Mar. 13 – Beijing
Bright and shiny, we were met by Mr. Lu and Lee on a very cold and blustery day. While we had packed for the ‘layered look’, all layers had to be donned to cope with the temperatures which, we were told, would be colder at the Great Wall, a two hour ride northwest of Beijing.
China in this early spring didn’t look much more appealing than Peacham at the same time – brown and somewhat dismal. But The Wall is something everyone must visit when in China, and this was our day to tick this off the list of must-do’s. We chose to go to Badaling where in the interest of tourism the wall has been kept in fine repair, tourist shops are abundant and one has the opportunity to leave the tourist/bus lot and take either side of the road to have your ‘wall experience’. Lee suggested the side which was longer, higher and thus less coated with humans, and so following her lead we started the climb. But the knee and I were having an argument – I wanted to get to the top, it didn’t. So after about climbing 1/3rd of the way, I conceded defeat. There we stopped, took the requisite pictures and left. I wish I could say I was dumb-struck by the experience, but the anticipation and the publicity leading up to it made the event itself something of a let-down for me. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the steps, maybe it was cynicism, but within an hour I was quite prepared to leave. What was so amazing was that the other portion of the wall was chock-a-block with tourists – mostly Asian. If it were possible for astronauts to see the Wall from a space shuttle (which it isn’t), they would probably be as amazed by the millions of human ants crawling all over this structure, built centuries ago to protect the big cities from the Mongols and barbarians who threatened the area.
On our way back we stopped at a Cloisonné factory and lunch spot. In order to accumulate as many tourist ‘bucks’ as possible, many factories have installed large lunch rooms so that when you have examined the process of manufacturing and creating a product you have time to eat a meal while you contemplate the acquisition of some of these fine products. Cloisonné has never been our ‘thing’ but we did have to acknowledge the amazingly detailed handwork which goes into creating one vase. The showrooms which had every known object from plates, to pens, to human-sized urns, certainly was a dazzling display of the craft. But, other than pictures, we walked out empty handed. When you are in such a place, having watched the process, there is something in you which says “I need one of those”, but if you let sanity take over, you quickly realize that when it appeared in Peacham your reaction might very well be “what was I thinking”. The factory provided-lunch room was gymnasium-sized with tables for as few as two and as many as eight people. We were escorted to a table for two, and while we were served guest food, our guide and driver went off for ‘local’ food. I’m not sure which of us had the better meal, but let’s just say that the Hutong meal the day before stood head and shoulders over this mass produced event.
After lunch ,while it wasn’t much warmer, the sun had tried to make a come-back and the wind had died down so we went off to visit the Ming tombs where no less than ten different Emperors were buried in a series of complexes below Tianshou Mountain. It reminded me a bit of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt where each pharaoh was buried in his particular tomb. The Chinese emperor’s tomb which we focused on was the man who first created the tomb site, and then was buried here himself: Emperor Yongle. He was the man responsible for moving the capital of China to Beijing where he created the Forbidden City and then designed the canal/moat which surrounds the city. Even during the days of Mao when most of these emperors were not considered worthy, Yongle was declared to be one of the ‘good’ emperors because he did many good deeds for his people and always placed his people ahead of his own ego. Thus the words used to describe him throughout the tomb site made it quite clear that this was a stellar example of a ‘man of the people’. He designed his tomb site to resemble the Forbidden City with three main temple sites: heaven, earth and middle, with the sacred bell and drum placed appropriately at each end of the site. What was interesting to me is that Daddy described visiting a site where Mongol emperors were kept in a town near Muckden, and his description matched exactly what we were seeing – which meant one of two things: either he was confused as to where he saw things, or two sets of emperors chose to use the same entry format: a magnificent entry gate under which sat a huge stone turtle bearing a set of tablets on its back, following which one walked down a tree-lined, stone-animal-lined ‘sacred way ‘ to arrive at the temple of heaven. It resembled the one in Beijing, including the huge stone ramp which was etched with figures of dragons and snakes.
The best part about this site was that there were practically no tourists – a few Asian families with their adorable small children, and otherwise an empty, peaceful place: a rarity in China, where the sheer size of the population makes finding small sanctuaries of peace and quiet a wonderful discovery.
Inside the Hall of Eminent Favor was an enormous statue of Yongle seated on a throne with his ‘Fu-Manchu ‘moustache and his very well-proportioned body. There was a small series of glass exhibition cases surrounding this statue in which one could see the many things Yongle accomplished during his long reign as emperor, including ships designed to conquer new lands, laws created to manage the population, and the creation of the first multi-volume Yongle Encyclopedia. The site was a more manageable size than the Forbidden City and we spent a good deal of time reading the displays and giving Yongle his full due. Other emperors we learned about had brief descriptions in an out-door display and in the wording alone you could tell if these were respected emperors, or simply greedy men with entirely too many concubines. (One of the less promising emperors was named Ding Ling which made us assume that that was the source of the word ‘ding-a-ling’). Their tombs were located in other places which, were we emperor-experts, we would examine them all. Not.
A full day, lots of walking, and we were ready for our beer. The hotel definitely caters to Americans and we ran into another couple from the ship who was taking a few days themselves to enjoy the city before heading back to Los Angeles. But for all the catering to Americans, and all the English training they receive, we found most of the staff quite poor in English – be it the woman pouring our beer, the ladies at the front desk or the people in the restaurants. We were a little taken back since this is a very all-American chain, but then, our Chinese is sorely lacking so who are we to whine.
March 14 – Beijing
Off to the Summer Palace, the last site from Daddy’s trip which we’re trying to replicate. Unfortunately we awoke to another cold, semi-gray day so we had to layer ourselves for a good deal of walking in blustery weather. From having watched “The Last Emperor”, we knew all about the summer palace and the Dowager Empress, Cixi. This was a woman with a very large ego, the power to control a country, and the desire to have the world run her way. She managed to take a large portion of money, meant for the Chinese navy during wartime, to rebuild the Summer Palace, creating wonderful covered walk-ways which allowed her to stroll around the lake without ever being affected by inclement weather…and if she wanted tea in her huge marble “ship”, which sat frozen in the lake, it could be brought to her from the main palace area under the wonderful portico area. Who says wealth doesn’t buy privilege.
We wandered happily for many hours, mimicking the pictures Daddy took, and enjoying the 10,000 hand-painted pictures that lined the long portico. Each picture was either an idyllic scene or an illustration of a fable. It seemed that Lee knew every one of the stories – no matter where we stopped and asked ‘what’s the story of this one’ she seemed to know the legend and its purpose. Somehow I feel we never plumbed the depth of Lee’s knowledge since she seemed to know almost everything about everything we asked. She turned out to be a perfect guide for us with fabulous colloquial English, a great sense of humor, and a sound and reasoned attitude towards the Communist government under which she lives. When we would discuss the issues with our two-party system where people can’t agree and politics drives the messages, her short answer was: “at least you have a choice and can show your choice by voting… all we can do is complain”
At the Summer Palace there were very few Caucasian visitors, and all the Asians were happily snacking on corn on the cob. Every hundred feet there was a vendor selling out of a large plastic bag hot corn on a stick or silly masks, which if you blew thru a tube, a moustache was created out of plastic. They reminded me of Clarabelle the Clown masks and they were not very popular. Corn was definitely the object of choice. We got a good deal of stares, as we are getting used to, and I’m sure our gabbing in English was equally interesting. We stopped at a small teahouse, over the water, which Daddy had definitely stopped at also. We have a picture of an ornate bridge, that he took out the window. We had hot tea and scrumptious pork buns, steamed in a paper bag. Yummy… and warming.
Our last tourist stop was a silk factory where once again, you were able to learn the process of creating silk from worm to finished product, and then enjoy the showroom filled with everything from quilts to scarves to clothing. Unlike the Cloisonné factory we did fall sway to the sales pitch and acquired a silk-filled duvet cover for summer. It seemed exotic , the package was small and light and we thought ‘why not?’ and so we did.
On our way back to Beijing, and lunch, we drove past the Olympic site used in 2008. Lee told us that on the site there used to be a small village of about 15,000 people who were simply told to move out. A new set of housing was provided along with a small stipend, but there were no if’s, and’s, or buts about it. The power of a dictatorship. The ‘Birds Nest Stadium’, built for the opening ceremonies, took five years to build, and now is trying to figure out its purpose. The Olympic Village which housed the athletes was quickly sold out as apartments, but the rest of the site is now basically an empty area. If I were one of the 15,000 who had been moved, I would probably be cynically amused…maybe.
Our last lunch together as a four-some was at a dim sum palace in Beijing. We thought we’d ordered a nominal amount of food to go with our bottles of beer, but as usual, there was much too much left on all plates which Mr. Lu, our driver ,happily took back to his family for an evening dinner.
The last stop on the tour was the Pearl Market, an emporium of copied objects from t-shirts to sweaters, luggage to purses. I thought I would be looking forward to this shopping adventure, but the stall owners were so persistent and pushy that I quickly lost my interest in acquisition and wanted to flee the place to get away from “hey Lady, best price, slow day, only ‘five dolla’, come look, hey lady, need a Gucci, nice watches, special today just for you”….and on and on. I thought I’d last thirty minutes, and I just about did.
March 15 - Beijing
And thus ends our touring of Beijing. We had one last day to do whatever we wanted, but since both of us had hacking coughs, and were basically toured-out, we stayed in our hotel, slept late, lunched in the Asian Bistro, gathered our wits about us, packed, and went to bed early since we would be picked up at 06:30 a.m. for a very long series of airplane rides.
March 16 – Flying Home
The Beijing Airport, all spiffed up for the Olympics, was a huge picture of cleanliness with every known food chain from Burger King to Starbucks. We enjoyed a last Starbucks with Lee ($7.00/cup) before heading through immigration to our gate. All flights on our trip home were uneventful. Our first stop in Narita did give us pause, however. Here we were in the country that was in the midst of a national crisis, and yet for us tourists moving from gate x to gate y, it was an invisible crisis. Airport terminals, once one is in the secure area, are pretty much the same worldwide, and Narita was no different. The only hint of a difference was that most local people were wearing face-masks against the nuclear pollution which is now threatening Tokyo. All flights were full as all manner of nationalities fled the country to return to cleaner safer air. No one is sure how far south the radiation has wafted from the various power plants, and in any case rolling brown-outs, threats of power outages and the general unease about the health of the country have caused many foreign-based firms to encourage their workers to return to their native homes. Unfortunately the Japanese can only chose to move south or west to avoid the potential threat.
We were happy to board our next plane and head to L.A., where we connected to JFK. After many too many hours (over 30) we landed in New York and were driven groggily to Darien, where we fell into a long hard sleep.
CODA:
We left for this trip knowing we were following Daddy’s path, but not sure what to expect. In all aspects we were amazed, delighted and impressed with the energetic, forward-thinking world of Asia. We both kept saying that if one wants to understand the 21st century, one should look to Asia where the burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit, the deep desire to improve their lives and the strong belief in their future drives the populations in these countries. It will be interesting to read this blog in twenty-five years and see what has happened. Will Thailand, now in the midst of anti-government demonstrations, be as calm and stable as it appears to tourists? Will Viet Nam with its high energy, youthful population and growing economic opportunity continue to be governed by a one-party system? Will Korea still be divided? Will Taiwan exist or become another Hong Kong within greater China? Will China continue to be governed by a strong one-party communist party making five-year plans or will the citizens, more aware of other alternatives, vote for a more 'democratic process' ? And how will Japan repair its economy and infrastructure in the wake of this devastating set of recent disasters? I am so glad that we were here at this particular time when things are in a state of flux, and I know we’ll return to many of the places we saw on this trip. As I always say, cruising gives one a survey-course of a country, and it allows one to decide if a return visit is required. From this trip, I know I want to come back to the cities of: Bangkok, Hong Kong and Shanghai. and I will want to see more of the countryside of Viet Nam, China and Japan. If it weren’t for Daddy’s letters, we might never have seen any of these places and for that I am amazingly grateful . It has been a most amazing Journey of Discovery.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
May 11 - Beijing
Mar. 11 –Friday – Beijing
We had an early start to our day as we had to have an early breakfast, and vacate our stateroom by 8:00 a.m., gather in the waiting areas until the ship had been cleared, and then disembark. We got through Chinese immigration and customs, and headed out into the cold weather of Tianjin to be met by Ms. Lee and Mr. Lu. Most of our fellow travelers were heading directly for the airports or were on ship-planned tours for the next days. We had arranged to have our own private guide for four days in Beijing, and this was considered day one. We drove for three hours, in our lovely new van, from the port to the heart of Beijing through vast flat steppes of brown, dry rice fields. There was nothing on either side but farming, or periodically industrial centers, so we took the time to get to know our guide, and to plan out the next days.
We arrived at the Marriott, unpacked the van and went to the reception desk, only to discover that we were at the wrong Marriott…so we called back Mr. Lu and the van, repacked the luggage and headed to the J.W. Marriott located in the busy financial district of the city. Here we were welcomed and taken to our elegant suite, where we collapsed.
