After two weeks into our trip we have finally set foot into China.  Beijing was our first stop where we were supposed to originally stay 3 days (2 nights).  Unfortunately due to the fog in Korea (caused by the smog in China), our delayed departure in Incheon cost us one of our days in Beijing.  Fortunately we were able to have our excursion we had booked modified to a two day excursion.

Our first day in Beijing was at the Great Wall of China.  This had been one of our bucket list items that we can cross off now.  It truly is a spectacular sight.  We only saw a very small fracture of the over 5,000 miles of wall that was built over 600 years ago.  We elected to walk up to the wall versus taking a cable car in hopes of seeing more of the wall on the walk up the mountain.  We really didn’t see the wall until we were right up to it, as it was hidden by the forest around it.  Climbing up to the top of the wall and looking around was quite a sight.  As far as you could see in each direction was the wall.  Every 500 yards or so is a watch tower that was used for the look outs to keep the Chinese empire safe from the various invaders that threatened them.  The towers are close enough together that no one could sneak up and try to climb up the wall without being seen.  The wall itself varies from 20 to 30 feet tall and is at least 30 feet thick at its base.  It definitely was not going to be knocked down!  Unfortunately the thick Chinese smog (or red dust as they called it), prevented a clearer view of the wall in the distance but we were definitely treated to some great views.  In walking along the top of the wall you had to walk up and down many steps since the wall went up and over hills and down into the valleys.  Some of these steps around the watch towers were over 1 ½ feet in height.  In between the watch towers there were canons located on the wall.  They were very simple cylindrical iron tubes that the Chinese could use the black powder they invented hundreds of years ago.  We walked for over an hour along the top of the wall (mostly up - to the top of one of the higher hills) and it seemed that one view was better than the next.  There are other places in China to see different sections of the wall and you can even go see where the wall actually is built going right out into the ocean at one end.  I am sure we will come back again and see the wall in one of our future trips.

It had taken us 3 hours to drive to the Great Wall from the port and it took us another 2 hours to drive into Beijing after visiting the wall.  Our excursion we had arranged through a local Chinese tour company (Beijing Tour Company) included an overnight stay in Beijing.  This saved us from having to drive all the way back to the port and then drive back into Beijing the next morning.  Not only did this save us 5 hours of driving time it also allowed us to spend some time in Beijing at night.  After checking into our 4 star Chinese hotel (which was pretty nice), we ventured off to see some sights with some friends we had met on board the ship.  We walked down a pedestrian shopping street that sort of reminded us of New York with all the bright neon signs everywhere.  Our first stop was at a shop that sold candy and pastries.  Most of the candies seem to be more fruit oriented.  We bought a few things and tried them as we continued to walk down the street.  We later stopped at one of the tea shops and bought a cold Rose tea.  We were going to walk to Tiananmen Square but stumbled across a Chinese night market filled with various vendors selling some very strange food items.  One of the first items we noticed were these sticks with live scorpions on them wiggling around.  They took these sticks and cooked them over a fire to have nice crispy scorpions.  We passed on this delicious food item.  Shortly after that we saw another vendor with a large mound of noodles he was selling.  These turned out to be sea worms; another delicacy we passed on.  There were some items that looked pretty good and we even tried some.  Sharon bought a long stick with a sugary fruit on it.  We saw many people eating these and it was pretty good although we never really learned what the fruit was.  It sort of tasted like a juicy plum with large seeds in them that you had to spit out.  We saw rice in many different colors served on a stick.  Ice cream that was piled in an egg waffle that we had tried while in Hong Kong.  There was an interesting item that looked pretty good where they put a shrimp in a small muffin pan and cooked an egg over the shrimp.  You could pick it up by the shrimp tail and eat it, but the egg was definitely NOT a chicken egg.  Since most people didn’t speak English, you were at your own risk to try things and not really know what you might be eating!  We really enjoyed the nice walk in the city to visit the stores and market as the temperatures were nice and cool but not cold.
The next morning we headed out to explore the city with our tour guide.  Our first stop was Tiananmen Square which is the largest public square in the world and China’s spiritual center.  At the square you can see Mao Tse-tung’s burial mausoleum.  Tens of thousands of Chinese pay their respects to him every day.  In the daytime his tomb is on display and at night it is lowered into the ground.  We were told by our guide that 70% of the Chinese people loved him when he came into power.  People took trains from all over China to come to Peking (Beijing now) to get a glimpse of him.  The people were given free food on the trains to come see him.  Other people literally walked thousands of miles to come see him.  He was considered a leader of the people and the farmers loved him.  The other 30% of the Chinese didn’t love him because he closed down ALL schools in China for over 10 years and stopped all religious practices in the country.  Also seen in Tienanmen Square is the 10 year monument (in celebration of 10 years of communism) and the people’s monument which was erected in honor of the students and people that gave their lives 30 years ago in one of the rare political demonstrations in China.

