Traffic on the Huangpo River seen from our strateroom aboard the Rotterdam


Moss at the Maglev terminal in Pudong, Shanghai, about to board the train


Moss stands near the Maglev’s speed indicator; we are traveling at 301 kph!

View of Shanghai’s famous Bund from a construction overbridge; the Huangpo River is at left


Squeek and Moss beside the Huangpo River in Shanghai; the highrises of the newly developed Pudong District are in the background


One of the rabbit-warren streets in Shanghai’s Old Town district


Squeekie near the tea house where we stopped for tea in Shanghai’s old town

The tea house in the middle of the old town, with the bridges to it zig-zagged to divert evil spirits


Drinking Jasmine tea in the tea house

Shanghai’s night lights are dramatic and colourful


Forty-ninth Day (Monday, March 9, 2009)-- We awoke this morning to a foggy Shanghai and a Huangpo River bustling with traffic just outside our verandah. It was so nice to be back in our own “floating hotel,” the Rotterdam. While we were away in the interior of China the CEO of Holland-America, Stein Kruse, had come on to the ship and visited with the world cruisers. We knew of the planned visit, and had been disappointed to miss this meeting, but were pleased to learn that Mr. Kruse had decided to remain one extra day so that he could have breakfast with the people who had just returned from the China Overland Tour. So we came down to the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast with Mr. Kruse, his wife, and a number of the senior officers of Holland-America. We had a nice meal (thank heaven there was no more Chinese food!) and a good opportunity to converse with these officers. Fortunately, very few of the travelers took advantage of this meeting chance so we had an extended meeting. Squeekie was very happy!

After this we were on our own for the remainder of the day, until Rotterdam departed late this evening. Our first order of business was to take a taxi across the river into the Pudong District to the Maglev station to ride that special train to the airport and return. Shanghai became the first city in the world to build and operate a new rail technology known as “magnetic levitation,” or “maglev.” Initially invented by German scientists in 1932, maglev test tracks had operated in Germany and Japan in the post-World War Two era, but had never caught on for reasons that are debated among rail experts and enthusiasts. However, in the late 1990s the municipal government of Shanghai decided to build a 20-mile long “demonstration” maglev line out to their new international airport. The project cost approximately $1 billion (U.S.) and it has run for a decade with no problems.

We caught a taxi just outside our docking area, pointed on a map to the Maglev station at Longyang Road station in Pudong (the new part of Shanghai on the west shore of the river), and the driver indicated he would take us there. Unfortunately, as we got close to where the station should be, the driver indicated he did not know what we were trying to reach! He spoke almost no English, nor could he read a map without Chinese characters. Finally, Squeekie leaned out of the taxi, asked people on the sidewalk if they spoke English, and got someone who could talk to the driver. At just that moment, however, we saw the maglev train pass by on its elevated line in the distance, and pointed to that. We got to the station a few minutes later, and the taxi driver was so ashamed that he cancelled our meter rate, but we gave him a nice tip anyway.

The Longyang Road Station is a modern construction which looks like something at Tomorrowland in Disneyland. The ground floor contains what is labeled a “museum,” but what is really a sales pitch for the maglev technology. We entered the station (through an x-ray machine just like at an airport), bought our round trip ticket, and went up the escalator to the track level, where we took pictures and awaited the arrival of the train. Two maglev trains operate on this two-track line, and the point at where they pass (at speed) produces a loud “bang” as the trains (and their respective cones of speeding air) go by each other at over 600 kilometers per hour! When the train arrived we boarded and Squeekie sat at the window on the left side where the trains would pass, while I sat at the window on the right side, so I could photograph the elevated track structure as we traveled around curves. The train soon departed the station and quickly picked up speed. Within six minutes it was running at 301 kilometers per hour, as the picture in the blog tells! When the two trains passed there was an instant “bang!” as the cones of air passed by each other, and the trains had passed out of view before one could even react to this surprise. In less than ten minutes we had reached the airport at the outer end of the line.

We got off and explored the airport for a little while; Squeekie had been here with the Concordia Bell Ringers on their China Trip in 2005. Then it was back to the maglev and a return to Longyang Road Station. We toured the “museum” on the lower level, where I learned a great deal about the technology used in these trains (which run on cast concrete beams, not traditional steel rails). Then we caught another taxi to take us to our next stop, the Peace Hotel on the Bund in downtown Shanghai’s old “British Concession” district.

We walked along the Bund exploring the architecture of the old buildings still preserved there. Many have been restored in recent years and offer very good examples of architectural preservation. Unfortunately, when I tried to take a picture of an art deco ionic column in one building the guard there got very angry, as though I was plotting to rob the bank or something. Still, I was able to photograph the outsides of buildings and listened intently as Squeekie read their architectural histories to me. We spent a very interesting hour doing this, and then crossed over to the river embankment on the far side of the street (which was torn up in the construction of an extension of Shanghai’s underground metro train). We walked along the embankment looking at people and river traffic, and chatting about the buildings across the street (on one side) and across the river (on the other side). We bumped into people from the Rotterdam, had our picture taken together, and had the interesting experience of being accosted by two Chinese university students who were eager to practice their English on us. All in all, we had a very interesting early afternoon.

Then we caught another taxi to take us into the old town district of Shanghai. The taxi driver dropped us off at the edge of the district, but we had little idea of where we were because our map was not that good. Squeekie, when she was here in 2005, learned that there was a tea house inside the rabbit warren of alleyways which twist through the old town, and she wanted to go there for tea. We walked and walked and walked, curving around this complex and eventually found our way into its heart. There, in the middle of a man-made lake and reached by zig-zagging bridges (so built to deter evil spirits from following one into the tea house) was a lovely tea house built to Ming architectural standards. We walked in and told the lady on duty that we were interested in having some tea. She sat us down and proceeded to clean all of the potteryware she would be using. At first I thought this was some sort of complex ceremony, but now I realize that she was just using very hot water to clean cups, pots, and other items needed to brew the tea.

Behind her was a wall filled with large glass jars containing different types of tea. She asked us what we wanted and after some discussion we decided that two differing types of tea would suffice, an Oolong tea that was very mild and a Jasmine tea that had a stronger flavour. These are the teas we drank for the next hour. The Oolong was in a tiny, slightly larger than a thimble cuplet, and the Jasmine was in a larger cup, and she kept pouring refills as long as we had room in our stomachs to drink them. This was not a British tea with cookies or cakes, nor a Japanese tea with complex imagery, it was just drinking two differing types of tea whose flavours contrasted. It was lovely and VERY CHINESE. While we were drinking a young woman from South America came in and also ordered tea, and so we saw that what the lady had done for us was typical of what she would do for any customer. Neither Squeekie nor I wanted this event to be over, but the afternoon was getting late and we really needed to get back to the ship.