While unpacking, we turned on our television to be struck by the instantly breaking news of an enormous earthquake and tsunami on the east coast of Japan, which had occurred only hours ago during our drive. The news was that this was at least an 8.5 tremor located off shore, and that the tsunami that was striking the shore would be almost as devastating as the earthquake. As the day progressed the rolling tsunami was destined to hit many Pacific coastlines as far as California, and all communities were being warned to get to high ground. The immediate issue was that there were also a series of nuclear reactors along the coastline of Japan which were in danger as well. For the rest of the day we were glued to the television as the news seemed to get worse and worse. Japan is a country that is prone to earthquakes, but nothing this large had ever hit them. As the news men tried to fill the air with insufficient data, the projections of death and destruction mounted.
Knowing that many at home would be worried about us (remembering that we would have been in Japan during our cruise), I quickly sent an all-points bulletin via email to let everyone know we were safe and sound and quite a distance from the besieged area. But just as one remembers where you were when certain disasters occurred, I think Beijing, for us, will always be associated with the third worst earthquake since records have been kept.
Beijing is one of the cities which the boys enjoyed for a week, and we’ll have to try and see all that they did in four days. Since they were here in the ‘middle kingdom’, China has gone through times of despair, war, occupation, revolution, insular periods when they were totally cut off from Western influence and now to a period of boundless economical success and a certain level of freedom. It was quickly obvious that this is still a world where information is carefully managed, as I was unable to get access to my blog site. We could get Google news and email, but the blog which is run by Google (with whom China is having a few issues), was completely blocked.
Mar. 12 – Saturday
Just as daddy and Walter had their personal rickshaw that picked them up every day outside their hotel,…so we too have our own personal ‘rickshaw’ in the form of our van driven by our driver, Mr. Lu.
Our first stop was at Tiananmen Square, which we entered through a gantlet of security men who did a cursory check of our bags & coats. The National People’s Congress of China was in session at the Great Hall of the People, where they were laying out their five-year plan, and so security was quite visible. Having read Peter Hessler, I was sensitive to the level of security which would exist both in the form of visible policemen and police vans, as well as the less obvious security ‘disguised’ as tourists, but with shiny shoes and watchful eyes. At any point, as our guide pointed out, one might be ‘invited’ into one of the vans to be asked a few questions. The police were uninterested in us, the American tourists, and were more alert to other Asians who might carry signs or placards. At one point three security officers – one in plain clothes and two in uniform converged on a hapless tourist whom they thought had a sign he was displaying. It turned out to be his open map, and the three officers had a good laugh among each other. I found it less than amusing, wondering what would have happened had the paper been a sign rather than a map.
Like ourselves, our guide Lee had taken the time to read Daddy’s letters written from Beijing. I had also sent her the photographs which the boys had taken, and so she knew exactly where she wanted to take us to recreate the appropriate photographs. One of the key differences between then and now is that when the boys were visiting, the stone walls which surrounded Beijing were still in place, along with the gate houses. At this point only a few remnants of the wall or the gates remain, though names of streets still refer to these missing landmarks.
Our first stop was to walk past Mao’s Mausoleum ,with its very ‘Russian-style’ statues to the glories of the people and revolution…and then cross towards the Arrow Tower ,one of the last remaining city gates built during the Ming Dynasty. From here we were able to take pictures of the old railway station which the boys had spoken of and which is now a museum. We then walked the long walk through the square, past the simple Monument to the People’s Heroes which was erected in 1959 and from where many protestors have been ‘invited for questioning’ over the last fifty years. The square was filled with tourists, buskers, policemen and guards, and we were told that we could take any pictures we wanted except that of policemen and guards. This is China’s Washington D.C. – the center of the government – and it holds for all Chinese the same fascination as our capital does for us. My guess is that we have many guards in plain clothes all around the capital and White House areas as well, we may just be a wee bit kinder when we ‘invite‘people to answer questions.
Along with a few thousand other tourists, we worked our way to the entrance of Tian’an Men gate (Men meaning ‘gate’) which is the entrance to the Forbidden City, and from which Mao declared the beginning of the People’s Republic in 1949. Here there is hanging the famous painting of Mao, one of the last visible signs of the man anywhere in China. He has been pretty much purged from modern day China ,and his little red book, the drab green uniforms, the Mao-style hats, the large posters and other forms of required adulation have been removed. But here, near his mausoleum and at the gate, one still sees signs of him. As our guide pointed out, many people lived under his rule but had never seen him… so that is why, even to this day there is a curiosity about seeing his mummified remains and his portrait, which is periodically repainted to keep it bright in the haze and pollution which engulfs the city.
Both of us were fairly unaware of the details of the Forbidden City. We had seen the movie of The Last Emperor, we had taken our Chinese class at Dartmouth, and we had watched our Chinese history DVD course, but the level of detail associated with every part of the palace grounds was a mystery. We understood that everything was on a north-south axis with the main palace in the center. In addition there is the Palace of Heaven and its associated buildings at one end, and the Palace to Earth at the other. While Lee made a very strong attempt to fill our ignorant heads with knowledge about every palace, courtyard object, and symbol, after awhile it became one blur of data. The symbolism of certain animals (turtles, lions, unicorns, dragons, tigers, phoenix, etc), certain numbers, (mostly odd, and especially the number 9) and certain celestial bodies, all played a part in the infinite detail that makes up this amazing city. For us, it was just a wee bit overwhelming in its magnificence and its sheer size. We had been warned that it was large, but this was truly amazing. The levels of detail and ornamentation were overwhelming and so we sometimes just had to pause, take a picture, and hope that those memories would trigger us to remember some of the information when we looked at them in the future.
I kept looking at Daddy’s pictures taken when there was practically no one to be seen, and comparing it to the throngs whom we had to move through to see any of the sites. Of course, it is only in recent history that one was able to go through this city at all, and so for many Chinese it is somewhat of a pilgrimage.
There in the middle of all this, we ran into Peter and Ann Valentine (the man who had visited his home in Shanghai), and had our picture taken together. Throughout the day we kept seeing pairs of people from the ship, who like ourselves, were taking independent tours. There weren’t that many Caucasians so it was not hard to sort out those whom we might recognize and those who were total strangers.
We must have been in the Forbidden City for over three hours, and we only scratched the surface. Were we more knowledgeable, we could have taken days or even years to examine and understand the importance of every building and its relation to the whole, but as it was, we took a ‘survey course’ which was already way more information than we’d known walking in. [n.b.: It’s days like this that remind us how little we know of China and its history. It was an unknown topic in our education, and only now are we coming to appreciate the depth and length of this civilization.] One of our goals was to try and take pictures in the similar locations as those taken by ‘the boys’, and as the day went on our guide joined in the game of locating the exact spot where one of the boy-photographers had stood. That and finding places to pose our Peacham Library ‘Froggy’, made for a unique adventure both for us and for our guide. Ms. Lee was a fountain of knowledge, and I’m sure she could have entertained us with facts, figures, history, mythology and religion for days on end. She is used to ignorant American tourists, but when we stopped for some plum-honey tea, Ms. Lee complimented Bob on his knowledge of names and dates, and his grasp of the Imperial history. Thank you Ellen Frost, and our ILEAD course at Dartmouth.
I think, for me, the most delightful parts were the gardens in the center where flowering trees were just beginning to blossom. I could imagine being an Emperor, quietly sitting in my private garden enjoying the peace and beauty. During the time of Mao, all flowers and gardens were considered to be feudal and unnecessary and were totally destroyed, we didn’t ask if this was the fate of these lovely gardens but simply enjoyed what we saw. Trees that survived for many years are now lovingly tagged: red for ancient trees, green for newer ones and this seems to be done in many of the palaces and temples. The other interesting part for me in that same area was the limestone structure which was built out of many individual limestone contributions made by citizens who wanted to avoid taxes. To give a piece of limestone seemed to relieve one of certain tax responsibilities – if that were true in Peacham, we’d gladly contribute annual chunks of stone if that would help anything.
We were a little embarrassed, but charmed, when four young women, from a small village in South China, asked our guide for permission to have their picture taken with us. They each tried a few words in English, and never stopped grinning. It’s the first time we’ve been selected as interesting objects worthy of a stranger’s camera and we’re curious as to whether this will happen often on the trip.
Ultimately we landed at the opposite end of the Forbidden City, where our driver was waiting to whisk us off to the narrow-alley ways known as the Hutongs. This is the part of old Beijing where houses designed in courtyard fashion (Siheyuan), and protected by high walls, served in the past as the homes of fairly well-to-do people. This area is being preserved now, and many of the homes are being restored for current usage. We boarded our bicycle-driven-rickshaws to see this neighborhood, since no modern-day car would fit into the tight narrow lanes. It is obviously a tourist attraction and all the rickshaw drivers were part of the “Beijing Shichahai Traditional Feeling Hutong Cultural Co., Ltd.”
Unlike in Daddy’s time, when men literally pulled the rickshaw, the current day bicycle-driver is one step more ‘civilized’, but I still took pity on the man who had to pull the equivalent of 300+ pounds of American flesh as we meandered through the area. Legs of steel, that’s all I could think.
When the ride ended we were led down a narrow lane, ducking into a doorway, dipping our heads underneath the hanging laundry, and walking into a narrow hallway - our luncheon destination. Many Siheyuan owners make a living serving meals to ‘tourists’ in their homes. We were at the private home of a young couple with a very young chubby baby. We were in their ‘living room’ which was decked out with dining tables, but along the side walls were pictures of their life together along with their private possessions. It was as if we’d taken out most of the chairs in our livingroom to make room for some dining tables, but everything else remained in place. Slightly jarring. The meal was created in the smallest ‘galley’ kitchen I’ve ever seen, and served by the husband, wife and one of their mothers. Out of this tiny kitchen came a gourmet feast, including: fried shrimp; scrambled eggs with onion; chicken legs in hot sauce; pork meat balls; pot sticker dumplings, steamed broccoli; rice; dates,; tangerines, and peanuts roasted with hot chili peppers. Every bite was delicious and washed down with some fine Tsingtao beer. I had mixed feelings being an embarrassed tourist invading their space, but at the same time appreciating that this was just one way to make a living, and we were grateful that they allowed us into their home. We shared the room with a small tour group of Chinese from Hong Kong, all speaking Cantonese. The entire host family was very friendly and gracious, and brought the baby out to the alley to wave goodbye. It was our best lunch of the entire trip!
We were less than half way through our day of sites, so off we went next to the Lama Temple, which is still used by Buddhist monks. It is an entire complex with a series of halls, each one filled with statuary, symbolic objects and shrines, where many Asian tourists were lighting incense sticks and kowtowing to the shrine of the Buddha. Unfortunately there was no taking of pictures inside the temples so our minds had to remember the many beautiful details including a fifty-five foot Buddha carved out of one piece of wood. A big ol’ boy he was, and we had to crane our necks to see his head high above us in the rafters of the building. We snapped pictures outside the buildings , with my favorite sign being: “Don’t burn incense and film in the Hall”. I tried to explain to our guide the humor in this, but she didn’t quite get it. But as instructed we burned absolutely no film while visiting the site. All other signage above the doors which identified the buildings were shown in four languages: Mandarin, Tibetan, Han and Mogul. Again, if we understood more about Buddhism and its symbolism, and the conflicts between China and the Dalai Lama, we might have treasured this visit more. Instead, this was a relatively quick stop, and a little over-crowded ,so any sense of the peace and reflective quality of the temples were lost to the throngs of devout visitors.
Our next stop was a visit to an official Tea House. We were seated at a small table where a young lady in perfect English explained the importance of different teas and their medicinal qualities, and then instructed us in the proper way to serve tea. Let’s just say, we do it all wrong. We use tea bags, we heat the water too hot, and we have no sense of ceremony. Everything was heated at least once – the cups, the pot, and the tea, and then it was heated again. She did it with extreme grace and we sampled four different types of tea: Oolong, Green, Jasmine and flower. Flower was the most fun because she immersed a dried brown flower blossom in the hot water and over the next 20 minutes it unfolded to become a beautiful multi-colored flower. Once we had sampled our teas, learned the correct manner to serve tea and thanked our gracious hostess , we were encouraged to buy some tea – which we did. (I never knew tea could be so expensive, but I learned that true connoisseurs will spend many thousands of Yuan on tea (one Yuan = 15 cents) with the assumption that the higher the cost, the better its medicinal qualities.!)
With food as a theme, our next to last stop was a fresh food market where I went camera crazy. There were piles of strawberries, tomatoes, apples, oranges, eel, many fishes, broccoli, sugar cane and a million things I couldn’t identify. I thought of the markets in France and in Quebec, and enjoyed this one as much as any of them. We were the only Caucasians in the crowd, and naturally got a good deal of stares, but it was all friendly and we landed up with wonderful fruit for our hotel room: bananas, apples and dragon fruit.
The last event of the day was the Flying Acrobat show at the Beijing Chaoyang Theater. Our guide, having seen the show just one too many times, escorted us to our seat and took off. We found ourselves sitting next to a Canadian couple from the ship whom we’d never seen on board. After a few minutes of chit-chat the show began and it was truly an extravaganza of light, music, laser and amazing feats of acrobatics. Bob was impressed by the entire theatrical experience which he rated as very sophisticated; I simply enjoyed the pure agility and daring feats performed by the performers. There was one amazing act involving two large connected wheels (like a bicycle. In each ‘wheel’ was a male acrobat, and through the next minutes they did some amazing acts of juggling and blindfold walking on this spinning object where you were sure someone would die or get seriously injured. But they didn’t. I have been to Cirque de Soleil, and this compared as being as exciting, colorful, well performed and complex. We clapped like fools for the skills demonstrated, and left the theater elated with this fine conclusion to a very busy day.
