Location at 5.43. No sunrise, on the wrong side of the ship!! Mind you it was very cloudy!

I don’t know why but the port authorities and immigration were very tardy this morning. We had an 8.30 meet for the tour only to be told that there was at least an hour’s delay because of docking and immigration. We finally started out about 9.45 and got through immigration to get on our bus and on our way about 10.20.

Our first stop was just over an hour away, the Adachi Museum of Art. I picked the tour because it said it had gardens! The gardens were great, just that no one was allowed to walk through them lol. They were either behind large glass windows or fenced off.

I went through with the group until they headed upstairs for the art, so I went back over our route, which was much better as there weren’t 3 bus loads of tourists all wanting to look at the same time. It did rain quite heavily for a short time, but that was it for the day!

I took panorama shots of the gardens!

That’s a camphor tree at the front. There was a sequence of photos up on the wall, showing the garden in each season.

Apparently they don’t like flowers in Japanese gardens, so the only one I saw was this water lily. The koi in the pond were enormous!

From there we returned back the way we came to visit a fish market. When we walked in all I could see was dried packets of everything fishy, but the smell did encourage the fact that there was fresh fish there as well and there sure was! All colours and sizes!

We then went onto a shopping centre, but I stayed on the bus. Each of our stops had to be 1.5 hours long, so hanging around a shopping centre for that amount of time just didn’t appeal.

Three more photos. One of rice fields of which we saw many. The guide said there are big problems with the children not wanting to farm like their parents. Then a bridge we had to traverse. Apparently the drivers are not allowed to take their foot off the accelerator as the bridge is so steep they would start rolling backwards! Then one of the ship on the horizon from the top of the bridge!

Tomorrow is a visit to Kyoto, but we shouldn’t have to worry about immigration again!

Location at 6.07 (5.07 at home), dawn & sunrise

Nothing much doing this sea day. read on the balcony for a couple of hours, did my pool exercising. A bit of family tree, lunch, then jigsaw and a nap, lol.

There are 4,500+ guests on this cruise. 1500+ are Chinese nationals and 2500+ are international guests. So there is a lot more English speaking going on this trip.

Had a chat with the head waiter, from Romania, at lunch time. He’s been doing it for 31 years and says that people are definitely changing. They used to be more sympathetic, understanding and friendly. Now they seem to be only interested in themselves and their phones!

Today’s towel creature is Miss Piggy (I think!!!)

I thought I would walk down the opposite corridor to dinner and found more interesting artworks. Here’s one of them! Would be another fun jigsaw!

Excursion tomorrow, so watch this space, lol.

Location at 4.17 am

As I had woken up really early, I wandered up to deck 15 to watch us coming into dock at Baoshan. It was okay when I got there, but I had to move down to the covered deck 14 as it started raining! The rain making the sky light up with a hazy light.

The Huangpu River is wide enough at that point for the ship to turn around so that we could head out later in the afternoon.

Maybe because it is Friday, the number of boats out on the river was a lot more than on the Sunday when I boarded! Very much a constant flow both ways.

Didn’t do much of anything, jigsaw, reading, puzzles, lol. I went down to the Crown Lounge as I had to get out of my room for a while. It’s funny walking down the corridors and all the room doors propped open so they can be cleaned and reset for new guests! Bags of laundry and rubbish scattered throughout.

From the Lounge I had to go to the other end of the ship to collect my new key card. They had 2 stations set up so used the old one to check out then got the new one out of the envelope for check in. The Internet wasn’t available so the lass said wait until 11.30. So I did, but it wasn’t really very happy, lol.

Went and logged into the emergency evacuation site again, finished the jigsaw and then did some family tree. Had some more water & goodies delivered. Sat out on the balcony and read as the weather had improved, grey sky but no rain.

A tricky jigsaw!! I think the red art work is my favourite.

Here’s my corridor a long way to go to eat, lol. I’m way down the end, past the white light. The carpet is not really the right colour for lots and lots of traffic!

Only back on Perth time for the day, now going forward again for Japan. A day at sea tomorrow, then Sakaiminato the day after, where I’m doing a cultural day tour.

