Hong Kong to Beijing

I decided to break the trip into the two segments. This was the BRRRRRR segment. Hong Kong was a shock to the system after being in Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.

Hong Kong celebrated the New Year with rain. It poured. it did not stop the fireworks though. We stood on our balcony and enjoyed the show. Even though we were not berthed in Kowloon, we still could see the fireworks. There was enough wind to blow away the black smoke, so we got to see the entire show. We had spent the morning changing cabins. We moved from a B2 to an A1. Would I do it again? Probably not on the R ships. The only advantage was that you got 2 extra reservations in the specialty restaurants. It may make a difference on the Marina or Riviera but with the Canadian dollar tanking, we would rather travel than live in luxury, so the cheaper cabins will do. This time with this portion of the cruise being so cold, an inside would have done fine as it was really too cold to stand out on the balcony.

We did take the metro and went over to Hong Kong proper today. The metro is easy to use and cheap. We took the Star Ferry over and it was not too crowded, BUT we arrived on the Hong Kong side and it was wall to wall people. If anyone stopped walking, then the everyone had to wait until they moved again. People were selling fake goods on the elevated walkways and it caused congestion with a capital C. I am not a person who likes crowds, so I will openly say, I would never come to Hong Kong during Chinese New Year ever again. We met up with a couple who had arrived a couple of days early who stayed with friends and they said that the population of Hong Kong almost doubles for New Year. Too many people and if you go to see the parade or the fireworks, you need to leave before it is over otherwise you will triple your travel time to get home.

Since the rain was so heavy, there was puddles everywhere, and once we decided we were wet enough we headed back to the ship to dry off.

We also spent the next day in Hong Kong, and we wandered around Kowloon, found a really nice park, and did a lot of people watching and the best part was it was not raining. I prefer Kowloon to Hong Kong and it was not as crowded with people. The New Year decorations are worth seeing and we saw some pretty decorated sheep all over the place. There are bargains to be found at this time and the stores were willing to bargain. If you want to eat in restaurants, be prepared to wait 45 minutes or more to get a table, as there are just too many people visiting and living here.

Ship docks at Keelung. This is the rainy side of the island, so beware when you cross the mountain you will probably have much nicer weather than you have in Keelung. The port was quite modern and easy to navigate.

We used a company called My Taiwan Tours. Our guides name was Kelly and if you luck out and get her for a guide you will have an incredible day. The company is very good responding to emails and arranged a tour that combined the city of Taiwan also with a tour to their national park. We had a couple join our group at the last minute and the company was very accommodating.

Kelly has a tae kwan do black belt with 4 commendations and is an instructor but prefers to be a tour guide. She informed us it was much easier to deal with tourists than parents of children. She explained the dating culture of Taiwan and had us laughing so hard we almost cried. It is quite unique as most young people do not date until they go to university as their parents have them involved in extra tutorials, sports, music etc that they do not have time to date while in high school. Very regimented life and very strong parental control. Once the youth get into university, it is their first taste of freedom from parental control. For a male to date, he must own a scooter, otherwise he is not dateable material. A girl does not need to own a scooter. Class dates are arranged and when the group is put together the organizers make sure there is an equal number of male and female students so no one will be left out. I am not going to tell all the tales of the dating as that would spoil your tour if you had Kelly for a tour guide.

Now to get back to the tour. WE were picked up at 8 am. We were driven to the Yangmingshan National Park, with a slight detour to see the university and a view of Taipei. While we were in the park, we went for a hike and got to enjoy the cherry blossom show. The park is quite diverse in plants and trees as well has several villages that populate the park and provide services. We then went to see the Beitou Hot Spring Area (Thermal Valley). Lots of quaint hotels, no sulphur odour, beautiful green coloured water. After the hot springs we did a driving tour of Taipei, so saw the famous 101 Tower as well as many other areas of Taipei. Kelly made a stop at a store to purchase Taiwan beer for the beer drinkers in our group, as one of their objectives was to try beer from each country they visited. We then left the sunny side of Taiwan to head back to the port where it was raining the same way it was when we arrived.

Kelly was very knowledgeable about the history of Taiwan and the culture of Taiwan. She was probably the best tour guide that we had while cruising this time.

The tour company will design a tour for you that is not just what the ship offers. I found them very easy to deal with and highly recommend them.

It was a short cruise to Naha. Nice sunny day and surprisingly warm. There was a free shuttle bus into town, which we took. They dropped you off on the main shopping street which was close to the monorail.

We had talked to the port guide while still on the ship and decided to do Naha on our own. Actually quite easy to do. We had found out that if you bought a day pass for the monorail, you would get a discount on entrance fees for most attractions, so off we went to purchase a day pass. We figured out all we needed to do was use it 3 times and we were past the breakeven point. We took the monorail to the very last station where we walked to the castle. This was well worth seeing and we spent probably a good 2 hours here. They had locals dressed in the the costumes of the period and there were lots of English signs so that you knew what you were looking at. Oh, by the way a 20% discount on the entrance fee because we had the day pass. The one spot you really could skip was the gift shop. Prices here were approx. 100% higher than what you could purchase items for in the market.

After seeing the castle, we then wandered back to the monorail station and enjoyed our trip back to a stop part way, where we decided to go see the market. We did take more than a slight detour once we got off the monorail, so we saw parts of Naha, I don't think anyone else from the ship saw. Some very nice locals gave us some good directions and we arrived at the market. I always find the local market fascinating as you see the locals in action. You could purchase your seafood fresh, take it to a restaurant to be cooked, and your dinner cost you around $12 US for 2. We found there was always a Japanese citizen who would come up and practice their English on us which we appreciated as our Japanese was very limited. The fact that we had learned how to say thank you in Japanese was appreciated.

