Jewels of the Orient - Day 19, 3 Nov 2019 - Debark Day, Spectrum of The Seas and Sydney

Debark day is always a sad day but today is even sadder as it means our amazing holiday is over and we're leaving China tonight (well technically tomorrow as our flight is 12.05am 4/11/19). We've been counting down our holiday for almost 6 months and now it's almost over. Time sure does fly when you're having fun!

Today was going to be a long day due to the lateness of our flight back home. We had grand plans of leaving our bags at the airport and then catching the train back into Shanghai and spending the day there before heading back to the airport in the evening. This did not happen. More on that later...

There was a big delay getting off the ship. We had a late debark time which meant we could have a relaxing morning before facing the lovely customs people both at the port and at the airport. We didn't mind having to wait longer than expected to get off the ship as we weren't in any rush to get to the airport.

Once we finally got off the ship we had more queues and waiting in the terminal. The Chinese take security very seriously. Fingerprints were scanned once again and passports checked numerous times. Finally making it through we found our suitcases no problem and headed for the taxis in the hope of being able to explain where we wanted to go, Pudong Airport terminal 1. We got a taxi easy enough but trying to tell the driver where we wanted to go was another story. I used my phones translate app but for the first 30 mins we thought for sure we were going the wrong way (not that we had any idea where the airport was!). We weren't, the driver knew where he was going :-)

At the airport we ran into people from our tour which was to be expected since we were all flying back home today and there aren't too many flights. They'd gone to terminal 2 so had to catch the shuttle to terminal 1. As we were at the airport so early we couldn't check in so, as mentioned, had planned on leaving our bags in storage. Nope, this wasn't going to happen. There was some sort of expo on so the storage facility was closed starting from 8am today due to 'security issues'. What ever that meant. Bugger. This meant we were stuck with our bags until check in at 5pm. We were given quite a few different times but it ended up being about 5. I did try and see if we could get an earlier flight, we could but it would cost us $800 each, no thanks.

I had planned that once we dropped our suitcases off we'd catch the Maglev train into Shanghai. The Maglev is a super speedy train from the airport to Shanghai that runs on a magnetic track, so have the time it's hovering above the tracks! We decided we'd still catch it and just drag our bags along with us, not fun at all and the train only got up to 300km/hr instead of the 400km/hr it's meant to. What a jip!

After dragging around our bags and going through all the scans and security checks getting on and off the train I'd had enough. I bought some lunch from a super busy place, sort of like a bakery, and we caught the Maglev back to the airport. I also bought a can of beer for dad but in the end this got taken off me a the very last check we went through. We'd been through about 5 before this so don't know why suddenly I couldn't take it and my two tiny cans of coke. Disappointing and annoying.

The time dragged on and on at the airport. We did fill in a little bit of time by having a yummy dinner using the very last of our yuan. We had to calculate what we could afford before ordering, didn't want to embarrass ourselves by not having enough yuan when everything was so cheap.

The airport is massive, as you would expect, but there weren't many people at all. I thought it would have been so much busier.

Our plane was on time so that was good we definitely didn't need a delay when we'd been at the airport for hours and hours already. The flight was loooong and uncomfortable. I seriously do not know how tall people go! Dinner was served as soon as we reached flying altitude, it was 1am in the morning, who wants food now. Many people apparently, the lady next to mum also got a glass of wine. That's the last thing I wanted I just wanted to sleep. Not going to happen. Breakfast was served a few hours before we arrived back in Sydney. A very well cooked egg, shouldv'e gone with the Chinese brekky, noodles.

After finally making it to Sydney and getting through customs (such a breeze compared to China) we had to get a transfer over to the domestic airport for our flight to Port Macquarie. One good thing was we could check in and leave our suitcases so didn't have to drag them over to the domestic terminal. Next time we'd see them was Port Mac airport.

We had a little bit of a wait but only about 1 1/2 hours so not too bad. We left on time, had a cuppa tea and nibblie things, and arrived in Port Macq right on time. Dad was there to pick us up so once we got our suitcases we were in the car and home, well mum and dads home. What a looooong day. A shower was definitely needed before a nice glass of wine. Dinner wasn't far behind and then straight to bed. we were tired.

What an amazing trip we had. We didn't know what to expect and were both pleasantly surprised how much we enjoyed our trip. We were both over the bus and the airports but what we did and saw definitely out weighed any negatives we had. China is certainly a very different place to Australia as are the people. We learnt that you need to just accept that Chinese do not queue or have personal space so just 'elbows out' and go. I found this hard to deal with at times but you gradually get use to it.

I would highly recommend doing a trip to China especially when the trips on offer at the moment are so cheap it is so worth the money. Value for money that is for sure. The quality of our hotels where top notch even if the locations may not have been the most central and the food, so cheap and, for the most part, so yummy. We'd go back just for the food!

I'm not sure if I would do a bus trip again but never say never. The cruise was awesome as always but to be able to go to Japan was something I hadn't ever thought I'd do especially on a fabulous ship. I would love to go back to Japan and see more of it especially Tokyo as I wasn't that impressed with it but have heard how amazing it is so obviously I missed a lot of it. We were only there for a few hours!

