Wuhan to Jinzhou to Yichang City
Friday, July 18, 2008

Rice field in the countryside

The road trip started a bout early this morning. We were on the road by 7:15am. Our first stop was the city of Jinzhou in Hubei province. Here we visited to the Jinzhou Museum. The museum’s claim to fame is the perfectly intact remains of man who is well over 2,000 years old. At first glance he may look a bit gross to some but when they found him in he was intact and his joints were still working. He was preserved in medicinal herbs and liquids. He dates back to 200 BC. Once they found him they dissected his brains and internal organs, which they placed right next to him. Some would say icky, I say awesome!

Jinzho Museum

How will we look after 2,000 yrs

After the museum we went to Jinzhou's ancient city wall. There was great breeze from the wall so the visit was not cool literally and figuratively. There were statues of the main characters from movie, Red Cliff, we saw the previous day in the museum. They are heroes of the of the region. I can not explain enough how great it is to learn something in one of our classes, see it in a major motion picture, and then visit a museum which reinforces our what we just learned with actual artifacts. Amazing!

Jinzhou City wall

We then hit the road again and made our way to Yichang City. Yichang City is the closest city to the Three Gorges Dam and River Project. Here is the funny thing which should give you an idea about the size of China’s city; we were told it is a very small city. It has over a million people. We picked up our tour guide and we were allowed to meander about the city square for over an hour, it is massive, and do some shopping for any provisions we needed for the boat. Paul and I found some side streets, they are the best. I picked up a great propaganda poster to use for my lesson plans, we do have work over here.

Pete and Mao

After dinner we made our way to our boat. The boat was exactly the Pacific Princess (The Love Boat, people) but who cares. The rooms had two beds and some decent AC. If I wanted luxury I would have stayed at home and mooched off a friends. It was dark by the time we reached the boat so most of us went to the top deck and watched as our boat departed the shore line. I still could not believe that I was cruising down the Yangtze River, it blows my mind. I had a big beer; a pricey 20 Yuan (@ three dollars) and watched the river at night then hit the bed. Big day tomorrow. Here is a River, called, “Down the Yangtze”. It also has links to a few other stories about the river and the Three Gorges Dam Project.

More photos of the day.

Totally shifting gears here but one of the team members of Magically Piglicious, Dave Mekeel, put together an awesome video from/about our BBQ Fest team.

Here is a link to it. (VIDEO LINK)