Once we wandered out of the market, we realized that we had missed the last shuttle back to the ship, so we decided to walk back as it was only 2 km. We took the monorail back to where the shuttle had originally dropped us off, so we could trace our way back. I finally figured out why my BH brings his GPS with him. He says it is for tagging his pictures, but I think otherwise. It was the end of the day for most workers, so we were walking with a lot of locals. I loved the way the pedestrian crossing signs would let you know if you had to hurry to get across the street, (the person walking would start running on the sign) or if you could enjoy the sites as you crossed the street. We saw some very interesting buildings and flower gardens on our way back to the ship. After 30 minutes, we arrived back at the port (not because we are slow walkers, but because there was too many interesting things, or so he thought for my BH to take pictures of).

There was free wifi at the port, and we quickly joined the crew in taking advantage of it. Much faster than the ships. We were able to talk to our kids and the dog (she mopes when mom is away), and get off some necessary emails as well as send a few pictures home.

In Japan at each port, there was an exchange table, so you could obtain Japanese yen. They also had a tourist information booth where you could get maps as well. There was also some tourist trinkets being sold, and the prices at the port were roughly the same as they were in town. I admit that I do collect at times fridge magnets, and I did find a few in Japan, of the plastic food type (amazing how realistic they are).

for your detailed reports! We are taking a similar route (at least some of the ports) in '17 on X so I'm really enjoying your info re what to see & do and the guide suggestions!! LuAnn

We overnighted here so that there was one full day for sightseeing and a half day for sightseeing. This is the first port where all of a sudden we noticed the cold. Poor Dottie was standing by the door with her coat on, earmuffs on and no gloves. She was telling everyone to dress warmly. The poor reception staff were wearing toques and coats trying to stay warm as the wind just howled through the door (okay, I may be exaggerating a bit, but when that cold wind came through it was cold in the atrium) All the staff that had to work the card machines, security, and handing out water looked cold.

Oceania did have a shuttle to downtown Kobe. The tourist agency provided us with maps for the sites to see in the city. We arrived downtown and got off the bus to discover that Chinatown was across from the bus stop. We crossed the street to get there and had fun exploring Chinatown. There was a couple of groups of school age children sightseeing there as well for the Asian New Year and it was amusing to watch them as they were choosing their treats at the street vendors. The plastic food outside the various restaurants was very realistic and you could order simply by pointing. We found the workers very willing to practice their English on us and they identified several dishes that we were not familiar with. From Chinatown we found several side streets and followed one where we ran into Rollo, the ships video producer busy taking pictures.

The street from Chinatown went to the covered shopping street. Big sales everywhere for the Asian New Year. We found the 100 Yen Store (equivalent to our $1 store) and had fun looking through it. We found a pair of gloves for Dottie, you guessed it 100 yen so that she could have warm hands. I was also looking for something unique to put in birthday bags when I get home as my Trefoil Group puts together a birthday bag for a child whose parents cannot afford to put together a birthday party. I found some neat things which will be put to good use in the near future. We looked at a lot the restaurants that were advertising Kobe beef, looked at the prices and decided we would eat dinner on the ship. One of the couples that were on our Trivia team did go go out for Kobe beef and ended up paying over $200 US for their dinner. Their comment was that it was very expensive and that the Kobe beef on the ship was just as good. We continued wandering down the covered shopping street and discovered that we were very close to the port at the end of it. We then just proceeded to wander down and look at the ferris wheel, get some nice pictures of the Nautica in port and headed back to the ship as the rain was starting to get heavier. For people watching, this was an excellent way to see the city and watch the locals in action.

The port building is rather unique and walking back created a longer walk as we had to walk up several flights of steps, walk down the outside balcony until we found doors that we could enter the terminal with, found the lonely tourist shop inside (pricey), took an escalator down to get down to the car floor, and finally was able to access the ship. We felt justified eating a three course dinner that night after all our walking.

Oh I forgot, when we arrived in Kobe, there was a band playing music for us. A nice welcome. Each Japan port had some sort of entertainment to welcome us into the port.

The next day we took a ships tour to Nara and Osaka. Now the only reason we did the ships tour is that I looked into private tours and they were going to cost us more than the ships tour due to the Asian New Year and the guides not wanting to work. We took the highway from Kobe to Nara. What was boring about this ride is that they have sound barriers along the sides of the elevated highway to stop the auto noise from bothering the apartments nearby. There were tunnels as well to go through. The first temple we arrived at in Nara had wild deer running freely through the grounds. Beware of these deer, they bite. One of our group found out the hard way as the deer came up to her and bit her on the knee. It drew blood, so the deer meant business. She did not have food for it, and the deer was not happy about it. The temple has been rebuilt several times due to fire, but they built a replica each time, but it kept decreasing in size.

The Japanese temples are different than the Hindu temples. They seem to mix a bit of Shinto with Buddhism.

From the temple we went to a Shinto shrine. The women wore very colourful kimonos and wore a wisteria blossom in their hair. Lots of lanterns, all different shapes and sizes. We saw one of the monks in a very colourful gown on our way back to the bus.

From here they took us to a hotel in Nara for lunch. Each tour member had a bento box. With the bento box came miso soup, a salad and several other items. It was delicious, but the big surprise was that you could have one drink included with your lunch. The choice was sake, beer, wine or soda ( I think). Those of us who chose the sake, were quickly finding others to share the sake with as we received a large serving of warm sake. It was good, but just a bit too much to drink if we were going to stay awake for the afternoon tour of the castle at Osaka. Coming out from lunch we saw a wedding reception. We were fortunate to be allowed to take pictures of the wedding party in their very beautiful kimonos and whatever it is that the men wear. The little children were dressed up beautifully and posed for us with their parents in their formal wear. The tour guide was trying to herd us to the bus so that we could continue on with our tour, but we were all taken with the young children and the beautiful kimonos. The bus ride was about an hour to Osaka from Nara.