Our tour then went to the Forbidden City which is right across the road from the square.  In front of the entrance we saw several soldiers at attention with riot gear at their feet in case it was needed.  As we walked through the gates of the Forbidden City there were guards in civilian clothes who looked like Chinese Secret Service.  When you walk into this “city” you have to be impressed with it size (over 180 acres) and the number of buildings (over 900) it contained just to accommodate the emperors of the Chinese empire.  It was built 600 years ago by the Ming dynasty and for 500 years housed the emperors of both the Ming and Qing dynasties.  No one was allowed in this city except the emperor and his servants (- his 3000 servants!).  It was called the Forbidden City because no one else was allowed inside its walls.  The walls were built high (30 feet) and thick (20 feet) with a moat (150 feet wide) around them in order to ensure the safety of the emperor.  No trees were allowed inside to prevent assassins hiding in them.  All the men servants were eunuchs (castrated men), and there were hundreds of concubines for the pleasure of the emperor.  This was actually considered an imperial residence as opposed to a palace yet the Forbidden City has several palaces within its walls.  There is also a very unique Imperial Garden that should be in full bloom in another 2 or 3 weeks.  The architecture of the buildings is truly amazing when you consider it was built over 600 years ago.  The use of jade throughout the city provides some beautiful artistic touches.  The material to build the city came from all over China.  Everywhere you look around the city are huge iron pots (4 foot tall and in diameter).  These pots contained water to put out any fires that might occur in the city.  It has been open to the public since the mid 1900’s and 100,000 people visit it each day.  As we were leaving the Forbidden City we saw several Chinese wedding couples having their pictures taken outside with the city towers in the background.

After our visit to the Forbidden City we went for a traditional Chinese lunch.  It was very similar to what we had had the day before.  After lunch we went to the Temple of Heaven that was built for the emperors to worship their gods and pray for good crops.  The temple is made up of some very unique buildings and is located on a very large park.  While at the temple we went to a tea ceremony to be shown the different types of Chinese tea that is available.  We were given samples of the most popular types of teas and shown how it is traditionally made and drank.  After the ceremony we were offered the opportunity to buy the tea and tea sets available. 

This concluded our tour except for our long ride back to the port.  Also included in the pictures are several shots of the bicycles, mopeds and cars driven in the area.  Traffic in Beijing is terrible as in any large city that has more than 20 million people.  You will notice that many of these mopeds and motorcycles had gloves and or jackets attached to the vehicle.  This was very unique where the rider just sat on their bike and fit their hands into gloves that were physically attached to the handle bars.  Most of these riders also had a coat that was similarly attached to provide a “windshield” as they drove.  It was very different to see.  We were told that if you lived in Beijing your public education was not free unless you were actually born there.  Many people who work in the city and rent apartments must send their children to school in the city or village that they came from in order to give them a free education.  Buying property in China is like most places we have visited in Asia.  The price to purchase a very small 2 or 3 room apartment would cost you 2 or 3 million (US) dollars.  Most people have to rent apartments.  What was a little different here though, is that many of these apartments do not come with a bathroom!  There are public bathrooms all around the city that are available for the residences to use since they do not have bathrooms in their apartments.  When we were walking the free night we had in Beijing, we observed an older Chinese man in his pajamas going to one of these public bathrooms.  They shower in these bathrooms and even wash their clothes there.  In some of the bathrooms in the restaurants you will see a sign on the ladies bathroom stalls showing whether it was a western toilet (it has an actual toilet seat) or an eastern toilet (it is a urinal in the ground that you squat over).  Fortunately all the men’s rooms had traditional urinals.  Chinese life is certainly very different from ours and we are certainly glad we live in the good old USA!