We fell into bed early, having de-compressed with a beer in the hotel lobby. Dinner was out of the question since we were still stuffed from lunch. This was to be a pattern which would continuedfor the next days in Beijing.
We had an early start to our day as we had to have an early breakfast, and vacate our stateroom by 8:00 a.m., gather in the waiting areas until the ship had been cleared, and then disembark. We got through Chinese immigration and customs, and headed out into the cold weather of Tianjin to be met by Ms. Lee and Mr. Lu. Most of our fellow travelers were heading directly for the airports or were on ship-planned tours for the next days. We had arranged to have our own private guide for four days in Beijing, and this was considered day one. We drove for three hours, in our lovely new van, from the port to the heart of Beijing through vast flat steppes of brown, dry rice fields. There was nothing on either side but farming, or periodically industrial centers, so we took the time to get to know our guide, and to plan out the next days.
We arrived at the Marriott, unpacked the van and went to the reception desk, only to discover that we were at the wrong Marriott…so we called back Mr. Lu and the van, repacked the luggage and headed to the J.W. Marriott located in the busy financial district of the city. Here we were welcomed and taken to our elegant suite, where we collapsed.
While unpacking, we turned on our television to be struck by the instantly breaking news of an enormous earthquake and tsunami on the east coast of Japan, which had occurred only hours ago during our drive. The news was that this was at least an 8.5 tremor located off shore, and that the tsunami that was striking the shore would be almost as devastating as the earthquake. As the day progressed the rolling tsunami was destined to hit many Pacific coastlines as far as California, and all communities were being warned to get to high ground. The immediate issue was that there were also a series of nuclear reactors along the coastline of Japan which were in danger as well. For the rest of the day we were glued to the television as the news seemed to get worse and worse. Japan is a country that is prone to earthquakes, but nothing this large had ever hit them. As the news men tried to fill the air with insufficient data, the projections of death and destruction mounted.
Knowing that many at home would be worried about us (remembering that we would have been in Japan during our cruise), I quickly sent an all-points bulletin via email to let everyone know we were safe and sound and quite a distance from the besieged area. But just as one remembers where you were when certain disasters occurred, I think Beijing, for us, will always be associated with the third worst earthquake since records have been kept.
Beijing is one of the cities which the boys enjoyed for a week, and we’ll have to try and see all that they did in four days. Since they were here in the ‘middle kingdom’, China has gone through times of despair, war, occupation, revolution, insular periods when they were totally cut off from Western influence and now to a period of boundless economical success and a certain level of freedom. It was quickly obvious that this is still a world where information is carefully managed, as I was unable to get access to my blog site. We could get Google news and email, but the blog which is run by Google (with whom China is having a few issues), was completely blocked.
Mar. 12 – Saturday
Just as daddy and Walter had their personal rickshaw that picked them up every day outside their hotel,…so we too have our own personal ‘rickshaw’ in the form of our van driven by our driver, Mr. Lu.
Our first stop was at Tiananmen Square, which we entered through a gantlet of security men who did a cursory check of our bags & coats. The National People’s Congress of China was in session at the Great Hall of the People, where they were laying out their five-year plan, and so security was quite visible. Having read Peter Hessler, I was sensitive to the level of security which would exist both in the form of visible policemen and police vans, as well as the less obvious security ‘disguised’ as tourists, but with shiny shoes and watchful eyes. At any point, as our guide pointed out, one might be ‘invited’ into one of the vans to be asked a few questions. The police were uninterested in us, the American tourists, and were more alert to other Asians who might carry signs or placards. At one point three security officers – one in plain clothes and two in uniform converged on a hapless tourist whom they thought had a sign he was displaying. It turned out to be his open map, and the three officers had a good laugh among each other. I found it less than amusing, wondering what would have happened had the paper been a sign rather than a map.
Like ourselves, our guide Lee had taken the time to read Daddy’s letters written from Beijing. I had also sent her the photographs which the boys had taken, and so she knew exactly where she wanted to take us to recreate the appropriate photographs. One of the key differences between then and now is that when the boys were visiting, the stone walls which surrounded Beijing were still in place, along with the gate houses. At this point only a few remnants of the wall or the gates remain, though names of streets still refer to these missing landmarks.
Our first stop was to walk past Mao’s Mausoleum ,with its very ‘Russian-style’ statues to the glories of the people and revolution…and then cross towards the Arrow Tower ,one of the last remaining city gates built during the Ming Dynasty. From here we were able to take pictures of the old railway station which the boys had spoken of and which is now a museum. We then walked the long walk through the square, past the simple Monument to the People’s Heroes which was erected in 1959 and from where many protestors have been ‘invited for questioning’ over the last fifty years. The square was filled with tourists, buskers, policemen and guards, and we were told that we could take any pictures we wanted except that of policemen and guards. This is China’s Washington D.C. – the center of the government – and it holds for all Chinese the same fascination as our capital does for us. My guess is that we have many guards in plain clothes all around the capital and White House areas as well, we may just be a wee bit kinder when we ‘invite‘people to answer questions.
Along with a few thousand other tourists, we worked our way to the entrance of Tian’an Men gate (Men meaning ‘gate’) which is the entrance to the Forbidden City, and from which Mao declared the beginning of the People’s Republic in 1949. Here there is hanging the famous painting of Mao, one of the last visible signs of the man anywhere in China. He has been pretty much purged from modern day China ,and his little red book, the drab green uniforms, the Mao-style hats, the large posters and other forms of required adulation have been removed. But here, near his mausoleum and at the gate, one still sees signs of him. As our guide pointed out, many people lived under his rule but had never seen him… so that is why, even to this day there is a curiosity about seeing his mummified remains and his portrait, which is periodically repainted to keep it bright in the haze and pollution which engulfs the city.
Both of us were fairly unaware of the details of the Forbidden City. We had seen the movie of The Last Emperor, we had taken our Chinese class at Dartmouth, and we had watched our Chinese history DVD course, but the level of detail associated with every part of the palace grounds was a mystery. We understood that everything was on a north-south axis with the main palace in the center. In addition there is the Palace of Heaven and its associated buildings at one end, and the Palace to Earth at the other. While Lee made a very strong attempt to fill our ignorant heads with knowledge about every palace, courtyard object, and symbol, after awhile it became one blur of data. The symbolism of certain animals (turtles, lions, unicorns, dragons, tigers, phoenix, etc), certain numbers, (mostly odd, and especially the number 9) and certain celestial bodies, all played a part in the infinite detail that makes up this amazing city. For us, it was just a wee bit overwhelming in its magnificence and its sheer size. We had been warned that it was large, but this was truly amazing. The levels of detail and ornamentation were overwhelming and so we sometimes just had to pause, take a picture, and hope that those memories would trigger us to remember some of the information when we looked at them in the future.
I kept looking at Daddy’s pictures taken when there was practically no one to be seen, and comparing it to the throngs whom we had to move through to see any of the sites. Of course, it is only in recent history that one was able to go through this city at all, and so for many Chinese it is somewhat of a pilgrimage.
There in the middle of all this, we ran into Peter and Ann Valentine (the man who had visited his home in Shanghai), and had our picture taken together. Throughout the day we kept seeing pairs of people from the ship, who like ourselves, were taking independent tours. There weren’t that many Caucasians so it was not hard to sort out those whom we might recognize and those who were total strangers.
We must have been in the Forbidden City for over three hours, and we only scratched the surface. Were we more knowledgeable, we could have taken days or even years to examine and understand the importance of every building and its relation to the whole, but as it was, we took a ‘survey course’ which was already way more information than we’d known walking in. [n.b.: It’s days like this that remind us how little we know of China and its history. It was an unknown topic in our education, and only now are we coming to appreciate the depth and length of this civilization.] One of our goals was to try and take pictures in the similar locations as those taken by ‘the boys’, and as the day went on our guide joined in the game of locating the exact spot where one of the boy-photographers had stood. That and finding places to pose our Peacham Library ‘Froggy’, made for a unique adventure both for us and for our guide. Ms. Lee was a fountain of knowledge, and I’m sure she could have entertained us with facts, figures, history, mythology and religion for days on end. She is used to ignorant American tourists, but when we stopped for some plum-honey tea, Ms. Lee complimented Bob on his knowledge of names and dates, and his grasp of the Imperial history. Thank you Ellen Frost, and our ILEAD course at Dartmouth.
I think, for me, the most delightful parts were the gardens in the center where flowering trees were just beginning to blossom. I could imagine being an Emperor, quietly sitting in my private garden enjoying the peace and beauty. During the time of Mao, all flowers and gardens were considered to be feudal and unnecessary and were totally destroyed, we didn’t ask if this was the fate of these lovely gardens but simply enjoyed what we saw. Trees that survived for many years are now lovingly tagged: red for ancient trees, green for newer ones and this seems to be done in many of the palaces and temples. The other interesting part for me in that same area was the limestone structure which was built out of many individual limestone contributions made by citizens who wanted to avoid taxes. To give a piece of limestone seemed to relieve one of certain tax responsibilities – if that were true in Peacham, we’d gladly contribute annual chunks of stone if that would help anything.
We were a little embarrassed, but charmed, when four young women, from a small village in South China, asked our guide for permission to have their picture taken with us. They each tried a few words in English, and never stopped grinning. It’s the first time we’ve been selected as interesting objects worthy of a stranger’s camera and we’re curious as to whether this will happen often on the trip.
Ultimately we landed at the opposite end of the Forbidden City, where our driver was waiting to whisk us off to the narrow-alley ways known as the Hutongs. This is the part of old Beijing where houses designed in courtyard fashion (Siheyuan), and protected by high walls, served in the past as the homes of fairly well-to-do people. This area is being preserved now, and many of the homes are being restored for current usage. We boarded our bicycle-driven-rickshaws to see this neighborhood, since no modern-day car would fit into the tight narrow lanes. It is obviously a tourist attraction and all the rickshaw drivers were part of the “Beijing Shichahai Traditional Feeling Hutong Cultural Co., Ltd.”
Unlike in Daddy’s time, when men literally pulled the rickshaw, the current day bicycle-driver is one step more ‘civilized’, but I still took pity on the man who had to pull the equivalent of 300+ pounds of American flesh as we meandered through the area. Legs of steel, that’s all I could think.
When the ride ended we were led down a narrow lane, ducking into a doorway, dipping our heads underneath the hanging laundry, and walking into a narrow hallway - our luncheon destination. Many Siheyuan owners make a living serving meals to ‘tourists’ in their homes. We were at the private home of a young couple with a very young chubby baby. We were in their ‘living room’ which was decked out with dining tables, but along the side walls were pictures of their life together along with their private possessions. It was as if we’d taken out most of the chairs in our livingroom to make room for some dining tables, but everything else remained in place. Slightly jarring. The meal was created in the smallest ‘galley’ kitchen I’ve ever seen, and served by the husband, wife and one of their mothers. Out of this tiny kitchen came a gourmet feast, including: fried shrimp; scrambled eggs with onion; chicken legs in hot sauce; pork meat balls; pot sticker dumplings, steamed broccoli; rice; dates,; tangerines, and peanuts roasted with hot chili peppers. Every bite was delicious and washed down with some fine Tsingtao beer. I had mixed feelings being an embarrassed tourist invading their space, but at the same time appreciating that this was just one way to make a living, and we were grateful that they allowed us into their home. We shared the room with a small tour group of Chinese from Hong Kong, all speaking Cantonese. The entire host family was very friendly and gracious, and brought the baby out to the alley to wave goodbye. It was our best lunch of the entire trip!
We were less than half way through our day of sites, so off we went next to the Lama Temple, which is still used by Buddhist monks. It is an entire complex with a series of halls, each one filled with statuary, symbolic objects and shrines, where many Asian tourists were lighting incense sticks and kowtowing to the shrine of the Buddha. Unfortunately there was no taking of pictures inside the temples so our minds had to remember the many beautiful details including a fifty-five foot Buddha carved out of one piece of wood. A big ol’ boy he was, and we had to crane our necks to see his head high above us in the rafters of the building. We snapped pictures outside the buildings , with my favorite sign being: “Don’t burn incense and film in the Hall”. I tried to explain to our guide the humor in this, but she didn’t quite get it. But as instructed we burned absolutely no film while visiting the site. All other signage above the doors which identified the buildings were shown in four languages: Mandarin, Tibetan, Han and Mogul. Again, if we understood more about Buddhism and its symbolism, and the conflicts between China and the Dalai Lama, we might have treasured this visit more. Instead, this was a relatively quick stop, and a little over-crowded ,so any sense of the peace and reflective quality of the temples were lost to the throngs of devout visitors.
Our next stop was a visit to an official Tea House. We were seated at a small table where a young lady in perfect English explained the importance of different teas and their medicinal qualities, and then instructed us in the proper way to serve tea. Let’s just say, we do it all wrong. We use tea bags, we heat the water too hot, and we have no sense of ceremony. Everything was heated at least once – the cups, the pot, and the tea, and then it was heated again. She did it with extreme grace and we sampled four different types of tea: Oolong, Green, Jasmine and flower. Flower was the most fun because she immersed a dried brown flower blossom in the hot water and over the next 20 minutes it unfolded to become a beautiful multi-colored flower. Once we had sampled our teas, learned the correct manner to serve tea and thanked our gracious hostess , we were encouraged to buy some tea – which we did. (I never knew tea could be so expensive, but I learned that true connoisseurs will spend many thousands of Yuan on tea (one Yuan = 15 cents) with the assumption that the higher the cost, the better its medicinal qualities.!)
