The first day on the cruise was quite relaxing. After having a great breakfast, we went to see the movie about Yangtze River. While some of us used rest of our morning time in doing laundry while others just took a nap. In the afternoon, there was a shore excursion to The Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the world, which supplies one- eighth of the China’s power supply. The sight is really a great engineering work I have ever seen. In the evening, we all were the guests at the captain’s welcome cocktail party.

After a day full of learning and exploring different things in Xi’an, we boarded the early morning train to Yichang. All of us were scattered in the train, some were in hard sleeper class while others were in soft sleeper class. Some students slept, while others were busy socializing by doing stuff like playing cards, watching movies and eating during the 14-hour train ride. It was really funny seeing people struggling to go to bathroom when the train stopped as the bathrooms are locked every time the train stops. It was a fun to buy snacks from vendors in the train. After the exhausting train ride, there was an hour-long bus ride where our cruise (Yangtze Gold 1) was docked.

We reached the airport around noon to board a plane from Dalian to Xi’an; it was a tiring day as our flight got delayed by an hour and I had to move my luggage from terminal 2 to terminal 3 and then to the bus, which was quite far away. It was really hot outside too! We reached Xi’an at around 7:00 pm where we had our dinner, which was delicious! The fried noodles were the best. After dinner we proceeded to the fountain square (largest in Asia) and saw the amazing Wild Goose Pagoda. That place was quite relaxing and had beautiful lights all around. Finally we checked into our hotel (Long Hai Hotel) at 9:30 pm.

We checked into our hotel at around 9:00 am after travelling from Beijing in soft sleeper class train. We visited the high school in the morning where we were warmly welcomed by the Chinese students and teachers. I made my first Chinese friend, Anlin, in China there. Those people at school were really very nice. They treated us with the delicious lunch and Anlin taught me to write some Chinese characters. At night it was the formal dinner with all seafood with the CEO in Dalian.

We started our second day in China by having a great breakfast followed by a long drive to the Great Wall of China, which was really incredible. It was really hard to hike the Great Wall, as the steps were uneven. Some were short and others were really high. But is was an amazing view from the top. People in China believe that a person is “HERO” if he climbs Great Wall of China and gets a certificate when he comes down. Later in a day we visited Bird’s nest and Silk Street. It was so much fun at silk street because we kept bargaining. One lady at Silk Street kept increasing the pair of Nike socks from five to fifteen at the same price.