Beijing, China Day 1

Our 23 day cruise from Vancouver BC ended in Tianjin, China (port for Beijing) on October 9, 2012.  Weather again was cloudy but the temperature was mild.  The day previously we spent some time in our cabin doing the dreaded job of packing!  All that stuff that we brought with us now had to be rearranged back into our suitcases.  For this cruise plus post-cruise time in Beijing, this is what we brought:  1 28" suitcase,expandable; 1 carry on for dear husband; 1 24" suitcase for me.  Now I do have to admit that I also had a purse and a backpack while the netbook and information went into the over the shoulder bag that my dear other half carried.  We both had our own digital cameras.

Disembarkation was very efficient as all the Platinum and Elite passengers gathered in one lounge (Club Fusion).  We waited for our colour Orange 5 to be called.  By 8:00 we walked through the cruise terminal (brand new) with our luggage, which we had taken off by ourselves.  We saved time by taking our own luggage from our cabin instead of putting it out the night previously.  If you put your luggage out, the next day you have to search for it in the cruise terminal.

It was wonderful to see Sam, our tour guide for the next few days, waiting very patiently for us.  When we saw our name on his sign, we greeted him and a little cheer erupted from his friends.  We asked him about this later in our trip and he smiled.  You see, we were the first passengers off the ship to find their driver!  (of course, we are not talking about the Princess transfers).  Maybe there was a wager set to see who would win?  Anyways, he was very happy to see us; it is not uncommon for these tour guides and drivers to wait over an hour for their clients to appear.  Our driver's name was Lee, who proved to be an excellent driver indeed!

I almost forget:  we were under the assumption that we were just 2 people in a group.  With the price that our travel agent quoted us, we felt that was a fairly safe bet.  Imagine our surprise when I asked Sam where the other people were and he said:  You are on a private tour.  Yes, it was the two of us with a guide and driver!  How fortunate we felt as that meant no tour buses filled with many other passengers.

It took about 2 hours from Tiajin to our hotel in Beijing.  This was a very new highway that we were on with quite a few toll booths.  The road had been built to accommodate the new cruise terminal, which unfortunately has not seen the economic changes that they were hoping would occur.

What amazed us as were entering Beijing:  the skyscrapers and modern feel of the city.  Lots of different bank names, American brand name stores, many hotels, and of course, stores upon stores, and people galore!  It was different for us as we did have this image of Beijing as being less modern than North America.  Myth busted for sure!

We drove through the financial part of Beijing and continued on many roads, names unknown, until Sam said:  We are now in the older section of the city.  A few twists and turns and voila, our home for the next few days appeared!

The front of our Best Western Royal Phoenix Hotel.  And Sam helped us register at the Front Desk as English is not readily spoken in this hotel.  After saying goodbye to him, we went up to the fifth floor to our room 520:

Taken from the door to show you the size of the room.  The bathroom is to your right and the closet is to your left.

Yes, a king sized comfy bed with a bench at the foot of the bed, which we found quite handy for unpacking our suitcases.

And here is the bathroom which had a good sized shower and wash basin.  Two bottles of bottled water were supplied by the hotel as it is possibly not safe to use the tap water.  The white towels were thick and fluffy.  Soap, shampoo, and conditioner were supplied.  Note the telephone in the picture below in the bathroom.  There was a second telephone in the bedroom area.  This hotel also supplied red plush robes and white slippers, wrapped in plastic.  There was a mini-fridge and a water kettle, which we did use nightly.

 

 

 





After we munched on the fresh fruit, peeled, we decided to explore the surroundings.  Oh, I failed to mention that our Hotel was in Qianliang hutong....yes, we are actually in a real hutong.  Before this trip, we had planned to find a hutong and wander about.  Well, to our very pleased delight, we are in a hutong already.  So, we walked one block and turned left and found....the Bank.  Which Bank it was I am not sure, but we entered, the lady gave us a number, and we waited 2 minutes.  We went up to the male teller who was behind his glass barrier.  We wanted to exchange some money for Chinese money.  First question he asked us:  May I see your passport?  Well, we had taken a copy with us but no, with Chinese rules, we needed the real passport.