With food as a theme, our next to last stop was a fresh food market where I went camera crazy. There were piles of strawberries, tomatoes, apples, oranges, eel, many fishes, broccoli, sugar cane and a million things I couldn’t identify. I thought of the markets in France and in Quebec, and enjoyed this one as much as any of them. We were the only Caucasians in the crowd, and naturally got a good deal of stares, but it was all friendly and we landed up with wonderful fruit for our hotel room: bananas, apples and dragon fruit.
The last event of the day was the Flying Acrobat show at the Beijing Chaoyang Theater. Our guide, having seen the show just one too many times, escorted us to our seat and took off. We found ourselves sitting next to a Canadian couple from the ship whom we’d never seen on board. After a few minutes of chit-chat the show began and it was truly an extravaganza of light, music, laser and amazing feats of acrobatics. Bob was impressed by the entire theatrical experience which he rated as very sophisticated; I simply enjoyed the pure agility and daring feats performed by the performers. There was one amazing act involving two large connected wheels (like a bicycle. In each ‘wheel’ was a male acrobat, and through the next minutes they did some amazing acts of juggling and blindfold walking on this spinning object where you were sure someone would die or get seriously injured. But they didn’t. I have been to Cirque de Soleil, and this compared as being as exciting, colorful, well performed and complex. We clapped like fools for the skills demonstrated, and left the theater elated with this fine conclusion to a very busy day.
We fell into bed early, having de-compressed with a beer in the hotel lobby. Dinner was out of the question since we were still stuffed from lunch. This was to be a pattern which would continuedfor the next days in Beijing.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Mar 9 - Korea
Apologies to all my blog readers, but while in China I was unable ti use the blogger site of Google, censorship has its' sad place in the world....so you'll get Shanghai and Korea in one batch of blogs, and Peking comes next.
March 9 – Korea
Having had a day at sea to rest our legs, we set out early in bus # 2, with our guide Park (pronounced Pok), a lovely Korean woman. The high temperature for the day was going to be 38, if we were lucky, so we layered ourselves as best we could for our trip to the DMZ.
We traveled along the border between North and South Korea, as we learned the history of the Korean War and how the DMZ had been laid out. As we got to the first look-out for Freedom Bridge, we were warned about where we could and could not take pictures. We were a good six miles from where the North Koreans actually live, but the whole area along the DMZ is heavily mined, and very carefully monitored by both sides.
Freedom Bridge is the place where all contact between the UN and the two Koreas took place in the 50’s. On our bus was Colonel Bauer, a guest lecturer on board the ship who had served in Korea in the late 1960’s, and he was able to point out many camouflaged tanks and outposts that we with our innocent eyes would have glanced over. It had the same feeling as the Berlin Wall, but this had a much wider swath between the two sides.
Our next stop was to go into one of the tunnels which the North Koreans had built with the goal of attacking Seoul. They built many tunnels, of which four have been discovered thanks to a defector who pointed them out, but there is an assumption that there are many more yet to be discovered. Tunnel three was the one which tourists are now allowed to visit. We were warned, once we’d left the welcome center, that there were to be no photographs once we started into the tunnels. In fact, we were asked to leave everything in lockers – purses, umbrellas, anything on our bodies but our coats and mittens, and to don beautiful blue hard hats. Why this was required became quickly evident.
Our tour group was loaded onto a small open rail train, four people to a car, not unlike those joy ride trains one would take into the ‘tunnel of love’. We strapped on our safety belts and tightened our hard hats as the train hurtled down over 300 meters to reach the entry of the original tunnel. It was a most narrow ride and we had to make sure that we tucked our shoulders and heads to avoid bumping the edge of the tunnel sides which were solid, dripping, craggy granite. At the base of the shaft, we got off our train and duck-walked our way about ½ a mile to the point where we had to stop or we would be on CNN having defected to the North Korean side. The tunnels were originally built to be about four meters wide and three meters high , in order to carry troops and armament into the south, but with construction girders to avoid cave-ins, if you were much over five feet tall you were in trouble. The constant sound of blue hard hats ‘pinging’ against the roof or girders made for an interesting concert as we duck-walked to the no-go zone and back again to re-enter our small train, which would carry us back to the surface. A most eerie experience, and for those with bad backs or claustrophobia, it was pure hell. And to think, one paid good money for this historic opportunity!
Having returned our hard hats, and retrieved our worldly goods, we loaded the buses to go to the observatory where one could see quite clearly into North Korea. Again we were warned not to take photographs, but one idiot decided the rules didn’t apply to him, so he reached up and took photographs. WHAM! He was strong-armed by two South Korean Military Police, who pinned him against a wall, made him open his camera, show the photographs and delete them. Then he was marched back to the bus. They said no photographs, and they meant it. As our guide explained, if we simply took our pictures home and pasted them in an album, that would be one thing, but thanks to the internet and digital cameras, it would be a matter of seconds to have these pictures anywhere in the world and this could be a grave security risk.
So having had a fairly sober morning, we drove back towards a town where most of the soldiers serving the DMZ go for R&R, and where there are hotels to serve their families. We had a typical Korean meal consisting of many tasty tidbits of kimchi, onion pancakes, broccoli and bean sprouts, while in front of us a hot-pot made a wonderful stir fry of beef and vegetables to be put on steamed rice. With a fine local beer to wash it down, we were very happy campers…. all except one Canadian gentleman next to us whom we’d met on another trip where lunch was included. He doesn’t eat Asian food, he proudly announced, and proceeded to watch us as we ate everything in sight. This was our second time where he pulled this, and we both wondered why he had come to Asia in the first place. His wife sweetly explained that he eats on the ship, thank you very much, so he enjoys the trip….just not the on-shore food opportunities.
Back to the bus and on to Seoul for a few hours of shopping in the ‘artist’ quarter, a long winding street which was more like a tourist trap. We were dropped off at one end and walked to the other, where we met our bus again the most hidden Starbucks in the world. Because this ‘artist’ area tries for authenticity they did not want Starbucks to show their logo or name, so one is able to get a coffee, but you have to know how to find the nameless shop. Flakes of snow were falling as we ended our day and gladly headed back to the ship for some hot tea and a drink in the Martini Lounge.
March 10 – Last Day at Sea
We are now sailing back across the Yellow Sea, to get to Tianjin tomorrow morning, where the cruise officially ends. So we spent the day doing all the last minute things: exchanging business cards, packing suitcases to put them outside our cabin by 10:30 at night, filling out critique sheets about the trip, and having one last dinner in the Grand Dining room before retiring early.
It was a good cruise, if not a great one. The destination ports met all our requirements, except for Ko Samui, Thailand; we met interesting people on board, and we loved our days at sea, but something was missing. We couldn’t put our fingers on it but it was something in the service and the food that just didn’t match our Nautica trip last year, so that at the end of this cruise we’re not sure we have to ever take a Oceania trip again….but that’s now. Who knows what we’ll think in a few years’ time.
But now we’re on to our private tour of Beijing, and we’re both very excited!
March 9 – Korea
Having had a day at sea to rest our legs, we set out early in bus # 2, with our guide Park (pronounced Pok), a lovely Korean woman. The high temperature for the day was going to be 38, if we were lucky, so we layered ourselves as best we could for our trip to the DMZ.
We traveled along the border between North and South Korea, as we learned the history of the Korean War and how the DMZ had been laid out. As we got to the first look-out for Freedom Bridge, we were warned about where we could and could not take pictures. We were a good six miles from where the North Koreans actually live, but the whole area along the DMZ is heavily mined, and very carefully monitored by both sides.
Freedom Bridge is the place where all contact between the UN and the two Koreas took place in the 50’s. On our bus was Colonel Bauer, a guest lecturer on board the ship who had served in Korea in the late 1960’s, and he was able to point out many camouflaged tanks and outposts that we with our innocent eyes would have glanced over. It had the same feeling as the Berlin Wall, but this had a much wider swath between the two sides.
Our next stop was to go into one of the tunnels which the North Koreans had built with the goal of attacking Seoul. They built many tunnels, of which four have been discovered thanks to a defector who pointed them out, but there is an assumption that there are many more yet to be discovered. Tunnel three was the one which tourists are now allowed to visit. We were warned, once we’d left the welcome center, that there were to be no photographs once we started into the tunnels. In fact, we were asked to leave everything in lockers – purses, umbrellas, anything on our bodies but our coats and mittens, and to don beautiful blue hard hats. Why this was required became quickly evident.
Our tour group was loaded onto a small open rail train, four people to a car, not unlike those joy ride trains one would take into the ‘tunnel of love’. We strapped on our safety belts and tightened our hard hats as the train hurtled down over 300 meters to reach the entry of the original tunnel. It was a most narrow ride and we had to make sure that we tucked our shoulders and heads to avoid bumping the edge of the tunnel sides which were solid, dripping, craggy granite. At the base of the shaft, we got off our train and duck-walked our way about ½ a mile to the point where we had to stop or we would be on CNN having defected to the North Korean side. The tunnels were originally built to be about four meters wide and three meters high , in order to carry troops and armament into the south, but with construction girders to avoid cave-ins, if you were much over five feet tall you were in trouble. The constant sound of blue hard hats ‘pinging’ against the roof or girders made for an interesting concert as we duck-walked to the no-go zone and back again to re-enter our small train, which would carry us back to the surface. A most eerie experience, and for those with bad backs or claustrophobia, it was pure hell. And to think, one paid good money for this historic opportunity!
Having returned our hard hats, and retrieved our worldly goods, we loaded the buses to go to the observatory where one could see quite clearly into North Korea. Again we were warned not to take photographs, but one idiot decided the rules didn’t apply to him, so he reached up and took photographs. WHAM! He was strong-armed by two South Korean Military Police, who pinned him against a wall, made him open his camera, show the photographs and delete them. Then he was marched back to the bus. They said no photographs, and they meant it. As our guide explained, if we simply took our pictures home and pasted them in an album, that would be one thing, but thanks to the internet and digital cameras, it would be a matter of seconds to have these pictures anywhere in the world and this could be a grave security risk.
So having had a fairly sober morning, we drove back towards a town where most of the soldiers serving the DMZ go for R&R, and where there are hotels to serve their families. We had a typical Korean meal consisting of many tasty tidbits of kimchi, onion pancakes, broccoli and bean sprouts, while in front of us a hot-pot made a wonderful stir fry of beef and vegetables to be put on steamed rice. With a fine local beer to wash it down, we were very happy campers…. all except one Canadian gentleman next to us whom we’d met on another trip where lunch was included. He doesn’t eat Asian food, he proudly announced, and proceeded to watch us as we ate everything in sight. This was our second time where he pulled this, and we both wondered why he had come to Asia in the first place. His wife sweetly explained that he eats on the ship, thank you very much, so he enjoys the trip….just not the on-shore food opportunities.
Back to the bus and on to Seoul for a few hours of shopping in the ‘artist’ quarter, a long winding street which was more like a tourist trap. We were dropped off at one end and walked to the other, where we met our bus again the most hidden Starbucks in the world. Because this ‘artist’ area tries for authenticity they did not want Starbucks to show their logo or name, so one is able to get a coffee, but you have to know how to find the nameless shop. Flakes of snow were falling as we ended our day and gladly headed back to the ship for some hot tea and a drink in the Martini Lounge.
March 10 – Last Day at Sea
We are now sailing back across the Yellow Sea, to get to Tianjin tomorrow morning, where the cruise officially ends. So we spent the day doing all the last minute things: exchanging business cards, packing suitcases to put them outside our cabin by 10:30 at night, filling out critique sheets about the trip, and having one last dinner in the Grand Dining room before retiring early.
It was a good cruise, if not a great one. The destination ports met all our requirements, except for Ko Samui, Thailand; we met interesting people on board, and we loved our days at sea, but something was missing. We couldn’t put our fingers on it but it was something in the service and the food that just didn’t match our Nautica trip last year, so that at the end of this cruise we’re not sure we have to ever take a Oceania trip again….but that’s now. Who knows what we’ll think in a few years’ time.
But now we’re on to our private tour of Beijing, and we’re both very excited!
Mar 6-7 - Shanghai
March 6-7 – Shanghai, China
March 6 – Following Daddy’s footsteps
This was the next of the important ports where Daddy and Walter had spent five days, and so to ensure that we saw all the critical places from their letters, we arranged for a private guide – Charlie – to whom I had emailed all the sites or buildings mentioned in the letters of 1927-28.
Once we left the East China Sea, our trip down the Yangzi River and then the Huangpu River took a good ten hours. The pilot was on board the entire time to guide the ship past the many container ships, barges and other commercial traffic that filled both rivers. Having docked at 7:00 am, we went through our usual face-to-face customs with the Chinese authorities and went to find Charlie to begin our one day tour.
Charlie met us as we came through customs, and for the rest of the very rainy, cold day we were in the hands of him and the driver, in our large gray van. Charlie had done his homework, and while he teased us that we were only looking at the ‘old Shanghai’, we promised him that next time we came to visit we’d have him as our guide and look at the ‘new Shanghai’…. which continues to be as exciting a city as it was for the boys in the 20’s.