The castle walls were quite formidable, but quite a bit has been rebuilt or is being rebuilt as it was destroyed during the war. The Japanese like to respect their heritage and therefore rebuild rather than destroy it like so many other countries are doing. The pagoda was intricate and you are able to go up to the top to get a wonderful view of Osaka. The choice here was to go up an elevator to floor 5 and then walk the last two floors or walk up all the way. Some of the group decided to walk all the way up and the rest of us took the elevator. It took us a bit longer, but it was worth not having to climb all those steps. You have to walk down them, but on each floor they have a display showing the history of the castle and Osaka. On the bottom floor there was a small gift shop that was reasonably priced but very small. The guide was in a hurry to get everyone back to the bus and set off at a pace that was too fast for a lot of the tour group. Several of us realized that we needed to keep her in sight with a few of the fast walkers and keep the slower walkers aware of which direction we were walking. Because we looked out for each other, no one got lost and everyone made it back to the bus safely.

I really don't know what her hurry was, because we got back to the port 45 minutes before we were supposed to arrive. We did take advantage of the extra time at the port to enjoy the entertainment and get warmed up on the ship.

Rain again. We just can't seem to get away from it. But the day did get brighter, the sun was out after lunch and we redid the pictures we did in the rain in the morning. There was entertainment on the dock again, I just don't remember what. The entertainment was better at the other ports.

A shuttle took us to the Peace Park, but it seemed to take a long time to get there. The shuttle first stopped at a shopping mall and needless to say no one got off and the bus driver seemed quite surprised when we all said Peace Park. A lot of one way streets, so it does take a while to get downtown. The buses provided were spotlessly clean and comfortable, so you just basically had to sit back and wait until you got to town.

Since it was pouring at the time we arrived at the Peace Museum, we decided to do the museum first as we could stay dry this way. We spent over 2 hours in the museum and it was very moving. The Japanese certainly are promoting peace and after being in the museum, you can understand why. The one item that stands out in my mind was the tricycle ridden by a 3 year old boy that the family had donated to the museum. The museum was very crowded with Japanese tourists celebrating the Asian New Year, but all the exhibits were explained in Japanese as well as English. There was also areas where you could get several other languages as well. They had videos in certain areas which were well worth watching and the best part was that they had seats for you to sit and watch.

After we came out of the museum, we walked through the Peace Park and were able to identify several of the memorials set up as well the few structures that were left after the bomb. They give you directions so that you can walk to "O: centre.

After we left Peace Park, we went to the covered shopping arcade. It was a way to avoid the heavy rain at the time, allowed one to people watch, watch the Japanese taking advantage of the New Year Sales. We were looking for a particular restaurant that our daughter had told us about. The dish Hiroshima is famous for is called okonomiyaki. It is like a crepe, filled with noodles, green onions,shrimp, squid, cheese and a few other tasty vegetables on top of a fried egg. We found the restaurant as a result of one very nice restaurant owner who had a store where they sold teriyaki meals, His restaurant was on a side street opposite side to the bank building left standing, closer to Peace Park. We continued along the side street to the corner, turned right, turned left at the next street and on the next corner was the restaurant. Yummy. We shared one as our daughter had warned us they were huge. We got funny looks from the waitress when we ordered only one, but we were mighty glad we did only order one. It was about 2 inches thick full of goodies, and the size of a medium size platter. I watched in amazement as the locals who are tiny, ate the whole thing. After we finished lunch, we headed back to the shopping street to get back to the Peace Park and lo and behold the sun came out. The temperature switched quickly from cold to quite warm.

We found the Victim (Peace) Museum and spent quite a bit of time here reading about the various people that had perished during the war. A lot of innocent people paid with their lives for the glory of a few politicians who wanted to go to war. My opinion only. about who wanted to go to war after listening to the various presentations. We redid several pictures as there was now a blue sky, and headed back for the shuttle bus as we did not want to miss it.

The bus was fully loaded and we took the longest time to get back to the ship. Sometimes we wondered if the driver knew where he was going. We ended up having to go back to the shopping mall we had stopped at on our way in to pick up some passengers there and on our way to the shopping mall passed the ship twice. We could not quite figure out why we had to go back to the mall when the shuttle still had one more run to do and would be stopping there to pick up people on the last run.

Finally we arrived at the port. Free wifi again. Lots of crew taking advantage of it. They had a few vendors selling souvenirs at reasonable prices inside the terminal and a fair number of the passengers were trying to use up the last of their yens before they boarded the ship. Just outside the port building, they had a tent set up where they were selling sake. Well, we bought a small package to bring home so that our kids could try it. WE both remembered the sake in Nara and that is what encouraged us to purchase the sake to bring home. They also had some entertainment, but it was raining again, and I felt sorry for the performers. Lots of puddles, but they were quite happy to be entertaining the ship passengers.

Most of us once we got on board headed for our cabins to change clothes so we could be warm and dry again. It was a good thing that I had brought my hiking boots with me, because they kept my feet toasty warm and dry.

If you are going to travel to Japan in March, make sure you bring several layers of clothing. It can be cold, there can be snow, and it can be wet. The best time to see the cherry blossoms is the last week of March, early April.

We got to see the cherry blossoms in Taiwan and they were beautiful.

One general comment about Japan. It is so clean. The WC's are clean and yes they have as we nicknamed them squatty potties. By the end of this cruise most of us had conquered the squatty potties and had no problems with them. The people are friendly and really appreciate when we try to speak a few words of Japanese to them.

We want to go back to Japan, but will do a land tour next time, as the ship just does not give you enough time to see everything. There is so much to see and appreciate in Japan.

No Fuss...keep those excellent reviews coming....I've cut and paste every one for our RTW16 into a travel document!!! c

No Fuss...keep those excellent reviews coming....I've cut and paste every one for our RTW16 into a travel document!!! c

I have some more to come. We had 3 ports in China and 1 port in Korea. China we used a private guide which we were very pleased with and Korea we did on our own. Some good stories for that one.

