26C Jingzhou
This morning after breakfast we had a choice of tours we could go on a visit to the Viking River Cruise-sponsored School or visit the Ancient City Wall.
We chose The Wall!
Our bus was full and our local guide was a young (and intriguingly repetitive ) Chinese lady bent on using us to improve her English. I think she has been learning her style too much from Australian politicians.... She led us to a very famous area of the city away from the river known as the Jingzhou City Wall. It's been around since 25 AD and is famous for its well preserved state and its scale. 11km in diameter and 9m high. The area of the wall was 3.2 km east to west and 1.5 km north to south. There are some 6 entry gates into the city and they have reconstructed it and are going to put in more city gates to allow access in other areas.
We jumped aboard over sized golf carts to get to the East Gate - walked around the Gate and up into the two story tower at the gate house where there was a model of the walled city. From the top of the gatehouse, you can see what a pretty city it is (it's relatively small by Chinese standards - only about 6 million people) although the fog (smog) is still quite persistent everywhere on the lower Yangtze River.
This was a short excursion and we returned to the boat by 11.15 a.m.
Lunch was replaced with a visit to the gym - our best idea of the day. This afternoon there was a demonstration on making Chinese Dumplings. Recipes to make the pastry and filling were provided and we all got a chance to practice folding them into different shapes, then eat them once cooked.
Our daily presentation today was on Chinese religions - Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. The values of the Chinese people as well as the family structure and changes in modern China were also gently touched on. Patrick, the Viking tour director was (as always) his entertaining self - especially his 'Tommy' jokes at the end of each lecture.
We had a short Port Talk about our excursions tomorrow and also found that we are disembarking at 5.45 a.m on Sunday so we can get the early flight to Shanghai. It seems that like in Europe, the Chinese are starting o adopt the practice of closing all Museums on Mondays so as to do the scheduled Museum excursion we must move it back to Sunday afternoon.
Dinner tonight had an Asian theme, so I chose the Sesame Chicken, some of the dishes were quite spicy and very nice.
2025-02-11