Thank goodness we backtracked only a very short distance, got our passports, and returned to the bank and repeated the number, then the waiting, more waiting, more waiting.  After about 15 minutes our number came up on the electronic display board.  We know now that if you enter a bank, everyone waits for the tellers!  And we thought our waits were bad...actually, in Beijing, they supply chairs for the waiting.  Maybe our bank could install some chairs!

Okay, it's our turn.  Passport turned in, money given to him.  Request should be fairly simple, right?
Nope, he examines the money, smooths it out, counts it, puts it through this machine that flips the bills out, then he calls his supervisor over, who now re-counts the money and flips it about to make sure it is paper? perhaps?  Papers to be printed out, papers to be signed.....well, finally, we get our Chinese yuan bills, passport returned, and a BANKING EXPERIENCE, NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN!  Never ever complain about your bank again, please, not after what we had to do.  Interesting, yes, fun, of course.

What did we do after our banking?  Just plain walking around the streets which weren't all that crowded.  We saw fashion stores beside hardware stores beside scooter stores.  Mid-priced scooter is about $400 Canadian.  As we were walking, we did see sights like this:

We were looking for a specific park that Sam had mentioned to us but we never did find it.  But that was fine as we did find the nearest Subway stop, Dongxi, which a few days later we would enter and use the subway line. (2 yuan per ride)

We had a wonderful dinner that may have been on the expensive side but it truly was fresh, as it was cooked right in front of us.

Believe it or not, as it got darker, we continued to walk the hutong streets and we finally found a really interesting shop!  It had all sorts of 'fun stuff' ready to be cooked on the skewers.  Are you ready to see this?

 

 

Yes, you are seeing juicy black scorpions!  And if you look closely, you will see crickers or grasshoppers, some cocoons, and not sure of the other set of skewers.

 

After roaming around some more that night, we finally decided it was time for bed.  What a fun day this has been!  Tomorrow Sam and Lee will meet us at 8 AM for more explorations.

Halloween

Yes, it is that annual crazy event known as Halloween here in our community and elsewhere around the world.  As usual, the weather in our parts of the wood means:  cold and showery
At present, it is greyish and when I look at our lawn, all I see is:  golden.  Why, golden?  Because the wonderful trees have been shedding their golden leaves all over the property!  Poor dear husband has been out using his favourite toy, the JD, or otherwise known as the John Deere tractor, mowing the grass and leaf collecting.  He has been able to tackle half the yard now but with the truly dreary wet soggy lawn, it has not been easy to 'perfect' the lawn to a leafless existence.  He complains about doing the lawn but in reality, it is a relaxing time for him out there, where he can don his headphones and just 'veg' out there.  (and he is not listening to a certain Asian in the background talking about much of anything that her little brain thinks up!)

In my original blog (www.anthonymusings.blogspot.com) I included a photo of our two sons when they were still in elementary school.  One dressed up as a knight in shining armour and the younger son dressed up as Dracula!  In the ensuing years, they have dressed up in more terrifying costumes than those!

And here is an interesting specimen dressed up in a Dralion (Cirque du Soleil) mask:

On packing day (last day of the cruise) we hung it up outside our cabin door with a note, offering it to someone to take home, and we were lucky, yes, someone actually wanted it!  Glad to see it being used again.

Trivia question:  Who sang MONSTER MASH?  This was one of the 1950's Trivia song questions.  And of course, I have been youtubing it today and listening to the funny lyrics!

Do you have the answer?  The singer passed away a few years ago (2006)  but his name was

             Bobby "Boris" Pickett and his group The Crypt Kickers

Chinese Toilets

I know that some of you might be interested in knowing about the toilets; well, at least I was curious.  I had heard some of the horror stories so I managed to snap a photo or two to share.

Our Beijing hotel was in a hutong area of the city, which meant the old section of the city, where thousands of years ago, the court ministers and their families may have lived.  Nowadays, not everyone has private toilet facilities, so on each lane/alley/street of a hutong, you will find a public facility.  This is a photo of the toilets.  There was one Western toilet too, which I noticed was very handy for the elderly people that I saw who visited this place.  These are all flush toilets and yes, you do have to provide your own TP!