Location and sunrise 6.15 am

Didn’t really do much of anything today. Sat on the balcony for a bit and decided the ship must be going in circles, as when I took the sunrise photo it was behind us, an hour later it was shining on me from the front. Did the pool thing at 10. The water was actually heated this morning, even though it was quite pleasant previously. It was also a bit busier, maybe because it was warm!!

It has been quite an obvious thing that the Asian contingent really like taking photographs and that the subject being photographed has to pose for it. No candid shots allowed, lol. There was a lass in the pool with her Mother walking around the outside taking lots of posed photos and then they swapped and daughter taking lots of mum! I had to keep stopping in my walking around the pool so I didn’t get in the way!!!

Then another lady decided it was a swimming pool and managed to go down one side in three strokes, walk around the end and then three strokes back to walk around the end again. Probably as pointless as me walking around in circles, lol.

Here’s the pool, roped off, from yesterday!

The other photo from yesterday I hadn’t had uploaded was the tug hovering around before we left. We obviously weren’t anywhere near ready as he was out there for nearly an hour!

After the pool, shower and a bit of jigsaw and reading headed upstairs for brunch. Got a system going now. I grab a serviette, chopsticks and water and head for the high bench. Leave the serviette spread out with the other items on top, so I’ve got a spot when I get back with my bowl of food! Been quite successful with most of my selections the last few days. Only had a couple that had a bit of chili in them. Definitely did not like the bitter melon though, an acquired taste I would say!

And another art image!

On my way out of the Windjammer I stopped at the pizza place and got 3 pieces for tonight’s dinner. I’ve an online committee meeting at 7 and as we usually finish off with pizza thought I’d better bring my own! Did a bit more of nothing much, had a snack in the Crown lounge ready for tonight and then back for an early blog catch-up.

Back in Shanghai in the morning. As the pool won’t be open I’ll go back to the Crown Lounge until my room has been cleaned and stay out of the way of the clean-up that goes on prior to new vacationers.

Loation at 6.22 am and the best sunrise so far, lol.

There are 2 panorama’s today as I thought we had docked when we must have been waiting for something to happen as we started moving about 10 minutes later! You can see the red lighthouse in both of them.

Didn’t do much first thing, but headed up to the pool at 9 am only to discover that it was closed until 10 as the crew had to do their safety/evacuation drills first! So sat and read until the lifeguards arrived and removed the netting from the pool. I did take a photo, but it hasn’t uploaded to the cloud yet, so maybe tomorrow!

As that was late I actually had lunch today and not brunch, lol. It was a lovely quiet dining room, not many people at all. They do still manage a very respectable repast for those onboard. I did see a lot of the higher echelons of the crew dining too. It is very funny eating German potato salad with chopsticks!!!

Spent a little time in the Crown Lounge which had no one in but me! Lovely. As I only usually take my phone and key card when eating, I of course forgot my ‘outside’ bag. So I had to go back to the other end of the ship to get it and then back again to the gangway for today. One of the crew said that they normally berth at 1, near the entrance, but today it was 2, so much further away. I did a short walk along the long pier and then returned to the ship. I had to relinquish my passport again and get a photocopy of it for the next lot of Japanese ports of call.

I couldn’t get far enough away to get a picture of the ship in one, but these don’t look too bad!. She’s enormous!!!

This is one of the artworks I was talking about before. Would make a great jigsaw. There are a few in the same vein all down the corridor. Each one a different colour with very different objects!

I have finished jigsaw 1 and have started on jigsaw 2! These wooden puzzles are great fun!

Now we have 1 day at sea before returning to Shanghai. xo

Location at 6.17 this morning.

Once again, there wasn’t much of a sunrise, but here’s the panorama.

I had a tour booked and meeting at 8 am, but got there are 7.30 which was good timing. The Excursions lass had one of the crew, who was taking the same tour, take me out through the passport control, security etc. to the bus. Which was great as it took a lot of walking and time. It turned out that he was from Costa Rica, been with Royal Caribbean for 21 years and he’s the casino manager. Nice lad!

Our guide said that photography was allowed outside buildings, but never inside. The first stop was the Tochi-ji Temple with the largest wooden statue of the seated Buddha in Japan. There was a pitch black tunnel under the statue that we had to traverse. Not really sure of the significance, but it really was impossible to see anything, torches not allowed. I did like the gardens outside, with the very old bonsai trees and an amazing collection of cycads.

