And another week flies by...

Actually two weeks flew by!  I sat on this post for quite some time, mostly because Trina and I have been joined at the hip trying to get her through her semester.  Wow, she fell a little a lot behind, and I wasn't watching closely enough to know it.

We did take a three day weekend last weekend to travel along the Yangtze River.

Beginning our 7 hour train ride

It was fun to get out in the countryside and see some fields of rice and other crops.  But we saw this over and over--an agricultural town with some low apartment buildings that was all getting eclipsed by big high rises.

The Innotec team once again set up our whole weekend, including a tour guide, so we were able to just follow along.  In fact when we left Shanghai we had very little idea what we would be doing for the next three days.

On Saturday we did some touring with a driver to historic/tourist spots along the river.  Because of heavy weekend traffic, the sights don't allow private cars.  Instead we boarded shuttle buses.

Yup, definitely in the minority.

We had great fun watching the altercation between Cinderella and the security guys.  She attempted to drive her own car in and was told to turn around.  Ooh, she came out with her arms flying and yelled very ferociously for at least 15 minutes.  Dressed too pretty to behave that way!  (And security won--eventually she drove away)

These food stands are all over.  I love looking at all the variety and interesting things.

This was a little branch off the Yangtze, set up with historical boats and costumes.

And for my teacher friends.  There are naughty kids everywhere!  During this performance, these little boys were crawling all over the rocks and only being encouraged to do it more as the crowd laughed at them.  Where are the parents?!

Our tour guide, Julie (Jhou Li). She was only 27 so she really enjoyed time with the girls. 

You must be getting tired of the same old thing in each post, but here we go again!  

Julie would call ahead so that when we got to the restaurant our meal was ready.  This was just for the 6 of us and one of the smaller meals we got.  We couldn't even put a dent in all this food, especially while using chopsticks.

My next teacher gift!  I'm going to buy all the Innocademy teachers one of these microphone boxes.  That way you can all compete to be the loudest, just like these tour guides!

Julie and the girls with "a king"

On Sunday, we took a cruise down the Yangtze.  Yes, a week after hearing about the one that sunk.

This sign held new meaning after hearing about the sinking all week.

Lots of glitz on the inside!

And lots of rain on the outside.  My personal bubble gets popped enough here, but then give each person an umbrella?  Insanity!

Really pretty views!  I've read books about the Yangtze and this was exactly how I'd pictured it (well, except for the big cruise ship deck)

Plenty of onboard entertainment.  This woman was doing all kinds of dance moves and herkies for the picture and then had her son hold her.  The couple to the left were doing a Titanic pose, except she was trying to hold up a scarf she purchased and it kept blowing in her husband's face.  

After the cruise, we went to view the Three Gorges Dam.  Our engineering friends will appreciate the technical accomplishments (and Mike will be glad to tell you about them), but I was more interested in the history of it.  It's the world's largest power station, completed in 2012 but surrounded with lots of controversy.  It displaced over 1.3 million people, covered up some historical areas, and made the three gorges less spectacular because of higher water levels.

Julie, being Chinese herself, also liked to turn our photos into photo shoots.

More rain = More umbrellas

We've done some overnight buses or planes throughout our trip, but this was our first sleeper train experience.  We left Sunday night and arrived in Shanghai early Monday morning.  A noisy night but definitely more comfortable than sleeping in seats.

Thankfully there were 6 beds in a berth so we had one all to ourselves (there's a third bunk above the two you can see)

And just that quickly a month in Shanghai is over.  One more quick wrap up post coming and then we'll be on to Beijing.