The Joe Stilwell Residence and The Flying Tigers Museum

The morning after our Yangstze River Cruise, Sunee and I pretty much had the day off from our guide, Lillian. We decided to check out the light rail system and make a short trip on it. Our hotel was only a block away from the entrance so it did not take us long to figure out how to use the system. Since this was a spur of moment decision, I had not looked in my own guidebook to find out where we would go. We just went.

When we had to decide where to buy tickets for, I looked at the choices and remembered reading something about Fotuguan station. We bought tickets to Fotuguan. It took us only around 20 minutes to get there and we had no plans as to what to do. As we walked off the platform, a Chinese janitor asked if we were going to the museum. Not a clue what museum he meant so we said "YES."

"Just down the road a couple of hundred meters on the left," he replied.

So we walked the couple of hundred meters and immediately saw The Flying Tigers Museum on our right and Joe Silwell's resident across the street on the left. Wow! These were two places I had checked off for us to visit.

Joseph (Vinegar Joe) Stilwell's residence is nice. It is a 1930s style house built on the side of the mountain overlooking the river. A great location. One thing we found - it had wonderful working American bathrooms. This is a plus for us fat old guys who have trouble squating.

Anyway, we went through the nicely done museum (cost 5 yuan) and I took a few pictures. We even bought a Flying Tigers T-shirt. Lots of history here and, if you are an Air Force guy like me, you will like it a lot. It was just a very pleasant place to see and the lady in charge was marvelous. For me it is a "must see" place.

The 1930s style residence of Stilwel located along the river

The is where the "business" took place

Had to get a picture of this wonderful antique from the era

A bust of the General outside the house near the backyard entrance

Across the street was The Flying Tiger Museum. I had read that it had only a few things attached to the Flying Tigers. It was mostly an art gallery with many works from local artists. Hey, now we are in Sunee's world. We loved the museum for the Flying Tigers stuff AND the art stuff. The people in the museum all spoke excellent English and we hung around for about an hour.

This is within easy walking distance from the Fotuguan Light Rail Station

The museum was nicely done but only offered a few real items of the Flying Tigers

I've seen this picture before so most of the pictures here looked not to be so original

The gallery really did have a large selection of Chinese traditional and modern paintings. Sunee loved it

While we were in the museum, a small group of Americans showed up with their Chinese guide. They were from North Carolina and Minnesota. Very nice group that appeared to have some vets among them. We did not get a chance to visit much but from their friendly smiles and outgoing personalities, I could see that their Chinese guide was enjoying herself. I did take their picture as they watched the local artist do a watercolor that he hoped to sell to them. He was not so lucky.


Americans come visiting

Overall the trip was great. Later we planned to return and find Eling Park which is also in the same general area. The return to Jie Fang Bei was as easy as coming. No problems.

Now it was time to prepare for the Dazu Rock Carvings adventure the next two days.