We finally, very reluctantly, departed from the tea house and worked our way through the warren to get out of the old town complex. We stopped to undertake a shopping errand, and then headed to the busy main streets outside old town. By now it was evening time and the city’s rush hour had begun, although we didn’t realize this at that moment. But when we caught a taxi and the driver grimaced when we told him where we needed to go, we began to understand that we faced a difficulty that even New Yorkers or Angelenos might not comprehend.

At this point I must stop and say that modern Chinese drivers have written a new chapter in the book on aggressive driving. All throughout our tour of China, from Hong Kong to Xian to Beijing to Shanghai, we saw repeated evidence that Chinese do not obey traffic laws or posted signs except under duress or when otherwise necessary due to the presence of armed traffic cops. They disobey red lights; they turn when they wish, even when oncoming traffic would cause a Western driver to think twice; they crowd across lanes or refuse to give way if someone is attempting to push in; they cross in front of traffic (if pedestrian) or, alternatively, aim at pedestrians if they are drivers. And all this is just in regular traffic. But now, this afternoon in Shanghai, we saw what it was like to drive in rush hour traffic, compounded by the fact that certain major streets downtown are torn up with metro construction. From the edge of old town to the terminal where Rotterdam was docked was, as the crow flies, a distance of about 1.5 miles. It took us over an hour and 45 minutes to cover that distance in the taxi. I specifically recall one left turn which took us over 20 minutes to negotiate. Eventually we did return to the dockside, with just a little more than an hour remaining until Rotterdam was to up anchor and depart.

So this was our day in Shanghai. It was interesting in the extreme, and both Squeekie and I would certainly wish to return some day, although I have no desire to struggle through its streets at the height of rush hour. Shortly after eight o’clock in the evening Captain Olav gently eased Rotterdam away from the dock and we left Shanghai behind. Our “China adventure” was at an end for this trip.

An historic note-- For those of you who have expressed dislike of my historical asides, I have decided to put this one at the end of this blog entry, so you can skip it if you wish, although I hope you will understand that historical and technical observations are part and parcel of how I look at everything in the world. . . . Shanghai was little more than a fishing village on the Huangpo River throughout most of the history of Imperial China, even though it had existed since the second century AD. In the nineteenth century the status of this town began to change. At the end of the Opium War (1839-42) China was forced to permit British (and later other European) traders and businessmen to undertake business in coastal towns other than Canton. Of these, the most important was Shanghai, which had river access into the interior of China and sported a very hood harbour area along the river. The Chinese Imperial government gave “concessions” first to the British, later to the French, the Germans, the Italians, and others to allow them to set up business communities in Shanghai. These concessions, each of which was a special land area in the town began to define the structure and functioning of the city, which grew rapidly due to the flourishing trade which developed here. (It must be noted that in each concession the laws of the specific great power were in effect, not the laws of China, and this meant that there were differing police forces throughout the city.) By 1900 Shanghai was unquestionably the most commercially active city in the Far East. In the British Concession along the Huangpo Riverfront there developed a commercial banking district that came under the German name of “The Bund,” which it retains to this day. By the 1920s many large and fanciful European-style buildings existed along the riverfront and in the various concession areas in town. Even the Chinese Civil War in the 1912-27 period did not end this business activity, even in the years of the Great Depression. (See Marlene Deitrich’s first American Movie, “Shanghai” to get a feel for what this city was like in the early 1930s.) Then in 1937 the Japanese began their war against China with a bombing of Shanghai, which soon was captured by the Japanese. They remained in control of Shanghai (and much else of coastal China) until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. Then Shanghai, that temple of capitalism, was caught up in the Civil War between Communists and Democrats which ultimately led in 1949 to the Communist victory. Shanghai suffered as a result for its role in the capitalist economy made it a target of Communist “reforms” and hassling. However, with the revival of the capitalist economy in China at the end of the 1980s, Shanghai has seen a revival of spirit and economy. As my current blog pictures show, especially of the new area across the river known as Pudong, high rise structures tell of a revival of Shanghai’s spirit.

Moss and Squeekie just before she began to climb up the Great Wall

Squeek waves at Moss from high up on the Great Wall

How steep are the steps on the Great Wall!

Squeekie photographs Moss from high up on the Great Wall

Moss photographs Squeekie from lower on the Great Wall

Squeekie climbs very high up on the Great Wall

Squeekie waves at Moss from a signal tower high on the Great Wall
Squeekie cheers after having climbed up the Great Wall

Panorama of the Great Wall in Juyongguan Pass, looking east

Moss and Squeek after she climbed the Great Wall

The swimming venue for the Beijing Olympics

The National People’s Congress Hall on Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square in Beijing; Mao’s mausoleum is to the right of the People’s Victory Monument—to its right in the far background is a KFC!

Carving the Peking Duck for our group

The former Peking East Railway Station, now the Railway Museum

Squeek and Moss in front of the Tiananmen Gate into the Forbidden City

Squeekie next to the Phoenix (Empress) carving inside the Forbidden City

Reboarding the Rotterdam in Shanghai—we are glad to be welcomed home!

The view outside our verandah—Pudong and the Huangpo River!


Forty-seventh day (Saturday, March 7, 2009)-- This was the second full day we spent in the interior of China, and we were beginning to feel the fast pace, but it still is fascinating! Squeekie and I awoke at 5:30 am and were downstairs for breakfast by six o’clock. By seven am our group had assembled at the bus and was on its way to the Xian International Airport for the short flight to Beijing. Watching this industrial city awake was interesting, but of especial interest was the arising of the sun. The sun rose in the east as a red ball in a heavily polluted sky which reminded me of how Los Angeles had been back in the early 1960s. Of course, the major source of pollution in LA back then was automobile exhaust from the burning of petroleum, while here it was still coming from the burning of coal, although auto traffic was clearly on the rise. . . .

We got to the airport and had sufficient time for Squeekie to do a bit of shopping before it was time to board the plane. Then there took place an event that I had not experienced since the early 1960s. We had to take a bus out to where the airplane was located on the tarmac, and then we had to climb up the old-style stairs to board the plane! This was the first time in over forty years that I was required to climb stairs in order to board an airplane at a major airport. The flight to Beijing was alright, not as bumpy as the one to Xian had been, but the Chinese guy sitting next to me (he was already seated when Squeek and I arrived at our seats) made no effort to avoid crowding my space and for the entire flight jabbed his elbow into my ribs. Admittedly, that is an easy target because of my large size, but it still was uncomfortable. I did not say one word to him for the entire flight, but I felt uncomfortable and a bit crowded as well.