We depart Celebrity Millennium tomorrow in Shanghai and hope to see as much as we can during our 4 day stay  before departing to Singapore.

Sharon & Greg

Our second stop in Korea was Jeju Island which is the resort area of South Korea.  This is where people go to get married, vacation and to enjoy the scenic beauty.  It is the “Hawaii” of South Korea.  We took a full day tour here and visited the south side of the island.  Our first stop was the Yakchunsa Temple which is one of the many Buddhist temples on the island.  We were told that the Korean people are not overly religious (less than 50% have a given faith) but those that are either are Buddhists or Christians with a few Muslims in the area.  The temple grounds were surrounded by orange and grapefruit trees which are very prominent on the island.  Inside this large temple people can pray and meditate.  Many of the Buddhists provide donations either as bags of rice or by displaying their contributions on candles, lights or lanterns in the temple.  A donation provided for an item displayed is shown for a period of one year.  What you get depends on what the size of your donation is.  If you make a large donation you get one of the large paper lanterns that adorn the ceiling of the temple.  A smaller donation gives them a light that is put on display along with hundreds of other lights. 

The next stop on our tour was the Columnar Joints (Rock Fractures) at Jungman Daepo Coast.  These columnar rock formations were caused by lava flow from the hundreds of volcanoes on the island.  Interestingly when the lava cooled in the sea water it created these five sided columns.  It was a very interesting sight.  We then went on to the Hyatt Regency Hotel where we had a traditional Korean lunch – a spicy beef with a side of sticky rice.  After we ate, we went to Yeomiji Botanical Gardens which had many beautiful flowers.  Different areas of the Gardens showed various types of plant life: desert, jungle, aquatic, flowers and tropical fruits.  We were next taken to an Cheonjeyeon Falls.  This is a series of three waterfalls along a manmade canal created to help water 250,000 acres of rice paddies.  The waterfalls were not that impressive(due to lack of water) but the walk was pleasant and along the way you had the opportunity to walk over a very unique pedestrian bridge (Seonimgyo Bridge).  We made one last stop on our way back to the cruise ship to see Mysterious Road.  This was a stretch of road that mysteriously seemed to allow your vehicle to roll uphill.  Apparently it is just an optical allusion but it seems to be pretty popular place to visit.  Our driver stopped the vehicle and we coasted for about 100 yards going upward instead of going downhill (unusual natural wonder).  Jeju Island was interesting but felt we didn’t see much of the beauty of this island given the timeframe we visited – just prior to Springtime when everything would be in bloom.

During our trip to Jeju Island we did learn more about the history of South Korea and the Island.  We were told about the women who were the primary bread winners in the family.  This seems to go back to when the women divers went down to very deep depths to get valuable seafood (albacore) to sell.  The men did not have the capability to dive to depths of 70-80 feet and many of the women died on some of these deep dives.  The women were forced to dive in the winter time with snow on the ground and into freezing water.  Many of the men were taken away by the Japanese when they took over the region in the 1930’s.  Any man that showed political resentment to the Japanese takeover was imprisoned on mainland Korea and many were eventually killed.  Some of these men returned to the island when the US helped Korea restore its independence from Japan but most of the men never returned and were assumed dead.  To this day the island has many more women than men because of this.  Many of the women were forced to become pleasure slaves for the Japanese during this time.  There is no love lost between South Korea and Japan because of what happened during this time in history but even today they are extremely close allies because of the tensions between North Korea, China and Russia.
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Out next port stop was Incheon where we were going to see Seoul.  Unfortunately extremely thick fog and China dust closed down the Incheon port delaying our arrival in the port by almost 4 hours.  We were taking a full day excursion that was supposed to start at the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) where we would be able to step into North Korea briefly.  Unfortunately, the late arrival prevented us from going to the DMZ because they closed it down to tourists at 3 PM.  We instead spent a full day in Seoul and had the opportunity to visit the Changdeokgung Palace.  The palace, built 600 years ago, is very large and two thirds of the area is devoted to the Gardens.  We did not see the Gardens but it would not have been a very impressive sight since the weather was still too cold for the plants to start blooming.  We did learn about the Korean Red Pine which is one of the most durable trees in the world.  It was used to build the palaces and many of the better homes in Korea.  Unfortunately, when the Japanese invaded Korea they chopped down the many forests of these trees to send the wood back to Japan for their use.  Around the palace we were able to see many Korean men, women and children dressed in formal attire as they visited this site.  We learned a lot about the kings and how they took power but we won’t go through all of that detail right now.  The palace was large and impressive but not overly beautiful.  The roofs and architecture made it appear very exotic compared to what we would normally see in the US.  From the palace we went to Bukchon Hanok Village which is an area of Seoul that has maintained the original style of Korean homes for the last 300 years.  The homes are very small (200-400 sq. ft.) and are packed side to side along some windy, hilly streets.  These are actual residences where people currently live.  When the homes need to be renovated the Seoul government helps pay the home owners for the renovations to maintain the historical appearance of the area.  Although the homes are small they are still extremely expensive at more than one million dollars.  Housing in general in Seoul is very expensive as we have been told in each of our Asian stops so far.  To own a house requires several hundred thousand dollars just to buy the least expensive house far away from the city center.  Most people have to rent and even that is very expensive.  The monthly rental cost is dependent on how much security deposit you put down.  It is not uncommon to put down a security deposit of $500,000 so that your monthly rent is only several hundred dollars a month.  You get the security deposit back after your 2 year contract is over. 

