were.  

 

The coffins in the cliffs were over 2,000 years old and nobody really knows how they got the coffins so high up on the cliffs.  We could see them high up but the water level had gone up over 200 feet when they built the dam. How did those people get the coffins that high up in the air? The coffins were made of wood but now they are petrified wood.

When the gorges got so close together we took a smaller boat called a sampan. In the old days they rowed the sampan.  Today we used a motor.

There were lots of sampans on the river.

 

The man driving our sampan was funny.  He let people try on his hat and straw coat and pretend they were driving the sampan.  He also sang a song for us.

 

It was a good trip to the Three Gorges. On the way home it got dark and we could see the new Wushan all lit up at night.

The Three Gorges Dam

After lunch we went on a trip to the dam.  On the way to the bus people were selling oranges.  This part of China grows lot of navel oranges.  I thought they would be Mandarin oranges!

 

There were also people selling fried fish and other foods.  They were cooking them right there in the street.

 

Now we drove to the big dam.  We crossed a new bridge over the river.

 

Before we could go into the area with the dam we had to get off the bus and walk through a security gate.  Little did they know they were only guarding a giant block of cement—but more about that later.

In the security area we passed some very large cages as if for very large dogs.  

 

The big dam blocks the Yangtze River.  I thought the dam was like a giant cement brick sitting in the river. They are building a way to lift up the boats to raise them into the dam above.  For now they have a series of 5 locks that slowly raise the boat up to the dam.

 

The locks work like this.  First you float the boat into the first lock. Then they put more boats in the lock and they close the lock gates. Then they add water into the boxed-in area until it is as high and the water in the second lock.

 

They do this again for the second lock, and the third lock, and the fourth lock and finally the fifth lock.  Now when they open the lock gate you are at the water level of the dam.

Everywhere I go, people want to take a picture with me because I have red hair and blue eyes.  I think tomorrow I will wear a hoody shirt to hide my hair!  I prefer fortune to fame!

 After taking pictures with a lot of Chinese people Pop Pop bought me an ice cream cone. I ate it on the bus.

 

 

Walking back to the Century Star we looked at some shops.  Pop Pop bargained for some t-shirts.  I also got a small green stone turtle. I like turtles.

 

At night we had a birthday party for some of the people on the boat. The boat’s tour leader had everyone sing “Happy Birthday” and we ate cake.

 

During dinner our boat was moving through the locks. Some of us went outside and watched as we were in one of the locks and the water was rising.  

 

Even when I got into bed at night I could see the lock walls outside my window. .  It takes 2 ½ hours to go all the way through the locks to reach the dam.  When I woke up in the morning we were out of the locks and moving again.

The Yangtze River

The Yangtze is largest river in China.

When we got on the cruise ship we were greeted on the deck by a Chinese band and some Chinese animal creatures.  I was excited to see them.

When we got to our room it was tiny.  It was not a bad room.  It was just small.  I had a little bed next to the French doors by the balcony.  At first I thought we didn’t have a window view.  Then it turned out that we were parked next to another ship.  Once the ship moved we could see the river.

I decided to read.  It was a good day except for the sfog!

April 17, 2012

In the morning I looked out the window and the other boat was not there.  I could see the river and the mountains.  I felt happy!

 

Pop Pop and I went down to breakfast.  I found potatoes, fried buns, juice and fruit to eat.

 

The cruise manager welcomed us to the Century cruise and took picture with me.

Now we were ready to go back to our room and catch up on writing the blog.  We looked at the pictures we had taken and then wrote about them.  I told the story and Noni typed the blogs.

Hutong in Beijing

April 16, 2012

Today we are leaving Beijing.  First we will go to see a hutong which is a traditional alley neighborhood.   There used to be over 10,000 hutongs in Beijing.  They tore the hutongs down to build tall apartment buildings.  Now the Chinese government is trying to save some of the hutongs for historical buildings.

When we got to the hutong area we saw lots of rickshaws. A rickshaw is a little cart pulled by a man riding a bicycle.

 

We rode through the streets and looked at the houses.  I rode in a rickshaw with David.

While we were in the hutong we visited the house of Mr. Jang.  He had a cute little dog.

Mr. Jang told a translator about his house and the translator told us what he said in English.  His house was 300 years old.  His family had lived in the house for hundreds of years. Mr. Jang was born in the house and still lives there.  Mr. Jang was retired but he was an artist that painted pictures.

The house had small rooms.  The kitchen and bedroom were tiny.

 

Mr. Jang said that today, a hutong house is very expensive but he would not sell his because he would not break the tradition of his family to live in the house. 

Kung Fu!

Now it was time for something I had been looking forward to, the Kung Fu Show!  They had the show in the Red Theater.  When you walked in there was a big crowd and a little monk sitting quietly off to the side. 

We sat down. I got an aisle seat where I could see better.  The stage looked like this:

During the Kung Fu show we were not allowed to take pictures but I will tell you the story.

A mother left her little boy at the temple to learn to be a monk. He was very worried about leaving his mother and all that he had known. The Master of the temple comforted the boy and told him a story about another young boy, Chun Yi, who had been left at the temple by his mother so he would learn to be a monk.

Chun Yi had to learn a lot of things.  He learned Kung Fu and how to meditate.  As he grew older he got better and better and stronger and stronger.  Eventually he had learned all that the Master could teach him. 

The Master made Chun Yi the head of the temple.  Then the Master walked into his funeral pyre and when the smoke cleared he emerged as a young boy.

The boy from the beginning of the play asked the Master, “Is this story yours?”  The Master said, “Yes, I am Chun Yi.”

I had predicted this from the beginning but it was still a good play.  During the play many Kung Fu artists performed.  It was an exciting play.