Zhujiajiao, China

Shanghai truly is an amazing city with its super highways and gigantic skyscrapers--we have never seen such high buildings before and the number of them surprised us.  We had a Princess excursion set up for this city (we were a few hours late in arriving) so we quickly organized ourselves and boarded the air-conditioned bus.  The bus was a regular tour bus so I am not sure how many passengers were on this one.  We travelled approximately 1 1/2 hours from the cruise terminal which was located not in the centre of the city but was a distance away.

Where were we going?  Well, we looked over the excursions offered by the cruise line and decided that we wanted something other than cosmopolitan Shanghai, so we selected the most interesting one for us, which happened to be the water town called  Zhujiajiao, also known as one of China's Venice of the East cities.  Our tour guide Jenny insisted that this would not be crowded even though it was a Saturday, and it was the Saturday of the October Lunar Festival celebrations.  She looked at the parking lot and still thought it would not be crowded in the tiny town.

As we walked from our bus to the entrance of the town, we saw many people selling sugar cane.

Now we are in the crowded streets of the town where we mingled with other tourists.  The alleys or streets are fairly narrow but on a non-holiday, I would surmise that it would be easier to move about and even look at the actual shops.  There were many food stalls serving goodies like chicken on skewers--they smelt great!

One of the many bridges in the town:

A typical picture showing the houses, the river, a boater, and the sweeping willow trees:

We also enjoyed our short ride down the river with our Chinese gondolier:

In this photo, you can see the type of boat that we sat on.  Another of the many bridges in this town.  And yes, it was a crowded day for us, even if our guide thought it was very 'quiet'.  Can you imagine what it would be like if it was considered 'busy'?

On this day, we also visited a silk factory where it was jammed with fellow tourists.  We tried to hear over all the noise but we did not hear too much information.  These factory visits are definitely geared to release your hold on your purse or wallet!

Here you can see me having the opportunity to 'stretch' a cocoon layer to make a duvet!  So light and yet so strong...I was fortunate to be in the front row when they asked for volunteers!

And here you can see one of the salesladies selling silk comforters (on the shelves) and the price list:

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the water town and the drive to and from the ship, as it showed the super highways, the many skyscrapers, and yet, the rustic ways that can still exist in China.

Vladivostock, Russia

We missed the port of Aomori because of the looming typhoon which meant that our captain sailed the ship towards Vladivostock.  We had another sea day (wow, seven sea days!) but we did sail into Vladivostock in the late afternoon.  We sailed under their newest bridge, which had just been completed this spring.

And here is a photo of the cruise ship terminal.

 

After dinner we donned our light jackets and headed out, sans visa.  In this particular Russian city we did not require a special visa, unlike visiting St. Petersburg.  Some Princess passengers were upset as they had signed up for shore excursions with the cruise line as they had been told that no one could visit the port without a visa. We had researched and asked others who had done this cruise, only in reverse, in April of this year, and they informed us that no visa was required.



We walked around the port/street area for about one hour until it got dark.  We noticed the many newer cars parked on the streets, which were for the most part, fairly level and in good repair.  Some of the cars were right hand drive and some were left hand drive, and many of them were of Japanese origin.

The next morning saw us off the ship by 8:30 am so we were given a map of the city.  We decided to walk to the Submarine Museum (easy 20 minute walk, approximately).  My dear husband never thought he would ever get to visit this port as it is one of those mysterious places that you read about, but you never really think you will get the chance to visit it.  Another Bucket List check mark!!

Here you can see someone enjoying himself:

 

 

And of course, I had to get into this submarine with my Swimco bag!

Here I am at the bow of the sub:

And here, you can see the submarine and the exit portion (as the museum is inside the sub):
In the background, one of the bridges.

We were so very fortunate to have a wonderfully warm day.  We also went into this Church that was located very close to the Submarine museum.

That day we just walked and walked.  We even went into the small GUM store which was in the 1950's style of the Vancouver BC Bay (Hudson's Bay) store. 

As many people know, this port is the terminus for the Trans-Siberian Railway and during the Second World War, it held an important position as a military port.  We decided to walk to the Fortress Museum to peruse what remained of the underground military formations.

