Thoughts and stories, by Pal

  We were on the 16th floor, but the restaurant where we ate breakfast, and some dinners, was on the 38th floor!  This is looking out a window on the 38th floor -- mostly high rises!   Our day began visiting a Jade factory, where many colors of Jade were crafted into many different objects!  At the Jade Factory we learned there are many colors of Jade, and they are found all over China.  The dull green shade seems to be most popular, but the beautiful bowl the lady is holding below, was that beautiful orange-red color!  She explained about those two statues of a male and female dragons!  She said they needed to be sold together!  Very expensive!    There was a show room with beautiful jewelry of all shades of Jade!  And many other figures, etc. all made of Jade!   More Chinese figures all made of various colors of Jade.  These were 2 to 3 feet tall. You can tell how large these figures were behind me!       The dragon is a popular figure in all of China!

One of the highlights of the China Tour was the 4 day cruise on the Yangtze River!  I'll post pictures and tell about them.      Our first breakfast on the cruise ship.  There was always watermelon, hard boiled eggs, various veges and dumplings. The white fruit with black dots was "Dragon fruit", quite tasty!  We saw many other ships also on the very large Yangtze River.  The River, I believe, is about 300 meters deep -- and looks a sort of grey green.  Sadly we saw debris floating on it, in places.  In this picture you can see some terraces, which were farmed.  This ship was much larger than ours, and more houses on shore.  A lunch, always rice available, and various veges etc.  Spicy!  One off shore excursion included being taught about the Three Gorges Dam, which is the largest dam in the world, producing enormous amounts of electricity, which supply many cities with power.  Below is a picture of it, but we didn't see it ourselves.