Where to next???

Jewels of the Orient - Day 18, 2 Nov 2019 - Sea Day, Spectrum of The Seas

Emma's 20th birthday, Happy Birthday Emma!

Our third sea day and our final day on the beautiful Spectrum of the Seas. This cruise sure went fast, even faster than normal!

We had some yen left so we left this for Jesman our wonderful room steward.

We didn't got up in the North Star as we had done it on the Ovation even though we didn't get to go over the edge of the ship. It wasn't included on the Spectrum and was an extra cost unlike the Ovation. The same thing with the Flowrider and iFly although we think they may have made the Flowrider free on the last day as it was super busy unlike earlier in the cruise. Maybe people just didn't want to go on it before they'd seen Japan in case the injured themselves!

Tomorrow: Shanghai

Jewels of the Orient - Day 17, 1 Nov 2019 - Sea Day, Spectrum of The Seas

We left Yokohama at 11pm last night and are now making our way back to Shanghai. We've got two sea days before we get back so plenty of time to eat and relax.

We went up to the library and found a scrabble set so we could play speed scrabble while eating our yummy cakes.

We'd asked Jesman if we could get some more tea bags to get us through to the end of our cruise. When we got back to our room there were enough to last this cruise and another one. Maybe we should have booked back to backs!

We checked out the robot bartenders and watched then do their thing. We didn't order anything but I definitely will next time!

Lunch in the Windjammer today with a spot of dessert. A glass or two of wine on our balcony and then a delicious dinner in the dining room.

What a great sea day.

Tomorrow: Sea day

Jewels of the Orient - Day 16, 31 Oct 2019 - Yokohama (Tokyo), Spectrum of The Seas

Another relaxing morning as we weren't getting to Yokohama until 12.30pm. Room service breakfast enjoyed on our balcony. We spent most of the morning in our cabin enjoying the view while having the tv on with the ship cameras so we could see what was happening around the ship.

We went up to the top deck to watch our sail into Yokohama. The captain did an amazing job spinning us around to dock. We were heading straight for a bridge which we were thinking 'we're not going fit under this' we didn't that's why we had to spin around before it and park just in front of it. Welcome to Yokohama. There were lots of buses waiting so lots of people where doing ship tours. As this port was a working port and not near anything we had to get a shuttle to the main part of Yokohama.

Originally we hadn't planned to go to Tokyo but then decided as we were so close we should. I hadn't research Tokyo, thinking we weren't going there, so didn't know what to do or where to go. We'll just have to wing it!

After getting off the ship and catching the shuttle we made our way to the station. It wasn't far from where the bus dropped us. Unfortunately we had run out of Yen so needed to get some out. I had read that 7 Eleven atms accept OS cards but we didn't know where one was. I did try using the train ticket machine and bank atm but no luck. A lovely Japanese lady came up to us and asked if she could help (obviously we looked a bit lost). She took us around the the money exchange place (we had been here but couldn't get any money) and she kindly asked the lady where a 7 eleven was. It was pretty much just on the otherside of the street! It was slightly hidden but we did feel a little silly but very grateful!

Finally with some Yen we managed to get our train ticket and sort of work out which train to catch. We had to change trains so we were a little worried about if we'd actually make it to Tokyo!

We jumped on a train we thought was heading in the right direction and then jumped off when we got to the station we thought we needed to change to get a train to Tokyo.

While standing on the platform we thought was the right one but weren't 100 %  mum asked a young guy if we were on the right platform. A train pulled in on the otherside and he pointed to it to. We jumped on and hoped for the best. It ended up being the right train but the whole trip we weren't sure. Even the lady on the train didn't look sure.

Tokyo station, unsurprisingly, was busy. Not knowing where to go we found an information desk and mum asked a few questions and got a map.

We headed out of the station, walked around for a couple of hours and then headed back to the station and back to Yokohama. Tokyo wasn't anything like I had expected. It was quiet and not busy or quirky or weird at all. I said to mum we must be on the wrong side of the station for the 'real' Tokyo. As it turned out we were, oh well. Maybe next time.

The train to Yokohama was an express train, thankfully, as it got very full! They just kept on getting on. Two people would get off and about 30 would get on. Squishy!

Back at Yokohama our mission, well my mission, was to find the Cup Noodle Museum. This was somewhere I had really wanted to get to while we were here. Things don't always go to plan though. When we did finally find it, quite by accident in the end, it was already closed. Bugger.

Another place I had wanted to get to was the Ramen museum, we didn't get to this but we did find Ramen food hall. We had dinner here. So many choices and thankfully they had a menu in English which was helpful. To order you did it yourself using a machine, we just watched what everyone else was doing first and then followed them. When our order was ready I went over to get it and was told, in Japanese, to get some boiled eggs. It looked like you could have as many as you wanted. I just took one. So odd.

We had a delicious meal and even managed to order a glass of white wine. They're not really big on wine so the choice was pretty simple. White or red? You have to order from one place and then collect it from another spot and then dropped your empty glasses at another spot. Very organised.

