March 26th

Shanghai

We were still in fog this morning as we sat outside the harbor waiting to get to our berth. I checked the weather forecast on my phone. It predicted an overcast day, with unhealthy air quality.

We docked at 7:00, and we were in the Queens Room by 7:30, waiting to be called to our tour bus. There was a delay with the Chinese officials clearing the ship, and it wasn’t until after 8:30 that we were finally free to disembark. I could have had an extra hour’s sleep.

The Shanghai Cruise Terminal is a large, modern, steel and glass building. We disembarked from deck 3, and walked to immigration, where we showed the photocopies of our passports, and had our backpacks X-rayed in the customs area. We narrowly avoided catching the shuttle bus in to Shanghai, and were on our correct tour bus in no time at all. There were no dancing dragons or performing acrobats, not even any street vendors, it was all business. However, there was free wifi and a duty free shop. It felt more like an airport terminal than a cruise terminal.

It looked like we had disembarked just in time. The Royal Caribbean ship, Quantum of the Seas, had docked behind us, and no doubt its thousands of crew and passengers would also be coming ashore soon. That would definitely slow things down in immigration.

US citizens need a visa for China, but this requirement is waived if you are in transit and going on an organized tour. After all the fuss and bother of getting visas for Brazil last year, we decided that it would be cheaper and safer to go ahead and book a ship’s tour, and not risk losing our passports somewhere along the process.

As we have been to Shanghai before, we thought it would be interesting to explore more of the surrounding area, and we had booked the daylong Gardens of Suzhou tour. Suzhou is an ancient city about 2 hours drive from Shanghai, and is know for its canals and gardens, as well as being an important silk producing area. We also found out that it was a sister city to Portland, Oregon, and that our guide Janet (not her real name, she just likes to be called Janet as she thinks her Chinese name is difficult for foreigners to say), did a semester at Portland State University when she was a student. We love the Chinese Garden in Portland, and were wondering if it was inspired by the gardens in Suzhou.

There are several gardens in the city; the one we visited is the Humble Administrator’s Garden. It dates back to the Ming Dynasty, and is said to be one of the most beautiful gardens south of the Yangtze River. The garden consists of winding paths, and bridges crisscrossing the waterways, with beautiful old pavilions, and willow and flowering cherry trees along the way. It was absolutely lovely, and I could have spent the whole day there. However, it was not peaceful. There were thousands of other visitors there, all walking into one another and getting in the way of each other’s selfie sticks. It was quite hazardous.

Janet said that they allow a limited number of visitors to enter early in the morning, and they basically have the gardens to themselves. They can wander around and meditate in peace. She loves doing that, and says it is the best way to experience the garden. She leaves when the selfie stick masses arrive.

We then had a “traditional Chinese” lunch at the Wyndham Garden Hotel. There were 10 different dishes on a large lazy Susan, and it was fun to try all 10 of them. No one could accurately tell us what the ingredients were; very concerning for those with food allergies and avoidances. It turned out that the dish that looked like scrambled eggs had white fish in it, according to a non English-speaking waiter. Well, the fish certainly wasn’t visible. I am Brian’s official food taster to alert him to potential fishiness, and I never spotted that. He had already had a bite before we were told that it had fish. He survived – either the bite he took was fish free, or there really wasn’t fish there after all, and it had all been lost in translation.

Everyone survived the meal, although it was touch and go for some, and our next stop was the government sponsored silk embroidery workshop. The ladies who work there spend their days making the most beautiful embroidered works of art. It can take them up to a year to finish just one piece. We watched them hard at work, marveling at their ability to do such intricate embroidery day in and day out. I certainly couldn’t do it. We saw an exhibition of their work, and then of course had the opportunity to buy some.

Most of the pieces were very traditional, and lovely they were too, but not something that would look right in our living room. Then we saw a couple of modern ones. They were absolutely stunning. Now, they would go perfectly in our house, if we could find wall space for them. Then we found out the price. Even with the discount offered, there was no way we could afford them alas, so we rationalized to each other that we would have nowhere to hang them, and reluctantly got back on the bus.

