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Published: August 9th 2010
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Chongqing at night
Downtown Chongqing and junction of Yangtzee and Jianling rivers after dark Jacob and Lynn met us at the Chongqing airport late Sunday evening after our 21 hour odyssey from the time we left our house, an amazingly short time for traveling nearly halfway around the world. Lynn, whose full name is Xiao Chenlin, drove us in the family car back to the Yubei district, where she and her parents live in a 2-bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor of a modern 32-story building. She and Jacob found a nice hotel room for us in another 30 story building in their neighborhood, and, her parents refused to let us pay for it. So we are their guests while we are here.
Early this morning we walked with Jacob and Lynn through a nearby park to a tennis court in a residental complex. We explored while they played a set while the temperature was still relatively cool. On our last visit to Chongqing on January 1, 2004, the day's high was just below freezing. Today the temperature reached around 100 F, and this was low compared to last week.
After tennis, we visited with Lynn's family in their apartment, where we enjoyed a nice late breakfast with a variety of food from
Jacob Lynn 9 Aug
Lynn and Jacob get ready to play tennis in the morning before the temperature hits 90 F Sichuan and elsewhere in China. Duck eggs, dumplings, and everything in between, including Jacob's home made yogurt. We had lively conversation, with Jacob doing a great interpretation job.
Later, we braved the heat to head downtown to the Three Gorges Museum, which covers the natural and human history of the Yangtzee River valley and has a surprisingly balanced treatment of the pros and cons of building the dam. The museum includes some actual rock formations and many ancient tablets with inscriptions taken fom the innundated area before the dam was closed. The exhibit of the pre-power river boats that had to be hauled upstream by workers pulling ropes from narrow trails carved into the cliffs was amazing. It included some rocks with deep grooves worn into them from a thousand years of boat hauling.
After that, we rode the cable car high above the Yangtzee to the south bank where we enjoyed a Chongqing hotpot dinner in a private room in one of the restaurants along the river. Because of the heavy monsoons in the mountains this year, the river is moving fast through Chongqing and reddish brown with sediment.
Tomorrow we'll explore this neighborhood some more,
Xiaos and Rawsons
Lynn's parents and us in their apartment hang out at the Xiao's apartment, and take the 2 PM train to Chengdu. Jacob will travel with us the whole way (it's really good to have an interpreter), and Lynn will join us for the next leg through Kangding. In 2004 our bus ride from Chengdu to Chongqing took 4-5 hours on the fast road. Our train tomorrow will take 2 hours, and a new train is in the works that will cover the 300 km + between the two cities in 56 minutes. The new, new China will include high speed trains to nearly every provincial capital and reduced air pollution from switching trains to electricity and buses and taxis to natural gas and cars and motor scooters to electricity. The environmental disaster that was China on our last visit may become an environmental model much sooner than anyone expected.
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Linda Kuller
non-member comment
Wow!
I love your blog! Glad you made it safely and are receiving such wonderful hospitality! Sounds like you are having fun! take care! Chonqing looks really cool at night.