After our yummy dinner we walked back towards the ship but first I had some shopping to do! I just wanted to get a few weird treats before we left Japan. I managed to get some :-)

We caught the shuttle back to the ship. We were back on board at about 8.30pm. We had tickets for the 9.30pm show in the Two70 theatre so had just enough time to freshen up a bit and have a relaxing glass of wine on our balcony.

The show was awesome. So much going on we didn't know where to look. They were coming down from the ceiling and up from the floor and out from the side of the stage. Silk Road was the name of the show and it was based around the trade route on the silk road in a very arty way. The acrobatics were amazing. This was the only show we ended up seeing on the ship. We had wanted to see Showgirls but missed out on that one.

Tomorrow: Sea day

Jewels of the Orient - Day 15, 30 Oct 2019 - Osaka (Kyoto), Spectrum of The Seas

We had breakfast out on our balcony as we sailed into Osaka, arrival was 7am. This is the way to enjoy sailing into a new port, in our jarmies, nice and peaceful! It's always exciting going to a new port. In front of the ship was a large bridge and on the other side of the river was Universal Studios. We could see a very wild looking roller coaster, maybe another time!

What we couldn't see from our balcony was on the other side of the ship, where we were getting off, was a giant ferris wheel! Mum just loves ferris wheels. I had asked her to go on the one yesterday at Kobe and she said a definite NO so I had no hopes with this one. It was much bigger and was actually listed as one of the tallest in the world. Imagine the views mum!

We grabbed our Yen and passport copies and off we went. No delays getting off the ship today. I think lots of people must have being doing tours or had gotten off as soon as we docked and had the all clear.

As we were walking passed the giant ferris wheel mum says, if you want to go on it I'll go. OK. I didn't give her a chance to change her mind! Straight to the wheel, bought our tickets and on we go. They did ask if we wanted the all glass cabin but mum gave a definite NO to that, I didn't want to push it. Any cabin on the ferris wheels was good enough for me!

 

The views were incredible and mum did really well even if she did sit on the floor the whole time. The ride went for about 15 minutes and gave me plenty of time to get some awesome photos of the ship and the surrounding area.

After we got of the wheel and mum got her jelly legs under control we decided to get a train and see if we could find Osaka Castle. We did manage to get our tickets and find the right platform plus a couple from our China tour saw us and asked where we were planning on going. They'd been there yesterday doing a ship tour so knew which station to get off at. It's always a bit comforting to know that you're on the right train and going in the right direction!

After a 20 minute train trip we found our way to the Osaka Castle exit and even managed to find some toilets. They were heated too, very fancy.

Osaka Castle is a very popular place and the grounds are massive. We didn't actually go to the castle itself but saw a lot of it's walls and moats and got a photo of it through the trees. We came across a couple of food stands and bought a sweet red and white bean paste and custard waffle/pancake thingy. Good. 300 yuan, about 60c.

Back to Osaka train and hopefully we'd get off at the right station. We did but it was an accident, we actually thought we were getting off a station earlier than the one we'd got on but nope, it was the one we'd used earlier. At least we knew where we were!

We headed back towards to ship and went into the shopping centre near the dock. We didn't end up buying anything.

Back on board and time for something to eat. We went to the Two70 cafe and just had something light to eat. That pancakey thing was filling.

Halloween is tomorrow and the ship was being decorated ready for the party tomorrow night. They did a great job although I wasn't a fan of the huge spiders!

We left Osaka at 4pm, it was a beautiful sailaway with the sun setting as we sailed out.

Another yummy dinner in the main dining room.

Tomorrow: Yokohama, arrival time 12.30pm

Jewels of the Orient - Day 14, 29 Oct 2019 - Kobe, Spectrum of The Seas

Kobe is our destination for today, arrival time 1pm and we don't leave until 4am tomorrow. Seeing as we didn't have to get up early to watch us sail in what should we do but have a lazy breakfast in our cabin, well on our balcony.

The sea was super calm. A little overcast but no rain.

We had pizza for lunch in Sorrentos. They do good pizza, very good pizza. Freshly made. We also indulged in a dessert or two before leaving the ship to explore Kobe.

We had to take the photocopy of our passport with us to get the stamp of approval from the Japanese officials. We were told that this could take awhile but wasn't too bad in the end. Maybe 30-40 mins and we were through customs and security with our passport copy and sticker. We needed this for each port so made sure we put it somewhere safe in our handbags.

While researching each of the ports we were going to in Japan I saw that there was a red tower fairly close to where the ship was docking. This was in Meriken Park along the waterfront. We could see it from the ship so decided we'd try and see if we could find it. We actually had more trouble trying to find our way out of the terminal than finding the tower! We ended up getting on the free shuttle which took us into town, near Chinatown. As we'd just spent 10 days in China we didn't bother having a walk through Chinatown.

There were maps dotted around the place so we kept checking them out as we walked around. We found Meriken Park and the Red Tower. We didn't go up to the top, mum hates heights and stairs :-)

There was a memorial for a massive earthquake that hit this area about 20 years ago. It had photo's and a model showing where the earthquake hit and all the damage that happened. There was also an area they had kept showing the damaged caused along the waterfront. It's amazing that an area that has earthquakes still has multi level roads. I guess they're designed and built to withstand earthquakes but I think I'd prefer to be on the ground than up high.

