July 20, 2013

Yangtze River

Today was our one and only sailing day on the Yangtze. The day started by sleeping through my alarm, once again, even though I promised myself I would go to Tai Chi this morning. Oh well. It shouldn’t be a shock at this point that Abby and I were among the last to go to breakfast this morning. Soon after we headed over to the club where our Riverguide Aaron was just finishing up a lecture.

From this point on there was really no set schedule of what we did or didn’t do. It mainly consisted of hanging out in the club either playing scrabble, playing cards, water coloring, or reading. There were also a couple of presentations, one of which was a demonstration of how a man painted the most detailed, exquisite scenes on the inside of jars. It was great. And even better was that he was selling the bottles. Then of course there was always tea and cookies. Other than that, it was a very relaxing day of fun activities with the cousins. And it was at this point that I was really getting used to the ship and it’s little quirks. Yes, it may be a bit run down, but I started to love those features about it. The lumpy hallways, the bad smelling room, the constant buzz of the engine.

That night, there was a minorities show in the club. China has 56 ethnic groups and 55 are minorities. Each one has a different style of dress and music and dance. Of course, we didn’t see all of them, but it was interesting to watch and I know that all the little girls loved it.

I think this is the only picture I took all day:

Just brushing up on my water coloring with our authentic calligraphy brushes