Three years ago today Noel Piper and I boarded a ferry in Yichang for a 36-hour run up the Yangtze River to Chongqing. It was Day 3 of our “Esther Expedition.” This photo was taken off the bow (that would be stern) of the ferry as we passed through one of the cities along the river. …
Esther Expedition
Cruising the Yangtze
The website A Luxury Travel Blog recently posted a list of the 4 best cruise ships on the Yangtze River. At almost four thousand miles long, the Yangtze is Asia’s longest river and the third longest in the world. Historically it divides the North and South of China providing a natural barrier against invaders and…
Is it a Castle? A Church? A Public Toilet?
If you can’t imagine being able to tell the difference between a building that is a castle, a building that is a church, or a building that is a public toilet, than you obviously haven’t been to China! The Shanghaiist reports on a recently-built public toilet facility in Wuhan that looks like a castle: Wuhan…
Esther Expedition Follow-up
It’s late Monday night and I find myself back in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, looking for evidence of Esther Nelson. When Noel and I were here in March, we learned that an institution in town has an extensive archive of pre-1949 mission agency documents. A friend of a friend of a friend has…
So Long, Esther (for now)
It’s hard to believe that we have come to the last day of our Esther Expedition. Our journey yesterday down from Wuhan to Guangzhou to Shenzhen to Hong Kong went like clockwork, with each successive train we were on moving more slowly. We collapsed in our hotel rooms at 4, only to rally (after eating…
Three Days, Three Cities
Noel and I are sprinting to the finish line of our Esther Expedition, which ends in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Today we flew from Chengdu to Wuhan. On Tuesdaywe take the bullet train from Wuhan to Guangzhou, then another train to the border the Hong Kong border in Shenzhen. We will cross the bridge into…