We found a supermarket, I always like looking at supermarkets of our countries just to see what weird (to me) and wonderful things they have. I also wanted to get a razor as my legs were getting a tad hairy :-) We were thinking about getting a thermos for our final day in Shanghai so we'd have a cup of tea on hand but in the end we decided not to get one. (as it turned out this was a good decision) I did buy a couple of things but unfortunately the tiny cans of coke I bought got taken off me at Shanghai airport.

We walked a lot today so decided we may as well walked back to the ship (if we could find the right road/path to get to it) instead of getting the shuttle back.

After much walking and climbing stairs to go over the roads (they like overpasses) we managed to find the right walkway and found our ship.

Back on board we'd missed our 7pm dinner time although they did say we could still go into the dining room as they were going to stay open a bit later than normal due to the timing of our arrival in Kobe but we decided to just go to the buffet. I wasn't too busy. I had a yummy beef stirfry with noodles.

Next stop: Osaka 

Jewels of the Orient - Day 13, 28 Oct 2019 - Sea Day, Spectrum of The Seas

We love having a balcony and we love having a kettle in our cabin and we love room service breakfast! What a life.


Today we're heading for Kobe, Japan but have a day and a half at sea before we reach land. We spent most of the day exploring the ship, eating, relaxing, taking photos, watching people on the flow rider and ifly and did I mention eating.

This ship is very similar to the Ovation and just as beautiful. It has a lovely flow to it so never felt crowded.

We went to the Splashaway Cafe for lunch. They just have light meals and serve the same thing each day. They had chicken tenders, french fries, salad bowls, flatbread wraps (I had a shrimp one) hot dogs and a weird flat burger thing.

Before dinner in the main dining room we had a drink on our balcony. Dinners was good and we had the best apple pie we've ever had for dessert. So good!

When we got back to the cabin we had a panda towel animal waiting for us. We think it was a panda anyway.

Tomorrow: Kobe (arrive 1pm)

Jewels of the Orient - Day 12, 27 Oct 2019 - Embark Day, Spectrum of The Seas

A relaxing morning before we head to Baosan Port. We don't leave the hotel until 10.30am so it gives us time to have a leisurely breakfast and then pack our bags and make sure we have all our paperwork ready for the cruise.

We so excited for this part of our trip. We've really enjoyed the China tour, it's been something completely different to anything trip we've done before, now it's time to say goodbye to the tour bus and hello to our beautiful ship The Spectrum of The Seas!

Hans explained what we needed to do once we got to the port and also said his goodbyes as we wouldn't have much time when the bus parked. The bus could only be there for 5 minutes before it had to move on. We all needed to get our suitcases so instead of them taking them off the bus and moving them down towards the front of the bus out of the way as there wasn't much space between our bus and the next one, no this is too sensible. People just pushed bags out of the way to get their suitcase even if that meant pushing them further away. Just as I went to grab my suitcase it got pushed away from me. Manners got out the window when you're on a bus tour. Everyone wants to be first. We were talking with an older couple who said that we always end up at the back but so far we've never missed out on anything so why push and shove. Exactly.

Anyway, we got our bags put our cruise tags on them and dropped them off before making our way into the cruise terminal. This was a lot different to any cruise we'd done before. Boarding took us about 1 1/2hrs. So many checks, so many queues and so many people. After worried for a bit when we got a form explaining what we needed to do and what paperwork we needed which said have a photocopy of our passport (which I have but it was in my suitcase which I'd just dropped off). It did say if we didn't have one there was a photocopier on level 3. In the end we didn't actually need it until we got to Japan, something to remember for next time I guess.

Finally made it on board, our cabin was yet ready they were all due to be ready at 2pm, so we found a comfy chair and I went and got us a cup of tea. I also ended up getting a couple of savoury muffins as I ended up in the Two70 cafe and it's always hard to resist yummy looking forward. The muffins did look yummier than what they were.

After we had our cup of tea we went down to the cafe looking for something sweet. Mum grabbed a pork roll and I grabbed a chocolate mousse, yum.

The announced that all the cabins were now ready so once we'd finished eating we made our way to deck 7 and looked for our obstructed view balcony cabin.

Beautiful room and happily there was no obstruction other than a slight overhang below us which just meant we couldn't look straight down the ship, we were very happy with that.

We love the layout of the RCI cabins. Spacious, airy and light and the balcony is a good size with a chair and foot stool each and a small round table. This would have been much better for the 3 of us when we did the NZ cruise.

Our suitcases hadn't arrived yet but would be there after we went and did our muster. Our muster station was in the Royal Theatre a few decks below our cabin. For the muster they actually showed us a mini movie explaining everything, it must be an Asian thing. Quite funny actually. It was also funny watching the Asians and how they just do what they want and sit wherever they want even with the staff trying to tell them what to do. The Chinese don't believe in queuing or waiting.

We unpacked our suitcases when we got back to our room, lots of storage space and our suitcases fitted under our comfy beds. Our cabin steward introduced himself, Jesman, so we asked if he could get us some English breakfast teabags. The cabin has a kettle in it but they only provide green tea bags. Jesman was lovely and remember our names everytime we saw him. I couldn't remember his name and for awhile there I thought it was Jose (that was the name of the head waiter).

