The Yangzi River Booze!

On Thursday May 29th I set sail on the Yangzi River for a 3-day cruise. Starting from Wanzhou(Wanxian) and finishing in Yichang! The first night I met Jenny, Simon, Dave (aka: VonDutch) and Michael the German (different German from Mt. Emei). At our first stop we purchased 32 to bottles of Snow beer...let's just say we had a fantastic time!! Day 2 was a trip to see the Three Little Gorges...which aren't so little. The scenery was stunning!! I couldn't believe I was viewing this amazing natural beauty...in China. When I thought of China initially, I thought about the 1 billion people scurrying around the cities to and from their jobs, markets, etc... I also thought about the beauty of the architecture in more rural areas, but never did I think China would hold such beautiful mountains. When we were sailing on the river it was actually lower than the normal water level, because the river was anticipated to flood soon and lowering the level would alleviate flood damage. So it was even better to know how low from the mountain peaks we were and how high we could have been. In Sandouping the construction of the Three Gorges Dam is underway. The hope of the dam is to obviously generate hydroelectric power and help control flooding of the Yangzi, but the downfall is that the river itself will be turned into a lake by elevating the water 175 meters, so many of the villages and temples alongside the river's bank will be submerged. A lot of money from the government and nearby provinces are aiding in the relocation of temples/artifacts and construction of high-rises for the villagers to move in to. So your call on whether it's a good or bad solution?? The Three Gorges Dam is 6x the length of the Hoover Dam and utilizes 26 generators to generate 10% of China's power!!! Incredible!!! Okay back to the cruise...Day 3: we set off into dragon boats for a race. It was hysterical...all of the foreigners were put in one boat and twice as many Chinese tourists were put in another boat and we kicked their butts in the race!!! It was great, they were taking pictures of us!! Apparently we are a tourist attraction for many locals and Chinese tourists!!! So we finished out Day 3 with a drive by of the Three Gorges Dam and off to Wuhan we went...just for the night.