Our last stop was Insadong Street where we were dropped off for two hours of shopping and to have dinner on our own.  This was a very nice area and had many interesting shops and restaurants.  We first ate a few Korean pancakes with a very hot and fruity tea.  We then tried out some chicken that was sort of like Sesame Honey Chicken.  We ended up our snacking festival with a Korean donut (Hodduk) that was freshly made and had something sweet in the center that we could never quite identify.  The shopping and eating was enjoyable and we used up our full two hours before heading back to the bus for our ride back to the ship.

We have been delayed departing Incheon (Seoul), South Korea due to heavy fog.  This has caused a one day later arrival into Beijing, China where we will have 2 full days of excursions and an overnight stay instead of a 3 visit.

Sharon & Greg

Our ship departed Hong Kong on March 18th.  After a day at sea our first port stop was Keelung, Taiwan.  Keelung is a port city for Taipei the capital of Taiwan.  Since Taipei was a 45 minute drive from Keelung we elected to do an excursion on the north side of the island to see some of the famous geological formations there.  The weather was a little rainy and overcast.  The Geopark that we visited had many unique rock foundations (erosion caused by wind, rain and water).  There were some nice views in the area and at times you could see large fossils in the rock.  Outside the park were several food vendors where you could sample some local delicacies. 
We then went to a local fish market where the fish were kept alive in various tanks that allowed people to select what they wanted to eat.  There were some nearby restaurants that they could take their selection to have cooked.   Behind the fish market were some of the fishing boats that were used to catch the fish.  Our last stop on this excursion was a Buddhist Temple.  Every temple we have seen is very colorful (primarily reds and gold) and has a large figure standing in front of the temple or on the roof of the temple.  We will certainly see many more temples along the way during our cruises.

After Keelung we had a sea day before arriving in Nagasaki, Japan.  This city is most famous for being the second city in Japan (after Hiroshima) to have an atomic bomb dropped on it.  From the cruise port we walked to Peace Park which was created as a memorial to this devastating act.  In the park are several sculptures from various countries paying tribute to the devastation of this city and the desire for it never to happen again.  One statue in particular was the Peace Statue; the elevated right hand points to the threat of nuclear weapons, the outstretched left hand symbolizes tranquility and world peace.  A prayer for the repose of the souls of the war victims is expressed in the eyes.   The folded right leg symbolizes quiet meditation, while the left leg is poised for action in assisting humanity.  Over 75,000 people lost their lives to this one bomb and 75,000 more were seriously injured.  Many more thousands died in the years after the bomb due to radiation poisoning and cancers caused by the radiation.  You can still see the outline of the prison foundation.  We walked over to the actual epicenter of where the bomb struck and a black monolith was erected in the exact spot of impact. 
A short distance away is the Atomic Bomb Museum which we went through.  It reminded us eerily about the 911 memorial in New York City.  Besides providing all the history about the creation of the bomb and the devastation it created in the city, the museum also had a lot of information about the various peace movements underway to help ensure an event like this never happens again. 