After freshening up we went exploring the ship and checking out the drinks menu to see how much we were in for when buying our wine. We went to Vintages and bought a bottle of Australian chardonnay, the only Sav B was $50 a bit exxy for us, the one we bought was $33US + 18% gratuity so probs $40 aussie. We didn't like this wine so didn't buy it again.

Our dinner time was 7pm each night in the main dining room. This was different to the Ovation as it was a single restaurant over 2 levels where as the Ovation was 4 individual restaurants over the 2 levels. The restaurant was lovely and we did actually have a table for two although they had thought we were with the other couple also being lead to their table so they quickly split the table by about 5cm. The couple we sat near were lovely anyway so it didn't matter anyway.

We had a delicious meal even though we only had about 30 seconds to look at the menu before we ordered. Mum didn't even see what I had ordered on the menu, I had the roast beef, as we had to be so quick. We didn't mind too much as long as it wasn't like that each evening (it wasn't) and we didn't realise but we hadn't been given the every day menu until we saw it the next night. Not a big deal, this stayed the same the whole cruise anyway.

After dinner we headed back to our room for our first sleep on board the Spectrum making our way to Japan. Tomorrow is a sea day.

Jewels of the Orient - Day 11, 26 Oct 2019 - Shanghai

Yay, today we're going to the Bund. This was something I'd been looking forward to as I'd seen photos of the Bund and all the gorgeous buildings including the famous Oriental Pearl Tower.

The Bund is in the heart of Shanghai and separates the old and new, well the river actually separate it but the Bund runs along the river on the old side.

We had about an hour here and then were heading to the Shanghai Museum and then an optional tour. Mum and I weren't doing the option (this was a tour of Shanghai) as we just wanted to do our own thing. There were about half doing the tour and half heading back to the hotel to do some washing! Woo, there was free use of the washing machines at our hotel and people thought this was fantastic. I just thought it was a waste of a day in Shanghai as tomorrow we were off on our cruise. Whatever floats your boat (ha ha) I guess.

Mum and I spent about 5 hours wandering around Shanghai seeing both sides of the river. We caught a ferry across to the otherside, where the Pearl Tower is. The ferry was 2 yuan (40c ea) and was not what we expected when we walked onto it. There were no seats, well there were about 6 seats and then it was just all open. You just stand with nothing to hold onto. The trip isn't that long, maybe 15 minutes and it's only when you're docking that you need to steady yourself.

We didn't really know where we were going so we just headed for the Pearl. There was an enormous roundabout, both car and people, just near the Pearl so we got some great photos,many many photos! We also saw the tallest building and the bottle opener building. There were a few big shopping centres, now I say big what I mean is giant, massive, huge shopping centres. The one we went into still had a lot of empty shops that were due to open at the end of the year but there were still a lot of shops. We just wanted to get some lunch but all they seem to have were restaurants we just wanted a food court. Unfortunately we ended up at Burger King, our worst meal of the trip. Later on, back on the otherside of the river, we did find a fabulous food court, we needed that earlier! I did buy a pikelet oreo icecream dessert thing and it was good, so good.

At one stage mum thought there must have been a parade on as there were so many people but, we're in Shanghai, there are always so many people :-)

I really liked Shanghai and wished we had a few days here to do more exploring. Maybe next time ;-)

We were being picked up by our bus and then heading back to the river to do a night cruise. We were the only ones who ended up staying in Shanghai so we were the only ones waiting back at the museum (which we managed to find again!). While waiting we got hassled by a few beggars. One in particular pushed mum, I had a go at him and all he said was 'bye bye, bye bye'. I know he couldn't understand me but he could definitely tell I was not happy. No one messes with my mum!

The bus collected us and off we went to the river cruise terminal. We had an hour before the cruise to grab something to eat. Hans told us that there was a Maccas and a couple of other little places but not much else. There was a Starbucks which a lot of the tour group were happy about unfortunately it was closed for cleaning!

Mum and I walked around for a bit, we didn't want Maccas, and stumbled across a food court down some stairs. Busy food court. More dumplings for us. The lady who served us even came over and tried to explain how we were meant to eat them. Obviously we were doing it wrong. You're meant to suck the liquid out before eating them. We just kept squirting it everywhere :-0

The cruise was ok but I wouldn't do it again. It was just so busy with so much pushing and shoving and so noisy. The lights of Shanghai were stunning but I think I'd rather just walk along the Bund.

Back to the hotel, pack our bags ready for tomorrow as tomorrow is CRUISE DAY!

Jewels of the Orient - Day 10, 25 Oct 2019 - Shanghai

Before making our way to Shanghai we had a lake to cruise on. West Lake and what a lake it is, massive! This place was busy, so busy we wondered how relaxing this cruise would be. After parking the bus with a million other buses we followed Hans to our boat, it was about a 20 minute walk through parklands and along busy roads within the park. Popular place.

The cruise was so lovely. We sat outside as it was a gorgeous day, nice and warm with a relatively clear sky. Being such a huge lake the cruise ended up being very peaceful and so scenic. Beautiful.