From there we went to the Sumiyoshi Shrine. Funny thing here was that it had no photography signs in front of most of the structures, but it had 2 smart phone stations. Presumably to get the photo at the right angle, no idea!

The next stop was to a shopping centre, of course, what’s an excursion without shops, lol. Anyway the guide also gave each of us 1200 yen for lunch, saying we should really try the Raumen. Always game, that’s what I headed for. The shopping centre was enormous and the 5th floor was devoted to raumen restaurants.

The one I picked was just at the top of the escalator and luckily the young lass at the front spoke good English. I had to order it all on a large display screen out front, select what I wanted and then pay, all on the one device. She advised the 1200 yen raumen. There are lots and lots of variations both of the broth and the contents. I had mine with green onion, wood mushroom, pork and standard noodles (there were 5 variations of noodles too!). It was very, very yummy!

Sort of thought I had got myself lost getting back to the meeting point, 5 floors and a road walkover away. However, I actually was in the right spot, very much to my astonishment!

Back at the ship had a bit of a rest as had done lots of walking again and was very stiff. However, I had been looking at the ship guide for the day and decided that I would actually attend a show. It was a combination of music, singing, dancing, acrobatics and digital images. Entitled the Silk Road it celebrated the cultures encountered along the route. It did have a technical hiccup half way though but they did fix it and the show went on!

In this last pne you can see the robotic arms that have screen attached, which create a different dimension to the images as wel.

It’s very windy and rather rocky out there tonight, and it’s late now, so hopefully will sleep well. South Korea tomorrow. Just as well I didn’t have my heart set on the English guided tour, it was cancelled.

My location at 6 am (5 am at home!) and a vague sunrise!

It’s long time to 9 am and the pool opening when you wake at 5. Anyway, the jigsaw grew and the book read and the games played, lol. Discovered that’s it’s a bit more difficult exercising in a water depth of 0.82 metres when used to 1.2-1.5. I walked around and around for 5 minutes, then leg/hip exercises for another 5, then repeated going around the other way. Did that twice more, so passed my 45 minutes or so and was hardly wet to the waist!!! Mind you it did get a little deeper when the ship rolled with the swell, but as it had an overflow at the end, it didn’t last very long. Await a photo on another day!

Back to my room for a shower and then had to wait an hour until the Windjammer opened for lunch as the later pool meant I couldn’t get there before the breakfast closure! It was koala or bear day, not sure which!

As they say Necessity is the mother of invention. The desk was too low to do jigsaw and the cabinet just a bit too high, so opened up a drawer which was the right size for my board. Mind you the shoulders did feel it after a while. Couldn’t go down to the next drawer as my knees were in the way!! lol.

It was warm out, 27 C, but very gray!

I do much prefer the artwork on this ship to the last one. They are actually proper visual pictures, not abstracts at all. This hanging art work is between the elevator foyers. They are definitely not as quick at arriving as on Voyager!

Have a tour of a Temple & a Shrine in Fukuoka, Japan tomorrow. This is the substitute stop for Seoul.

Had a lovely breakfast at 7 am. Skipped all the western type food and had all sorts of other interesting stuff. The juices were interesting, I had red cabbage and apple! Then headed back to my room and packed! There were 4 of us doing the tour of the Peace Hotel. First off had to climb a mountain of stairs to get to the Museum. The hotel was built in 1929, then the Cathay Hotel, by Sir Victor Sassoon and was a very important landmark. They’ve had lots of famous people staying there, like Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Muhammad Ali and several US presidents. The Hotel itself is built in a V shape with a flattened end and the original room keys were also the same shape.

It was the first hotel in China to have air conditioning and they still have the original encasements lining one of the corridors. They are still blowing out cold air! The spirals on the light fittings are representative of the single curl the women used to wear on the side of their faces.

This is the dome above the Peace Dove. At the base line they have greyhounds which was Victor’s favourite dog. I must admit I hadn’t noticed them as dogs until pointed out, and there are greyhounds scattered throughout.

Here are the flowers cirling the dove. Also the bromeliads & antheriums just outside the door!

It took 45 minutes to get to the cruise terminal. Had a couple of kittens along the way, especially when someone stopped in front of us on the freeway because he was in the wrong lane and was waiting for a break in the traffic to get across! So many high rise apartments, amazing stuff.

