Life along the Yangtze River

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Hello everyone,

We started out in the port city of Chongqing. The highlight was visiting the Zoo to see the pandas. They are indigenous to this province—Szechuan. One of the pandas that has just taken up residence in Toronto Zoo was from this zoo.



We passed a gathering of people with food, mah-jong tables, etc. Our guide told us that this was a funeral. In the country, if someone dies at seventy-five or older, they spend the first day grieving, but then they celebrate for two more days because the person lived a long and good life.



再见



Donna

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Photos

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One of the highlights. They look like men in costumes.

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What a life--eating & sleeping. One of the Pandas from this zoo is now living at Toronto Zoo.

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300 year old house in Chongqing. It was built by immigrants so they say it is Chinatown in China.

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362 people lived in this 300 yr old complex until 2003. They were happy to move to new highrises with A/C--it reached 46C last summer.

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This is a female Buddha.

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This was the Victoria Grace--our home for three days. Notice the walkway over the Yangtze. We had to walk along it in the rain.

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The view as we pulled away that night almost made up for it, but not quite.

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This guy is a fortune teller in one of the markets. He is consulted about what to name a new baby based on the time the baby was born.

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And finally...this is a sex shop that sells contraceptives and other "stuff." These places always have a North American couple on the sign. The Chinese consider us "friskier" than they are!

Comments

[victorian67]

Meeting Pandas in Szechuan
How enchanting and what a privilege to encounter Pandas in their indigenous province, Donna ! I have always been fascinated by the Yangtze River and your 3 days cruise will definitely enlighten me on this area ! Karim

[Gretchen Huntley]

Funeral
What a wonderful thought. Grieve to let go and then celebrate a lifetime of memories!

[Bob Pyke]

Great blogs
Hi Donna.. I'm really enjoying your stories and pictures (it really brings back memories). The weather here is staying cold and wintery. Everyone is well and I leave Sunday for Dubai.. but will try and stay in touch with your blogs. Take care Bob

[charlene]

I didn't know you were off on another adventure
Donna, I changed my gmail to hotmail 2 years ago. it's [e-mail]. I had to go into my gamail to look for something specific and found these blogs. So nice to read. How long were you in Xian? The two things (actually 3) that I loved most there was riding around the city wall on top on a bicycle, visiting the muslim section and eating some great food ....and the fact they had at least 2 Starbucks there. Such a 'civilized' (ha, ha) way for an American to start the day and take the requisite afternoon break!!! Please, in the future, send everything to the hotmail address Come this way sometime and visit me in Bang Chang (google it). It's on the north of the Gulf of Thailand. Happy trails to you,