Next stop was a tea plantation. Like all of these types of tours there is always a sales element to it. This was nice in the sense that the lady given the talk was a 5th generation of the plantation so her genuine love for tea, the process and history really showed through. We also got to taste some of their green tea, I really liked it and felt that it did help with feeling lighter, not so bloaty unlike the tea bags I use. After he talk she then started the sales pitch. If I hadn't of bought my pills I probably would have got some of the tea but it was a bit exy. I few people did buy some.

One of the guys on our trip had a big old rant about being taken to places where they sales pitched to you. It was clear in our itinerary that this is what they were for but they also were informative. He said he wanted to see people actually picking the tea, how exciting would that be!

Anyway, after the tea plantation we were headed for Shangihai. As it was a bit of drive, a few hours, we made a stop at a service centre so we could all get something to eat, stretch our legs and go to the bathroom. Western toilets, yay!

I think we got to the hotel at about 6.30pm. It was another lovely hotel but still not in town. There was lots around where we were in terms of restaurants and convenience stores so we didn't have any trouble getting our milk or finding something to eat. Well, we always have trouble finding somewhere to eat but that's just because we don't speak or read Chinese! Another yummy dinner, beef noodles and fried rice and to finish yoghurt with sultanas. So good.

Tomorrow - Shanghai and the Bund!!

Jewels of the Orient - Day 9, 24 Oct 2019 - Suzhou to Hangzhou

We woke to a relatively clear day with bluish skies. Today was a visit to the Silk Factory and then an optional, a cruise through the canals of old Suzhou. We all opted to do the tour.

The silk factory was a bit of a let down as it was basically just a huge multi level shop. We started the your listening to one of the guides talk about silk worms, making the silk and turning it into fabric (which was really interesting) but then it turned into a sales pitch. We did see some old silk making machinery but never actually saw them making silk. The next area was just a display room with all the bedding products and then we could walk around to the other floors selling different silk products. We had a bit of a look and then made for the toilets, got to make use of the western toilets when you can.

We left the silk factory and had a quick explore of the area before getting back on the bus and heading for the canal and our boat trip.

This was one of my most favourite tours we did, not sure why they make it an optional tour though it should just be a part of the trip. Anyway as we all did it Hans didn't need to make plans for the people who opted out. It was great travelling up the canal and seeing all the homes and businesses that were right on the edge of the canal. They had been there for centuries obviously updated but from the outside you couldn't tell but Hans said they were all pretty modern inside.

After our cruise we had a few hours to wander around Suzhou streets, this was known as the Venice of Suzhou area. It was great to see how the locals live and work as it wasn't a real touristy area until you got further up the street. Still busy with people and scooters, look out mum!

We had some yummy dumpling things for lunch before jumping back on the bus and making our way to the Lingering Gardens. We had about an hour here but to see all of it you would probably need at least half a day. They are huge.

Back on the bus and next stop was Hangzhou, about 2 hours plus a pitstop at a service centre. Another wonderful hotel with a large room and good views. Hans gave us a rough idea of where we could get dinner so after a freshen up off we went.

This was one of our most favourite meals of our trip, just the theatre of it made it awesome! We'd walked around a bit not having much luck finding something that took our fancy, at one stage we were taken through a restaurant out the back into the kitchen to have a look at the menu on the wall (it had pictures). It didn't appeal to us and was a bit weird being in the kitchen area. There were live eels flipping about in a container right where we walked in, that freaked me out!

We saw some restaurants upstairs so thought we'd try our luck up there. So glad we did! A lovely girl came over to help us, she could speak a little English plus she used her translate app on her phone. This restaurant did bbq and hot pot. We went with the bbq option. It was a self cook concept where you had your own little bbq on your table. With a lot of help from the waitress we placed our order. You picked items to cook on the bbq plus sides. She recommended getting lettuce leafs to fill with our bbq goodies. Great idea and so yummy! We had beef (very thinly cut), potatoes and a pickle type mix. I also went a made a spice mix to dip our beef into. The waitress had to help me with this as I had no idea what any of the spices where. It was yummy anyway. Another delicious meal and so cheap, is was 90 yuan which also included free drinks and fruit. Approx $12 for the two of us!

Tomorrow we're heading for Shanghai!

Jewels of the Orient - Day 8, 23 Oct 2019 - Suzhou

Breakfast was much quieter this morning, thank goodness! Amelia told us later on that she had made a complaint to her company about the hotel regarding the noise and a few other issues that had popped up. I guess if it's a new tour they're doing some of the places they stay at must me new to them as well. Amelia said she wasn't impressed with the hotel at all. We didn't mind it except for the breakfast.

Before the train we went to the Henan museum. This was interesting but just so much information to take in that I never remember anything. I do remember they had nice clean western toilets which we all used!

Next stop was Zhengzhou train station. It's a massive place, Zhengzhou is known as the transport capital of China (Beijing is the political and Shanghai is the business capital). We all had our train tickets and passports ready to show and our bags scanned again. I bought some snacks for the train as this was a 4 1/2 hour trip, need something to keep us going.