Visiting the Fortress was  a highlight for us, plus the Museum downtown which had a vast array of taxidermy and of course, a room with interesting posters and even a bust of Lenin.

All in all, we enjoyed our 1 1/2 days spent in this Russian port city, which was very European in appearance and feel.  And yes, we did notice the many gorgeous tall Russian ladies wearing their high heels!  How they walked on those heels on some of those streets mystifies me to this day.

As were were returning to the pier area, we decided to dip our toes into the slightly chilly water:

Vladivostock was not what we expected.  Here we were greeted by fairly friendly people, surrounded by sunshine, fairly modern buildings, but we did notice this too (we wandered away from the tourist area)

A last photo as we sailed away from Vladivostock:  the ship's Bridge and the new bridge.

Muroran Japan

Remember those bears that I told you about?   Here is one of them and yes, he was a good size!

As you can see, it has been raining but still, it was a lot of fun visiting this attraction.  Doesn't this bear look Asian to you?  This area of Japan has many bears and the local craftspeople enjoy doing wood carvings of them.

We also went to Lake Toya and Mt. Usu where there is a gondola ride but since the weather was not co-operating, we did not ascend to the top.  However, we did go into the informative museum there that explained about the volcanoes in that area and how they had erupted, thus creating Lake Toya.  The last volcanic eruption was in 2000 and the turbulence lasted over five months.  In that time, it created new craters.  This area is constantly changing but it has created a tourist hub as many people visit the many spas that are now here.

We also visited what they called Valley of Hell (Jigokudani) which is similar to the geysers and mud pots that you would see in Yellowstone Park with Old Faithful.  It was a free entry attraction, nicely paved or wooden walkways, and filled with the aromatic smell of sulphur.  We were fortunate to have visited after hundreds of other tourists had visited earlier that day.

In our short time in this area of Japan, we saw quite a bit of the surroundings.  By the time we arrived back to the pier,it was dark.  So we quickly changed and went to dinner when suddenly, our cruise director Kevin Joy announced that there was a school group on the pier, ready to perform for us.  Well, you should have seen all the passengers converge on the promenade deck....it was so good and fun and of course, enjoyable for us to see these children, ranging in age from six up to their teens, performing this Japanese dance and acrobatics for us.  They were doing this in pouring rain and it was so cute and refreshing to see the little ones in the front, gaily splashing as they performed.  Wouldn't you love splashing your feet and getting your costume wet while performing in front of thousands of people, who are madly applauding your actions?  The pictures below shows you part of the large group in their beautiful costumes.

 

 

 

 

I was deeply moved seeing this group of children as it brought back memories of my own children and those that I taught.  Children do grow up too quickly, don't they?  And this group stayed to say Good Bye to us until we actually untied from the dock.  So very kind of them.  The town went out of their way all day to make us feel welcomed.  In this town there was a circular bus route (free) so many of the passengers spent the day in Muroran, just walking around and exploring and I would think some of them made some purchases!

The weather had been interesting for us on this cruise and this is what happened next:  Typhoon warning so again, the captain was forced to divert from our planned itinerary and we proceeded to head north again, away from Aomori, our port for the next day.  We were disappointed for sure as we had read and heard that Aomori was interesting to visit, especially the fresh fish market, and further out, a giant Buddha and Hiroshi Castle.  But safety comes first.

So another sea day awaited us.  Remember, we already had six so this was now day seven.  Hmm, what to do....well, pretty much what we did before, same routine etc.

After that sea day, we were in the interesting port of Vladivostock, Russia.  What awaits us there?

Alaska and Muroran Info

Well, as you can see, the date now is October 28,2012, the day after a 7.7 earthquake hit Haida Gwaii (formerly known as the  Queen Charlotte Islands).  We did not feel any effects as we are so far from that area.  A scary thought for sure, and yes, don't we all have to work on replenishing that earthquake kit?

In September, we boarded the Diamond Princess ship from Canada Place and made our way from sunny Vancouver up to wet, chilly, or even cold, Alaska.  We visited (again) the ports of Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan.  Even though we have been there several times, it is still fun to get off the ship and just 'muck' about.  And yes, we dressed in layers, wore our Goretex, and even our hiking boots (toasty toes we had!)

