Hooray for Kate

Another long day.

We left the hotel at 2PM then went and toured the Temple of Heaven and saw some beautiful Chinese architecture from the Ming Dynasty It's unbelievable to see the detail and work that went into the buildings here. They show their pride in their construction. Not like all of the cookie cutter construction that is done everywhere today.

After that, we walked down to a silk factory to see how silk is made and then to be given a hard sell to buy their silk products. Nope, I didn't buy anything, but Jen did buy a Chinese top for Kate. The walk was great. We got to see some shanty areas. These old neighbourhoods are one strong wind from collapsing and it looks like they just build a big wall in front of them to hide them from the street. Walking by, it gave me a chance to see them up close. Some boys were out playing and stopped to look at us and say HI as we walked by. It would've been fun to stop and give them some of the candy I brought, but we didn't have a chance.

We left the silk market around 5 and slowly made our way thru traffic to the airport. When we're on the move, our luggage travels separately from us in a different vehicle. We never saw it again until we got to Chongqing. We didn't have to check it on the plane, didn't have to push it thru the airport in Beijing, nothing. It's also weird to give up our passports. We have to give them to the guide to check us on the flight, to exchange money at the bank, to the hotel to check us in. The guide does all the checkins for us so she has them more than we do.

We then sat down at an airport restaurant for a quick bite. Hey Jason, My spicy bean dish had duck in it. Sorry, no pic. It was so spicy that it could've been anything… I would never have know but the girl behind the counter kept yelling "duck, duck duck" in broken English.

Our flight from Beijing to Chongqing was an ordinary flight. Almost identical to a Moncton to Toronto flight. I fell asleep and missed most of it.

A second guide met us in Chongqing and we made it to the hotel. Everything in Chongqing is tall… skyscrapers everywhere. And cranes everywhere. It looks like the whole city is being built at once.

Chongqing is very hilly and we are high up on a hill, on the 15th floor looking out onto the Yangzee River. A beautiful site at night, but I can't get a good pic to show you.

We're on the road @ 9:30 tomorrow morning and Michael the guide says that it's about an hour to the orphanage. We'll be back here around 4:30 so when you wake up Saturday, there should be something up here for you to see.

This is it… our last night of just the two of us. Off to bed now. I'm coming up on my second day of 21+ hours.

Scott