Beijing: About to Fly

NOTE:  This was sent out in e-mail on March 19th because, at the time, we were in Beijing and China blocks access to "Blogger".  Here 'tis now March 26th and, I'm beginning to get caught up.  Hopefully soon, I'll get working on the some 22 ports that we didn't document.
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'tis March 19th, we're all packed up and just waiting until time for our ride to the airport.  That will be in about 2 hours.  Just a very brief update on our journeys in Beijing.  The first pic is a typical mid-day sun in Beijing!  Most of the time, we wore masks.

The ship docked in Tianjin, the port for Beijing.  We had one day there before we disembarked and we chose the Great Wall at Tianjin, southwest of Beijing, for our excursion that day.  Note the wall on the hills behind us.  No, we didn't climb that far but did go a fair ways up in front of where we were standing.

Off the boat now and headed for our hotel, we stopped at the Forbidden City.  This is just outside the South Gate.

The next day, we were off to another section of the Great Wall, this one northeast of Beijing.  This area was MUCH steeper than the section a couple of days ago.  We did climb up the section behind us but not much further.  At least we can officially say we have climbed the Great Wall TWICE!

On our last full day in Beijing, we visited Tiananmen Square, the largest square in the world (so we were told!).  It was too cold to take pictures there!  Second stop was the Temple of Heaven.  We were so very fortunate to actually have a clear day with blue sky and Florida like sunshine!

Our last evening at the hotel, we stopped for a couple of drinks.  We thought Sweden was expensive until we had a couple of drinks here.  At $46 for 2 drinks, it was right up there with Monte Carlo!  Oh well, we're only young once and we were still well within budget!

It's about time to shut down the computer and do that one final check before we vacate our room.  Our flight leaves at 5pm, arrives Newark at 6:45pm.  Adding the 12 hours we will have lost, it is a 13h 45m flight.  We'll leave Newark at 9pm and are scheduled to arrive Tampa at 11:58pm.  Hopefully, we'll be out of the airport my 12:30 and home by 1am.

Ahhhh!  Home Sweet Home!  This will be the last post until we're home again.

 rf

So Long for Now

Tonight is our last night on board the wonderful Regent Seven Seas Voyager… our 66th night…and a wonderful trip it has been! Our large bags are packed and out in the hall, in fact already picked up! We'll be up at 6 in the AM (3/16) and out of here by 8am.

Today, we did climb one small section of the Great Wall of China, a section SW of Beijing. In a couple of days, we'll climb another section to the NW of Beijing.

No more posts planned, however, if I get inspired during our 3 days in Beijing, something may appear.

Four more nights and we'll be back in our own bed again! YEAH! YIPPEE!

rf

Shanghai: Sail Away

In Shanghai, we spent the longest time in port than any other.  We had three touring days, two nights.  A great city!  Other than the smog, it was quite clean.  There are more truly tall skyscrapers then we'd ever seen in one place in our lives!

We sail at 1:30pm, right on time.  It did take a few minutes to get turned around and headed down the Yangtze river.

This building was just down river from where we were docked and I never learned what it is all about.  Perhaps a guide told us, however, sometimes the words through the Chinese accents were difficult to understand!

Yesterday and this morning had been quite clear but by the time we left, the smog had returned in full force!  Glad we went to the TV tower yesterday!  That, by the way is one of the shorter of the super tall structures.

Close up, it didn't seem so smoggy.  The temperature was in the low 70s, perfect for an ice cream sail-away!  My choice was cherry vanilla with a splash of Godiva chocolate liqueur, well, maybe a little more than a splash!

When Regent puts out ice cream, they put out all the trimmings… almost anything one would like to have with their ice cream!

  

The hull of a ship being constructed.  Had I not been chatting with another of the travelers who happens to be in the ship-building business, I'd never have figured that out.  The yellow pieces on the blue barge are more pieces of the puzzle!

A section of the keels lies near-by.

Going under the one bridge on the way out.  It sure looked like we weren't going to clear.  However, as we sailed on under, we noted there was plenty of room.

Some two and a half hours down river, we were still in the shipyards!  This is by far, the largest port we have ever been in.

 It will be close to 7pm by the time we are once again in open water.  Tomorrow (1/8/13) as we head on toward Hiroshima, we'll spend the day in, ur uh, make that "on", the East China Sea.  We have nothing planned for then so maybe I'll get another post up.

rf

Shanghai: Arrival

It has been a while since I've gotten a post up (the further we travel, the behinder I get!), so decided to skip ahead to where we are today (as I post).  Sometime in the future, probably after we're home, I'll catch up by adding the ports of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Da Nang, Hanoi (Ha Long Bay), Huang Pu (Canton), Hong Kong, Taipei and Okinawa.  We received a letter from the Captain advising there would be no internet connection when we're in Japanese waters (12 nautical miles out) as they restrict the 2 satellite band signals the ship uses. 

Here's the map of where we are today.  Until we started looking at this map, I'd never thought about how very close all the islands are to mainland Asia!

Closeup of going into our docking spot.  This was about half an hour before we docked.

Ahhh, Shanghai!  A welcome sign on the terminal building.  And, what a pleasant surprise to have an airline-like gangway, instead of the usual gangplank to get to the terminal.

Another smoggy day in southeast Asia!  This is the main financial area of Shanghai, on the port side, as we arrived.

The view from our cabin is a beautiful little park...

A closer look.  I think this, second to Hong Kong, is the best view to-date from our cabin when we've been docked.

We arrived around 8:30am.  Our tour for today isn't until 1:30 this afternoon.  Interestingly, we all had to get off the ship this morning to go through immigration in the terminal building.  Our cruise director told us everyone had to go through immigration before anyone could get back on.  We were prepared to have to wait quite sometime as most of us are not young anymore and some can be quite stubborn!  Fortunately, we were able to walk out of the terminal building, walk to the dock and back to the gangway and get back on the ship!  YEAH!  

More later!

rf 

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