The flight was just over an hour long, and when we landed at Beijing International the sky was every bit as smoggy as when we had left Xian. We collected our checked baggage, picked up a new “local guide” who sported the name of Arthur (that was not his Chinese name, of course, but the Anglo name made it easier to remember who he was), and boarded a new bus for the long trip out of Beijing to the Great Wall. As we drove out of the Beijing urbanized area to the northeast; the city seemed to get smaller and more scattered, and the farmed land seemed to reappear in patches.

Arthur, our guide for this segment (although we also kept our Xian guide, Lin, who was a WONDERFUL and knowledgeable tour guide), had a practice that we soon found to be unfortunate (or, in my opinion, outright dishonest). Arthur knew the main facts of an area but not the details, and I soon found myself mentally correcting his factual errors. He did not know how to weave a good story so as to bring the historical facts to life, nor did he seem to care. He apparently had deals made with a number of business entrepreneurs along his route to stop his tour bus at their facility for some shopping; this cut into the time available at the historic site. So, on our way to the Great Wall our tour bus stopped “for lunch” at a factory where cloisonné was made. Now I must admit that this was of technical interest to me because I had no idea how this lovely product was made (nor was I aware that this was another of those technologies that the West had received from China), but DAMMIT, in addition to the groups of artisans called a factory but in reality just a display spot in the store, there was a HUGE store with a sales staff eager to talk you into buying something. Well, needless to say, Squeekie and I did buy something (actually several somethings). They are beautiful to say the least, and it was interesting to watch them being made, but we were supposed to be enroute to the Great Wall!!! After lunch and the cloisonné factory, we continued on toward the Great Wall.

A brief historical interlude-- The Great Wall is a world-famous architectural monument that in several ways symbolizes China’s relationships with its neighbours in early times. The idea of using walls to defend against aggressive neighbours predates the Chinese Empire; several of the pre-Imperial (that is, before 221 BC) Chinese kingdoms from the “Warring States Era” used sections of wall in their own protection. However, it was the “First Emperor” Qin Shihuangdi who decreed that a long line of walls and signal towers should be built to defend his northern and western frontiers against the especially aggressive Xiong-nu tribes (we in the West know these brutes better as the “Huns”). Subsequent Imperial Dynasties expanded upon this defense system. By the time of the Ming Dynasty, China’s last native ruling dynasty, the wall extended some 10,000 kilometers from the shore of the Yellow Sea into the vastness of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, and had been reconstructed entirely of stone (many early sections had been boundary of China and to protect against the invasions of pony-riding raiders from Mongolia. It symbolized how the Chinese saw their own kingdom: their nation, called Zhuong-guo (the “Middle Kingdom”), was the focal point of all knowledge and understanding, while those who lay outside were inferior and secondary, unworthy of attention.

Back to our adventure-- We arrived at the location of the Great Wall in a region known as Juyangguan Pass. This is a very historic site, one of eight passes the ancient Chinese found it essential to protect from invasion, and all the more important once Beijing became the capital of Imperial China in the reign of Kublai Khan (late 13th century). The complex of walls, fortresses and watchtowers which presently dominate Juyangguan Pass date from the late 1300s at the start of the Ming Dynasty. The crucial tactical design here is a complex of two wall lines on the southern and northern crest line of mountains bordering the pass, with walls forming a large fortress area on the floor of the pass. In this area the wall line rises steeply along the crest line and can be very difficult to climb as my beloved Squeekie found out.

The bus deposited us in the floor of the pass on the west side, where we were able to walk easily into the “ground floor” level of the Great Wall. Stretching ahead of us to the west was a long line of wall, occasionally interspersed with watch towers, which climbed the crest line toward the west. My eager Squeekie, who had already climbed the Sydney Bridge and the temple at Borobudor, decided to head off up the wall. I followed at a slower pace, determined to get as far as the first watch tower, from where I hoped to photograph Squeekie up ahead with my telephoto lens, just as I had done in Sydney and on Java. As the pictures attached to this blog entry show, Squeekie did climb high up the Great Wall, and I did take her picture from below with my telephoto. I am PROUD of her effort to go so high up; the fact that she climbed much of the way with our new Canadian friends John and Janet Hanna just makes it better.

When she returned to the lower wall level where I walked, she whooped a great cheer—she had every right to be happy for what she had done. At the bottom of the wall, where a gift shop welcomed tourists, Squeek bought a t-shirt and I bought some books. While we were there at the lowest level of the Great Wall, a passenger train came around the corner into our view, and we both took pictures of it.

Our group reassembled back at the bus for the trip into Beijing. It was only about one hour’s drive along the tollway from Juyangguang Pass into the outskirts of the capital city. Our group had asked tour guide Arthur if it would be possible to “drive by” the Olympic venues on the way to our hotel, and he (with some apparent reluctance) agreed to do this. We passed by several of the Olympic venues and, although we did not stop nor did we slow down very much, we found that seeing these places in reality was of special interest. We saw the computer centre, the communications centre, the swimming venue, the famous “birds’ nest” stadium, and the Olympic Village. All of them were of interest both because of what had happened there and because we were seeing them “up front and personal.”

When we arrived at our hotel in Beijing we learned that some important politicians attending the National Peoples Congress which was going on this week were staying at the hotel. I was surprised (and more than a bit angry) at having to go through an airport-style security check, complete with x-ray machines, between the hotel check-in desk and the elevator lobby, but that was the reality of the time. Inside our hotel room I discovered that my large luggage piece had been trashed and the zipper ruined, so I could not open the case. As a result of this I could not change clothes for dinner this evening.

Dinner tonight was Peking Duck served at a famous restaurant which has served this dish for many generations. I had looked forward to this event! We bussed through Tiananmen Square, while Squeekie and I both got night shots of the famous buildings in the area, and pulled up to the “Bei Jing Quan Jude Hei Ping Len” Restaurant, which apparently has existed in some form for hundreds of years. I was interested to learn that the restaurant serves some 6,000 roast ducks EACH NIGHT! We were assembled in a private room on the sixth floor of the restaurant and served dinner, capped by the carving and serving of the roast duck. I LOVED the experience, and Squeekie had some of the duck too, but didn’t see what the hype was all about. I confess to having been surprised that the roast duck we were served was very mild and had little flavour. Of course, I am accustomed to eating wild duck, not the farm-raised variety, but even I thought that the bird would have benefited from some spices in the carcass. Such seasoning would have enhanced the experience, so that the meat would not just have been an “eat the crunchy fat skin” experience.

