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.