A good thing there was a sea day after Japanese ports. I would estimate that probably 40% of the passengers had not brought warm enough clothes with them for the weather we were encountering. The temperatures dipped as low as -7 celsius, which for those coming from Florida, it was darn cold. The stores were open and doing a brisk business in warm coats, fleecies, sweatshirts, long sleeved shirts, warmer pants, and so on. I think the fact that so many people got cold, they caught the cold, cough and flu that others brought on board with them. At this point my BH and myself were still managing not to catch the bug, but it took down two of the entertainment staff. People were being quarantined, but that did not mean that they obeyed the quarantine.

This was a different mixture of nationalities for a cruise. We had several Asians embark in Hong Kong and disembark in Shanghai, to be replaced with more Asians in Shanghai. The ship was not full as there was 60 cabins unoccupied we were told. We had a fair number of Europeans on board coming from Germany, Britain (not sure if they like being called Europeans), French, Dutch, Spanish, Italians and some others from various other countries. There were very few Aussies on this particular sailing, and yes Americans were the majority, but the next largest group was Canadians.

Dottie scheduled most of the Big O activities inside as it was too cold outside. A few of us went outside to play table tennis, but we were well bundled up and made use of Oceania's blankets to stay warm. Waves was pretty well deserted for this cruise as it was just too cold to eat out there. Thankfully I had eaten more than my fair share of Surf and Turf on the previous cruise, so I managed with either the Terrace or the GDR for lunch. I felt with the addition of the grill in the Terrace that the lunch selection was not as good as before and the salad bar was definitely not as good. They did several theme nights in the Terrace and since I am not a fan of curry and Mexican food, there was several nights when I had no choice but to eat in the GDR. On the whole the GDR was good, but there was a couple of nights where because the menu does repeat itself after 14 days, I wish there had a been a bigger choice.

Polo and Toscana tended to have larger servings than the GDR, which meant you felt more than sufficiently satisfied if you ate every thing on your plate. I am happy to say that I did show restraint and only gained 2 pounds over 35 days. The 2 pounds has now disappeared that I am home and back to eating less dessert (loved those creme brûlées and Key Lime pies) and more vegetables. I do wish that Oceania would serve less cauliflower as when you ordered steamed vegetables, you would somehow get more cauliflower than any other vegetable. I loathe anchovies and after the anchovies appeared on my Caesar salad one night and I made them disappear as well as the cheese they contaminated much to the amusement of the dining room staff. After that there was a lot of jokes about anchovies and all the dining room staff knew that I did not like them.

More people on this cruise used the GDR for breakfast as quite often we did not arrive in port until 10 or 11 am, and the Terrace was always crowded for breakfast and hard to find a table. Part of the reason funnily enough was that there were a lot of single people cruising and they would eat here but did not want to share a table. We found that the omelettes in the GDR were way superior to those being cooked in the Terrace cafe. Mercy from the Philippines in the GDR made the best English muffins on the entire ship. Nicely toasted, soft and hot. Yummy. The only grumble I had was as usual the ship ran out of peppermint (mint) tea before the end of the cruise. They had lots of Chamomile, but very few people drank that. They need to order more mint and yes I did write that on my comment sheet. We definitely had our favourite waiters and occasionally would get another waiter that just didn't come up to the same standards as the others.

Katie Mussler (and I probably spelled her name incorrectly) was a great social hostess. She is hoping with the merger to be able to be a social hostess on one of the Oceania or NCL ships. Her dream is one day to be CD and with her personality, she will make an excellent one. All of the performers that are currently under contract with Jean Ryan are having to audition again for NCL as they are doing their own shows. This includes all of the musicians as well, which some of them are not too happy about as they have been performing for Oceania for several years now. The string quartet was excellent as well as Constantine the pianist.

Now the only thing I really had any complaints about the cabin was, that we had a lot of wind storms, and the wind managed to find every crack in the sliding door and made our cabin floor icy cold. They did try to fix the door, but the difference in temperature from waist level to foot level was 6 degrees Celsius. The only reason we knew was that my BH carries a thermometer with him, heaven only knows why. We would take all the cushions, camera bags, etc and place them along the curtains at night to stop the wind from blowing through. We had some pretty good storms, as the noise would wake you up at night and you could feel the whole ship shudder or at least it felt like that when you were being bounced in bed. We were in the middle of the ship, so it was not quite as bad as those occupying cabins fore and aft. In the morning because it was so cold, the windows would be covered with condensation as the outside temperature was so cold, and inside it was warm. We saw icicles on the outside railings and on the upper decks you did have to watch out for icy patches. I was sure glad for this cruise that we did not have to tender into any port. I would have stayed onboard, just to stay warm. BRRRRRRRRRRRR. It was actually warmer in Vancouver than it was in the various Asian ports. Fortunately I ski, so I had taken some of my ski garments with me so I did stay toasty warm. My toque was on just about every day after we arrived in Japan and I appreciated my warm gloves. Some people were covering their faces with scarves as they were too cold.:eek:

Thanks No Fuss. We are considering a similar itinerary in the future and have enjoyed reading your posts. :)

Bev

Wow has Shanghai changed from when we were last there in 2008. The can opener was the tallest building and now it is dwarfed by many others.

For China we used the same agency. It was called Beijing Discovery Tours. The gentleman I emailed with on a fairly regular basis was Jeff. You need to watch your typing for this one as there are two companies with very close names, and one typo will have you talking to the wrong company. I researched this company through Trip Advisor and they had good ratings. I was more than satisfied with my dealings. Emails were returned promptly, and all questions asked were dealt with. We had several adjustments at the very end and Jeff was very accommodating for us. The vehicles supplied had competent drivers and were comfortable. The tour guides particularly in Dalian and Beijing were top notch. The one in Shanghai was good, but her English was not quite as good as the three we had in Dalian and Beijing.

