March 21- Shanghai

Yesterday we had a grand day on a very long trip to the town of Wuxi in the Province of Nanjing. We left the ship after a face-to-face with our passports and an official from the Chinese government. Normally on an international cruise the ship keeps your passports and the officials just casually look, but this is China and the rules are different. After having had to have our temperarture taken in Korea before we could get off you'd think we would not be surprised by anything.

We boareded a bus and rode through the early morning busy streets of Shanghai. People were hurrying to work. Others were stopping by stalls to buy breakfast pancakes. Shops were open. The traffic was wild as usual. It took us about an hour to travel the 5 miles to the train station.

We waited in the "Softseating Lounge" which we later learned was a special place for VIP's to wait for the boarding signal for their train. When it was time we walked through several tunnels over to our platform and boarded the train. It was neat, clean, quiet and filled with people. There were venders on the train selling coffee, tea, Lay's Potato Chips, noodle dishes in cardboard cups, and juices.

As we traveled we saw lots and lots of farm land and also some small farm areas. We saw very few pieces of mechnical farm equipment- mostly people working the fields by hand.The trip to about an hour and 15 minutes.

We were met by a new guide who took us to another bus and off we went. This young man was born in 1964 and his Chinese name means " true thought of Mao" because he said at the time his parents were really Mao followers. Now that is not the case. He said he was not a party member and could say whatever he wanted....and he did.

We went to the Grand Canal- the longest (1100 miles long) and the oldest (built in 500BC) man-made waterway in the world. We took a boat cruise sailing along side the barges and other commercial vessals making their way to and from the coast to Beijing. This is the Yangtze River Delta. It was quite a site and quite a feeling to be sailing on this canal.

We visited an excellent example of a small Chinese Garden- the Jichange Garden in Wuxi. The same family managed to own it through the Ting and Chin dynasty and then give it to Mao and the party when weathy people were encouraged to give up their possessions.

Wuxi is where the finest silk is made. We went to another silk reeling factory and watched again this process. Also did a tiny bit of shopping.

The town of Wuxi is a small town of 5 million people. We keep being amazed at these large (by our standards) cities that we never heard of.

We had a tradidional Chinese lazy Susan filled lunch. We boarded the return tain at 5:30 and arrived in Shanghai at about 6:45. The driver took us by the downtown area with the amazing lights on the building. We do like Shanghai.

Got back to the ship about 7:15, ate dinner and went to the Horizons Lounge to watch the boats go by and the buildings change their colors as the pictures and lights moved about.

We are in port for half a day but we decided to stay on board, do laundry and write.

Tomorrow we are at sea headed for Japan. I have given up trying to add pictures to this because it takes so long and often doesn't work anyway. We are glad for this Satallite connection but wish for something faster. Take care