{"id":668,"date":"2009-04-24T01:27:26","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T08:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/?p=668"},"modified":"2009-04-29T01:11:37","modified_gmt":"2009-04-29T08:11:37","slug":"three-gorges-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/2009\/04\/24\/three-gorges-day-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Gorges Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re on the boat, heading up the Yangtze. If you’re reading this, then the boat’s GPRS-based Internet must have been enough to get the blog post up.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, we started in Shanghai<\/a>. We made quick stop at a government silk factory. We saw how they get threads out of silk worm\/moth cocoons (boil, then grab the thread and pull: the whole thing is one thread) and how two-larvae cocoons can be stretched into silk comforters (wet, grab corners, and pull). It was actually kind of interesting in a the-more-you-know kind of way.<\/p>\n

Then, the flight to Yichang<\/a>, which is the site of the Three Gorges Dam<\/a> project.<\/p>\n

In Yichang, we were met by out guide Alan, who was our guide for about 4 hours. We went to an embroidery store (holy crap, embroidery is high-maintenance) and dinner. After dinner, and after our driver changed the flat tire on our van, we headed to the boat.<\/p>\n

We’re on the Century Sky for four nights. It’s apparently the largest cruise ship on the Yangtze<\/a>, and I think the concierge-guy said it was the largest riverboat in the world. So far, it seems like a damn nice way to travel. It’s about half full, and the staff apparently outnumber the guests (160-something:150-something).<\/p>\n

Oddly, probably half of the people on the boat are French Canadian. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d be trying to recall my French at the same time I’m trying to pick up a word of Mandarin a day. There’s no way there’s room for three languages in my brain: I’m ignoring the French problem. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

This morning, we took a side-trip to the dam itself. This morning was the second foggiest day in the history of the world, so it wasn’t as spectacular as it could have been. [KS: The last time I was here the weather was warm and clear on the river, but the haze up at the dam was just as thick as today’s fog. I’m pretty sure this is a clear as it gets up here.] Once it is totally completed, the dam will have 32 generators, the locks and a ship elevator. Construction on the ship elevator and the last 6 generators is currently underway. As I type this, we’re waiting to enter the first of the locks to head up into the reservoir and continue upstream from there.<\/p>\n

I’m not going to bother posting pictures today: no point in taxing our feeble Internet connection. [edit: the connection is extremely slow: this may be our last update from the boat.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re on the boat, heading up the Yangtze. If you’re reading this, then the boat’s GPRS-based Internet must have been enough to get the blog post up. Yesterday, we started in Shanghai. We made quick stop at a government silk factory. We saw how they get threads out of silk worm\/moth cocoons (boil, then grab […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions\/689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}