At 9:30 AM on Sunday, we dropped off Daisy and Ramsey at the Second Home pet boarding place in Acton,
where they‘ve stayed before, then returned to the RV park to pack up the rig to move it to a storage spot. We completed that move and then went to “downtown“ Acton to have lunch at the Don Cuco Mexican restaurant. Yum. We realized that we had eleven hours before our flight left and we needed to kill some time. We headed for the west side, thinking we would come up with an idea. I had previously left a phone message for my brother, suggesting that we get together for dinner that night. He didn’t return the call until it was too late to do anything. (They had been out of touch in Palm Springs for the weekend.) We settled on stopping at the Jonathan Beach Club to spend some time.
We played Rummikub, had a few glasses of wine, and ate some of their free munchies---and killed a few hours, but not enough time to fill the gap.
So, we headed for the Airport Marriott, where we were going to leave the truck while we were gone. Amazingly (!) there was a lobby bar at the Marriott, where we were able to spend some more time, split a delicious Cobb salad, have another glass of wine, and then take the shuttle to the airport.
Going through the security check involved a bit of a scare. The thing Becky carries around her neck containing her passport and lots of cash (in seven currencies) did not come out of the scanner. The TSA manager on duty searched the machine and found the missing goodie stuck somewhere inside. Whew!
Three hours later, at 12:40 AM, our Air China flight took off for a 13-hour trip to Beijing, the capital of China. The flight was uneventful, most of it spent sleeping. We had bulkhead seats which were very nice. The stewardesses, all Chinese, of course, were very pretty, the flight was virtually turbulence-free, and the landing was superb. The airport is so large we taxied for almost 15 minutes before ending up at our gate. Since it was 5:30 AM (Tuesday morning), there were very few people at the airport and we pretty much sailed through the immigration and customs process.
One glitch: They did not give us our entry cards to fill out on the plane, and we didn’t know we needed them until we had arrived at the head of the immigration line. So we had to pick up the cards, fill them out, and get back in line---at the end. One of the agents realized we had been snookered, and opened up a new line just for those of us who had gone through this circle of fun.
The Beijing airport is new and beautiful. We proceeded through the baggage claim and customs area, and started looking for “Andy,” the fellow who was to meet us and be our guide for the next three days. He turned out to be a nice young (29) man, who spoke perfect English, and was very smart and personable. We got lost twice getting to our hotel (the driver was unfamiliar with that part of town), but we arrived intact. Our hotel, The Beijing Soluxe Courtyard Hotel, was very Chinese, and nice enough, but the part of town we were in was in “transition,” meaning there were some very old, tired, and ugly buildings nearby, and the hotel was located at the end of an alley.
But it turned out to be a very active and well-located neighborhood, and we were able to walk easily to an interesting nearby lake where there were a zillion bars, restaurants, and small shops.
We spent the late morning at the lake, then returned to our hotel to take a nap---a clear violation of a cardinal rule of traveling (jet lag and all that). We went back to the lake to have dinner---at a combination restaurant/internet café (?) called David’s, where we climbed a narrow and steep stairway to their outdoor veranda overlooking the lake and were served dinner. It was quite cold, and they gave us lap robes to help fend it off.
We were the only patrons up there, or in the entire restaurant, so it was a very private dinner. Very nice. The food was excellent (being in China, I had a pasta dish, of course, not wanting to assimilate too quickly) but the service was strange. I got my meal ten minutes before Becky got hers. But it didn’t really matter. We then returned to our hotel and crashed again, sleeping only sporadically.
The traffic in Beijing is horrible. More than the huge number of cars, there are pedestrians, bicycles, and motor scooters everywhere, darting in and out of traffic at will. Traffic signals are treated as suggestions, not directions. All of the bicycles, by the way, are old and rusty. It looks like no new ones have been made since the days of Chiang Kai-Shek.
The next morning, we met Barbara Coad and Judy Wenker for breakfast in the hotel, and prepared for the day. They had arrived at about 6:00 PM the night before, and were in the room next to ours. Andy (whose real name was Shun) picked us up at about 10:00 AM, and we headed for our first stop---Tiananmen Square.
I had no idea how large (and crowded) it would be. According to Andy, it’s the largest public square in the world. At one end is the mausoleum where Chairman Mao’s body lies in state, where there was a two-hour long line to view his body,
on each side are two beautiful state buildings, one of which is the national museum, and at the extreme end is the entrance to the Forbidden City, which is about a mile square, enclosing (with high walls and a moat) a series of magnificent, Chinese-style buildings where the emperors (and their concubines) frolicked.
Fun fact: The emperor who built the place was paranoid about the possibility of assassins, so he did not allow the existence of trees anywhere but the gardens where the concubines (3,900 of them at any one time) whiled away their down time, thereby preventing hiding places for snipers, and the area under the courtyards and buildings was made of fifteen layers of brick in a crossing pattern to ward off the temptation to make tunnels.
Incidentally, in Tiananmen Square, in which Andy said there had been a “student event” (what everyone else called a “massacre“ or an “uprising“) in 1989, there were loudspeakers and security cameras everywhere.
It took about three hours to complete the tour of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City,
and we then headed for lunch, consisting, not coincidentally, of the typical Chinese food we know, plus a few local beers and, among other things, a delicious thing that looked like a French fry, made out of pumpkin.
After lunch, we toured the Summer Palace,
another place of refuge for the emperors, which was a huge property located on a huge lake.