The train got up to 340km/hr this time. So fast! A pretty uneventful trip. It was still eye opening to pass through some of the cities and see how big they are. So many new apartment blocks going up. As we didn't have a guide with us on this train trip, Amelia left us and our new guide was meeting us at the station, a couple of the guys were freaking out about getting off the train. Amelia had said we had 2 minutes so this sent then into a tizz I think. About 2 hours before we were due to arrive in Suzhou they were planning what to do and pretty much didn't stop talking about it the rest of the way. They were starting to worry some of the older ones on our tour and annoy me. Everyone made it off the train with their luggage.

JZ was waiting at the station, he was one of the guides, and was instructing everyone on where to go and what to do but as usual some people don't listen so start doing there own thing. Luckily the guides were quite forceful when it came to listening and doing that they say. Our guide Hans was waiting just on the other side of the ticket gate so of course some people where going, that's our guide we need to go over there. No you don't, listen to JZ he's explaining what we need to do. By this point I was starting to get a bit over the whole 'bus trip' thing. People are so selfish and ignorant sometimes.

Anyway, we all managed to get to Hans and our next bus and head off to our hotel. Unfortunately as we were heading out of the station and through the boom gate the driver turned slightly too early and the back of the bus hit the gate with a very loud bang. Oopsie. A window broke, luckily no one was hurt, so we had to stay there for about 30 mins while the police attended and things were worked out.

The driver has to go to the police station tomorrow to sort out a few things which means they need to rearrange the buses, there are three tours together now, as we'll be a bus short for a couple of hours.

We finally made it to our hotel, had a quick freshen up and headed out for dinner. Going out for dinner basically meant us walking around and looking for roads that looked lit up and busy or a shopping centre. We found a noodle place that had pictures :-) Another good choice.

We only have tonight in Suzhou, tomorrow we head for Hangzhou. This trip is by our coach.

Jewels of the Orient - Day 7, 22 Oct 2019 - Zhengzhou

Free day in Zhengzhou meant we didn't need to be up too early so hoped that when we went up for breakfast it would be a bit quieter. How wrong were we!! There was LOUD music and a man on a microphone as if he was instructing an exercise class or karaoke. SO LOUD! What we found out later was it was a wedding reception. I couldn't think of anything worse. Loud yelly people with loud music at 8.30am, no thanks. I had a quick breakfast and headed down to reception to collect our passports. Each hotel collected all our passports to get copies.

It was just starting to rain as mum and I headed out of the hotel so we popped back in and grabbed our brollies and EP's (emergency ponchos). As we weren't sure what was around and what we would do for the day we just started walking. We met one of the fellows from the tour who's wife was quite sick, she'd be unwell before she left Australia and was only getting worse. Most of the bus group thought she shouldn't have come as she ended spreading her germs to quite a few of them in the group. Thankfully mum and I didn't get it. Anyway, he told us that some people had caught a local bus into town for 1 yuan (about 20c) and the bus stop was just down from the hotel.

Mum wasn't keen at first so we walk around a bit more but realised there wasn't much to see. Amelia had told us this is the textile area, so if you needed curtains or fabric you'd be in shopping heaven. We didn't so decided that we'd see if we could manage to catch the bus. Our main concern was getting the right one back!

One good thing was the bus started near the hotel so ended near the hotel which meant that as long as we got the right bus we couldn't miss our stop as it didn't go any further.

After working out were to get on the bus, we thought it was leaving without us but was just driving around the the actually bus stop. On we hopped, put our 2 yuan in the slot and found a seat for the bumpy ride into town. There was a lot of road works happening near our hotel so the roads were a bit rough and went around the world. We didn't mind as we didn't need to be anywhere and was a good way to see some sights.

Not knowing how big Zhengzhou was or where abouts the bus actually went we weren't too sure where to get off. After we'd been on it for about 45 mins we thought we should get off soon. We stopped near a large park so thought this was as good a place as any to get off. We made a note of the bus number and just hoped we'd be able to find one going back the other way. We did.

Scooters are everywhere. One the road on the footpath going in all directions and being electric they are quiet. We certainly had to keep on our toes whenever we needed to cross a road and just walking
down the footpath. Whenever there was an footbridge over the road we made use of it. Much safer although we did see some scooters use them as well!

Zhengzhou is a busy place as I'm sure everywhere in China is. Not really any different to any other city I guess just with more scooters than what we're use to in Australia. After a few hours of walking our legs were getting tired and our bellies were getting hungry. We decided to find somewhere for lunch. Easier said than done! After a lot more walking we found a bakery and bought a couple of interesting things and decided to find a bus back to the hotel and have lunch there.

We'd seen a bus stop not far from the bakery we ended getting lunch from that had our bus number on the sign so we headed for that. Just as we got there a bus with our number was just leaving. I flagged him and he actually stopped! Quick mum, jump on.

The trip didn't take as long as I think we'd walked nearly half way back. I was good to get a bit of an idea of what was around our hotel plus we met up with a couple of people from our group how'd walked around near the hotel and said that there is a street not too far behind the hotel with lots of restaurants. Somewhere to go for dinner.