Our final stop of the day was a boat ride on one of the canals. There were 32 of us plus our guide, and having been reassured that there was space for all of us, it turned out we were 3 seats short. That didn’t seem to worry the boat operator, who gestured that someone could sit on a step, and another on a stool, our guide could stand, and off we went with no safety briefing or a clue where the life vests were. The driver didn’t seem to have any concerns that we were over loaded, and bumping into the pier and other boats around us, off we set.

It turned out to be a most enjoyable ride, and gave us a glimpse into the life of the people living along the canals. The women were doing their laundry in the canal, and the men were using it as a place to relieve themselves. However, this all seemed to be working well for them. Many of the houses were well over a hundred years old, and although some had been modernized, most had not changed since they were built except for the addition of electricity and air conditioning.

The boat ride ended all to soon, and it was time to get back on the bus and return to the ship. I am not usually a fan of large organized tours, but this one was certainly very worthwhile. I am not sure we would have booked it if we didn’t have the visa issue, and we would really have missed out.

When we returned to the ship I had wanted to take some photos of Quantum of the Seas, but it was too dark, and we had to get ready for the early show in any case.

We went back to the cabin to change. I was rather hoping for another bottle of Pol Acker as we are now on another segment on a new booking, but alas, not a bottle in sight. Instead there was a card giving us our new dinner table number. As our tablemates will be leaving our current table in 5 days time in Hong Kong, I had quite expected us to remain at the same table, but no, we were being moved. It couldn’t be because we are so noisy as this is probably the quietest table we had ever been on. I was a bit put out, especially as we are currently in a great position by a window on deck 3, and now we are on deck 2, who knows where.

The pre-dinner show was a performance by a troupe of young Shanghai acrobats. They did tumbling, juggling, balancing acts, and contorted their bodies into shapes that cannot be good for their ligaments or joints. Each act was excellent. My favorite was when the 3 girls did the spinning of plates on the end of poles act. Two of the girls were spinning 2 plates in each hand. Challenging enough, but the third girl was spinning 3 plates in each hand, and if that wasn’t enough, performing acrobatic acts as she did it. Finally she kept her 6 plates spinning as she stood on her head. Now this seems impossible to do, but there she was doing it. Brian took a photo – it is not a particularly good photo, but hopefully it shows her on her head with the plates still spinning. Incredible! It was a fabulous show. I really enjoy it when we have local talent to entertain us on board. Our on board comedians and magicians are fun to see, but seeing a local production is so much more meaningful.

It was time to meet our new table. We stopped by our previous table to let them know we were abandoning them, they seemed surprised that we were being moved, and we agreed to meet for a drink before Hong Kong. Then we descended to deck 2. The only thing I like about deck 2 is that you can make a grand entrance by going down the stairs from deck 3. This does not work as well as it does on QM2. The stairs in the Britannia dining room on QM2 are rather grand, and very inviting for grand entrances. QE just doesn’t have the same grandeur. However, that’s not going to stop me.

We were shown to our new table, which luckily is by a window, and we settled in for another good meal. Our tablemates never arrived, so our table for 6 ended up being a table for 2. Apparently 2 of our tablemates are world cruisers and had been at that table since Southampton. They had chosen to have dinner in Shanghai tonight. The other couple had just come on board, so I expect they had decided to dine elsewhere tonight. Still, dinner was very pleasant, and I do like our new waiter and assistant waiter. Our wine steward was also able to rescue my bottle of wine from upstairs.

Synergy was playing on the Lido deck for our sail away party, but it was way too cold out on the open deck to dance the night away with them. Luckily we are on deck 8 in an aft cabin, so we could hear them from the shelter of our own balcony.

All aboard was 10:00 PM as we apparently had to sail half an hour earlier than planned, but we didn’t actually leave until after 11:30. I do not know the cause of the delay as no announcements were made. Probably people on the evening tours having too good a time partying in Shanghai. There was no fancy send off – we blew our whistle once and sailed off into the fog.