One crazy adventure! Part 1

The story I am about to tell took place about 4 years ago. I have told this story to many people and every time I finish telling it everyone says I should write about it. So, I decided that now is the time to do it. It will be a long story so I decided to write it in several different parts. I will try to post the whole story over the next 2 or 3 weeks.

I will begin the story by telling you a little about the culture of China and why we travel for over a month each year. I will also mention something about what we were going to see that caused this adventure.

We break up our holidays in America over a 1 1/2 month period. A week for Thanksgiving, then we go back to work or school. Then we get another break for Christmas and New Years. Well, in China they take off for about 1 1/2 month straight from school. It is at this time they have all their major celebrations. Chinese New Year, lantern festival, birthdays, etc. At this time the schools want us to leave their campus. That way they do not have to worry about us and they save money on utilities. It is to expensive to go back to America so we usually travel. (I know, traveling is so bad. Poor little Kevin. :))

My first year here in China, me and my friend Emily decided that we wanted to go to see the Three Gorges before we went south to warmer places. The Three Gorges are one of the many things you should see in China according to the Chinese and all the books on what to see or do in China. They are a series of rivers and canals that run through some mountains in central China. The Three Gorges are connected to the Yangzhe River, Asia’s longest river. It runs from the mountains of Tibet, in western China, to Shanghai, located on the east coast.

Here are some pictures for you










I will finish this blog saying one more thing about the Three Gorges. About 15 years or so ago China began to build the largest Dam in the world on the Yangtze River. This dam has caused many debates over safety and the destroying of cultural sites and relics. After the dam was completed, everything before the dam started to rise. Here is a quote from an article I found talking about how much the water will rise, "The river was blocked in June 2003 at the end of phase 2 of the construction project, and the waters started to rise. In 2004, the water was 443 feet above sea level, but will eventually reach 575 feet above sea level in 2009." That is a crazy amount of water being contained by the dam. In fact, some think the Sichuan earthquake may had been caused by all the weight added by the rising water on the fault. We decided to go see the Gorges because of the rising water. We wanted to see some sites before they were buried under. Some of the sites we got to see where just weeks away from shutting down for good. The Gorges are still there but you much less of the mountains today.

Coming soon, part 2