Our tour guides name was Caroline in Shanghai. She met us promptly at the port and as soon as we were able to exit the ship we were on our way. For the first day which started at 2:30 pm due to late docking, we went to Zhouzhuang Water Village. As we had a late start, we arrived in the village around dusk. Before we wandered through the village, we had a WC break at what the tour guide described as the best WC in the village. I am glad that I was not on a bus tour as it would have taken forever for everyone to use the WC.

This village is set up for tourists. Lots of shops selling fake silk comforters (they were not the real thing honestly) and other paintings, etc that China is famous for. What we found quite interesting is that to close their shops they use planks to board them up. There is no central heating here at all and the owners of the various shops were huddled around a heater trying to stay warm. We were all glad that we were wearing warm shoes, gloves, Toques, heavy jackets and several layers underneath the jackets. We all looked like we had overindulged on the ship eating and could do with losing a good forty pounds or more. That tells you how many layers we had on to stay warm. After taking our pictures of the village, we were taken for a boat ride along the many canals. This was the magical part of the evening. After the Chinese New Year, they have a lantern festival. All along the canals, the lanterns were lit as the sun went down and the buildings were illuminated by the lanterns. This village has not torn down its historical buildings and gives you a feel for a more traditional Chinese village. AsI said before it was magical and you definitely appreciated the beauty.

Once we got off the boat, we then went to Mao Tse Dung museum. You were not allowed to take pictures inside of the collection, but it gave you a feel for the times he ruled. After that we went to a very rich merchants home that has been preserved and turned into a museum. After having driven through some areas which were not very prosperous and the housing was ?????, this home showed the disparity between the wealthy and the poor.

After touring the building, we then went for what they called a Snack Dinner. We really did not understand why they called it a snack. There were many courses and they served us a traditional Chinese New Year meal. The meal included a cooked pigs foot, which is very traditional for the Chinese. Yes, we all tried it and it was very tender and tasted quite good. There were several other dishes which included seafood, chicken, pork, vegetables and so on. Of course they had the plain rice which sopped up the sauces from the dishes nicely. We all enjoyed the Chinese tea as it was hot and it warmed up our hands. They had a stove inside the restaurant to give some heat and we were glad that there was ten of us on the tour as we sat at a round table fairly close to each other which helped to conserve our body heat.

Now for the disgusting part of the day. We don't think the WC in the restaurant had been cleaned for days. The American toilet was black with heaven knows what and the squatty potties were not quite clean, but much better than the American toilet. The door latches were broken so one member of our group stood guard, while another used the facilities. I think if we had all seen the WC before dinner, we would have eaten there. Remember I told you that the one WC we used before the tour when we arrived the tour guide had told us was the best. The one at the restaurant was probably the worst WC we encountered our whole time in China. Do remember to bring toilet paper with you. More often than not there isn't any in the WC's. Also remember to bring something to clean your hands with, as soap is scarce and paper towels do not seem to exist and the hand dryers more often than not don't work. Also, it is not hot water, it is cold water that you wash your hands in. BRRRRRRRRRR.

After this we walked back to our van to go back to the ship. It was a fairly pleasant ride as the traffic was not heavy, so the driver did not have to keep stopping in the highway parking lot. We arrived back to the ship around 9:30 pm knowing that we had an 8:30 am pickup the next day.

I will continue the next two days in separate postings as this one will just become too long and too boring.:D:eek:

I'm sorry...if you mentioned this I did not see it? Just wondering as we are going to some of these ports in early April of '17! LuAnn

I'm sorry...if you mentioned this I did not see it? Just wondering as we are going to some of these ports in early April of '17! LuAnn

We left Hong Kong on February 22nd and arrived home on March 12th. Their usual weather pattern indicated that it would be warmer than what it was.

Wow has Shanghai changed from when we were last there in 2008. The can opener was the tallest building and now it is dwarfed by many others.

 

Try 1985 :D

At that time there was NOTHING in Pudong across the river but a few shabby little warehouses along the river bank -no buildings of any kind, never mind skyscrapers. Nobody even went to the other side. Millions of bicycles and very few cars.

No fuss - thank you for taking the time for this excellent travel report. We will be visiting that area next year and I am taking notes.

Try 1985 :D

At that time there was NOTHING in Pudong across the river but a few shabby little warehouses along the river bank -no buildings of any kind, never mind skyscrapers. Nobody even went to the other side. Millions of bicycles and very few cars.

No fuss - thank you for taking the time for this excellent travel report. We will be visiting that area next year and I am taking notes.

Pudong is now full of well lit up buildings of all sorts of fancy shapes. Very beautiful to look at in the dark. One could get excellent pictures of the lights from the ship. There was one geometric building that definitely stood out from the rest when it was lit up at night. They don't leave the lights on all night though. I guess they are conserving some energy.

We were up and at it at 6:30 am to have breakfast so that we could be ready for our tour pickup at 8:30 am. We actually beat Caroline our guide to the meeting place by about 5 minutes as everyone was ready to disembark at 8:15. We were one of the first groups to leave that day.

Sunny and cold. You were bundled up for the cold wind and mighty glad to get inside the car to tour again outside of Shanghai. Today we drove to Hangzhou which was about a 3 hour drive from where the boat was docked in Shanghai. None of the ships tours came to this particular town. We drove to the Flower Park for our first stop and had a nice walk through the park, taking time to admire the flowers, the colourful fish in the lake, the unique pagodas, and the many different birds. Once we finished our walk we had a boat ride on the man made lake(this one was made many years ago, pre-Mao) From the lake you could see the Father, Mother and Son Pagoda. It was interesting watching all the different types of boats plying the lakes with tourists. As it was Chinese New Year, a lot of Chinese were doing the tourist trips.

