Dream of China

An open-ended adventure by Vic Read more

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Trip start
March 25, 2018
Dream of China Traveler
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Beijing
March 26, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌙 10 °C
Just arrived in Beijing last evening. Long travel day but all flights were good. Eleven hour flight from Vancouver to Beijing is a marathon without a chance to nap. After experiencing the unhealthy air quality in Beijing for just a short while one really appreciates our clean air in Canada. I can’t imagine living her long term and having to put up with it. Constant smell of thick industrial pollutants is annoying let alone the havoc it creates on your respiratory system. One surprising observation on the 90 minute trip from the airport to the hotel was the lack of advertising along the way. We are accustomed to a proliferation of media along our roadways but here there is virtually none. It’s actually refreshing among the haze of polluted air. I commented to my fellow travelers that it is like what we experience during forest fire season. Haze and a red sun but the air is thick. The aerial picture is taken as we fly over the Bearing Strait. Food on the plane, well let’s just say it was plane food.Read more
Traveler Beautiful!
3/25/18Reply
Interesting! Looks like chicken, pasta, with sauce or a gravy, Swiss Chard, a carrot and a bean. What's white a green stuff? Roll, jougart and a slice of cake. Erna
3/25/18Reply
Is this the future? Man eating robot? Just kidding.....Erna
3/25/18Reply
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Great Wall etc
March 26, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌙 9 °C
Going to be a great day weather wise except the air quality. Heading to the Great Wall today. Who would have thought, rollkuchen and arbooze for breakfast in Beijing.
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Great Wall Climb
March 26, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌙 15 °C
Climbed a two mile stretch of the Great Wall of China that changed elevation by 500 feet. Just the climb was tough so can you imagine what it would have been like to have constructed it!
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Beijing Street Food
March 26, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌙 15 °C
Monday night we walked along a narrow street that is famous for its street food. From fried scorpions on a stick to octopus on a stick you can get it all. Lots of different smells, some rather obnoxious but very interesting.Read more
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Beijing at Night
March 26, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌙 15 °C
Lots of lights and people strolling around.
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Travel Downtown Beijing
March 27, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌫 15 °C
Roads are great congestion not so great. On the way to Temple of Heaven. Ok change in plans. Just got “trumped” by government officials who closed the Temple of Heaven so we are on the way to a tea house. Rumour has it that Kim Jung Un from North Korea is in town. If true that would explain why we have spent much of the day in traffic. Ok change in plan now going to Tiananmen Square, tea house later.Read more
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Tianamen Square
March 27, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌫 20 °C
Lots of people and lots of security.
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Forbidden City
March 27, 2018 in China ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
One interesting experience was that many Chinese visitors would stop to take pictures of our tour group. The explanation was that these visitors were from provincial regions and that it was unusual for them to see white westerners and so we became another attraction to them. So we started to join in and take pictures of them as well and they were very thrilled to participate.Read more
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Temple of Heaven and Tea House tasting
March 27, 2018 in China ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C
The Temple of Heaven (Chinese: 天壇; pinyin: Tiāntán) is an imperial complex of religious buildings situated in the southeastern part of central Beijing. The complex was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest.Read more
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Peking Duck Dinner
March 27, 2018 in China ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C
First time but not last time. Very tasty.
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Leaving for Shanghai
March 28, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌫 20 °C
Heading for Shanghai later today but first a trip to a pearl factory and then Beijing Airport. Air quality today is Hazardous. Time to put on our masks.
TravelerNice pearls!
3/28/18Reply
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Olympic Park
March 28, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌫 22 °C
Quick stop at the Olympic Park and then lunch at a Tibetan restaurant before heading to the airport. Air quality index is 500 which our guide said is one of the worst she has experienced. You can see the haze in the pictures.Read more
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Leaving for Shanghai
March 28, 2018 in China ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C
The gentleman drinking the coke was security at the boarding area. Now a 2 hour flight to Shanghai. Just about left “our” phones behind. Had a luxurious inflight “snack”. Yum yum! Not quite sure about its composition.Read more
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Shanghai evening
March 29, 2018 in China ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C
Shanghai
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Shanghai morning
March 29, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌙 19 °C
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Shanghai Waterfront
March 29, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌙 19 °C
Nice!
3/29/18Reply
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Shanghai Silk Factory
March 29, 2018 in China ⋅ 🌙 19 °C
Learned about silk production and saw the end products including duvets, carpets and silk embroidery.
Beautiful rugs!
3/29/18Reply
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Shanghai Museum
March 29, 2018 in China ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C
Artifacts from many of the Ming dynasties as eat as 20 AD.
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Leaving Shanghai to Yichang
March 30, 2018 in China ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C
Went for a morning stroll to visit the old city of Jiading near our hotel in Shanghai. Approximately a 25 mInute walk. Leaving for Yichang later today to catch our Yangtze River boat cruise. Weather is awesome, 22 c. Street food looks interesting and so is the smell. Would love to taste it but know better.Read more
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Leaving Shanghai but not so fast
March 30, 2018 in China ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
Drove about 1 1/2 hours from our hotel to the second Shanghai airport (Pudong Airport) to catch our flight to Yichang. Interesting architecture at the airport as you will see in the pictures. As we approached the airport it became quite foggy. The departure screens showed all flights either delayed or cancelled. They boarded us anyway and we sat on the tarmac for over 2 hours to allow the backlog of flights to clear before we were allowed to take off. There must have been at least 50 planes waiting for the fog to clear hence the 2 hour wait. This is a massive airport. It will likely be well past midnight before we get on our boat for the next leg of our trip, four day Yangtze River cruise. Overall impression of Shanghai, very modern elitist attitude city. Very beautiful and well manicured. Surprising amount of green space and greenery in a city of 24 million. This is one of their strategies to combat pollution. It is considered as the financial capital of China whereas Beijing is the political capital. In fact there are efforts to discourage/restrict blue collar migration into Shanghai.Read more
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Yangtze River Cruise
March 31, 2018 in China ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C
We arrived at our boat shortly after 1am and got up for breakfast at 6:45. Great sleep but a little short. Just waiting to tour the Three Gorges Dam. It is a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity.Read more
TravelerContinue to enjoy the trip. Happy Easter!
4/1/18Reply
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Three Gorges Dam
March 31, 2018 in China ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity. It supplies only 2% of the power demand in China, still a big number. 70% of power demand comes from coal generators, a major polluter, the rest comes from other hydro electric generators, nuclear reactors and green power. Although the three gorges dam is a environmentally friendly source of power it is not without controversy causing human and ecological damage.Read more
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Departing from Yichang
March 31, 2018 in China ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C
Leaving tonight at approximately 9:15 pm heading west along the Yangtze River with the Three Gorges Dam behind us.
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Wu Gorge
April 1, 2018 in China ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C
Sightseeing along the Wu gorge.
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Red Pagoda
April 2, 2018 in China ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
Excursion to the Red Pagoda. Ninety nine steps to the top.
The red wooden 12 story pagoda rises stunningly against a 30 meter (100 foot) high rock outcropping along the banks of the Yangtze River.

The tall pagoda is the most interesting part of the Shibaozhai Temple. It consists of two sections: The lower one is a nine story edifice that abuts the rock outcropping. The upper section sits on top of the outcropping (where the temple buildings reside).

The nine story section is not a free-standing building. Its architects designed it to lean against the rock outcropping for its support. Without it, the section would topple over.

The Shibaozhai pagoda structure was built without nails.Read more
TravelerBeautiful photos!
4/2/18Reply
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