Our first stop was the Astor Hotel, the place they’d stayed and enjoyed so much for its elegance and convenient location. The hotel has a long and storied history as it was known as ‘the Waldorf Astoria of Shanghai’. It has gone through a series of owners since its start in the mid 1800’s, and is currently undergoing its next transformation. Julie Lang, a friend from Peacham had taken some pictures when she had visited Shanghai, so we had an idea of what we would see, but there is nothing like being there ‘in the flesh’. We snapped pictures in the lobby area and then asked to see an old room as would have existed in the 20’s. After a bit of hemming and hawing, we were led to a ‘celebrity room’ which had once been used by Marconi. To get to this room we wound our way through dark hallways, and the less ‘gracious’ parts of the hotel, but it was worth it: the room was furnished as it would have been in the 20’s with leather chairs, a very ornate bed, and light fixtures which while new, resembled the old. The only indication that you were in the year 2011 was the bathroom which was very modern and ‘up-scale’. We happily snapped pictures under the watchful eye of our escort, one of the bellmen who was there I’m sure, to ensure we didn’t do any mischief. Even Charlie, who has taken many people to the hotel lobby, admitted that this was his first time in one of the guestrooms. We continued downstairs to snap pictures in the room which I thought to be the ‘grill room’ in which the boys enjoyed meals, and the ballroom area where they enjoyed a dance. As in Malaysia and Singapore, it was eerie but wonderful to be in the same place that the boys had enjoyed.
We left the hotel, and headed past the current Russian consulate, and across the canal on the Garden Bridge to visit the Huangpu Park, which was once part of the International Concession (everyone but the French, who had their own concession). The park was remembered as the place where the entrance gate said “No dogs or Chinese allowed”. Not one of the great moments in the colonial abuse of China! My father had visited an import/export company on this side of the bridge, and Charlie discovered that the building still exists. It is now a private club, and sits in a bucolic park facing the canal. Since it was a quiet Sunday morning, Charlie arranged with the guard at the gate for us to go up the curving drive for a few pictures. Shanghai was amazingly quiet on this grey, drizzly morning; very peaceful, which was amazing considering how many people live in the city.
We then strolled along the Bund, and the new walkway built so that pedestrians can enjoy the river without being run over by buses, cars or scooters. Shanghai fell into ‘disrepair’ during the time of Mao, and it is only since the re-opening of China to the outside world that the government has put a great deal of money into restoring the Bund. While the fronts of the buildings are restored to their 1920’s look, many of these Western-style buildings have been gutted on the insides to become modern financial offices. Daddy had described this row of buildings as “wonderful palaces….dedicated to banks, of course”. Many banks continue to reside here, though the major portion of the financial sector has moved to a brand new location across the river, where in 1928 there were nothing buy docks and slums.
When one looks at the old buildings of the Bund you see mostly Western architecture. Only the old Bank of China Building tried to have a slightly pagoda-like roof at the top and Chinese style windows, since it had been designed by an American-trained Chinese architect. Charlie told great stories about the rivalry between the owner of this building and Mr. Sassoon, a wealthy Jewish Industrialist, who built the structure, right next door, and tried to make his the taller building with the green pointed roof. But the Bank of China went one step further…the competition of egotists.
Our next stop was the Great Palace of Amusement which existed in Daddy’s time, and only recently closed. A very old-fashioned place, it provided the locals with a multi-tiered building providing theater, opera, gambling and other amusements. Charlie did not believe it included prostitution, so we’ll believe him. Unfortunately at this point it was quite rainy, so we took pictures outside, as best we could. We stopped next at an authentic ‘Chinese pharmacist’, who provides herbs and roots to cure any and all problems. This emporium of Chinese cure-alls dates back to the 1800’s and the ladies and gentlemen inside who were the sales people/consultants were dressed in white lab coats to prove their authenticity and ability to provide any cure for ‘what ails you’. A delightful stop on a rainy day.
We next wanted to see the large model of the city of Shanghai which exists in the Department of Urban Planning. What an amazing thing – a room of 100 square meter s which contains a perfect 1:2000 scale model of the entire city. Every damn building including the entire set of buildings associated with the recent Shanghai Expo. Not only was there the model, but it had lighting to mimic the city’s lighting so that the main area around the Bund was brilliantly lit, while all arterial roads and structures had dimmer lights. We took a million pictures, but nothing could do this any justice. In addition to the model, different floors of the building portrayed the city at different times with diorama, photographs and maps. As Charlie said with his whimsical smile, you’re not the only one who is taking ‘then and now’ photographs, at which point he drew open a series of displays showing the city in the early 1900’s and in 2008. We had a great time looking at the photographs before hunger took over and we headed to lunch.
Along with most of Shanghai, who was out shopping or strolling in the rain, we headed to the Yu Gardens and Bazaar, a lovely replica of what old Shanghai must have looked like in its market areas – rebuilt for the current population. Winding narrow streets, houses with traditional ‘pointy’ roofs, and in the middle a dining ‘establishment ‘of three floors, and crowds waiting in line. Charlie seemed to be a regular and so we skipped the lines and were seated on the second floor at a table for eight. Soon another three-some joined us: mother, father and incredibly spoiled daughter who spent the entire meal screaming at the waitresses, taking food from her parents’ plates, or chatting on her telephone. Charlie suggested that this was one of the down-sides to the one-child policy – children who were spoiled and doted on by their anxious parents, and so undisciplined that it was unlikely that they would take responsibility for their parents in their old age, never mind the grandparents. It will be interesting to see how this very hierarchical society which honors the parents and ancestors survives this ‘blip’ in the natural Chinese family structure.
Our lunch was yummy, washed down with Tsingtao beer (of course), and we left ready to take on the world in the now pouring rain. My gimpy knee was beginning to fade though, so we continued our tour mostly in the car: the Paramount club where ladies continue to entertain men not unlike the dancing Russian women Daddy remembered; a visit into the French Concession to see the homes of Sun Yat Sen and Chou En Lai, and to get a sense of what this neighborhood looked like; and our last stop at the synagogue and Jewish Museum where we looked at the building but I was too whipped to go inside. This hadn’t been part of the boy’s original trip, so I felt I could hold this, and the entire episode of the Hitler era ‘Shanghai Ghetto’, for the next visit to this fascinating city.
One of the people on our cruise ship, Peter Valentine, had actually lived in this area, having fled Germany with his family when he was two years old. He lived in the Jewish Ghetto until he was ten, and he had a private tour that allowed him to see the house where he had lived and which he hadn’t seen for sixty years. It was an emotional trip for him, which he related to us when we got back to the ship.
We bid adieu to Charlie and the driver and collapsed aboard ship, having had a very busy, emotional and delightful day visiting ‘old Shanghai’. This is a city definitely worthy of a return visit.
March 7 – Monday
Of course, because we were not on tour, we woke to a crisp, sunny day in Shanghai. The highs would be in the 30’s so we bundled up, got on the shuttle bus and chose to repeat our walk along the Bund to get pictures in the sunshine.
Since we had less than four hours to tour, we walked to Nanjing Road which continues to be a very trendy shopping street with all the upscale shops and department stores along a pedestrian walk-way. You can see that the streets would be too narrow for pedestrians and modern day vehicles, so it has sensibly become a shopping delight for pedestrians. But it was just too slick and new. You had no sense that an old city was throbbing underneath, so having looked at a few shops, we took a parallel side street and suddenly found ourselves back in an older, less glitzy Shanghai. Narrow sidewalks, many sad, dusty, worn bicycles, work men soldering, mending, constructing, and small shops catering to the locals. There was one ‘eatery’ where men were hanging around outside, and I saw the hugest ‘bucket’ of rice I’ve ever seen in my life. I wanted to take a picture as they were scooping out great wads to serve to the men, but the proprietor came rushing out screaming ‘no picture, no picture’. We assumed he was either doing something illegal, or he was nervous about us, so we took no photographs and continued on to the Bund, and the park where the shuttle whisked us back to the ship.
What an amazing city – aesthetically appealing, vibrant, historical, it ranks up there with Hong Kong and Bangkok, as a city we could come to love in Asia. Definitely a return visit is required; we only skimmed the surface and need time to wallow a bit in neighborhoods, restaurants and all the museums we never even went into.
Addendum: while in Shanghai, I received a series of emails from the Hong Kong City Museum. Having left Daddy’s pictures at the front reception desk on a Sunday, the archivist was able to get back and tell me two important pieces of data: he recognized where the boys had ‘snapped’ the street scenes in Hong Kong based on a barber shop which he could identify in the picture. But eerier still, he informed us that the Hong Kong Hotel where the boys had stayed had been torn down in 1952 and on its site was the new Landmark Hotel. Well, it just so happened that when Bob and I were getting frustrated trying to locate the sites, we stopped at the Landmark to get a map and directions from the doorman. How eerie is that! We were at the exact location, and we hadn’t even known it at the time. There are mysteries in this world not worth trying to explain.
March 6 – Following Daddy’s footsteps
This was the next of the important ports where Daddy and Walter had spent five days, and so to ensure that we saw all the critical places from their letters, we arranged for a private guide – Charlie – to whom I had emailed all the sites or buildings mentioned in the letters of 1927-28.
Once we left the East China Sea, our trip down the Yangzi River and then the Huangpu River took a good ten hours. The pilot was on board the entire time to guide the ship past the many container ships, barges and other commercial traffic that filled both rivers. Having docked at 7:00 am, we went through our usual face-to-face customs with the Chinese authorities and went to find Charlie to begin our one day tour.
Charlie met us as we came through customs, and for the rest of the very rainy, cold day we were in the hands of him and the driver, in our large gray van. Charlie had done his homework, and while he teased us that we were only looking at the ‘old Shanghai’, we promised him that next time we came to visit we’d have him as our guide and look at the ‘new Shanghai’…. which continues to be as exciting a city as it was for the boys in the 20’s.
Our first stop was the Astor Hotel, the place they’d stayed and enjoyed so much for its elegance and convenient location. The hotel has a long and storied history as it was known as ‘the Waldorf Astoria of Shanghai’. It has gone through a series of owners since its start in the mid 1800’s, and is currently undergoing its next transformation. Julie Lang, a friend from Peacham had taken some pictures when she had visited Shanghai, so we had an idea of what we would see, but there is nothing like being there ‘in the flesh’. We snapped pictures in the lobby area and then asked to see an old room as would have existed in the 20’s. After a bit of hemming and hawing, we were led to a ‘celebrity room’ which had once been used by Marconi. To get to this room we wound our way through dark hallways, and the less ‘gracious’ parts of the hotel, but it was worth it: the room was furnished as it would have been in the 20’s with leather chairs, a very ornate bed, and light fixtures which while new, resembled the old. The only indication that you were in the year 2011 was the bathroom which was very modern and ‘up-scale’. We happily snapped pictures under the watchful eye of our escort, one of the bellmen who was there I’m sure, to ensure we didn’t do any mischief. Even Charlie, who has taken many people to the hotel lobby, admitted that this was his first time in one of the guestrooms. We continued downstairs to snap pictures in the room which I thought to be the ‘grill room’ in which the boys enjoyed meals, and the ballroom area where they enjoyed a dance. As in Malaysia and Singapore, it was eerie but wonderful to be in the same place that the boys had enjoyed.
We left the hotel, and headed past the current Russian consulate, and across the canal on the Garden Bridge to visit the Huangpu Park, which was once part of the International Concession (everyone but the French, who had their own concession). The park was remembered as the place where the entrance gate said “No dogs or Chinese allowed”. Not one of the great moments in the colonial abuse of China! My father had visited an import/export company on this side of the bridge, and Charlie discovered that the building still exists. It is now a private club, and sits in a bucolic park facing the canal. Since it was a quiet Sunday morning, Charlie arranged with the guard at the gate for us to go up the curving drive for a few pictures. Shanghai was amazingly quiet on this grey, drizzly morning; very peaceful, which was amazing considering how many people live in the city.
We then strolled along the Bund, and the new walkway built so that pedestrians can enjoy the river without being run over by buses, cars or scooters. Shanghai fell into ‘disrepair’ during the time of Mao, and it is only since the re-opening of China to the outside world that the government has put a great deal of money into restoring the Bund. While the fronts of the buildings are restored to their 1920’s look, many of these Western-style buildings have been gutted on the insides to become modern financial offices. Daddy had described this row of buildings as “wonderful palaces….dedicated to banks, of course”. Many banks continue to reside here, though the major portion of the financial sector has moved to a brand new location across the river, where in 1928 there were nothing buy docks and slums.
When one looks at the old buildings of the Bund you see mostly Western architecture. Only the old Bank of China Building tried to have a slightly pagoda-like roof at the top and Chinese style windows, since it had been designed by an American-trained Chinese architect. Charlie told great stories about the rivalry between the owner of this building and Mr. Sassoon, a wealthy Jewish Industrialist, who built the structure, right next door, and tried to make his the taller building with the green pointed roof. But the Bank of China went one step further…the competition of egotists.
