Day 3 of our travels: Todays excursion is on a small tributary of the Yangtze (Chang Jiang) River called the Shennong stream. It is well known in China for the 'trekkers'. Because the water level in the stream was very low, the men would often have to get out and pull the boats for long distances- this ws the only method of transporting goods to the people who lived here. Now, because of the flooding of the dam, their services are no longer used, - the water is 135 meters high- but this is still a popular tourist destination. [View Full Entry]

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Day 4: The excursion today is the the city of Feng Du (city of the dead). Ancient Chinese belief is that when a person dies, they automatically go to hell, but there is a special way to get out of hell and into paradise. First, the body stays in the house for 7 days, in case they come alive again. At the end of 7 days, the son must light a candle under the coffin .If there is no son, too bad you stay in hell and the torture chamber. If the son lights a candle, the spirit of the perosn [View Full Entry]

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Day 5 - the final day of the trip saw us leave the boat after breakfast with our Chong Qing guide Jeff. He took us to a few places in the city and then to the airport, It was a bit disappointing because we should have checked out a few places that we wanted to see rather than leaving it last minute to him. We were exhausted by the time we returned to Jinshitan about 7 that night. Great trip [View Full Entry]

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Day one: Our cruise down the Yangtze River was amazing. We started out on Monday morning 5:40 a.m. to catch a flight from Dalian to Wuhan - about a 2 hour flight. There we were met by a guide who took the 4 of us (Gail, Rick, Peter and Dianne) by a small bus to the city of Yi Chang, about a 4 hour trip. The ride went by quickly, watching the small farms with water buffalo, ducks, fishing ponds, lots of farmers working their fields by hand. When we arrived at Yi Chang, we were met by a guide who [View Full Entry]

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Our day with our neighbour, Thomas, was especially great! Having not seen anything of the area other than a short walking distance away, we were thrilled when he offered to tour us around the local countryside. Thomas ( a native Calgarian, resident of Vancouver and married for 30 years to a Chinese woman) has spent many of his married years in China, teaching and visiting inlaws, so has a wealth of knowledge of China and the area. He had rented a car for a month, so we, along with Peter and Diane (Rick's sisters sister in law / and our other [View Full Entry]

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After a long and eventful trip from Peace River to Vancouver (via Valemont, Whistler, Parksville and Shawnigan Lake) we finally departed on Tuesday, August 18. along with about 20 eager and fresh faced teachers on Japan AirLines. With the time change, we arrived in Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon. We had a great overnight in Narita, a suburb of Tokyo where we wandered the streets and found an amazing temple (which we here are as plentiful as castles in Europe). But since it was our first, we were pretty impressed. The next day we continued to Dalian where we were met by [View Full Entry]

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The last month has been a whirlwind of activity and paper. B.C teacher licenses, retirement, pensions, and VISA info was the first round. Then selling the house, arranging for storage, dealing with mail, finances, cards, computers, phones, vehicles, packing and sorting - you know the routine. Everytime you check off something from your list, 3 more things pop up. It has been invaluable to have Rick at home to be dealing with so many of the items on the list. We had a great garage sale where we got rid of a lot of unneeded items. Having the last hour with [View Full Entry]

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