Then we reboarded our bus to go back to our hotel, which is located just one long block away from the Tiananmen Gate entrance to the Forbidden City. Famous Tiananmen Square has been closed to foot (and wheeled) traffic all week because of the People’s Congress going on, but in our night journey back to the hotel we were allowed to skirt the east side of the square, and Squeekie took some night shots with her little ELPH Canon camera. Arthur also pointed out the former Peking East Railway Station, which is now a railway museum, but when I asked him if it would be possible for him or a member of his staff to stop in and purchase a guide book for me (on their own schedule, not during this trip) he refused to do so. For this and other reasons I have come to dislike Arthur, who is filled with Communist propaganda and misinformation on the history of his own nation. I did get a nice night shot of the railway museum, but I guess a visit shall have to wait for another time.

Fortunately, I did notice that just “catty-corner” from Mao’s mausoleum, which is prominently displayed in the middle of Tiananmen Square, there is a garishly-advertised Kentucky Fried Chicken Store in business. Mao must be rolling angrily in his display case over this. I find it ironic that, despite still being ruled by a party which calls itself “Communist,” China today is relying on capitalist activities to gain great power status both politically and economically.

Back at the hotel, our tour guide Lin came up to our room and opened the broken zipper on my case—this does not permanently fix the problem, but enables me to use the case for the rest of the overland tour and to get stuff home from the ship before I dump the case, or so I hope. . . . I stayed in the hotel but Squeekie went out again to visit the night market with Audry and Stella.


Forty-eighth day (Sunday, March 8, 2009)-- I slept the sleep of the exhausted, as did Squeekie, who is feeling the muscle pains inherited from her climb up the Great Wall yesterday. We awakened at 6:15 am.

After breakfast in the hotel’s dining room our entire overland travel group exited the hotel and walked along Dong Chang-an Street, paralleling the wall which once guarded the Forbidden City from the people of Peking until we arrived in front of Tiananmen Gate (and Tiananmen Square) where we had a group picture taken in front of the gate (where a picture of Chairman Mao is still prominently displayed). Across the street from where we stood is the National Peoples’ Congress Hall, where the big meeting was assembling for the day as we watched. There were plenty of police and armed soldiers standing “guard,” and a large crowd of people as well.

(It was in this interesting moment that I collected a new type of “manhole cover” for my collection of pictures of these usually-ignored products of the iron-founders’ craft. Arthur pointed out some rectangular covers on the ground in a long row. When he saw that I photographed these he told me that they covered pit-style “squatter toilets” that were used by crowds in Tiananmen Square during political events.)

After this interesting, if political, moment, we walked through Tiananmen Gate into the Forbidden City. We walked over the Golden River Bridges and up into (and through) the Gate of Supreme Harmony into the Outer Courtyard, where we were greeted with the vast structure described as the Emperor’s office, in fact the throne room in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Walking through the “harmony” complex we went through the Gate of Heavenly Purity into the interior of the palace complex. We walked down the side of this innermost portion of the palace, unfortunately bypassing many interesting rooms because our tour guide Arthur was in a hurry. Eventually we elbowed our way through a large crowd into the palace gardens, where we stopped for a visit to the museum gift shop before exiting out the Gate of Divine Prowess, where the sight of some of Beijing’s renowned trolley busses greeted me. We then had to elbow our way through very persistent vendors selling junk to get back to our coach. The Forbidden City was fascinating, but we hurried through it way too fast and I missed a great deal of what I would like to have seen had time permitted. Still, I did get to see some of it, and took some interesting panorama pictures of the vast courtyards and gate structures.

Then Arthur, our local guide, pulled another of the stunts I did not appreciate. Although asked to take us past the Temple of Heaven so that we could photograph it, instead he had the bus driver take us to a silk “factory” where we were given time to buy fabrics. Yes, they did have some samples of silk production techniques, but I missed a very important landmark in Beijing. I AM VERY PISSED OFF!!! Then we went to lunch at a “private dining club” type of restaurant, where we had our own room just for our group. The food was bland—at this point in our tour we are all beginning to tire of Chinese food. On our way out to the airport we drove past a highrise building which had burned out not long ago. This event had made the international news, and I must look for it on the internet when we get home. We dumped Arthur at the Beijing airport. I am glad to see him go. He seemed more eager to get us to spend dollars than to interpret historical sites; he certainly knew very little about many things I asked him about during his part of the trip.

The flight to Shanghai was longer than I would have liked and rather uncomfortable, but at last we landed, picked up our bags, and boarded our last bus for the ship, which had docked in Shanghai early this morning (after an apparently rough passage through the Taiwan Straits which we were fortunate to have missed). We landed at the old Shanghai Downtown airport—it was old and dirty, as is the entire old town of Shanghai, but there are apparent efforts to clean up this famous (and much damaged by war and time) city. There were many high rises in the city, and not all of them were located in Pudong across the river. As our bus threaded through Shanghai to the cruise ship terminal where Rotterdam was docked, we were thrilled to be returning “home.” For the first time on this voyage, the sign “welcome home” posted on the side of the ship as we reboarded had true significance.

Historic observations-- First, my observations on the Forbidden City and on China’s problems in the nineteenth century. The emperor was VERY isolated from all his subjects, and this mirrored (and also exacerbated) China’s inability or unwillingness to cope with contact with westerners (and western technology) from the sixteenth century onward, especially after Western technology began to improve at a rapid rate in late eighteenth century. Chinese belief in themselves as Zhuong-guo, the “Middle Kingdom” (that is, the centre of the universe) made this inability to cope that much worse by enhancing this sense of isolation and increasing the unwillingness of Chinese to adapt to change. In this way China and her ruler lost their ability to deal with change.

One example of this, as expressed in the book 1421 by Gavin Menzies, is the story of the world explorer Zheng He, who sailed out into the world (some think even to South America, although this is not certain), but whose discoveries were suppressed after his return from his last voyage. Another example of this is reflected in the unwillingness of the Manchu Dynasty to cope with European visitors until forced to do so by the Opium War of 1839.

Second, my observations on the allegation expressed in the book 1434 by Gavin Menzies that the Chinese triggered Europe’s Renaissance. This claim is weakened by the argument (offered by some professors of philosophy, among others) that a key element of the European Renaissance was the development of new process of argumentation and logic. This thought process could not have come from China because her scholars didn’t think in this way. An additional aspect of this argument is that China’s technologies were exported to the West from the time of Marco Polo onward. While it is true that some Chinese processes did come West over time (silk making being one), this argument ignores key facts, such as: 1) silk making, which certainly was discovered or invented in China as early as the 1200s BC, had reached Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire by 6th century Ad, many hundreds of years before the start of the Renaissance; 2) the design of Western sea-going vessels, popularly known as “galleons,” which were good enough to carry Europeans around the world by the end of the fifteenth century, was derived from German “cogs” and was apparently superior to, even if smaller than, the ships built by the Chinese for Zheng He; and 3) Chinese technologies that Europeans did export (such as the making of glazed porcelain china, cloisonné, etc.) were borrowed (stolen?) from the sixteenth century onward, long after the intellectual revolution in Europe brought about by the Renaissance and, most importantly, soon enough were applied in ways the Chinese had never considered even in their hundreds of years of the manufacture of those products; this latter reflects an intellectual “freeze” or rejection of new ideas or applications which ultimately would prove troublesome to the Chinese as they encountered the European Industrial Revolution in the Nineteenth Century.