Our next stop was the Great Palace of Amusement which existed in Daddy’s time, and only recently closed. A very old-fashioned place, it provided the locals with a multi-tiered building providing theater, opera, gambling and other amusements. Charlie did not believe it included prostitution, so we’ll believe him. Unfortunately at this point it was quite rainy, so we took pictures outside, as best we could. We stopped next at an authentic ‘Chinese pharmacist’, who provides herbs and roots to cure any and all problems. This emporium of Chinese cure-alls dates back to the 1800’s and the ladies and gentlemen inside who were the sales people/consultants were dressed in white lab coats to prove their authenticity and ability to provide any cure for ‘what ails you’. A delightful stop on a rainy day.
We next wanted to see the large model of the city of Shanghai which exists in the Department of Urban Planning. What an amazing thing – a room of 100 square meter s which contains a perfect 1:2000 scale model of the entire city. Every damn building including the entire set of buildings associated with the recent Shanghai Expo. Not only was there the model, but it had lighting to mimic the city’s lighting so that the main area around the Bund was brilliantly lit, while all arterial roads and structures had dimmer lights. We took a million pictures, but nothing could do this any justice. In addition to the model, different floors of the building portrayed the city at different times with diorama, photographs and maps. As Charlie said with his whimsical smile, you’re not the only one who is taking ‘then and now’ photographs, at which point he drew open a series of displays showing the city in the early 1900’s and in 2008. We had a great time looking at the photographs before hunger took over and we headed to lunch.
Along with most of Shanghai, who was out shopping or strolling in the rain, we headed to the Yu Gardens and Bazaar, a lovely replica of what old Shanghai must have looked like in its market areas – rebuilt for the current population. Winding narrow streets, houses with traditional ‘pointy’ roofs, and in the middle a dining ‘establishment ‘of three floors, and crowds waiting in line. Charlie seemed to be a regular and so we skipped the lines and were seated on the second floor at a table for eight. Soon another three-some joined us: mother, father and incredibly spoiled daughter who spent the entire meal screaming at the waitresses, taking food from her parents’ plates, or chatting on her telephone. Charlie suggested that this was one of the down-sides to the one-child policy – children who were spoiled and doted on by their anxious parents, and so undisciplined that it was unlikely that they would take responsibility for their parents in their old age, never mind the grandparents. It will be interesting to see how this very hierarchical society which honors the parents and ancestors survives this ‘blip’ in the natural Chinese family structure.
Our lunch was yummy, washed down with Tsingtao beer (of course), and we left ready to take on the world in the now pouring rain. My gimpy knee was beginning to fade though, so we continued our tour mostly in the car: the Paramount club where ladies continue to entertain men not unlike the dancing Russian women Daddy remembered; a visit into the French Concession to see the homes of Sun Yat Sen and Chou En Lai, and to get a sense of what this neighborhood looked like; and our last stop at the synagogue and Jewish Museum where we looked at the building but I was too whipped to go inside. This hadn’t been part of the boy’s original trip, so I felt I could hold this, and the entire episode of the Hitler era ‘Shanghai Ghetto’, for the next visit to this fascinating city.
One of the people on our cruise ship, Peter Valentine, had actually lived in this area, having fled Germany with his family when he was two years old. He lived in the Jewish Ghetto until he was ten, and he had a private tour that allowed him to see the house where he had lived and which he hadn’t seen for sixty years. It was an emotional trip for him, which he related to us when we got back to the ship.
We bid adieu to Charlie and the driver and collapsed aboard ship, having had a very busy, emotional and delightful day visiting ‘old Shanghai’. This is a city definitely worthy of a return visit.
March 7 – Monday
Of course, because we were not on tour, we woke to a crisp, sunny day in Shanghai. The highs would be in the 30’s so we bundled up, got on the shuttle bus and chose to repeat our walk along the Bund to get pictures in the sunshine.
Since we had less than four hours to tour, we walked to Nanjing Road which continues to be a very trendy shopping street with all the upscale shops and department stores along a pedestrian walk-way. You can see that the streets would be too narrow for pedestrians and modern day vehicles, so it has sensibly become a shopping delight for pedestrians. But it was just too slick and new. You had no sense that an old city was throbbing underneath, so having looked at a few shops, we took a parallel side street and suddenly found ourselves back in an older, less glitzy Shanghai. Narrow sidewalks, many sad, dusty, worn bicycles, work men soldering, mending, constructing, and small shops catering to the locals. There was one ‘eatery’ where men were hanging around outside, and I saw the hugest ‘bucket’ of rice I’ve ever seen in my life. I wanted to take a picture as they were scooping out great wads to serve to the men, but the proprietor came rushing out screaming ‘no picture, no picture’. We assumed he was either doing something illegal, or he was nervous about us, so we took no photographs and continued on to the Bund, and the park where the shuttle whisked us back to the ship.
What an amazing city – aesthetically appealing, vibrant, historical, it ranks up there with Hong Kong and Bangkok, as a city we could come to love in Asia. Definitely a return visit is required; we only skimmed the surface and need time to wallow a bit in neighborhoods, restaurants and all the museums we never even went into.
Addendum: while in Shanghai, I received a series of emails from the Hong Kong City Museum. Having left Daddy’s pictures at the front reception desk on a Sunday, the archivist was able to get back and tell me two important pieces of data: he recognized where the boys had ‘snapped’ the street scenes in Hong Kong based on a barber shop which he could identify in the picture. But eerier still, he informed us that the Hong Kong Hotel where the boys had stayed had been torn down in 1952 and on its site was the new Landmark Hotel. Well, it just so happened that when Bob and I were getting frustrated trying to locate the sites, we stopped at the Landmark to get a map and directions from the doorman. How eerie is that! We were at the exact location, and we hadn’t even known it at the time. There are mysteries in this world not worth trying to explain.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
March 2-5 Japan
This is ancient news, but we finally have internet connections.
March 2 – 5 - Japan
March 2nd – Day at Sea
The ‘boisterous’ seas continued the entire day at sea so that most dining venues were distinctly empty. The winds and sea began to calm a bit by late afternoon and by midnight the tempest had ended. But it took its toll: 60% of the crew was ill, and one of the guest lecturers had begun to barf in the middle of his lecture and had to stop. The thrill of ocean travels. So much for a quiet day at sea to sit by the pool and relax.
March 3rd – Kagashima, Japan
Our arrival at Kagashima was uneventful as the seas were now calm as glass. We were all asked to go through a ‘face to face’ meeting with the immigration authorities of Japan, which was quite thorough: a full body temperature scan, a fingerprint scan, a photograph, and a face to face before our landing card was stamped for the day. Since neither of us had any plans to get off the ship, it was a bit of a drill. Since it was 46 degrees and quite wet and raw outside, we were not inspired to explore the city streets. Kagashima is well known for its active volcano, and during the morning it emitted a loud ‘Boom’, and a plume of smoke!
We had looked at all the guidebooks and read all the tour descriptions, and nothing told us we wanted to get off the ship, so we used the day for laundry and reading. Since the spa is fairly empty on port-days, they had a special of two treatments for $100.00 which I used to have a hot rocks massage, and a neck and shoulder massage. The spa was obviously desperate for business since there was no one there but myself. I’m guessing that this is a crowd less interested in being pampered, and thus the revenue flow was not what the ship and Canyon Ranch would like.
March 4 – Nagasaki Japan
Having skipped seeing the sites of Kagashima, we felt obliged to get off the ship and see something of Japan, so with our passport and landing cards in hand, we headed off to see the Nagasaki Peace Park and the Museum associated with the dropping of the bomb.
In the port terminal which is right in the heart of the town, there were men dressed as samurai warriors (if you wanted your picture taken next to one), and ladies selling tourist junk if you were too lazy to go to town, but more importantly there was an information desk which provided maps, instructions and guidance in English. We had been warned that English signage would be spare if not non-existent, so we wanted to be sure we knew what we were up to. We bought a one-day tram pass, were instructed as to how to use the tram and off we went on a crisp, cold (45 degrees), sunny day.
Our tram ride was uneventful. Two voices accompanied us on the ride: a programmed voice of a woman informing us – in Japanese - of tram stops and other important things (at least we think that was what she was saying), and more importantly, the tram conductor himself who in a very calm, cadenced voice announced each stop and thanked each person as they got off the tram and paid their fare. We transferred from the Green line to the Blue line, and at the appropriate stop hopped off and headed to the park.
The park was based at ‘ground zero’ of the bomb that was dropped on August 9, 1945. There were various monuments to honor those who died, with special memorials for the Koreans, Russians and other nationalities struck down that day. There is a large, black obelisk at the exact “hypo-center’ where the plutonium “Fat-man” bomb exploded 500 feet in the air. We continued on to the museum, a very modern building, which reminded me of the Guggenheim. A spiral ramp led us to the lowest level of the museum where there were dioramas, historic time lines, photographs and videos associated with the destruction. An entire exhibit was dedicated to the theme that such bombs should never be used again, along with details on other nuclear sites where bombs have been tested since 1945 (Bikini, Nevada, New Mexico, Kazakhstan, etc). We did not read every sign and notice since we pretty much knew the story. Bob ,who had mixed feelings about visiting Japan and this site, had to admit that the Japanese tried to be very even-handed in their descriptions. They did acknowledge Pearl Harbor and their attacks on Nanking, but for the most part the allies were thoroughly chastised for their actions.
With the afternoon moving on, we headed back to the ship, reversing our tram experience in a tram car so jammed with local residents that we felt like sardines. We both looked out the windows at the passing stores, restaurants and shops, but nothing compelled us to get off and take further looks around.
Nagasaki is a busy port which, were it not for the sad history of the bomb, would probably not be considered a tourist destination. Other than the park, and signs leading to it, there was absolutely nothing in English. I felt much the same as when I first arrived in Greece, where the alphabet gave me few clues as to whether I was looking at advertisements for food, clothing or telephones. For the first time in a long time, I felt that in order to visit this country, I would definitely need a guide. I’m sure that the big cities have more dual-language signage, but outside these major hubs, it would behoove one to have a guide.
This was our ship’s last port of call in Japan, and so we had another face-to-face meeting with immigration. It seemed to us that the communist government of Viet Nam had less immigration requirements than the Japanese, and we felt as if we were in a highly threatened country rather than a democratic state. I’m not sure why the Japanese feel this need for caution, and I’ll have to read more about it. But it was a nuisance not only for us, but for the crew who have to organize the distribution and then the re-collection of passports. To keep everything as organized and efficient as possible so as not to antagonize the passengers, our crew had to be up very early in the morning and late at night as they got ready for the next country and the next port of call.
Dinner tonight was in Toscana, the Italian restaurant on deck nine. We joined a lovely couple whom Doris had met: Larry and David from Washington D.C. The conversation was lively, interesting, and very companionable. We sat at our table for over three hours, as course after course was consumed, and we might have stayed longer had I not faded with tiredness. To meet articulate, well-informed people who have led interesting lives is what makes these trips special.
Tonight we turn the clocks back and hour to get in synch with China, so we get an extra hour in bed to help us sleep off the many glasses of wine we enjoyed over our meal.
March 5 – at sea
Another day at sea to get ready for our first important day in Shanghai. Here we will be meeting our private guide Charlie, who plans to take us to the various locations mentioned in the letters of ‘the boys’.
I checked my email today for the first time in two days – the Japanese had stopped our ship’s satellite from receiving or transmitting so that the internet, the cell phones and other modern communications were unavailable for the period during which we were on Japanese soil.
In my in-basket was a lovely note from the gentleman at the Hong Kong City Museum who identified very specifically each of the locations of the boy’s pictures. I had left a copy of the photos at the information desk of the museum when we were there on February 26th, and I was delighted to get such a thorough response from the museum. It was a barber shop in the picture that told him exactly where the photos were taken in 1928. Now THAT’S service!
The only lecture we attended today was one with three officers of the ship: the captain, Leo Strazicic from Dubrovnik, the General Manager, Carlo Gunetti from Genoa (who had served onboard the original ‘Love Boat” albeit in the background), and the Chief Engineer from Bari, Italy. Passengers had provided questions, and the three did their best to answer them:
• The ship gets most of its provisions from the US. Every two weeks they get three 40-ft. containers of fresh or frozen food. In between, while in the Asian waters, they get back up from Australia and Hong Kong.
• When asked about the role of the pilots who come on at every port, the captain said some were useful, but many were useless. But it is a law that they come on-board as advisors.
• There are 40-50 nationalities represented by the crew, and they try to give them as much entertainment as possible since the crew is young, work long hours and live in very confined spaces.
• When asked if there was the ability to handle a helicopter for a emergency, the captain said that there was a place, aft of the funnel, to winch up a stretcher …and “if the passenger survived the winching, they’d probably live through whatever came next”.
• When asked their favorite ports the captain said Argentina, Gunetti liked Bora Bora and the engineer liked anything but Europe.
One doesn’t learn a lot more, but it is a chance to meet the crew that has our life in their hands, and to learn a little about the intricacies of the ship.
The other lecturers we have eschewed having given them each a try or two before deciding it wasn’t worth rushing to the Nautica Lounge to hear: a very ego-centric woman named Sondra Ettlinger, whose job is to tell us a bit about up-coming ports but who is mainly advertising her web site and what she perceives to be her great photographs; Colonel Stephen Bauer who served as a staff military aid to the Nixon, Ford and Carter white houses, and told juicy tidbits about the protocol and behavior of guests coming for events to the White House; and a traveling couple of academics from Alaska who put us to sleep. In this aspect we miss the Queen Mary and its superb lecturers, but then, this trip is meant to be filled with ports of interest and here the tour guides have been truly excellent. I am sure a lot is a question of cost, and Oceania just can’t lure great lecturers to their ships.