Here you can see we are having fun in Juneau with the local bear statue!  He not only caught a fish but he is enjoying snacking on a beautiful Swimco bag!

I must say that we did enjoy the glaciers; on your first trip and then your subsequent trips, you are always amazed at the beauty of the glaciers and you are always listening to the sounds for  what they call 'calving' or breaking off of portions of the glacier.  On this last trip, it really was amazing as we heard calving many, many times.  Just one picture:

I stayed on our balcony to enjoy the glaciers but dear hubby enjoyed being on the open decks to capture his photos.
After leaving College Fiord, we made our way to Whittier, Alaska in very poor weather conditions.
We arrived in Whittier, Alaska and because of the rain, ie pouring down rain that even a Vancouverite would shudder at, the Captain (and what a sweet man he was) decided that for all of our safety, and the ship's safety, that we would bunk down and stay overnight in Whittier.  The two of us had left the ship to walk into the small town but the heavy rain made me turn around but dear hubby did venture forth.  He returned totally drenched!

Wildlife:  we did not bring our binoculars on this trip (thinking of the flight home with all the airline weight restrictions) but we did manage to see pods of whales, the odd eagle here and there, and even this cute creature:

I believe it was called a harbour seal.

After leaving Whittier the next morning, we embarked on the beginning of our six, yes, six sea days!  And yes, the seas did get heaving at times, but nothing unbearable.  We always kept busy, managed to have all our meals, and just had a truly relaxing time.  We really couldn't go out at times onto deck because of the storm, but when it all calmed down, dear hubby and I managed to walk the deck.  Even if we don't walk the deck, we do a ton of walking inside the ship.  We had a balcony cabin on deck 10 and to get anywhere at all, we had to walk.  We try very hard not to use the stairs unless it is formal night and I have my heels on.  Here is a picture of our cabin: (balcony not shown)

Six days at sea:  breakfast, reading,knitting group, arts and crafts time, lectures, coffee time, yakking to lots of people, then lunch, more lectures, reading, meeting up with others, getting ready for dinner and enjoying a cocktail pre dinner, dinner with friends, then the shows that night and finally, after listening to music or dancing, the cabin beckons to us and sleepy time is upon us.  Getting to the gym was a challenge as at 7 am each day, the treadmills etc. were already occupied!  The age group on this ship ranged from babies (yes!) up to 80 year olds.  Mainly we were all over the age of 60.

Ports:  our first port was Muroran, Japan, on the island of Hokkaido.  To describe it, I would say it compares to what we see, which would be trees, lots and lots of trees and mountains.  We arrived and the pier was busy with many students assisting us all.  Of course, the tour buses were waiting, and we were fortunate that a fellow Cruise Critic member, Art, had a tour guide and driver waiting for us.  It was very rainy that morning but it did clear up later on.

First stop:  the 7--11 store and in Japan, there are many of these.  Why?  to go and get Japanese yen. 
Easy to do:  use your ATM debit card,insert into the machine, English comes up, follow the directions, and yen comes shooting out!  Smallest amount you can get: 10,000 yen (approximately $125.00 Canadian)

 



Here dear hubby is paying for some snacks (we wanted to get smaller bills!)

We enjoyed our tour and for us, the best part was visiting the Ainu Settlement (Museum) where the people put on a presentation, fully costumed, exposing us to their songs and some of their stories.  This was very interesting to us as we also enjoyed peeking into the other reconstructed buildings.  The Ainu, I believe, are considered the original peoples of Japan.  Correct me if I am jumping to conclusions!

And they also had a few white dogs (like Akitas) and believe it or not, we saw 3 bears in their cages.  Now I know some people get upset about the bears and cages, but these 3 were found as homeless cubs so that was why they were on display.

Can you see the tiny person beside the huge statue?  Imagine the time and effort in producing this massive statue!

Here you can see one of the performers explaining about the baby carrier.  She also sang a lullaby to the audience.

Until next time, which will be about the fantastic send off from Muroran!