China End of Yangtze River Cruise

Our river cruise ended at Chang Qing where we disembarked.  The river trip has been a fun part of the tour.

 This is a major emerging city in China.  Notice all the tall buildings in the background.  We were seeing these all over China.  They are apartment buildings.  At first they were being built exclusively by the government, not they they even have some private contractors building them.  They are doing a lot to raise the standard of living for the average people who lived in primitive villages and homes.  The tour guide told about when he grew up they had to go to the neighborhood shower or bathroom down the street.  These have one on each floor and each family can usually have their own room and have heating too.  We saw millions of these buildings all over and especially in big cities.

 This was a square where we saw some children with scooters.

 We got to tour the National Museum.

 Next to a Buddha statue.  There are only a few Pagodas and Temples left in China because they were almost all destroyed during the Cultural Revolution but they played a major role in Chinese history.

 Various costumes from the recognized Chinese minorities.

 The bed of the last empress.

 Ming Dynasty vases.

 Statue of Sun Yat Sen the father of Chinese democracy who led the revolution breaking away from the feudal system of royal emperors.

 And we found a Walmart.  This was fun.  We ran in for a quick look.  It was very crowded.  Our guide said it was very popular with the Chinese.  The only thing we bought some American candy bars.

 We had some free time at a modern town shopping area which had some high end stores.  Also a Chinese movie star was making an appearance so there were a lot of teens there to see him.  It reminded us of how people act back home like in Los Angeles.

Next we took a bus to Xian, which was the ancient capital of 11 dynasties.  On our way to dinner we stopped at the Muslim district, a very crowded popular shopping street.  It was wall to wall people and we almost had to push our way through.

 Food booths were one of the main attractions.

 Lots of fruits.

 A view of how crowded it was.

 A pig hanging up to sell meat.

 A beautiful building lit with lights.

 This is us wit our tour group.  Most of our meals were at group tables like this.  They would bring out a dish and we would each get some of it.  At this resturant they are famous for their Chinese dumplings.  We had the dumpling dinner with 18 different ones to sample.

Outside the restaurant.