aaaaaand...............we’re home.

Rather than take a car or cab back to the Shanghai airport, we opted to do the bullet train. Completely different experience - when we arrived In Shanghai, the car took about an hour, maybe a little less, to get us from the airport into town. Today, going the other direction, the train took precisely 7 minutes.

  

Lots of walking on this one.

    

  

Mmmmm, crispy pork belly & beef shin.

The Shanghai museum was impressive. Modern in design but filled with antiquities.

We went to a silk museum and were astonished at the process. The individual silkworms weave a cocoon around themselves with a single silk strand, which stretched out, would be kilometers long. The machines unravel the one-strand cocoon around the drums at the top. The last pic shows the silk workers stretching out endless layers of silk mesh, which will then be encased in fabric as a blanket or pillow. Boggles the mind.

It’s nice that the hotel room offers slippers, but, umm.....

We visited the 17th century home and gardens of an obviously wealthy and powerful dignitary. Really exquisite, serene, elegant design, everywhere you look. (Except maybe the second tallest building in the world, in the background).

Shanghai has outlying neighborhoods that are built on canals, very reminiscent of Venice. This town is Zhu Jia Jiao.

Our house in Hawaii has the odd centipede waltzing through once or twice a year, but we draw the line at eating them.

So, we’ve arrived in Shanghai, (unfortunately) the last stop on this trip. It’s described as “East meets West”, with the combined cultures of China and 19th century European colonialism.

The crew at dinner on the last night of the cruise. And the menu - we thought we made choices from it, but they brought small portions of *all* of it!

In Yinchang we visited a local food and “vegetadle” market. The reddish-brown stuff is solidified hog blood.

Took a ride in a traditional “pea pod” boat, up and down a tributary of the river.

Somehow, we haven’t yet ordered pig nose.

along the way.

The food markets along the Yangtze.

The museum dedicated to General Stillwell, who assisted the Chinese forces against Japan in WW2. Included was info on the Flying Tigers, and the other air supply forces who flew out of Burma and India, across the “Hump” (the Himalayas), aiding the Chinese against the Japanese imperial forces.