None of this thought is intended to diminish in any way the achievements of modern China in the last three decades. Quite the opposite is true: after two centuries of decline, oppression, and shame they have done much to improve their intellectual and technological standing in world culture but, having said that, I cannot ignore that all this has been done by a society which does not truly accept the important Western ideas of personal freedom and democracy. What this will mean for the people of China in the Twenty-first century remains to be seen. . . .

The view out our hotel window of a big industrial city

The grounds where the Terra Cotta Warriors were found and are displayed

The First Emperor’s chariot

A panorama of the Pit One museum area

Moss and Squeekie inside Pit One

Three of Squeekie’s close-up shots of the restored soldiers in Pit One





One of Moss’ pictures of the formations from Pit Three

The last living farmer of the group who discovered the Terra Cotta Warriors while digging a well in 1974—he signed our guide book

The small hill just to the right of center in this picture is the mausoleum of Qin Shihuangdi; near the Terra Cotta Warriors but virtually untouched due to mercury poisoning
The Wild Goose Pagoda rises in the background; notice the slight tilt to left due to earthquakes

The gilded Buddha inside the Wild Goose Pagoda; the swastika on his chest was an Asian symbol of good luck long before the Nazis corrupted it

The cute little dog the Squeekie photographed at the Buddhist pagoda

The Bazaar near the Greater Mosque in the old district of Xian

A panorama of the forecourt of the Greater Mosque in Xian
The Drum Tower in old Xian, once used to announce the time

The show we saw at the Tang Dynasty restaurant


Forty-sixth Day (Friday, March 6, 2009)-- Xian (pronounced Shee-ahn) is where we woke up this morning. As I looked out the 14th floor window of our hotel room, I saw a city waking up that was much different from what I had expected based upon my recollection of what Mom and Dad had seen back in the ‘Eighties. Xian is big and modern—at least in the city core where we were located. The hotel where we were staying, the Shangri-La, is modern and magnificent, apparently rated at five stars. The city over which I looked was modern and filled with high rises, with plenty of evidence of new construction underway everywhere.
Unfortunately, we had an accident with our electrical conversion equipment this morning, and in the process destroyed both the transformer and the multiple-socket extension cord I brought from home for the computers and my breathing machine. I was able to obtain a replacement from the hotel that will suffice for China, but what will we do afterward?

As we munched our in-room breakfast we prepared for an early departure. We boarded the bus at 8:30, and drove through a city that was still going to work for the day. It was interesting to observe a city that was far different than what I had expected it to be like. Based upon what I remembered of Mom and Dad’s description of Xian from the 1980s, I had expected to encounter an industrial city closer to the image of Maoist China than what we found. Almost no-one—even very poor people—still wore the Mao hat and blue jacket that was so symbolic of the old days of Communist China. There was no lingering evidence of Communist poverty and the destructions of the Cultural Revolution. The air pollution—mainly from burning coal it appears—IS still strong, so much so that it reminded me (in terms of eye pain and difficulty of breathing) of Los Angeles on a bad day in the late 1950s. I commented to Squeekie that it would be interesting to look at Mom’s pictures from that old trip and draw some comparisons. Everything seemed to be so different than from what I had expected because I simply did not realize just how much China has grown up in the last twenty years. . . . Of course, a good deal of change has been brought by the discovery of the Terra Cotta Warriors—they turned Xian almost overnight from a dirty industrial city into a dirty tourist magnet. From a city unused to tourists it has become one of the major tourist focuses in China, a nation that has only felt comfortable attracting tourists for the last decade or so.

We drove out of the city into the countryside. It was interesting to see the loess deposits which had made this region so central to China’s early history; I have talked about this stuff to World Civilisation classes at Fullerton for a dozen years now, and at last I got to see for myself what it means and looks like. (Loess, a fine, powdery, dust-like dirt deposit is dominant in the region around Xian; it is composed of dust blown in from hundreds of miles west, in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. The loess region was the starting place for Chinese culture in the third millennium BC. Although the area today is mostly farmland, in early times it was thickly forested.) Despite the fact that there was intense farming in the rural areas once we left town, there also were several places where railway installations were present, and I got to see one freight train in operation as we drove out to where the Warriors’ Museum was located. There was evidence of upgrading construction to accommodate high speed passenger trains, but at the same time, in the outskirts of the city of Xian I also saw evidence of freight trackage having been abandoned.

The museum grounds where the Terra Cotta warriors were found are vast in size and beautifully presented, with lovely buildings and well-offered grounds. It was a real benefit that we were able to drive our bus right onto the grounds and not be forced to walk the nearly 2 kilometers from the front gate to the actual museum pits. Given that this is a world heritage museum site, and one that fortunately was discovered AFTER the end of the destructions of the Cultural Revolution, it is nonetheless apparent that the Chinese government has spent vast sums on the presentation of the cultural artifacts at this site. There is a grouping of three buildings housing the finds known as “Pit One,” “Pit Two,” and “Pit Three,” along with a museum store, a 360-degree circle theatre, and presentation facilities for the bronze chariots, etc. (See the panorama picture included in this blog.)

After the circular movie, which presented a sanitized history of “the first emperor” (Qin Shihuangdi), we went to see the bronze chariots and then the pits where the warriors were found. I will discuss the history in a moment, but here are the artifacts we saw. First we saw the bronze chariots and attendant horses. They were discovered in 1980 in a site separate from where the warriors were found. Made of cast bronze and representative of very skilled workmanship at the foundry, they are exactly half life size, and were intended to enable Emperor Qin Shihuangdi’s soul to travel through his empire on tours of inspection. The first chariot, known uncreatively as “Chariot Number One,” was the lead or “high” chariot, driven by a high official (some say a General) to lead the way through the land. The second chariot, called the “security” chariot, apparently was the traveling office and living space for the emperor himself, an ancient example of what today we would call an “RV.” These two vehicles, although half-size, demonstrate an artisanal skill with casting techniques that is as technically fine as anything that can be done with modern knowledge.