But, since tomorrow is a day for déjà vu all over again, Bob and I spent the time re-reading Daddy’s letters ,as well as other materials about Shanghai we had downloaded off the web. We’re ready for Shanghai, by gum!
March 2 – 5 - Japan
March 2nd – Day at Sea
The ‘boisterous’ seas continued the entire day at sea so that most dining venues were distinctly empty. The winds and sea began to calm a bit by late afternoon and by midnight the tempest had ended. But it took its toll: 60% of the crew was ill, and one of the guest lecturers had begun to barf in the middle of his lecture and had to stop. The thrill of ocean travels. So much for a quiet day at sea to sit by the pool and relax.
March 3rd – Kagashima, Japan
Our arrival at Kagashima was uneventful as the seas were now calm as glass. We were all asked to go through a ‘face to face’ meeting with the immigration authorities of Japan, which was quite thorough: a full body temperature scan, a fingerprint scan, a photograph, and a face to face before our landing card was stamped for the day. Since neither of us had any plans to get off the ship, it was a bit of a drill. Since it was 46 degrees and quite wet and raw outside, we were not inspired to explore the city streets. Kagashima is well known for its active volcano, and during the morning it emitted a loud ‘Boom’, and a plume of smoke!
We had looked at all the guidebooks and read all the tour descriptions, and nothing told us we wanted to get off the ship, so we used the day for laundry and reading. Since the spa is fairly empty on port-days, they had a special of two treatments for $100.00 which I used to have a hot rocks massage, and a neck and shoulder massage. The spa was obviously desperate for business since there was no one there but myself. I’m guessing that this is a crowd less interested in being pampered, and thus the revenue flow was not what the ship and Canyon Ranch would like.
March 4 – Nagasaki Japan
Having skipped seeing the sites of Kagashima, we felt obliged to get off the ship and see something of Japan, so with our passport and landing cards in hand, we headed off to see the Nagasaki Peace Park and the Museum associated with the dropping of the bomb.
In the port terminal which is right in the heart of the town, there were men dressed as samurai warriors (if you wanted your picture taken next to one), and ladies selling tourist junk if you were too lazy to go to town, but more importantly there was an information desk which provided maps, instructions and guidance in English. We had been warned that English signage would be spare if not non-existent, so we wanted to be sure we knew what we were up to. We bought a one-day tram pass, were instructed as to how to use the tram and off we went on a crisp, cold (45 degrees), sunny day.
Our tram ride was uneventful. Two voices accompanied us on the ride: a programmed voice of a woman informing us – in Japanese - of tram stops and other important things (at least we think that was what she was saying), and more importantly, the tram conductor himself who in a very calm, cadenced voice announced each stop and thanked each person as they got off the tram and paid their fare. We transferred from the Green line to the Blue line, and at the appropriate stop hopped off and headed to the park.
The park was based at ‘ground zero’ of the bomb that was dropped on August 9, 1945. There were various monuments to honor those who died, with special memorials for the Koreans, Russians and other nationalities struck down that day. There is a large, black obelisk at the exact “hypo-center’ where the plutonium “Fat-man” bomb exploded 500 feet in the air. We continued on to the museum, a very modern building, which reminded me of the Guggenheim. A spiral ramp led us to the lowest level of the museum where there were dioramas, historic time lines, photographs and videos associated with the destruction. An entire exhibit was dedicated to the theme that such bombs should never be used again, along with details on other nuclear sites where bombs have been tested since 1945 (Bikini, Nevada, New Mexico, Kazakhstan, etc). We did not read every sign and notice since we pretty much knew the story. Bob ,who had mixed feelings about visiting Japan and this site, had to admit that the Japanese tried to be very even-handed in their descriptions. They did acknowledge Pearl Harbor and their attacks on Nanking, but for the most part the allies were thoroughly chastised for their actions.
With the afternoon moving on, we headed back to the ship, reversing our tram experience in a tram car so jammed with local residents that we felt like sardines. We both looked out the windows at the passing stores, restaurants and shops, but nothing compelled us to get off and take further looks around.
Nagasaki is a busy port which, were it not for the sad history of the bomb, would probably not be considered a tourist destination. Other than the park, and signs leading to it, there was absolutely nothing in English. I felt much the same as when I first arrived in Greece, where the alphabet gave me few clues as to whether I was looking at advertisements for food, clothing or telephones. For the first time in a long time, I felt that in order to visit this country, I would definitely need a guide. I’m sure that the big cities have more dual-language signage, but outside these major hubs, it would behoove one to have a guide.
This was our ship’s last port of call in Japan, and so we had another face-to-face meeting with immigration. It seemed to us that the communist government of Viet Nam had less immigration requirements than the Japanese, and we felt as if we were in a highly threatened country rather than a democratic state. I’m not sure why the Japanese feel this need for caution, and I’ll have to read more about it. But it was a nuisance not only for us, but for the crew who have to organize the distribution and then the re-collection of passports. To keep everything as organized and efficient as possible so as not to antagonize the passengers, our crew had to be up very early in the morning and late at night as they got ready for the next country and the next port of call.
Dinner tonight was in Toscana, the Italian restaurant on deck nine. We joined a lovely couple whom Doris had met: Larry and David from Washington D.C. The conversation was lively, interesting, and very companionable. We sat at our table for over three hours, as course after course was consumed, and we might have stayed longer had I not faded with tiredness. To meet articulate, well-informed people who have led interesting lives is what makes these trips special.
Tonight we turn the clocks back and hour to get in synch with China, so we get an extra hour in bed to help us sleep off the many glasses of wine we enjoyed over our meal.
March 5 – at sea
Another day at sea to get ready for our first important day in Shanghai. Here we will be meeting our private guide Charlie, who plans to take us to the various locations mentioned in the letters of ‘the boys’.
I checked my email today for the first time in two days – the Japanese had stopped our ship’s satellite from receiving or transmitting so that the internet, the cell phones and other modern communications were unavailable for the period during which we were on Japanese soil.
In my in-basket was a lovely note from the gentleman at the Hong Kong City Museum who identified very specifically each of the locations of the boy’s pictures. I had left a copy of the photos at the information desk of the museum when we were there on February 26th, and I was delighted to get such a thorough response from the museum. It was a barber shop in the picture that told him exactly where the photos were taken in 1928. Now THAT’S service!
The only lecture we attended today was one with three officers of the ship: the captain, Leo Strazicic from Dubrovnik, the General Manager, Carlo Gunetti from Genoa (who had served onboard the original ‘Love Boat” albeit in the background), and the Chief Engineer from Bari, Italy. Passengers had provided questions, and the three did their best to answer them:
• The ship gets most of its provisions from the US. Every two weeks they get three 40-ft. containers of fresh or frozen food. In between, while in the Asian waters, they get back up from Australia and Hong Kong.
• When asked about the role of the pilots who come on at every port, the captain said some were useful, but many were useless. But it is a law that they come on-board as advisors.
• There are 40-50 nationalities represented by the crew, and they try to give them as much entertainment as possible since the crew is young, work long hours and live in very confined spaces.
• When asked if there was the ability to handle a helicopter for a emergency, the captain said that there was a place, aft of the funnel, to winch up a stretcher …and “if the passenger survived the winching, they’d probably live through whatever came next”.
• When asked their favorite ports the captain said Argentina, Gunetti liked Bora Bora and the engineer liked anything but Europe.
One doesn’t learn a lot more, but it is a chance to meet the crew that has our life in their hands, and to learn a little about the intricacies of the ship.
The other lecturers we have eschewed having given them each a try or two before deciding it wasn’t worth rushing to the Nautica Lounge to hear: a very ego-centric woman named Sondra Ettlinger, whose job is to tell us a bit about up-coming ports but who is mainly advertising her web site and what she perceives to be her great photographs; Colonel Stephen Bauer who served as a staff military aid to the Nixon, Ford and Carter white houses, and told juicy tidbits about the protocol and behavior of guests coming for events to the White House; and a traveling couple of academics from Alaska who put us to sleep. In this aspect we miss the Queen Mary and its superb lecturers, but then, this trip is meant to be filled with ports of interest and here the tour guides have been truly excellent. I am sure a lot is a question of cost, and Oceania just can’t lure great lecturers to their ships.
But, since tomorrow is a day for déjà vu all over again, Bob and I spent the time re-reading Daddy’s letters ,as well as other materials about Shanghai we had downloaded off the web. We’re ready for Shanghai, by gum!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Feb. 26-27 - Hong Kong
Feb. 26 – Hong Kong
Hong Kong was all that we wanted it to be. The weather was warm and sunny without being hot, everyone was in a week-end mood wherever we went, and all the changes which we feared may have changed the city since the re-unification with China were not visible. Our ship was docked on the Kowloon side of the harbor right next to the Star Ferry Terminal which made life amazingly easy. As one left the ship, the gangway actually led us right into the second level of the Ocean Terminal Shopping Mall – a very upscale emporium where every HK citizen seemed to be shopping or window browsing.
This being the first of the cities which actually is part of Daddy’s trip, we read over his and Walter’s Hong Kong letters before we arrived. The letters pretty much drove our two days, from our arrival (where we were up on deck at 7am snapping pictures), to the evening departure where we were again on deck enjoying the sound, laser, and light show, which outlines and highlights all the high-rises that dominate both sides of the harbor.
Our first stop was the underground Metro station to buy our “Octopus” transit passes…similar to the ‘Oyster’ cards in London. These would allow us easy access to all the buses, trains and ferries in the city. From there we walked through the back streets of Kowloon to the HK Museum of history, which outlined the story of this magical city from its beginnings through the reunification. We were focused on the period in the 1920’s and 30’s, so aimed directly for those areas. The museum has recreated a ‘typical’ street of the time, complete with the pedi-cabs, advertisements, store fronts and costumes that would have been appropriate. There was a great video taken at about the time ‘the boys’ were here, and we could get a real sense of the city in this grainy black and white film. I had hoped to find a knowledgeable archivist who might have identified the pictures which I had carried with me, but it was Saturday, so the young girls at reception volunteered to have someone call me on Monday (when we’re at sea), we’ll see what happens. But I concluded it really didn’t matter since if we took pictures of the modern streets and its bustling business area, we’d be doing the same activities as the boys. The one wonderful piece in the museum we were to find was a 1920’s advertisement for the Hong Kong Hotel, which is where ‘the boys’ stayed. The hotel is history, but the poster lives on…so of course, it was photographed, along with other memorabilia of the time.
After the museum we walked back towards the harbor, stopping for a refreshing glass of beer, under sunny warm skies, with a magnificent view of Hong Kong Island. The “Avenue of the Stars” promenade has been built along the harbors edge, and its goal is to mimic the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where well known Chinese movie actors and actresses have placed their hands in wet cement to be memorialized for all time. Most of the names were unknown to us, but of course we recognized Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. It was fun to watch Chinese tourists stopping to put their own hands in the memorialized hands of their favorite stars. It being a Saturday there were tourists galore, mostly Asian. We speculated that they could have come from the mainland to tour, or other parts of Asia (but as all our guides reminded us, they may look all alike to us Caucasians).
Refreshed and fortified, we walked past the Museum of Art, and Symphony Hall, and hopped on the iconic Star Ferry to take us across the harbor to HK Island. The ferry just doesn’t change. It’s a simple, efficient system, which with its strangely shaped, double-ended boats leaves every 10 minutes to carry people on open-decked, hard benched seats. No fuss, no muss. Pay your way (mere pennies, or Octopus), rush on board when the gates swing open, find a seat, enjoy the 11 minute ride, and reverse the process on the other side. While there are now three car tunnels, and the Metro, underneath Victoria Harbor to whisk you from one side to the other, there is something wonderfully archaic about using these old-fashioned wooden boats. Daddy spoke of using the ferry in his day, and I’m sure it was a very similar process (minus the automation of the ticketing process).
Our goal was to find the narrow streets which Daddy had photographed along Queen’s Road in the Central district. However, since 1928, Hong Kong has risen up as a brand new city of high rises, glittering neon signs and upscale modern shops. One has to look down narrow alleys and in hidden corners to find that ‘old feel’, which we were trying to photograph. But I realized I simply had to take pictures of modern day people, and modern day storefronts, and I would be replicating the trip appropriate to the year 2011. And so we did. Instead of climbing lots of stairs, there are now moving walkways that carry one straight up narrow steep streets and instead of Pedi-cabs there are millions of taxis, but the sense of mercantile success is everywhere. Hong Kong is a shopper’s paradise and on a Saturday afternoon it was bustling. To keep people off the streets and allow some sense of traffic flow, there are efficient elevated walkways that carry one through the neighborhoods right into the high rise buildings, and luckily all signage is in two languages: Cantonese and English. I think this is not only because this was once a British colony but because the Chinese recognize that this is a tourist Mecca, and they want one to feel comfortable.
