Day 14 --Jingzhou Museum and Ancient City Wall- November 23, 2015
This was our last full day on this tour and we will be visiting the Ancient City Wall and Jingzhou Museum in the city of Jingzhou which is over an hour and a half drive from Yichang where the ship docked.
Jingzhou is a city in the province of Hubei. It has been an important transportation point for thousands of years and held strategic military position in Chinese history. Many historical stories and cultural references in China were based on the events happened in Jingzhou during the Three Kingdoms period.
Leaving Gold 8 behind for our day trip to Jingzhou.
Driving into the city after a long ride.
Internet Cafe
Getting closer to the city gate.
One of the local guides was explaining something about the walkway up the city wall. I was busy looking down and watching my steps on the slippery rocks instead of paying attention to what he was saying.
Some characters from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Tower of the City Gate
The moat
Ancient City Wall--not as big as the City Wall in Xian but still impressive.
This wall had been damaged and repaired many times. This one was built in the Qing Dynasty.
Outside the city wall.
Inside the city wall.
The residence of Zhang Zhu Zheng, a controversial government official in the Ming Dynasty. A political reformer who established the examination system for public service and set up the systems on tax collection. Loved and hated by many. His family members were persecuted even after his death. This residence is right next to the city wall.
Statues of important figures in the Three Kingdoms inside the tower.
Up to the top of the tower.
Our buses were parked along the street on the left.
After the Ancient City Wall, we came to this restaurant for lunch. The whole place was filled with people from different tours on Gold 8.
The wait staff were having problems serving that many people all at once. We had to practically yelled out to be served.
The 'running' banner welcoming Sinorama Tours.
Wow! Finally, half a chicken was served.
Actually, they served an excellent meal here.
After lunch we came to the Jingzhou Museum to see the 2,000-year old male corpse.
The museum was actually closed that day but they agreed to open it just for Sinorama tours so only parts of the museum were opened. This main building was closed.
Nice!
We entered here to see the corpse.
The silk and lacquer wares exhibits were inside this building.
Some items excavated from the grave with the corpse.
I will not post the picture of the corpse, it's just not very appealing. If interested, there is one on wikipedia.
Final photo while waiting for the rest of our group.
We came back to the cruise at around 5PM and it was dark and rainy. It was time to start packing our bags. We needed to get our check-in luggage out the door by 10PM that evening so they could deliver them to our buses throughout the night. Depending on our flight time, groups were scheduled to debark at different time the next morning, but all before 8AM.
After clearing our bills with the reception we went down for our final meal--the Captain's Farewell Dinner.
Dried tofu
smoked duck breast--as you can see, only one piece per person.
salad
ham
no more all-you-can-eat buffet
Group picture--Bus 1, table 1
Our servers, Bella and Bobo.
Table #3
Table #2
Fried Shrimps, tiny shrimps with thick batter.
One last sweet and sour dish.
Sweet rice roll, cute!
Dinner ended with...no, not baked Alaska, but cakes for four passengers who were having their birthdays.
After dinner we bid farewell to our table-mates as we will be taking different buses to the airport tomorrow.
We went back to our cabin, finished packing and had our check-in bags out the door by 10PM.
Another early start tomorrow morning! We will need to take the four-hour drive from Yichang to Wuhan for our flight back to Shanghai. Those from the east coast will take a 7PM plane to Guangzhou the next day, then catch a flight back to New York. They will have a long wait at the Wuhan Airport. Most people from the L.A. area will fly to Beijing, where it had been snowing in the past couple of days, and take their flights back to L.A. from there, hopefully with no delays. We will join the Northern California/Vancouver group and take the flight to Shanghai for the 5:50 flight back to Vancouver.
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