Then we went to famous “Pit No. One” to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors in their glory. This huge structure provides a roof over an area of 14,000 square meters to protect the uncovered warriors from the weather. These figures, a vast army of men, horses, and weapons intended to protect the tomb of the first emperor, were discovered in March of 1974 by Yang Zhifa and five other villagers while they were digging a water well. After opening to the general public in 1979, these figures quickly became a world-famous archaeological heritage site. Excavations continue at the site, where there are now three major discovery “pits,” and a number of smaller sites as well. Pit One contains about 7,000 terra cotta figures (warriors, horses, chariots, and weaponry) which represent the tactical array of two millennia ago, arranged in a 38 column formation which incorporates a range of soldiers, ranking from general down to lowly private, no two of which are the same! Thousands of real weapons were found in this pit, including swords, spears, halberds, battle axes, crossbows, arrows, and arrowheads. Some of the weapons were oxidized with chromate when they were made, and thus remain shiny and sharp to this day!

Pit No. Two is a slightly smaller (12,000 square meters), L-shaped pit located northeast of Pit One. It contains 89 chariots pulled by 356 horses, and 116 cavalry horses, and 900 various warriors. Pit No. Three is a significantly smaller area containing chariots, guards of honour, and a command centre. What is amazing about this collection of soldiers is that all were created simply to “protect” the nearby mausoleum of the First Emperor (see historical note at the end of this blog entry), Qin Shihuangdi, and yet were made with such tremendous attention to artistic and technical detail that they both show the artisanal skill of Chinese workmen of that era and tell of the military practices of the times. They were placed underground in tile-floored, wooden-walled structures that were roofed with beam-and-mat ceilings designed to withstand weight and water. Most of the pits revealed a great deal of damage to the warriors, which initially surprised me because I did not know of this. Bodies and structures were broken, chipped, knocked over, and otherwise damaged and removed from their original order. At first I was uncertain why this was, thinking that perhaps this upset represented the result of two millennia of decay, but soon enough I learned that the damage was done within a decade of the completion of the mausoleum during the peasant rebellion led by Ling Bang which overthrew the Qin Dynasty. Apparently the peasants broke into the various warrior locations and did what damage they could, including in some cases burning out the roof structures. In a way this damage was beneficial in the long run because it contributed to the preservation of what remained.

In between visits to the various pits Squeek and I stopped in at the museum store where we purchased some stuff—model warriors, books, etc. Sitting quietly at a desk over at one side of the bookstore was an elderly man (I didn’t get his name) who was the last living member of the group who had discovered the warriors back in 1974. I was able to get him to autograph my guidebook, and Squeekie took his picture (despite signs prohibiting doing so).

So at last I was able to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Maybe now I will feel more confident—and speak with greater enthusiasm—when I deliver the lecture on the emergence of Chinese civilization at my Cal State Fullerton “World Civ” classes. It certainly means more to me, now!

After our visit to the warriors (reluctantly) came to a close, we drove back into Xian and had lunch at the Tang Dynasty restaurant where also later we would have dinner. Then we were driven to a jade “factory” which was just a camouflaged store to get us to buy stuff. Indeed there was some good quality jewelry there and I purchased some items for Squeekie for her birthday, which will come up before the end of our cruise. Squeek also bought some silk fabric.

Then the bus took us to an important Buddhist temple in Xian, known as the Wild Goose Pagoda. Lin, who has proven to be a marvelous (and not necessarily pro-Communist) tour guide, told me that since 1980 the government has tolerated expressions of faith, and in addition has spent money on the restoration of old religious structures.

The Wild Goose Pagoda and Ci’en Temple is located just outside the city core of Xian. It was built in 648 AD by then-Crown Prince Li Zhi who built the temple initially to celebrate his mother. The primary interest in this Buddhist temple comes from the fact that it was selected to house the vast documentation on Buddhism brought back from India by noted monk Xuan Zang in the early seventh century AD. This monk is important because much of what he brought back from India has great historical value—a generation after his visit Islam came to India and Muslims did everything they could to destroy all memory of Buddha and the religion which grew from his teachings. If Xuan Zang had not preserved these documents in far away China, much would have been lost forever. It is of interest several dozen earthquakes of Magnitude Seven or greater have shaken Xian since the Wild Goose Pagoda was built; the pagoda noticeably leans a bit but still stands, as our tour guide proudly pointed out. While we were photographing this interesting site, Squeekie came across a cute little Chinese dog which she added to our picture collection.

After the visit to the Buddhist pagoda our bus took us into the heart of old Xian. Adjacent to the old Drum Tower (built in 1380 from which drum beats once announced the time of day) there is a warren of narrow alley ways and old buildings, today largely operating as a Bazaar market area. In the heart of this complex there lies what may be the oldest building in town to survive without any significant restoration. It is the Greater Mosque, apparently built during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), when Islam managed to arrive in Western China (although a major defeat of Islamic military forces in 742 AD prevented the Muslim religion from overwhelming Imperial China). We entered through an ancient wooden gate structure and walked through two large courtyards. One stone tablet there, carved in Arabic, helps Chinese Muslims to calculate dates in the Muslim calendar; another tablet tells of some repairs during the Ming Dynasty. As it was Friday afternoon when we visited this building, Chinese Muslims were assembling for prayer, so we could not visit the interior. But it was interesting to see this ancient structure which looks unlike any other mosque I have ever seen. There is no evidence of Arabic architecture; even the towers from which the calls to prayer are announced are of Ming architecture not Arabic. It was very interesting to see Chinese-appearing men wearing Muslim hats on their way to prayer; I learned that those who wore white hats had made the Haij pilgrimage to Mecca. While we were in this one area we all felt as though we were in “Old” China, from Imperial times before the tragedies of the Twentieth Century.

We then returned to the hotel for a brief rest before we went back to the Tang Dynasty restaurant for dinner and a very interesting show. It was late to bed tonight after a VERY full day. Tomorrow it is off to the Great Wall.

An historical interlude about the first emperor-- Qin Shihuangdi (lived 259-213 BC) is known in Chinese history as “the first emperor.” Prior to his rule, those in charge had been called kings (or sometimes “dukes”) as translated into Western terminology. At the time Qin came to power there was no unified China, rather six smaller countries which had been in nearly constant warfare with each other for the better part of 500 years (this is called the “Era of the Warring States”). He developed and trained a superior military force and undertook to conquer all of the neighbouring states; by 221 BC he was successful in doing so, and at that time adopted the title of “emperor.” Qin understood that his new nation could not just be unified by military action; some cultural bonds had to be made as well. Exercising the absolute power that would be typical of Chinese Emperors right up until the end of imperial rule in 1912, Qin decreed unifying elements. Among these were: a standardized system of weights, measures, and money for the entire nation; a standardized calligraphy with which to write Chinese words (no matter how they were pronounced in the many local languages and dialects); standardized widths for carriage wheels and axles; a network of roads and canals; and construction of the first “Great Wall” sections to defend the northern border of his empire. Qin also believed that the philosophy known as “Legalism” should be the only accepted life-style and political management philosophy; he ordered the destruction of manuscripts of all other systems, including Confucianism and, when that was insufficient, pushed for the execution of non-Legalist scholars all over his empire. He also demanded that Legalism be used as the basis of his law codes, with such forcefulness that death penalties were enforced for virtually all transgressions of the law.

