July 17th, 2006
8:43pm
I'm writing this on the boat right now as we cruise down the Yangtze River.
We have been cruising down the Yangtze for yesterday and today, the boat is very nice. It has been so non-stop lately and it's nice to be able to just relax and take things at a slow, calm pace.
A few days ago I was in Xi'an and I really liked the city and the food was great. Xi'an was very clean and very well layed out. It's pretty west so there was a slight Muslim influence there, which means good food!
After Xi'an we took a train to Chengdu and we spent some time in the mountains in and outside of Chengdu and went to a mountain called 'e mei shan', and it was hands down the most beauitful place I have ever seen. It reminded me so much of the mountains in Utah, only a rainforest. It was complete with monkeys, which i fed, and an ice cold river with water as clear as bottled water. After a long day of hiking the mountain, a few of us jumped in the river and swam a bit. After that we came to Chongqing, which is the third biggest city in China.
t's so big it was taken out of Sichuan province and made its own municipality, with a population of about 35 million. I really like Chengdu and Chongqing, but the weather here is attrocious. It's so hot and humid.
Ok, now I'm finishing this and actually posting it from our hotel in Wuhan, which is so, so nice. All the hotels we have been staying at are really nice, but now im going to go look around the city a bit.
