Church of the painted breast? Minnie Mowse? What am I talking about? Its something really funny that I just read, about the Nigerian email scams. I think you can find a couple of it in your junk mail folder. If not, lucky you. The article talks about how scambaiters are fighting back.
Its really funny how stupid the scammers can be, being blinded by greed. Sadly, those being scammed are even worst!
After a few months of hiatus, lets continue with my China tour. We boarded the Victoria Anna at Chongqing around 5pm++. Victoria Anna is the latest ship on Victoria Cruises fleet of 5 star cruise ships. We specifically plan on taking the Yangtze river cruise on this ship and it was worth it. Of course you can't compare this cruise ship to those huge cruise ship like those in Star Cruises fleet.
Victoria Anna
We took the downstream route which is for 4 days and 3 nights. It is the more popular route because the trip is shorter compared to the upstream route. The ship set sail at 9pm. The next day, we reach the first shore excursion to Fengdu, the City of Ghost at around 2pm.
This Stone monument is actually an incomplete and abandon hotel
The entrance
After a short bus ride to the entrance, you can choose to climb the stairs or take the ski lift to go up Mount Ming Shan. We took the ski lift up of cource but I chose to walk back down.
We were only able to visit the Ming Shan and didn't have the the time to actually go over to the Ghost Palace. On the next morning, around 6:30am the ship approaches the first gorge, Qutang Gorge.
Its a Chameleon!
At around 8:15am, its time for second shore excursion. This time we are going to take a small boat through Daning River to see the Lesser Gorges. After that, we change to an even smaller boat, a sampan actually to check out the Mini Three Gorges.
The entrance to Daning river
The sampan that we took
Back to Victoria Anna for lunch. After that around 1:45pm , we reach the second gorge, Wu gorge
We reach the last gorge, Xiling gorge around 5:30pm. Due to heavy fog, I didn't manage to take any photo. The last gorge wasn't that great anyway. The next day is the end of the cruise and the last shore excursion is to the three gorges dam.
The three gorges dam cover by heavy fog.
See more photos at Flickr
There is a sudden surge in traffic to this blog in the past week although I've not been posting anything new for a long time. No, I did not abandon this blog, I've been busy, okay? Actually, partly because I am lazy and partly I got what they call a writer's block.
Anyway, about the spike in traffic, I did a check on the stats and it seems like there is a sudden interest in the freeze dried durian which I posted late last year. Seems like a lot of people recently got to know about it and started looking for it.
If you guys find out where to buy it locally, do let me know.
Some panoramic photos that I created.
The sleeping Buddha in Dazu
A 5 picture stitch of the sleeping Buddha
Some rock carving in Dazu
Victoria Anna cruise ship
Related post:
Dazu Grottoes
Chongqing
Chengdu
The real firefox
I love beef jerky, especially Oberto beef jerky. I used to eat a lot of those while in university. Oberto jerky comes in different flavors, from original to teriyaki. Its hard and chewy.
While visiting China, I found the Chinese version of beef jerky, Zhang Fei beef. Zhang Fei was a general from the three kingdoms period. So what does a historical general got to do with beef jerky? I have no idea, let me know if you do.
The big pack.
The individual pack.
The beef meat itself.
Actually, it doesn't really qualify as a jerky because its not really dried. The meat is still moist and tender. Zhang Fei beef also comes in a variety of flavors and they even have beef tendon. It taste really good! However, both Oberto and Zhang Fei are not cheap. Good stuff don't come cheap.
