July 19 - Yangtze Cruising

July 19 - Sailing Up The Yangtze

This afternoon, after we left Wuhan we sailed all day along the Yangtze River. It was very peaceful and in spite of it being very hot in the sun, our balcony was completely in the shade so we spent a good deal of time watching the countryside of China float past us. I snapped a few shots of some local boats as we passed them by and also shot about 20 minutes of cruising video which I'll post once we return home. This evening's dinner was billed as an authentic Chinese dinner and the wait staff was all in costume. Kim and I decided to sit at a table for four, but no one joined us :( But we had a very nice dinner and Kim successfully managed the chop stickes throughout dinner - posed for a pre-dinner picture outside the tailor shop (which will be significant later in the cruise!). It was a nice afternoon and evening. 

We were disappointed at this evening's briefing that tomorrow's lone excursion to a local Viking sponsored school will not happen. We will arrive too late in the afternoon. So as a consolation the kids will come on board to perform for us and then the staff has put together a late afternoon-early evening excursion to walk atop the wall of the city. Glad we get an alternative and as I told Kim, if they'd told us at the beginning that we could pick any one excursion to miss, which would it be....for me it would be the school visit. Not only because it's the least significant stop (in my mind), but we were able to visit a school last week in Cambodia.