After we got back on the van we drove to Longjin Village to have lunch. Very tasty and the best part, western toilets. After lunch we went to Longjin Tea Village. We were taken to a tea company of the famous Longjin Tea. It can only be grown in this area and it is supposed to be the best Chinese tea in the world. We were first given a demonstration of how they dried and processed the tea leaves. After this demonstration we were taken into a building for a tea drinking demonstration. The best part here was that they had a heater in the room, did I mention that we up high in the mountain and that it was very very cold. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. We were given 3 different grades of tea to smell and to be honest I didn't quite smell a huge difference between the 3 different grades. The helper then took the boiling water and very gracefully dipping the kettle twice for each glass put water into the glass. The glasses were then passed to each of us sitting around the table. It was then explained to us that if we place our eyes at the top of the glass, the steam from the tea would make our eyes feel better. Actually it did. I don't know why. After we had all warmed up our hands on the glasses, the helper came by and filled up all the glasses to be full. We then had to wait for the tea to steep. and they explained to us how we should drink the tea. To be honest I am not that fond of Chinese tea, so I didn't really care for it. After we had all drunk our tea, the sales pitch started. First of all she promoted green tea pills guaranteed to solve all your health problems and to keep you younger looking. If you took 6 pills a day, you would no longer be diabetic, have stomach problems and so on. Then the price. For 250 pills, $60 US and if you bought 3 bottles she would throw in a small bag of number 1 grade tea. She then tried to sell tea and it was very expensive as well. If you bought a certain amount then she would give you a small bag of the same quality. There was 3 different different grades of tea. I am afraid our tour group just didn't enjoy the finer points of the quality of tea we were drinking and none of us purchased it. One couple did buy some of the pills and decided they would try them.

Back to the van and on to the Linguini Temple and Flying Peak. This was probably the highlight of day for sites to see. There are carvings of different monks in the cave and once you get to the temple which is an active one, the carvings are incredible. They have carvings of protector Buddha, and one building that has 500 carvings of the head monks. The monks are supposed to live forever and they are carved so everyone can see them. The monks were at prayer services when we were there and it was beautiful to listen to. The drum was huge that was being played for the service.

It was getting dull and everyone was ready to go back to the ship at this time. Our driver took some interesting detours to bypass traffic in order to get us back to the ship in a reasonable time. We arrived back in time to have a late dinner and then head straight to bed as we were meeting our guide at 7 am the next day.

What a wonderful port to have 2 overnights. There is so much to see and do in Shanghai and the surrounding area. For those wondering, all in our group had either been to Shanghai before or they were taking a tour of China after they disembarked in Beijing and would be doing all of the city tours at that time.

We were off the ship for a 7 am pickup. This is one of the rare days when we ordered room service since the dining options did not allow us breakfast in time to get off the ship. We were the first passengers to leave for the day, so when we arrived in the lobby it was still warm as the doors were not open. We disembarked and found our tour guide easily. Today was a shorter tour as we had to be back on board by 3 pm.

We went to Suzhou. This is a major silk town and has several gardens that are quite unique. Fortunately when the communists took over, they did not destroy the gardens. We had been to the Master of the Nets Garden before, but it was completely different viewing it in the winter versus the summer. There were several Chinese tourists visiting and we were very worthy of having our pictures taken by them. I think our toques were fascinating them and the fact that we were not citizens of China made us photograph material. Through sign language, we communicated quite well and it made the gardens even more enjoyable. The group made a joint decision to skip the Lingering Garden, as it is best seen in the spring or summer and instead went on our boat ride on the canals. It was fascinating seeing how the houses were built and how they had used the canals over the years for marketing, transportation and access to their dwellings. All the houses were squeezed together but the architecture was very definitely Asian. Very crowded living conditions, but the people are looked very happy.

After we returned to the dock, we got on our van and headed for the silk factory. Yes, we visited but none of the group had seen how silk was made and wanted to see how it was done. We were the only tourists visiting the factory and a a private tour for the eight of us. The lady at the factory had excellent English, and the video showing the growth cycle of the silk worm was well done. Also it was warm inside the factory and they had wonderful clean western toilets. This was the first time that was toilet paper provided as well as paper towels to dry your hands. They showed us how they sorted the pupas and explained why some were used for silk material, others were used for stuffing inside comforters and so on. They also demonstrated the difference between real silk and lookalikes. Once we finished watching the workers unwind the cocoons to make a silk thread (takes 8 cocoons to make one thread), we moved on to look at machinery making the silk material. It was quite interesting how they use a pattern cut out in heavy cardboard that has the machine feed the correct colours to make the proper pattern. After that we went into a room and were allowed to try to stretch a small piece of silk for the lining of a comforter. it was the battle of the sexes. The men took pictures of the ladies pulling on the small piece of silk and made too many comments about how the ladies did not do a good job. We then got the men to do the same job. The lady workers laughed at the men they did such a rotten job of stretching the silk. The ladies needed a little bit of adjustment by them, but the men's attempt needed major adjustments before they could go back to work. Of course, once we finished this demonstration, we were into the duvet/comforter shop. The lady giving us the tour told us that she used two of these silk comforters to sleep in for the winter as her house has no heat. We were excellent consumers here and we all ended up purchasing comforters knowing that we had the real thing and not imitation. They also have a huge store complex that you get to walk through and they sell all sorts of products made out of silk. Beautiful clothes and accessories as well as trinkets to remember your trip by. They were amazed as we all kept walking and did not purchase any of the temptations they were offering. To be honest I had been to the same factory in 2008, so I did not need anything in this part of the store. There is a restaurant attached to the factory and we had lunch here. The lunch provided was more than adequate and very good.

