Chongqing

Through the night we made our way to Chongqing...considered the largest city in the world with
33,000,000 people!  The city is old, sprawling, and has lots of hills...the local guide compared it to San Francisco.  There are, however, lots of very old housing areas in terrible condition...run down and very sad looking.  You see gardens along the expressways, right outside the high rise apartments, tucked in on the hills and under the roads ~ wherever they can find a few feet to plant some corn and beans. There were a lot of shanties made of cardboard as well...lots of poor people.
This morning after breakfast on the boat, we left the cruise ship and visited the Stilwell Museum.  General Joseph Stilwel was a great influence and help to China over his long career after graduating from USMA.  I'm planning to read more about him and the Flying Tigers!  The museum is in the home/office he worked from in the early forties.  They had some marvelous and historic pictures, but they are open to the elements and not protected at all...molding and fading.  Kind of sad, but very interesting.  They need to have an American historian update their commentary...over the years people have penciled in additions and corrections to their displays.  Was funny and sad at the same time. 

From the museum, we went to the large, old, beautiful zoo right smack in the middle of town.  The main attraction is their collection of 8-10 panda bears.  It was so much fun...they are just adorable.  The zoo is so well done ~ each panda is in a different environment and they have such creative furnishings in each one.  We were fortunate, the pandas were active and eating while we were there...too cute.  We spent a couple of hours there...it would not be hard to spend all day!
After a nice lunch in a pretty Art Museum restaurant, we headed to the airport for our flight to Xi'an (pronounced see-en) and our next grand adventure!