Qin Shihuangdi was, however, afraid of death, and the Terra Cotta Warriors are a reflection of that. He did not wish to die, and spent much time and effort seeking ways (through scholarship, medicine, or magic) to avoid his own demise. If that could not be prevented, he finally determined, then his post-death “life” must be provided with all the benefits he enjoyed in life, such as a large army to protect his soul and his mausoleum (that’s what the Terra Cotta Warriors were intended to do), vehicles with which his soul could tour his empire, and a mausoleum so magnificent that every other creature or spirit would be duly humbled. The need to demonstrate his power—and the skills of his military and his artisans—is why so much time and money was spent is creating the warriors we see today.

Qin Shihuangdi’s mausoleum (his burial site) is less than a mile from where the Terra Cotta Warriors were found. There is a 600-foot high hill overlooking the site; it looks natural but is in fact an artificial creation housing the first emperor’s remains. To date it has not been robbed or opened because it is so filled with mercury poison (from the decorations made for the emperor’s enjoyment in death) that modern archaeologists are reluctant to enter.

Rotterdam approaches Hong Kong; the southeast side of the island is to the right and the eastern entrance to Victoria Harbour is to the left, with another ship ahead of us in the channel

Rotterdam is entering Victoria Harbour from the east side; we are looking at Kowloon

Stanley Market; Moss was unable to find replacement walking shoes

We tour Aberdeen Harbour aboard a sampan; in the background is the famous “Jumbo” floating restaurant
Squeekie in front of the restaurant on Victoria Peak where she enjoyed dinner with Chui family in 2005

The up-bound tram passes the down-bound tram on Victoria Peak

Squeek and Moss enjoy tea at the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon

The famous night laser show on Hong Kong’s buildings

Squeekie about to board the Star Ferry for Hong Kong Island

Moss on the Star Ferry going over to Hong Kong Island

Moss photographing trams on Des Voeux Road in Hong Kong

Squeekie photographing trams on Des Voeux Road in Hong Kong

Squeekie inspects the Durian fruit at a small store in Hong Kong’s market district

The Legislative Council Building in Central Hong Kong, a democratic reminder from the days of British control

We wave a temporary farewell to Rotterdam as our bus leaves the cruise terminal headed for the airport

On the way to the airport, we see Hong Kong’s busy container terminal

A farewell view of Hong Kong across Victoria Harbour

Squeekie with her treasures purchased at the Hong Kong Disneyland store at the airport

We have arrived in Xian; this is our view of the airport from the bus taking us to the hotel


Day Forty-four (Wednesday, March 4, 2009)-- Squeekie and I awoke early and went out on Deck Six to watch Rotterdam come into Hong Kong. To my surprise (because we had approached from the southwest) our ship entered Victoria Harbour from the eastern entrance, and the high-rises of Kowloon were the first buildings we saw as we approached (see panorama picture). Unfortunately, the weather was very foggy and overcast, but the high-rise buildings of Hong Kong and Kowloon appeared to merge into the clouds in a very pretty way. Rotterdam threaded its way into the harbour and through the traffic of boats large and small—how difficult it must have been for Captain Olav to drive the vast liner in such a complex environment, but he did a great job. Ultimately Rotterdam was docked at the Ocean Terminal in Kowloon, just west of the Star Ferry terminal. Unfortunately, the Star Pisces liner had arrived just ahead of us and was parked on the outer side of the pier, where they had the best view of Hong Kong harbour and island, but we had almost as good a view. The ship’s bakers had prepared “star rolls” for breakfast today—we soon learned that these are the famous rolls eaten by riders on the Star Ferry ships. We have arrived in Hong Kong!

We had booked a “Highlights” tour to orient ourselves to the city, even though Squeek has been here before. Our tour started with a coach ride along the Kowloon waterfront, past the Peninsula Hotel and Nathan Road, through the traffic to the Cross Harbor Tunnel to the island, past the Happy Valley Race Track, and through the Aberdeen Tunnel to the southern part of Hong Kong Island. Squeekie pointed out some of the places she remembered from her earlier visit. We went over to Stanley Bay to visit the market, our first stop. I needed a new pair of walking shoes as the ones I had brought had failed yesterday, but I was unable to find any replacement—it seems that my feet are just too big for the sizes they market in Asia. (The same is true of shirts and pants, too.) I did get a rugby shirt and Squeekie got the grandpuppies a matched set of Burberry coats for the Seattle cold.

Back on the coach, we drove to Aberdeen Harbor where we boarded sampans for a little cruise through that harbor—we also saw the famous Jumbo floating restaurant. After our ride, we visited a jewelry manufacturer’s showroom, but their products were out of our price range. Then our motor coach wended its way up to the top of Victoria Peak. As you can see from the attached pictures, it was cold and foggy all day. When our tour arrived at the top “for the marvelous view,” we couldn’t see across the roadway much less down the mountain. Oh, Well! Squeekie also showed to me the restaurant where she and Leslee had been taken to dinner by Chuis—it looked like some place out of England, and was very nice. I’m sure that the view from there would have been marvelous in better weather. Then we all rode the Peak Tram down the hillside to the station in the Central District where our coach was waiting to return our group back to the ship. I am glad we took this tour; it was a good introduction to Hong Kong and we it enabled us to see and do things that would have been more difficult for us to do on our own. It was just too bad that there was so much fog inhibiting our view of the city.

In the afternoon Squeekie and I put on our nice clothes and walked a couple of blocks from our anchorage to the famous Peninsula Hotel, where we enjoyed a British-style high tea in their marvelously restored lobby. We ate tea sandwiches, scones, and sweets just like proper British people, and it almost seemed as though we were NOT in China except for the reality that there were many Chinese people there having tea. After tea, we explored the hotel and its gift shop for some souvenirs. It was wonderful to experience this last remnant of the British control of Hong Kong (along, that is, with the traffic driving on the left side of the road).

Next we walked a few blocks up Nathan Road, Kowloon’s main shopping thoroughfare; late in the afternoon it was already alive with commerce and greed, buzzing with neon lights, swarming with traffic, and compacted with people in search of anything and everything. It didn’t take but a moment for me to become intensely annoyed by all the hawkers trying to sell us watches or have clothing tailored. I was hoping to find a store at which to purchase a replacement lens for my camera, and a new long telephoto; we did stop in one store and found a new 18-55mm lens, but I really didn’t like the constant bickering there. I always felt as though I was being cheated. Eventually I did buy the lens there but I was happy to GET OUT of there as quickly as I could. Finally, Squeekie got me back to the mall in the Ocean Terminal, where the stores were neater and the sales people politer and seemingly more honest. I found a Sigma 150-500mm telephoto lens that was exactly what I had hoped to find, and the price was very affordable. I also got some replacement walking shoes and Squeek found some long underwear because we were afraid of how cold it would be at the Great Wall.