Our next stop was the site of the Martyrdom of the 26 Saints of Japan.   This memorial was built for some of the first Christian ministers and some of their Chinese Christian converts who were killed by the Japanese government who did not allow Christianity to be practiced until the 20th century.  We then moved on to see Fukusai Temple that was founded in 1628 by the Chinese Buddhist monk Kakukai.  The roof of the temple was shaped like a turtle shell with a turtle head protruding from the front of the temple.  Our final stop in Nagasaki was at Chinatown.  This area was very colorful and interesting to walk through.  There were many different things you could eat and we tried one of the fried balls with some sort of sweet bean center.  It wasn’t too bad.  We found Nagasaki to be a very interesting port to visit.

Our next port stop was Busan, Korea.  This was our first of three stops in Korea and was also the port where we had our Distinctive Voyage excursion.  Distinctive Voyages is a program that is offered to some travel agents to provide an extra set of amenities for their customers that book with them on certain defined cruises.  We went on this specific cruise because we acted as a host for these other travel agent’s customers.  We host a cocktail party and escort them on one complimentary excursion.  Busan was our port to escort a group of 22 passengers on an excursion led by a local tour guide.  Our first stop was at the Hongbeopsa Temple where we participated in a formal Korean Tea Ceremony.   The making and drinking of the tea was as much for meditation as it is for drinking the tea.  The ceremony was extremely interesting and the temple was beautiful.  This temple was even nicer because the floors were heated.  Since you have to take your shoes off before entering a temple, having warm floors is nice when the temperature outside is in the 50’s.  After leaving the temple we headed back into town where we went to a Korean restaurant to try some traditional Korean food (Bulgogi – with beef or Bibimbab – vegetables only).  This was served in a large pot on a warmer and each pot served around 4 people.  The food was very good and was served with rice and several other side dishes.   After lunch we went to the Jagalchi Fish Market.  This was a large fish market right on the harbor and contained many vendors selling fish, snakes, crabs and other assorted seafood delicacies.  This market was somewhat unique from what we had previously seen in that all the fish were kept alive in fresh water tanks and the pure size of the market with so many different vendors all selling the same seafood items.  It was quite a sight to see and we were told that the seafood was actually purchased (auctioned) nearby under large roofed structures where the fishing boats came in.  The vendors at the market would keep the fish alive until they sold them or they unfortunately died.  Once a fish died they had to immediately sell it either to a customer or to one of the many vendors “outside” the market who had their own stalls and just sold dead fish.  Whatever dead fish couldn’t be sold that day had to be put on ice until the next day when they tried to resell it.  We were told this whole process is regulated by the government to ensure the safety of the food that is being sold.  Our excursion ended with this visit and so did our trip to Busan.

In the next two days we will visit Jeju Island and Seoul in Korea before heading on to China.
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We arrived in Hong Kong on the evening of March 15th after a very, very long flight from Atlanta.  The second flight that day was 17 hours LONG!  We stayed at the Salisbury YMCA which although sounding very strange turned out to be a very nice hotel in a great location (thanks Aunt Linda and Steve for the recommendation).  The next morning we woke up to get an early start in exploring a city that Sharon had never been too and Greg had last seen 43 years ago.  Our hotel had a harbor view and the first thing we did was to walk over to the Promenade and view the harbor and Hong Kong Island.  We stayed on the Kowloon side right next to the Star Ferry.  We took a Free Walking Tour and this gave us a good perspective of the area we were staying and allowed us to learn about the Hong Kong culture.  We met at a Clock Tower which was originally built over 100 years ago by the British for the train station that was there.  During the tour we tried a few delicacies such as an egg waffle and a Jasmine Milk Tea.  After the tour we made our way up to the “Ladies Market” to see the large open marketplace that you could bargain for those special deals.  We bought a few dresses for our granddaughters at some very good prices.  In the evening we watched the laser light show that the Hong Kong hotels create with laser lighting coming from the very top of some of the larger buildings.  It was nice but not nearly as impressive as the light show at Epcot in Disney World.  After the light show we headed over to some food vendors to get a little dinner.  We first ate some Ramon noodles which were really good and tasty with the spices they used.  We also tried some fried flour roll and a fried chicken breast.  The chicken was pretty good but that was probably the last fried flour roll we will eat in a while but you have to try some of the different things when you are traveling to new places.
 