We then checked to make sure our comforters had been loaded into the van while we were eating and headed back to Shanghai. Due to the holiday, the traffic was light so we had time to drive down the Bund before we returned to the ship. The ship had moved from the time we got off in the morning to the time we got back on after our tour. They were building something on a barge in front of us so they needed to ship to back up.

We were sad to see the end of Shanghai as we had a very good time. here. On the whole the food in Shanghai was better than the food in Hong Kong and Beijing. There is a distinct difference in the type of food served depending on what part of China you are visiting.

Such a great travel report.

I am so happy to read about your 'tour experiences', the descriptions of your excursions give us a good idea of what to expect on this itinerary.

Your review is a refreshing change from the endless posts on how good, bad, hot, cold the food is on the ship.

Thanks for taking the time to post, much appreciated .:)

Yes, we did this one on our own. Tried several suggestions for tour guides and had absolutely no response from any of them. Read the boards, and decided we could do it on our own.

Had to take the shuttle into town, but it drops you off right at the train station. Perfect for getting to Seoul. The drop off point is also a good way to see Incheon if you don't want to go into Seoul. The Chinatown is right across from the station and several people said that they found it interesting and worth walking through.

The train ride to Seoul was uneventful, but the trip back was something else. I will tell this tale a little later in my write up. Just wanted to spark your interest to keep you reading the rest of the blurb.:D You need to take the train to the City Hall station. The machines at the train station are also in English, so it is easy to obtain your train ticket. If you are a senior, I think there was a senior rate. The train ride took around an hour plus, but it was interesting to look around. When we got to Seoul, we came out of the station and we were lucky because ....

the changing of the guard ceremony was on. The uniforms are very colourful, and the motions they go through are quite interesting. They have music to go along with the changing of the guard and yes I would recommend it. After the ceremony is over, you can get your picture taken with one of the guards. These are probably the brightest and most cheerful uniforms I have ever seen at a palace or parliament. After watching, we then decided to enter the palace grounds. They have a map written in English and signs posted throughout the grounds explaining what you are seeing. It is well worth going to and quite often you can hear the guides explaining to their tour group what that particular building is for and how it is used.

Once we were finished looking at the palace, we went to city hall where a protest was taking place, so we decided not to stay around. Instead we walked down to the old City Gate, which due to construction was a bit difficult to get to. It was quite picturesque and we were glad we figured out how to get to it. We used the underground passageway to get back to the main street and discovered the underground market. Different, but very crowded aisles and we had to laugh at some of the items we found for sale. Not telling what we found as that would spoil your surprise when you go there. We then tried to backtrack out way out of the underground market and finally found our way up to the street level.

We started back to the main street to get back to the train station when we accidentally stumbled on the main street market. Famine food could be found here plus many very different types of food. The merchants were not pushy and it was quite interesting to walk down the street. Goes on for blocks. The only problem was that it was going away from the train station and not towards it. We had to ask directions from the tourist guides a couple of times to get back to the station, which we were successful at doing.

Looking at the traffic in Seoul, we made the right decision to take the train rather than using a taxi. Talk about congestion.

We got on the train at the City Hall station after purchasing our tickets. You do have to use Korean currency which was available at the ship.

The trip home. We found seats and were watching as more and more people came on board. All of a sudden there was a scuffle as three older men fought for the one remaining seat. One was seated and another one yarded him out of the seat and sat down in his place. The one who was rudely yarded out of his seat, just about fell into my BH's lap, but managed to stay on his feet. He kept bowing to us and saying sorry, or at least that is what we think he was saying. Then the three men took out their wallets and were showing their government ID to all the passengers around them, to show who was the oldest and therefore entitled to the seat. This must have taken about 15 minutes of the ride up before they agreed that the one who had been booted out of seat was the oldest and the other man then had to give up his seat for him. They then proceeded to start kicking each other. At this point we didn't know where to look and all of a sudden we had all three of them facing us and bowing and saying something. (think it was sorry) They then wanted us to take a picture of them. After a few more kicks at each other it was time for them to get off the train, and the oldest man kept bowing to us as he backed off the train. One of the other ones grabbed him to make sure he got off before the doors shut. Another man who was sitting beside these characters, laughed when they got off and said to us, Funny, funny men. Act like little boys." He then asked if we would like our picture taken of us on the train, so we managed to get our pictures taken while onboard the train. It made for an entertaining ride and we laughed all the way back to the meeting point for the shuttle.

The shuttle did not turn up when it should have and there was quite a few passengers gathered there wondering how we would get back to the ship. Several crew members who were supposed to be back on board were also caught there, and all the passengers told them we would let the officers know that the shuttle bus never came. They did not get in trouble as we were all grumbling about the lack of shuttle bus when we got back to the ship. It was standing room only on that bus. It was also bitterly cold.

Korea is not as pretty as other countries. It seemed barren to me, but the people were very welcoming. They have bomb shelters all over the city as it is so close to the North Korea border.

Would I go back to Korea, probably not, It is another country where I will say been there, done that.

After the Easter holiday, I will post on the last two ports. Interesting both of them. Dalian was fascinating, and Beijing, what can one say, it is fascinating.

Thank you so much for posting this great review! We are going to be doing the reverse trip next March and this is very useful and interesting information.

So glad you had a great trip and thanks again for this detailed and thoughtful review. :)

Your train adventure story is something you will laugh about for years to come. It could almost be a Korean SNL skit!

Enjoying your review. Originally Hong Kong at New Years was on a bucket list....however after reading your experiences, I think we'll give that time of year a pass for Hong Kong, at least. I might give Viet Nam a go during Tet though. The holiday seemed to enhance the experience there.

Again we used Beijing Discovery Tours. Our tours guide name was Modi. He was born and raised in Dalian. His English was fantastic.