With the shopping out of the way, we returned to the ship in time to see Hong Kong’s famous laser light show across the harbour. Despite the continuing fog which subdued the lights, enough showed that Squeekie and I were able to get some very nice pictures. Then I turned in but Squeek went back to the terminal-side mall for some final browsing.

A bit of history-- Hong Kong was an island with a small, unimportant fishing village located in the islands not far away from where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. When Great Britain declared war on China in 1839, this area (also where formerly Portuguese Macau is to be found) was the site of some of the fighting. Imperial China, despite its size and wealth, was badly defeated by Great Britain (who fought only China’s coastal fortresses and cities, and did not try to invade the country itself), in large measure because Britain had military forces strengthened by the Industrial Revolution, while China’s Emperor and Mandarins refused to even talk to Europeans much less to try to understand the technical revolution then underway in the western world. In the Treaty of Nanking of 1842 which ended this war, China surrendered Hong Kong island (and some other territories) to Britain, and agreed to permit Britain to trade not just in Canton, but also in Shanghai and elsewhere. This treaty was the beginning of the end of China’s Imperial Dynasties which had ruled the land for some 2,000 years. The treaty turned over IN PERPETUITY Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and several other islands to Britain, later, in 1896, additional land—known as the New Territories—was LEASED to Britain to expand Hong Kong’s land. From 1842 onward the tiny fishing village became a major centre of commerce and trade in the Far East, and the Hong Kong Dollar (Americans tend to forget that the “dollar” originally began as a Chinese unit of currency specifically intended for foreign trade) an important silver coin in the Pacific Basin mercantile region.

After 1900, with problems in Europe in the fore, the British government understood that it would be unable to defend Hong Kong against direct attack from determined enemies, and sought assistance. At first the Japanese were tabbed for help (the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1906), but from the mid-1920s onward the Americans were seen as possible helpers. With the collapse of the Chinese Imperial government in 1912, and the decline of China into Civil War in the 1920s, both the British and the Americans operated “police” military naval forces on China’s main rivers, the Pearl, the Yellow, and the Yangtze. Hong Kong remained an important mercantile place throughout this time, but was a target of the Japanese in December 1941. Most Americans are not aware that at the very moment the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, other Japanese military forces were bombing (and invading) British Hong Kong and the then-American controlled Philippine Islands. The British forces in Hong Kong surrendered on Christmas Day 1941, and the Japanese began a rule over Hong Kong which is still remembered in pain and anger by older Chinese to this day. When the war ended and the British Empire began its decline, Hong Kong residents began to worry about their future, especially after the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with the victory of the Communists. The crucial date was 1996, when the “New Territory” lease expired and that land should be handed back to China. Would this happen? Could Britain defend what would remain of Hong Kong? Complicating this issue was the economic development of Hong Kong. As Communist China endured serious economic decline, the tiny British Colony became an example of how capitalism could improve the lives of many if not most in a community. Would Communist China permit Hong Kong to remain Capitalist?

Today we know what happened. When Britain decided to return not just the New Territories but ALL of Hong Kong, the Communist government of China was already in the process of rethinking how the nation should be run. Today, all of China (or much of it, apparently) is benefiting from an injection of Capitalist economics; Hong Kong is administered as a separate (but NOT independent) administrative region which retains much of its British-taught democratic politics. In this tour Squeekie and I saw this clearly.


Day Forty-five (Thursday, March 5, 2009)-- Squeekie and I got a VERY EARLY start today, so we could pack for our overland excursion which begins this afternoon. Fortunately, we still have time this morning for additional sightseeing, and Squeekie has something special for me. It was still foggy so a visit to Victoria Peak was out, but we took the Star Ferry over to Central Wharf to visit the island. As we took the short ride across Victoria Harbour, I was reminded of riding on the last San Francisco ferries in 1954, when I stayed with Gama. We rode on the upper, First Class, deck and got some nice pictures despite the foggy conditions.

A short walk took us to Des Veoux Road, where the British-style double-decker trams still run. Squeek and I took LOTS of pictures of these little beauties, and then we climbed aboard for a ride west into the Chinese market district. We got off and walked around for awhile before getting back aboard the trams to go east. Squeekie wanted to walk over to the lower Victoria Peak tram station, so we got off the tram and walked up the hill for several blocks. They have a museum at this station so I was able to get technical information about the peak tram, but no history book was to be found Then it was walk back to the Central Wharf ferry terminal and back across to Kowloon. In the ferry depot on the Kowloon side I found a book on the history of the Star Ferries, and purchased it. It is, however, too bad that similar books do not exist for the history of the peak tram and the double decker tram cars.

Once back on the ship we prepared for our journey into the interior of China, had some ice cream in the Lido, then placed phone calls to both Leslee and Lynn’s mom. At 2:30 pm our “China Overland Adventure” began. We departed the Rotterdam aboard a bus that took us to Hong Kong’s International Airport over on Lantau Island. As we threaded our way through the traffic we passed the tremendous container terminal just west of Kowloon; I confess that I have never seen such a busy container terminal ever before. We also passed over the new bridges which have been built to connect Lantau to the New Territories and Kowloon. Squeekie took a picture of the airport train at the side of the expressway, and I tried to get a picture for her of the exit to Hong Kong Disneyland. Pictures were tough because it rained heavily (but sporadically) all afternoon.

Hong Kong International is HUGE, and very efficient in its layout. I was quite impressed, and Squeek was eager to share with me her earlier visit to the facility. After we went through security we were given time to explore before our plane left. Squeek wished to find if there was a store for Hong Kong Disneyland, and a brief survey led to the discovery of the “Magic of Hong Kong Disneyland.” The store was filled with all sorts of merchandise from the park. We purchased shirts and some little stuff.

We flew to Xian on China Eastern Airlines, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared it might be. The flight was bumpy, but we got to the Xian airport with little trouble. However, the women in our group were horrified to learn at the Xian Airport that the toilets were squatter type, smelled very badly, and were without toilet paper. Ugh!!!

We met our guide outside of the immigration area. Her name was Lin and she was VERY GOOD. A bus took us into Xian. It was night by this time, but I was surprised to see that Xian is a big and busy city, very modern in appearance. Our hotel, the Shangri-La, was of five star status, and very modern and nice. After dropping our bags Squeek and I went downstairs for a bit of dinner—we shared a Reuben sandwich and each had some mushroom soup. Then we went off to bed because we have a busy day tomorrow.