On the second day we took the Star Ferry (cheapest and oldest ferry in the world) to Hong Kong Island.  As we made our way to the Wet Market (Chun Yeung St) we stopped at a local indoor marketplace that we just happened to notice along the way.  It was quite a market with fresh fish everywhere along with fresh produce and live chickens.  The live chickens for sale weren’t live when they were sold.  When someone wanted to buy one they put them in this conical metal container until their head stuck out the small end.  This device allowed them to better grab the chicken so that they could easily hold it while they cut the throat.  After that they threw them in a bucket to bleed out before they cut them up and gave them to the buyer.  Talk about fresh food!  Quite a scene!  We also saw a bucket of rather large snakes for sale that looked pretty disgusting to us!  We then walked to the Wet Market at Chun Yeung Street and watched the many people hurrying around to buy their dinner for the night.  This is the way fish, beef and produce have been sold for hundreds and maybe thousands of years.  No grocery stores, just little shops along the street selling extremely fresh products that people would buy for a single meal.  These same people would be back the next day (and the next) to buy their food for their meal each day.  It was quite a sight.  After seeing these market places we headed over to the financial district to take another free walking tour.  Hong Kong is one of the largest financial cities in the world and three of the largest international banks are headquartered here.  The walking tour took us to many different places we would have probably not discovered or understood on our own.  We saw the world’s longest escalator at almost a half mile in length (30 minutes to travel the entire distance).  We were told about the cost of housing and how almost all of the money that people earned went to pay for the house or apartment they lived in.  Where we were taking the tour, we were told a 3 room house (not 3 bedrooms – just 1 bedroom, a kitchen and a living area) that was 200 square feet large would cost around 1.4 million in US dollars!  Imagine if our real estate market sold houses at $7,000 a square foot!  During this walking tour we tried an Egg Tart which was delicious, and a drink created back in 1952 that was filtered through a sock and contained a mixture of coffee, tea and milk.  The drink was really good and tasted like a unique flavor of ice coffee (although not a flavor we had ever tasted before).  Along the way our guide showed us stores selling various dried seafood items (fish intestines, sea horses, etc.) that were used for medicinal purposes.  We would have to be pretty darn sick before we would try some of that stuff!  And if the dried seafood items wouldn’t cure you, then you could try out the store that sold animal part such as livers, hearts, intestines, ears, etc., that also had supposedly medicinal purposes.  They certainly had plenty of homemade recipes to stay healthy and we were told that the health care in Hong Kong was very good.  People live to around 85.
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After the tour we went back to Kowloon on the Star Ferry and went to the Temple Street Night Market also known as the Men’s Market.  It didn’t look that terribly different from the Ladies Market.  We went there because it was supposed to be a good place to go and eat but we had a hard time selecting someplace to eat there that looked good.  We eventually found a restaurant on our way back to the hotel where we had some noodles and stirred fried chicken.  We forgot to take a picture of the meal but it was great.  The chicken dish was pretty hot with a mixture of different types of peppers, ginger and onions that they used.  As we walked back to the hotel we admired all of the neon and LED lights along the streets.  It lit up the roads so well, that they don’t need any street lights here in the city. 

We walked two days and logged almost 70,000 steps or about 33 miles.  We are starting to get back into shape for visiting all the many ports we will visit during this 2 ½ month trip.   For those that do not know, this will be the first blog in a trip that starts in Hong Kong with a pre-cruise stay before heading off on a two week cruise to China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.  We will then stay in Shanghai for 4 nights before flying to Singapore where we will take 4 back to back to back to back cruises to Abu Dhabi (via Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Oman and Dubai), and then to Rome through the Suez Canal.  From Rome we will go to Barcelona and then end up in Venice.  At Venice we will take a short train ride to Milan where we will eventually fly back to Atlanta on May 30th.
We have added several people to our distribution list.  If you do not wish to be on this list, just let us know and we will take you off.

Sharon and Greg