Sue's Travels: 8 July 2015 - First Full Day on Ship

I actually slept until 7:00 am. I had hoped to get up earlier because I wanted to take part in the Tai Chi class. I checked my e-mail and headed into breakfast. After breakfast, I sat up on deck for a while and then attended the lecture on Traditional Chinese Medicine which I found interesting. The only thing that he said that I found of particular interest was his comparison of acupressure to chiropractic manipulation.

First Docking place

Views from Docking place

Cruising up the river

Lecture on Traditional Chinese Medicine

My next entertainment was a movie about the Three Gorge Dam. This movie was originally made by the Discovery Channel. It was done before the Dam was completed. One of the issues raised in the movie was the necessity of moving about 1.3 million people. At this point the process is complete. According to our local guide, about half the money was spent on relocating the people.

Lunch was a nice buffet. I was asked what I wanted for dinner. We are eating in a different dining room than the local people. We were told that we would have problems if we shared the dining room. The last day will have dinner in the main dining room and find out.

Cruising up the river

Side of Gorge

Town along river

Side of River

River views

At about 1:45pm we met in the main lobby area where we were given our boarding passes and then headed off the ship to head to the bus which would take us to the dam site. We had to walk through a market place in which there were very aggressive sales people. The bus drove us to the entrance building where we had to go through a metal detector and then out the back door to get back on the bus. We were then driven to the location which has a model of the dam. The original design of the dam called for 26 generators, but the demand for electricity has increased significantly; consequently they have added another 6 and would add more if there was space for them. The dam itself is 1.4 miles across. It is the largest dam in the world.

Leaving Ship for Dam tour

Locks that permit ships to go upstream

At the site of the model

The building with the model of the project

Model of Dam site

Inscription

We then went up the escalators to the highest point where I took a batch of pictures. The big problem is the mist of fog. Today apparently was what they call a so-so day. Nothing is clear. We then walked down and finally reached a platform where I could actually see the dam. It was brutally hot and the humidity was high. We finally loaded into the bus which was air conditioned and drove back to the ship.

View from high point - Suspension bridge

Looking towards the dam site

Looking down at river

Note power lines

Looking down at the locks

Me on the high point

Me again at the high point

Locks below

Not sure what this is

Looking down at the locks

Platform from which the dam is visible

Dam

Harvest G-d temple - Guide Kai in lower right of picture

Looking along the river bank

I was disappointed that none of the clothes that I washed yesterday was dry. I stripped out just lay on the bed and did this writing. I am going to have to throw on clothes so I can head to the Captain’s Welcome Party and then dinner.

After throwing on some clothes, I headed to level 5 where I watched the ship heading to the locks of the dam. More and more people came up and eventually I headed into the bar area for the Captain’s Welcome Party. I ran into a group of people from the tour and we sat around enjoying the free booze. At about seven, I was supposed to head into dinner, but I went to the back of the ship to watch the lock close behind us. Then I went to dinner where I joined a group and wound up being among the last people to leave. Some of the people were going to the show in the bar, but I decided that I wanted to get some sleep so I can potentially get up at 6 so I can go for Tai Chi at 6:30.