Our tour went to the following places: Zhongshan Square, Beida Bridge, Xinghai Square, Tiger Beach, Laohutan Nature Park, Dalian Xizndai Museum, Dalina Loca Market. It also included a Mongolian lunch, which was delicious.

We had 14 in total for this group as we joined two groups together to make one and this reduced the cost of the tour for everyone. By this time, most of us had met each other on the ship, so we knew each other and got along well. We had only one couple that was new, and they were made welcome and a part of the group in no time. We finally got off the ship at 11:30 am and the tour guide was going to start with the lunch, when we all went, no please. there was a brunch buffet on the ship and none of us would enjoy any more food at the moment. So, Modi quickly changed the plans so that we went to the Dalian local market first. This was fascinating as we could see exactly what types of food the locals eat. Modi purchased some turnip balls for us to try, and before you turn up your nose and say I hate turnip, they were quite tasty. We all had more than one each and were pleasantly surprised at how delicious they actually were. A lot of what Mongolians eat at this time of year is root crop veggies that have been stored from the previous year. Lots of seafood choices, as well as scorpions, silk worms and a few other delicacies that I will not mention just in case you are eating while reading.:D The market was bustling with locals buying their produce and proteins for their meal that night. This was strictly a food market and they did not sell other goods. We spent a good 60 minutes looking around and asking how various items were cooked.

From the market we headed for the restaurant. Parking in Dalian is different. They park on the sidewalk. No street parking. The restaurant main floor had a wall full of tanks with fresh seafood and you had to walk up the stairs to get to the eating area. When 14 of walked into the restaurant, just about all of the locals were busy studying us as we were unique to them. I can't remember all the dishes, but most of them had a seafood base. The soup was delicious. Once we had finished eating we were back on the van and heading for the museum.

The museum shows the history of Dalian over the years. Dalian has been conquered many times, and it shows in the layout of the city. The Russians, Japanese and Chinese have all had a part in their history. Mongolia as the locals prefer to call it, is now known as an Eastern Province in China. The only problem with the museum is that there is no English explantations, but with a guide giving you the story behind each display, the museum came alive and you definitely could see the changes through the years. The Mongolian people have suffered under the oppression of those who conquered, but they have persevered. The only difficult part for part of our group was that the escalator for going down was broken and you had to walk down it.

From the museum we went to see a few of the many famous squares in the city. Many are set out in a European manner and are very beautiful. One is decorated with all of the Chinese zodiac signs and we all had fun finding our signs. This particular square was dressed up for the Chinese New Year. Another one of the squares had a sculpture that had footprints in it to celebrate 100 years. Some of the oldest footprints were those of women who had had their feet bound. The youngest was a newborn. The sculpture started with the 100 year olds and worked it way down towards the sea to the youngest. This square also had access to the waterfront, where there was lots of interesting sites to see including a new bridge under construction, life size stuffed horses, zebras on wheels that children could ride. Some of them were sized down for small children. it was fun to watch the children laugh and work hard to make these stuffed animals move.

We then drove through the Laohutan Nature Park to get to Tiger Beach (it was too cold that day to appreciate this stop, but we did get some neat pictures of the carved tigers) and we walked across Beida Bridge (otherwise known as lovers bridge) Our tour guide made all of us get out of the van and walk across holding hands, which is their local custom. We all have pictures as couples walking across the bridge. A nice memento.

After this we still had time left on our tour, so Modi took us to the Japanese area and India area of Dalian. Different types of housing and amazingly, all the shops carried exactly the same touristy souvenirs. We checked and yes some were made in China, some in Vietnam and some in Cambodia.:D

After this last stop it was time to go back to the ship. Dalian was a bit of a surprise. We didn't think it would be as big as it was and it was nice to see that their history had not been completely destroyed through war or Chinese occupation. They are trying to keep their heritage by not destroying all of their historical buildings. Glad to see one city in China that is holding on to the old while embracing the new.

Please oh please never anger the immigration people in China again, Oceania. We arrived an hour late. The Chinese officials had arrived an hour earlier, ship wasn't there, they went home. Ship arrived, no Chinese officials. Passengers trapped on ship as we did not have the proper documentation. Finally one lone Chinese official arrives and goes through all of the passenger and staff documentation. It took a lonnnnnnnnnnng time for him to document everyone.:eek: Nobody was happy on the ship or on the mainland. Several people were trying to make flights as they were getting off early. Reception foyer full of luggage. From one cabin, we counted 12 pieces of luggage. Why does anyone need that much luggage?:confused: Very angry passengers worried that they would not be able to make their flights. Once the ship was cleared, they let off the passengers that were disembarking first. Crew had tried to take the luggage down earlier, but the Chinese officials chased them back onto the ship with the luggage. It took 30 minutes to get these passengers off the ship and the rest of the passengers were getting restless. But the worst was yet to come. There was an icy cold north wind blowing so hard you had problems holding your balance. Now remember the Chinese officials are still annoyed, so they were making everyone show their documentation to get off, which was very difficult because the wind was blowing so hard you could hardly open the piece of paper to show them. People were losing their hats, scarves and anything that wasn't properly attached or held on to the wind was so strong. I have never been so cold in my life as I was getting off the ship. We finally got into the shelter of the building and inside. Beautiful terminal in the middle of nowhere. Lots of space for shops, but no shops. Grumpy Chinese officials everywhere. They were going after the private guides and trying to chase them away. Our guide was threatened with being arrested. They would not let the vehicles park near the terminal. It was one huge mess. We had had such good reception at Shanghai and Dalian, it was a real culture shock to all of us.

Now the day did improve once we found our guide and managed to make it out of the building and into the car. Next posting will cover the tour which was great. Beijing Discovery Tours again. I would highly recommend the company.

I like both, but probably will not sail Azamara again, unless its a once in a lifetime intinerary.

The ship, food, experience were fine.

I did not care for the other passengers, enough that it would be a deterrent to me booking again.