Itinerary for our Jewels of the Orient trip:
Day 1 - Arrive in Beijing. Transfer to hotel
Day 2 - Beijing sightseeing. Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City (Imperial Palace).
Day 3 - Great Wall of China
Day 4 - Visit Tong Ren Tang to learn about Traditional Chinese Medicine and the a High speed train to Zhengzhou
Day 5 - Free time in Zhengzhou
Day 6 - Henan Museum then a High speed train to Suzhou
Day 7 - Free time in Suzhou and then coach trip to Hangzhou
Day 8 - Boat ride on the West Lake, visit a traditional tea house and then a coach to Shanghai where we'll visit the Bund
Day 9 - Shanghai museum and free time
CRUISE TIME!
Day 10 - Transfer to the Port of Baoshan to board our ship!
Day 11 - Sea day on the Spectrum of the Seas
Day 12 -Osaka
Day 13 - Osaka and later in the day Kobe
Day 14 - Yokahama
Day 15 - Sea day
Day 16 - Sea day
Day 17 - Back in Shanghai and transfer to airport for flight home
For the land part of our trip breakfast is included and on Day 3 (Great Wall of China) we also get lunch. All meals are included on our cruise (and then some!). Hopefully we'll be able to negotiate the language and manage to order some food other than rice. There might be a lot of pointing, I don't want to end up with a dish of chicken gizzards! I'm sure the tour guide will be able to point us in the right direction. If all else fails we'll have to find a McDonalds!
I've tentatively booked a tour for our first stop of our cruise in Osaka, a city highlights tour. It's $68pp and last about 4 1/2 hrs. We dock at 1pm and this tour is scheduled for 1.30pm. I have read reports that immigration for the first stop can be a nightmare but is much better when you've booked a ship tour. Still plenty of time to decide. $68 doesn't seem to bad and it might be a good way of easing ourselves into Japan.
About 200 days to go!
