Leaving the local online store, I returned to the front desk and the man gave me 15 out of 20 of my Yuan back. For an hours worth of internet surfing, I had to pay 5 Yuan or about 50 cents or so! Whereas while in the hotel I paid 80 Yuan for 30 minutes. Although I paid 30 Yuan in taxi rides to get there, I would rather support the local community and have an adventure. I easily found a cabbie to get home.

I got back about 6:30 and the wake up call came. I got home just in time. We had to get our luggage prepared and outside our door at 7:00 so the bell boys could get it. I told everyone about my little excursion and they thought I was crazy. I really enjoy going out by myself in China; it so much reminds me of my great experiences traveling alone in Europe. It is really interesting and relaxing, I feel it is safer than Detroit.

I had a nice breakfast and then headed out wandering again for 20 minutes. While walking, I met up with Liz and Mary who wanted to find the poor traditional alleys I had seen. Before that, as I first approached, I said "Gimme all your money." Liz was scared at first, but still found it hilarious and she said I remind her of her son. As we went down, I couldn't find the same alley, but we did find a poor little woman selling some loose tea. I had recognized the green tea from when I drank it the day before and it smelled really nice, so we all bought a bit for 5 Yuan. We didn't even consider haggling because the girl looked like she could really use it. I enjoyed how the locals gathered around to see the business transaction. I liked smiling and saying hello the most.

Once back to the bus, we headed toward the jade Buddha temple. Here our local guide explained Buddhism and once we arrived we went straight to the main Buddha statue. This statue was the most heart wrenching, pristine, peaceful and beautiful thing I have ever seen. There were no photos allowed but it was a beautiful moment I will cherish forever. The next 15 minutes we could spend looking around at people praying to other Buddha statues, people in traditional brown Buddhist dress and people lighting these sticks on fire to commemorate the dead. I gave 10 Yuan to donate and the ladies helped me write that out in Chinese (I took a picture of my first written character). Professor Stamps and I approached some cute old countryside ladies and he talked with them in Chinese. I goofed around with them about my curly hair and they were giggling. I asked professor Stamps to ask them if I could take a photo with them and the picture turned out to be one of the funniest pictures yet. I took a video as well.

After the temple, we went to a silk rug factory. I learned a lot from the worker who explained the process of taking a silk worm cocoon and turning it into a silk thread. We later watched factory workers hand stitch these rugs; each of which can take from 2 months to 4 years of weaving to create. Bear in mind that this duration is 8 hours a day 6 days a week; a type of hardwork, patience and dedication unknown to most cultures. I began to think about how Chinese and manufacturing workers deserve a much better life to create such an artistic craft. This type of job would never be conceived in the US; it is just too complex, delicate, and it would never sell because the cost of man hours would be too great. In one tour I learned so much about this type of art of which you step on and "clean your shoes." What I am leading you into is the value I see in these rugs. And that although you might not find that 4 months of fine craftsmanship and beauty using the finest material in the world has no value....I would contradict that statement. So after careful consideration, I purchased a beautiful rug from the city in China that is known for its Silk.... Shanghai. Mom and Dad, I know you won't understand and this purchase is something that you would never fess up to, but I probably will never tell you the price I paid for this rug because you would freak out. At least I didn't get the 4000 rug like this other guy. This is more of an investment than anything and if I ever get into a financial bind, I can easily sell the rug and its certificates on Ebay. There are many more reasons why I made this purchase and I feel it was a good idea to purchase this for myself. I probably will never be back in China again (that is.... until I fly out to Tibet.)

We had Mongolian barbeque for lunch and it was excellent. I mostly talked with my group friends about my purchase and I began to feel really good about it. Already I can make predictions about who will respect the purchase and know its value. Susan will love it (See video... if I can ever get the bandwidth to upload all the photos) and my mom will feel it's a waste of money. Dan will think its sweet and Barb will like it as well. Just think that for my huge rug that there are 120 threads per square inch sewn into the rug. I will kill anyone who spills on it.

We then went to the airport and took a flight to Yichang where we would start our cruise.

Driving here, it was a much more rural and traditional Chinese city with lots of wilderness. I got my first glance at some rice patties. Our first stop was the river and a park. The most interesting thing was the playground where adults exercised on a metal cheap walking machine.

I decided to go walking down some alleys for adventure and people tagged along. We went into a family store (looking like a tornado came through) and the others looked at pottery. I left on my own to a local tea shop, where I spoke with the man about having a taste test to see if I liked some of his stuff. Here is where Sandy will freak out.... I DRANK THE LOCAL WATER. I am pretty sure it was boiled though, but it may come back to haunt me. The most interesting learning experience here is that I saw just how difficult it is for Asians to pickup on our nonverbal. They just don't understand how we are trying to communicate and it takes a while to get points across from both sides. I basically told him I would think about it and he sent me away with a huge sampler. I felt bad, for I knew I wouldn't come back and I tried to give him money for it. He insisted and refused the cash and booted me out of there.

After that, we had a wonderful buffet. I went to get up to procure my favorite drink so far on the trip. My favorite drink is a Chinese fruit punch. It is made of pear juice, lemon juice, apple juice and sugar with little square chunks of pear, mandarin oranges, and apples. I know this because I was talking to one of the nicest people I have met thus far; Johnny. He spoke great English and I taught him to say "What's up?" We had broken conversations between him having to serve each person's glass at the drink section of the buffet. I probably got him a little in trouble with his managers. In the end, I had to leave in a hurry so I whipped out a 1 dollar bill and wrote my email addy on it. He will contact me for sure; it will be nice conversating with him over email.

Once we left for that, we got to the ship where we were greeted with a loud brass band as we boarded. I was extremely tired and as soon as I got my key and I went to bed. Only to wake up at 9 because the loud speaker was announcing a meeting. I fell back asleep and woke up 30 minutes later dragging myself to the meeting. I totally missed everything and I just went back to my room, finishing the night watching batman and writing in my journal.