Anyway, I must have then walked a kilometer! Dropped the case off and then had to make my way to the check-in bit at the other end of the terminal. Through all that stuff and then had a 220 metre walk to the departure lounge, which took us along the back of the baggage collection area! There were children everywhere and such a noise!

Someone then took pity on me, just as well as my hip was not pleasant, and found a wheelchair from the ship. Through security and passport control and then more corridors and ramps. Once we got on the ship they took our passports away and I had to have a photocopy of it, which is used by Japanese customs. It comes back after that as South Korea only want the original! Next stop was getting signed in to the emergency evacuation station and then finally my room.

Not much of a view as Shanghai was on the other side of the ship, but the water traffic was amazing, so much of it. A continuous flow of of every shape, size and description. Some of them I had no hope of working out what their purpose was. I did do a panorama though!

But I had been left some goodies again!

I went up the deck 14 (there are 16) and inspected the Solarium pool. Well, it doesn’t open until 9 am and it’s only 2-3 feet deep, so I might just have to spend my hour walking around in it. However, it is enclosed, so will be warm even if the outside isn’t but I don’t think there’s much likelihood of that. I do have to tackle some steps to get down to the pool, but the lifeguard pointed out a chair that can be used to get people in and out of the pool. I don’t like that idea at all, so not for me, LOL.

Here’s the view as well. If you look really hard you can see the needle tower that was outside my hotel! It’s on the right of the round pole near to the window frame.

After I’d finished unpacking, I found the Crown & Anchor members room and spent an hour or so in the quiet reading. Then as it was almost sailing time I went back to my room for a munzee thing and then on to the Windjammer for dinner. Talk about noisy! Also quite a variety of foods, noticed lots of sweet things, but didn’t have any. Grabbed my bowl of fruit salad to bring back but strangely it all still has the rind/peel still on it all.

Clocks forward an hour tonight and a day at sea.

Well, all I can say is “my stars”, lol. I got down the hotel steps and was hit by the noise of hundreds and hundreds of people outside! They were wandering back and forth, presumably all having been to the Bund, the walkway along the river, or returning from it. Lots and lots of tour groups, mostly for Chinese visitors, but some I think were German. In the hour I was out I only heard one person speaking English! Photos later as I can’t get a connection to my iCloud to download them. Also it’s time for breakfast. Not a usual meal for me nowadays, but it comes with the room, so going to make the most of it, lol.

Ok, back to yesterday’s photos: This huge glass sculpture is in the centre of the Hotel. I did notice when out yesterday that lots of people were taking photos of the Hotel. There is a tour of it at 9 am today, so going to join it and find out why it’s so famous.

The river is just on the other side of that green embankment.

I’m sure this has been in a jigsaw or two that we have done!

Really hard to get a photo without a person, lol. The street is lined with these planters, which looks great. I sort of think they are sweet potato plants on either end!

That’s my hotel on the other side of the crosswalk. There is a policeman on either side in the middle of the road! Don’t think that’s a good place to be!!! Anyway, the crosswalk has lights that flash red or green depending on whether pedestrians are stop or go! Mind you it’s a large crosswalk. But it needs to be with the numbers crossing it! On the way back a young Chinese woman stopped me, telling me I was cute! She wanted a selfie with me, LOL.

I had dinner at a restaurant accessible from the Hotel. Out of 10 main dishes only 2 had no chili, lol. So I opted for the wunton soup. I don’t usually photgraph my food, but here it is!

I’ll add the rest of today when I’m settled on the ship. xo

Coming into Shanghai, it was a bit of a rough landing, but otherwise a reasonable flight. Had fingerprints taken at the entry point. Eventually my suitcase appeared and the lad who pushed the wheelchair got me out to the taxi stand. Then the fun really began lol. He had no English and of course no Chinese in me. He had an app that translated, so we had a fine time with that. He said that the meter would charge me too much, so he turned it off. He didn’t take credit card so just as well I had some US dollars left over from my last trip. It was a 45 km drive from the airport to the Hotel and so many highrise apartments. He said there were 40 million people in Shanghai!

Rather fancy hotel room though, and fresh fruit was delivered as well!

Not sure what I’m doing a bit later, will take a walk if it’s stopped raining!