After a good two hours of meandering around looking for what we hoped might be familiar sites, we were exhausted. Rather than return to the ship, we hopped on an inter-island ferry taking us, and a great many Asian tourists, to the wonderful little island of Cheung Chau. We had been here in 1995, where we had enjoyed the preparations for the Bun Festival, but this time we simply wanted a relaxing boat ride on the harbor and some fresh sea food. And we accomplished both. We walked from one side of the island harbor to the other, the only Caucasians to be seen. What makes this island so charming is that there is no way to get here but by ferry, and once here there are no motorized vehicles – cars or cycles. The only way to get around is by foot or by old-fashioned bicycle – a welcome change to the hectic world of the metropolis nearby. After looking at all the sidewalk stands selling fresh fish, fried fish, grilled fish or McDonalds, we landed at an open-air, dockside restaurant, where the signage had some English but absolutely no one spoke anything but Chinese. Our menu was a picture book, which we used to point out our choices: a fabulous feast of scallops & broccoli; fried shrimp in hot and sour sauce; and vegetable rolls, washed down with Tsingtao beer (A pilsner based on a German ‘recipe’ from the time when the Germans had concessions in China). Cleanliness at the restaurant was amusing: as we sat down, a bowl of hot water was placed between us – we weren’t sure if it was soup, but we watched others washing their hands, their cups, and bowls, before it was whisked away. Since we weren’t offered napkins, at the end I made the motion that I would like to wash my hands having eaten a bit with my fingers…and we were provided with a nice roll of toilet paper. We smiled, paid our vast bill of $175 HK dollars (Approx. $25.00 American) and headed back to the ferry for a wonderful open-deck, star-lit ride back to HK Island. From the boat we watched the sound and light show, watched the ferries darting through the vast harbor, and felt very content.
After weeks of ship’s tours taking us hither and yon, it was nice to be on our own, in familiar territory doing what we wanted on our own schedule. We rode back to Kowloon on the Star Ferry, and headed immediately to bed. A very full day with lots of walking, lots of photographs, and a delightful series of rides on the water.
Sunday, February 27 – Hong Kong
Another gorgeous sunny warm day greeted us and we knew our mission: go to Repulse Bay, on the other side of HK Island, where ‘the boys’ had stopped for tea at the Repulse Bay Hotel. We ferried across the harbor, hopped on a 6X double-decker bus, and were whisked to the bus stop at the base of the steps of the old hotel. We had been warned in guidebooks that the original structure that had existed now was a re-creation, using some parts of the old hotel, and it is no longer a hotel. At this vantage point overlooking a beautiful bay, and many sandy beaches, there are now two thirty-floor towers holding condominiums. At the exact location of the old hotel are two elegant restaurants and a series of upscale shopping arcades. We had hoped to find some old postcards or memorabilia, not unlike what existed at the Raffles Hotel, in Singapore, or the E&O Hotel, in Penang, but it didn’t exist. What still remained (or has been copied) is the grand set of stairs leading up from the street to the entry of the ‘hotel’ entrance. The same lamp fixtures, planters, and statuary line the stairway leading the guest to the level of the stores and restaurants, and it is there that we took the pictures which closely resemble the ones taken by ‘the boys’ in 1928.
Having accomplished our mission, we shared a cup of iced coffee, hopped back on the 6X bus and headed back to Victoria Harbor, the Star Ferry, and our ship. Our two days were a lot more successful than many of our fellow travelers who were ‘whinging’ about the poor ship’s-tours offered in HK. Some had been promised a shopping adventure and high tea on the Veranda at Repulse Bay, which turned instead into a visit to the very touristy Stanley Market and a cup of tea at a nearby restaurant (no scones or cucumber sandwiches, thank you very much).
There have been many ship’s tours on this journey which have left something to be desired. They are not inexpensive, and it is clear that this is where the ship makes a good deal of money (other than the bar bills), but the quality of the tours has been distinctly mixed.
Since we wanted to watch the light show from the top deck of our ship, as we pulled out of our berth, we enjoyed a late dinner at a ‘shared table’ at 8:45. We have done little of this since we’ve been with our friend Doris, but she was not with us so we joined two Danish couples and one German couple for a lively dinner. Everyone is well-traveled, everyone had a good sense of humor and the common languages were either English or German. It is these serendipitous dinners that allow for wonderful new connections and very interesting conversations.
Tomorrow is a day at sea, as we head to Taipei, so we will mail this off before Japan where use of the ship’s satellite system is forbidden and therefore internet, cell and telephone service will be unavailable for two days. (I could haul the laptop on shore to an internet cafe, but being lazy, I’ll probably wait until we’re back to Shanghai, on mainland China, to send the next blog entries.
Hong Kong was all that we wanted it to be. The weather was warm and sunny without being hot, everyone was in a week-end mood wherever we went, and all the changes which we feared may have changed the city since the re-unification with China were not visible. Our ship was docked on the Kowloon side of the harbor right next to the Star Ferry Terminal which made life amazingly easy. As one left the ship, the gangway actually led us right into the second level of the Ocean Terminal Shopping Mall – a very upscale emporium where every HK citizen seemed to be shopping or window browsing.
This being the first of the cities which actually is part of Daddy’s trip, we read over his and Walter’s Hong Kong letters before we arrived. The letters pretty much drove our two days, from our arrival (where we were up on deck at 7am snapping pictures), to the evening departure where we were again on deck enjoying the sound, laser, and light show, which outlines and highlights all the high-rises that dominate both sides of the harbor.
Our first stop was the underground Metro station to buy our “Octopus” transit passes…similar to the ‘Oyster’ cards in London. These would allow us easy access to all the buses, trains and ferries in the city. From there we walked through the back streets of Kowloon to the HK Museum of history, which outlined the story of this magical city from its beginnings through the reunification. We were focused on the period in the 1920’s and 30’s, so aimed directly for those areas. The museum has recreated a ‘typical’ street of the time, complete with the pedi-cabs, advertisements, store fronts and costumes that would have been appropriate. There was a great video taken at about the time ‘the boys’ were here, and we could get a real sense of the city in this grainy black and white film. I had hoped to find a knowledgeable archivist who might have identified the pictures which I had carried with me, but it was Saturday, so the young girls at reception volunteered to have someone call me on Monday (when we’re at sea), we’ll see what happens. But I concluded it really didn’t matter since if we took pictures of the modern streets and its bustling business area, we’d be doing the same activities as the boys. The one wonderful piece in the museum we were to find was a 1920’s advertisement for the Hong Kong Hotel, which is where ‘the boys’ stayed. The hotel is history, but the poster lives on…so of course, it was photographed, along with other memorabilia of the time.
After the museum we walked back towards the harbor, stopping for a refreshing glass of beer, under sunny warm skies, with a magnificent view of Hong Kong Island. The “Avenue of the Stars” promenade has been built along the harbors edge, and its goal is to mimic the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where well known Chinese movie actors and actresses have placed their hands in wet cement to be memorialized for all time. Most of the names were unknown to us, but of course we recognized Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. It was fun to watch Chinese tourists stopping to put their own hands in the memorialized hands of their favorite stars. It being a Saturday there were tourists galore, mostly Asian. We speculated that they could have come from the mainland to tour, or other parts of Asia (but as all our guides reminded us, they may look all alike to us Caucasians).
Refreshed and fortified, we walked past the Museum of Art, and Symphony Hall, and hopped on the iconic Star Ferry to take us across the harbor to HK Island. The ferry just doesn’t change. It’s a simple, efficient system, which with its strangely shaped, double-ended boats leaves every 10 minutes to carry people on open-decked, hard benched seats. No fuss, no muss. Pay your way (mere pennies, or Octopus), rush on board when the gates swing open, find a seat, enjoy the 11 minute ride, and reverse the process on the other side. While there are now three car tunnels, and the Metro, underneath Victoria Harbor to whisk you from one side to the other, there is something wonderfully archaic about using these old-fashioned wooden boats. Daddy spoke of using the ferry in his day, and I’m sure it was a very similar process (minus the automation of the ticketing process).
Our goal was to find the narrow streets which Daddy had photographed along Queen’s Road in the Central district. However, since 1928, Hong Kong has risen up as a brand new city of high rises, glittering neon signs and upscale modern shops. One has to look down narrow alleys and in hidden corners to find that ‘old feel’, which we were trying to photograph. But I realized I simply had to take pictures of modern day people, and modern day storefronts, and I would be replicating the trip appropriate to the year 2011. And so we did. Instead of climbing lots of stairs, there are now moving walkways that carry one straight up narrow steep streets and instead of Pedi-cabs there are millions of taxis, but the sense of mercantile success is everywhere. Hong Kong is a shopper’s paradise and on a Saturday afternoon it was bustling. To keep people off the streets and allow some sense of traffic flow, there are efficient elevated walkways that carry one through the neighborhoods right into the high rise buildings, and luckily all signage is in two languages: Cantonese and English. I think this is not only because this was once a British colony but because the Chinese recognize that this is a tourist Mecca, and they want one to feel comfortable.
After a good two hours of meandering around looking for what we hoped might be familiar sites, we were exhausted. Rather than return to the ship, we hopped on an inter-island ferry taking us, and a great many Asian tourists, to the wonderful little island of Cheung Chau. We had been here in 1995, where we had enjoyed the preparations for the Bun Festival, but this time we simply wanted a relaxing boat ride on the harbor and some fresh sea food. And we accomplished both. We walked from one side of the island harbor to the other, the only Caucasians to be seen. What makes this island so charming is that there is no way to get here but by ferry, and once here there are no motorized vehicles – cars or cycles. The only way to get around is by foot or by old-fashioned bicycle – a welcome change to the hectic world of the metropolis nearby. After looking at all the sidewalk stands selling fresh fish, fried fish, grilled fish or McDonalds, we landed at an open-air, dockside restaurant, where the signage had some English but absolutely no one spoke anything but Chinese. Our menu was a picture book, which we used to point out our choices: a fabulous feast of scallops & broccoli; fried shrimp in hot and sour sauce; and vegetable rolls, washed down with Tsingtao beer (A pilsner based on a German ‘recipe’ from the time when the Germans had concessions in China). Cleanliness at the restaurant was amusing: as we sat down, a bowl of hot water was placed between us – we weren’t sure if it was soup, but we watched others washing their hands, their cups, and bowls, before it was whisked away. Since we weren’t offered napkins, at the end I made the motion that I would like to wash my hands having eaten a bit with my fingers…and we were provided with a nice roll of toilet paper. We smiled, paid our vast bill of $175 HK dollars (Approx. $25.00 American) and headed back to the ferry for a wonderful open-deck, star-lit ride back to HK Island. From the boat we watched the sound and light show, watched the ferries darting through the vast harbor, and felt very content.
After weeks of ship’s tours taking us hither and yon, it was nice to be on our own, in familiar territory doing what we wanted on our own schedule. We rode back to Kowloon on the Star Ferry, and headed immediately to bed. A very full day with lots of walking, lots of photographs, and a delightful series of rides on the water.
Sunday, February 27 – Hong Kong
Another gorgeous sunny warm day greeted us and we knew our mission: go to Repulse Bay, on the other side of HK Island, where ‘the boys’ had stopped for tea at the Repulse Bay Hotel. We ferried across the harbor, hopped on a 6X double-decker bus, and were whisked to the bus stop at the base of the steps of the old hotel. We had been warned in guidebooks that the original structure that had existed now was a re-creation, using some parts of the old hotel, and it is no longer a hotel. At this vantage point overlooking a beautiful bay, and many sandy beaches, there are now two thirty-floor towers holding condominiums. At the exact location of the old hotel are two elegant restaurants and a series of upscale shopping arcades. We had hoped to find some old postcards or memorabilia, not unlike what existed at the Raffles Hotel, in Singapore, or the E&O Hotel, in Penang, but it didn’t exist. What still remained (or has been copied) is the grand set of stairs leading up from the street to the entry of the ‘hotel’ entrance. The same lamp fixtures, planters, and statuary line the stairway leading the guest to the level of the stores and restaurants, and it is there that we took the pictures which closely resemble the ones taken by ‘the boys’ in 1928.
Having accomplished our mission, we shared a cup of iced coffee, hopped back on the 6X bus and headed back to Victoria Harbor, the Star Ferry, and our ship. Our two days were a lot more successful than many of our fellow travelers who were ‘whinging’ about the poor ship’s-tours offered in HK. Some had been promised a shopping adventure and high tea on the Veranda at Repulse Bay, which turned instead into a visit to the very touristy Stanley Market and a cup of tea at a nearby restaurant (no scones or cucumber sandwiches, thank you very much).
There have been many ship’s tours on this journey which have left something to be desired. They are not inexpensive, and it is clear that this is where the ship makes a good deal of money (other than the bar bills), but the quality of the tours has been distinctly mixed.
Since we wanted to watch the light show from the top deck of our ship, as we pulled out of our berth, we enjoyed a late dinner at a ‘shared table’ at 8:45. We have done little of this since we’ve been with our friend Doris, but she was not with us so we joined two Danish couples and one German couple for a lively dinner. Everyone is well-traveled, everyone had a good sense of humor and the common languages were either English or German. It is these serendipitous dinners that allow for wonderful new connections and very interesting conversations.
Tomorrow is a day at sea, as we head to Taipei, so we will mail this off before Japan where use of the ship’s satellite system is forbidden and therefore internet, cell and telephone service will be unavailable for two days. (I could haul the laptop on shore to an internet cafe, but being lazy, I’ll probably wait until we’re back to Shanghai, on mainland China, to send the next blog entries.
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