I wasn't a huge fan of the things we got from the bakery, not really sure what the sausage/frankfurt thing was. Weird tasting. What was needed was a cup of tea. Luckily mum had brought some tea bags with her from home as English breakfast tea was never given at the hotel or was very sparingly given. We also got in the habit of getting a small carton of long life milk as milk wasn't provided in the rooms either. As they gave you green tea bags milk wasn't needed.

We traffic watched for a bit from our hotel room window. Eye opening and so amazing there weren't any accident. Scooters and cars going the wrong way but no one seemed to mind. There was hardly ever any horn tooting. Road rage seems to be very rare in China.

Time for dinner! We headed off in the direction we thought the restaurants were. We walked down quite a dark laneway but it still had quite a few people walking up and down it so we felt pretty safe. Once we got to the end we were on a fairly busy road so decided this must be the street to find dinner. We walked up and down trying to decide what looked ok and what looked a bit weird. We finally picked a restaurant that had pictures that we could sort of make out what the meat was.

We got shown to a table and given a massive menu. We started flicking through it and the waiter's standing there getting impatient with us as we were taking too long. We'd only just sat down and the menu was big! We finally decided on some dumplings and a beef stirfry thing with what looked like bao buns. I was trying to ask the waiter if we could just get 4 dumplings as the picture had millions of them but he didn't know what I meant. He asked another diner (who I think was from another tour group) if he could help as he spoke Chinese. He told me that you could only order what was shown in the photo. Okay. We ended up with 24 dumplings! They were only about $3 but that's a lot of dumplings. I think this was one of our most favourite meals we had on our trip. So good! We were absolutely STUFFED by the time we left. Good choice and it all cost about $15 for the two of us. So cheap for so much food. We did attempt to use the chopsticks provided but out waiter must have seen us struggling a bit as he brought us over a small fork each :-)

Final night here and then we're off to Suzhou (Pronounce: Suejo) on the bullet train tomorrow.

Jewels of the Orient - Day 6, 21 Oct 2019 - Bullet Train

Beijing hotel room

 It's our final day in Beijing. We've got a trip to an Eastern Medicine hospital/centre, a bit of free time after to wander around and then to the train station to catch the bullet train the Zhengzhou (prononced Zengjo).

The Eastern medicine tour was really interesting and amazing what they can pick up about your body by just feeling your pulse. My doctor guy was spot on with quite few things happening with my body so I got suckered into getting some magic pills, let's see if they work! After that we went and had a quick massage, relaxing it was not. At one stage the guy lifted me out of my chair by my neck, pressed so hard on my temple I though he was going to break my scull and flicked my fingers so they all cracked. Very weird experience, it certainly woke my body up but don't think Id do it again.

Once we left the medical centre we could wander around for about a couple of hours before our bus came back to collect us. We decided to find somewhere for lunch as we'd been advised by Jasmin that the food on the bullet train wasn't very nice. We found a food court in a shopping centre and picked a place that was busy and the food looked good. After working out how to order, they gave us a menu and a note pad where you just wrote down the number of the dish you wanted, we could manage that. Now to decide what to have just about everything looked good. We ended up with a noodle dish and some delicious dumpling bun things - so good and so cheap. Probably about $10 for the two of us and so filling.

Back to our meeting spot and all aboard the bus for the Beijing Train Station. We were saying goodbye to Jasmin here and meeting our new guide Amelia. Amelia was going to join us on the train as apparently this is the first tour to do the bullet train so they wanted to make sure everything went ok. Made for a long day for Amelia as she had to catch the train to Beijing and then back again. The journey was about 2 1/2 hours.

The station was huge and busy, no surprise. Before we could even get inside the station we had to show our passport and ticket and have our bags scanned. Some people had there deodorants taken from them as you can't have anything over 100ml.

Once inside Jasmin found which platform our train was going from and we all queued up. Apparently we would have about 8 minutes to get onboard and stow our luggage. This wouldn't have been so bad if there was enough room for suitcases. The bullet train isn't designed very well if you're bringing luggage with you. What a nightmare trying to find somewhere to put all our bags! Ours ended up being in the next carriage which was a bit of a worry, we did keep checking to make sure no one took them at each stop.

Mum and I weren't originally sitting next to each other but Jean who was next to mum offered to swap with me as she wasn't need her travelling buddy Joy so said it didn't matter where she sat. I was just on the otherside of the aisle and Joy was behind me.

Amelia had three groups to look after so was kept busy going up and down the carriages letting us know what was happening and when to start getting ready to get of the train. We would only have 2 minutes so she advised to get out luggage and wait in the aisle about 15 minutes before we got to Zhengzhou station. For once mum and I were one of the first off the train because our bag was in a different carriage to just about everyone else there weren't too many people getting of using the door we were at that had luggage. Everyone made it off with all their luggage so off to find our coach and head to our hotel. We were staying here for two nights.

Just a quick note: the bullet train got up to 300km/hr just about everyone got a photo of the sign. Throughout the journey it showed how fast we were going.

The hotel was about an hour from the train station so it was dark by the time we got there and very hard to see what was around us. There were some shops just down from the hotel and a convenience store. Tomorrow was a free day for us as we weren't doing the optional tour.