Day On The Town

Today was a fascinating day of touring Chongqing. There are 39 million people in Chongqing. It is the largest city in all of China as well as the most industrial. Imagine what the skies here look like. We were told Chongqing is the size of Austria. There are no bikes in this province due to the mountains. There are MANY cars, motorcycles, and stick boys. There are a 1,000 cars added to the streets of Chongqing a day! We have seen quite a few accidents here. We were able to go to the Three Gorges Museum. We saw a wall mural that showed how many people and towns were affected by the dam. To actually see it the way we did really put it into perspective. Some towns/cities are completely under water. The reasons the dam was built  is for flood protection, increase power by 50%, and reduce polution due to burning coal. Burning coal is the number one reason why the city always appears to be be hazy. We drove to Chongqing Eling Park. On the drive we saw caves within the mountain side that were built back during WWII. Some of them have little shops, many are locked. The park was beautiful. There were items from WWII there as well as a pagoda. On a clear day we could have seen the Yangtze river and Chongqing city sky line. The People's Great Hall is the landmark of Chongqing. The whole building has an elegant design and the colors of the building is spectacular. Especially the dome above the front gate, a typical architectural creation in Chinese sociaty. We head out to Guangzhou tomorrow afternoon. We are looking forward to meeting back up with our group and their new children. We have noticed Evan doing a full body "twitch" when he is completely relaxed. Please pray that this is nothing more than a twitch. Tomorrow's post may just be photo's. :) Cheri~ http://lovinglia.blogspot.com/