Yichang and the 3 Gorges

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Before arriving in Yichang my son said to keep things simple in this city. As soon as we arrived yesterday we went to the concierge and asked about a tour to the 3 gorges dam. The concierge told us that we could sign for the tour right then. We did paying our 200 yuan on the spot. The only way to see the dam is via an official tour.
A little later the confcierge told us that the tour would be a chinese led one and we should consider paying 150 yuan for a english speaking guide. Since Mike had really wanted to come here and we had made the extra moves to get here we paid the extra for the guide.
Our guide's english name was Lucy, a young woman who just graduated with a degree as a tour guide. She met us at the hotel which was good since we had to change buses along the way.
The weather was forecast to rain an although it had rained earlier it was just a heavy fog.
To get to the dam you must go into the mountains. I'm not sure of the elevation but it is about an hour drive. Near the end the bus goes through 5 tunnels, one of which is over 2 miles long.
The tour takes you first to a point overlooking the dam at which time we could barely see across the dam. The 2nd stop is just under the top of the dam which gives the prospective of how tall it is.
The third stop is from the bottom. By this time fog had lifted enough to see across. To get to the viewing spot one must walk through a park running along the river. The park was built to show materials used in the construction. A waterfall is made from stones used to show how they were cut and so forth.
On the way back to the city we asked Lucy about a good place to eat and she said we would show us one. We told her we'd like to buy her lunch and she said ok. It was nice to have her along as she explained about the area specialty Chongdong fish. Unfortunately it cost 240 yuan so we got a different fish but cooked the same way for 40 yuan. You ask what kind of fish for
240? Catfish.
Keep in mind the exchange rate is about 6.5 yuan to $1.00
After a good and not expensive lunch Lucy asked if we would come to her house for dinner. We said yes and she wrote the place to meet in chinese.
At 7pm we hopped in a cab then waited at the place until she arrived. She said that she had gotten a call to go back to the gorge after she left us and it was raining with no visibility.
She made us a dinner which was fun to share in her small place. I'll blog more about this later. For now it is time to catch a flight.

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