Yangtze adventure

Last weeks have been just GREAT. I have had a loft of fun with oma and opa and... we have done so many things that I haven't even had time to blog about it. But don't worry, in the coming days I am planning to make up for it and will tell you everything!

One of the nicest things we have done lately has been the cruise down the Yangtze River (长江).

Our trip started in Chonqing, and... guess what? is the biggest city in the world with 33 million people ! wow, that is indeed a lot of people :-) and, after spending the afternoon in the city (pizza included) we boarded on our wonderful ship: the Victoria Empress. My first cruise had just started !

The ship was not very big because we were going down the river but, still, there were 168 people onboard an I had a lot of fun getting to know many of them. I actually made many friends !

Look at me here with Rebecca & Funny. I just loved spending time with them... and not just because they let me borrow the calculator and literally let me play around with all the necklaces of the shop! they were very sweet and just loved hugging and kissing me. Not that I suffered much :-)

During the 3 days of the cruise we just went down the Yangtze river from Chonqing to Yichang and all the way through we just saw the most amazing landscape: the Three Gorges. With very high cliffs, huge rocks an emerald waters, this is one of the most famous spots here in China. Actually, you can see a picture of one of the gorges in the back of the paper 10 yuan note.

On the second day we took a very small local boat and went through the lesser gorges. I am really not sure why the call them "lesser" because, between you and I, they are even nicer than the big ones ! During the excursion they told us many great stories about the local people who used to live in the area. They had to hike for days just to get some food ! we are so lucky now...

Every day we got up very early, had a niceeeeeeee breakfast and then joined a couple of short excursions. We would always be back at the boat before dinner time and by 8pm I was ready to grab my bottle and go to bed to load my energies for the next day.

Mom & dad took shifts with oma & opa to stay with me because every night there was a small show on the boat. For example, here you can see a picture of the night were the crew showcased the most amazing traditional dresses I have ever seen. They belong to minorities from China (I think there are 53 of them in the whole country!). I would have loved to see the baby version for each one of them :-)