It has beautiful gardens and boasts the longest corridor in the world, a covered walkway about a half-mile long.
That ended the day’s official activities.
We were still full from lunch, so Becky and I only snacked for dinner, and had a little wine, of course, then crashed for the night at about 7:00 PM. (We had discovered a reasonably good, and reasonably priced, local wine under the brand name Great Wall. How creative.)
After breakfast on Thursday, we took a two-hour bus ride to The Great Wall. Rather than climb the mountain to access the wall, we took a double-chair ski lift up. It was still a bit of a climb from the end of the lift, but certainly better than what people used to do. The wall, itself, is amazing, extending about 4,000 miles across mountainous territory.
Roughly 30 feet high and 15 feet wide at the top, made of stone blocks, with observation towers every 100 yards or so, it was (apparently successfully) designed as a barrier to invading hordes, mostly Mongols from the north. The observation towers were used to watch for oncoming armies and, through the sequential use of small fires, to pass the intelligence back to headquarters. Initially, there were apparently a number of walls surrounding individual provinces, each designed to protect the province against any invaders, but over time, the walls were consolidated into the Great Wall.
Some of us rode the chairlift back down, while others, including Becky, of course, rode down on an amusement-park type wheeled vehicle that went down a chute through a series of turns to get to the bottom.
Near the wall, we stopped for another great lunch, including local beer, then napped during the return ride to Beijing.
After the return from the wall, we visited a number of temples whose names I don’t recall, except the Temple of Drums at which there was a brief drum performance,
and took a rickshaw (pulled by a bicycle) ride through an interesting residential area of homes---most of which have no bathrooms because there is no available sewer system. The homes are miniscule, and they share nearby public bathrooms built and maintained by the city. We actually went into one of the homes (housing a family of four in a space about the size of our trailer) that had sewer access and, therefore, a bathroom. Frankly, it was depressing.
In the process of taking these tours, we rode through Beijing and saw the well-known public side of it---the impressive new office and residential towers, the striking facilities built for the 2008 Summer Olympics,
and the glitzy shopping plazas---but we also saw the vast slum-like conditions that existed, as well. With 19 million people, Beijing is a long way from being a workers paradise.
One of the stops on Thursday was a very upscale wine store which, through no fault of Andy’s, we had been led to believe we could get some California wine at reasonable prices. Not so. The store was in a very nice shopping area adjacent to Embassy Row, and apparently the shop catered to that level of trade. The prices were ridiculously high, most wines were delivered to the purchasers rather than picked up, and no credit cards were accepted. We couldn’t get out of there quickly enough.
We ended that day with a wonderful dinner including Peking duck in a private room at a local restaurant selected by Andy.
Friday was the day to get to the ship for the start of our cruise. We were joined by Steve and Lindsay Fulmer, friends of Barbara’s, who are going on the cruise with the rest of us. The bus ride to the dock in Tianjin took more than three hours. On the toll road, we passed by a number of towns with impressive new blocks of high-rise apartment towers, many of which were still under construction. It seems that very few apartment buildings are built in the “garden” style in China these days.
We quickly went through the embarkation process and got on board. The ship, the Diamond Princess, is huge---holding 2,700 passengers and more than 1,000 crew members---and very nice.
It is currently the “crown jewel” of the Princess line, but will shortly be eclipsed by an even larger ship that is currently under construction. We had a celebratory glass of wine in Barbara’s room,
then went to dinner in the Savoy dining room, where I had prime rib that was a bit overcooked, but OK, nonetheless. The six of us decided to eat in that dining room at that table at the same time (6:30 PM) each night unless we wanted to try another dining room just for variety.
Saturday was a day at sea, heading for Busan, South Korea. The day was mostly relaxing (reading) for me. Becky, being who she is, decided to work out in the early morning while I slept.
For lunch, we took advantage of an optional sushi buffet that was OK, but not great. At 3:00 PM, we joined Barbara and Judy for a group Trivia game in one of the lounges, and didn’t do very well. Then Becky dragged me to the gym to have our bodies “analyzed” by a Hungarian huckster with a magic electronic box. Actually, he was selling some expensive food supplements. Amazing! The box showed we are not perfect, and we both need his help. According to “Peter,” my body is so far gone I need special treatments that can only be done in a bathtub every day for six months. Fortunately for me, I don’t have access to a bathtub, so I escaped without having to call the police. Becky was not so fortunate: She had to break the news to him that she was not interested in buying all of his stuff; just half of it. He was crushed.
For dinner---for which they made us dress up---
I had tenderloin filets, with Bananas Foster for dessert. Very civilized. (They no longer do the flambé, however, due to fire regulations. Damn!).
Sunday morning, we arrived at Busan, on the west coast of the Korean peninsula. It is a huge container cargo port, the largest in Korea. Dancers greeted us when we arrived.
The gang wanted to explore the city; I didn’t. They had the option of taking a shuttle into the city center (about 6 miles) or taking a taxi. The line for the shuttle was about a block long, so they opted for the taxi. I said goodbye to them at the taxi stand, and walked back to the ship. At least I had set foot in South Korea.
I spent most of the day sleeping and reading. It was wonderful! Early that afternoon, the gang returned for lunch on the upper (pool) level. I had pizza. That evening, we had another nice dinner at “our” table, being warmly greeted by Silvio Zampieri, the Maitre d‘Hotel. (Barbara has been granted VIP status, so Silvio watches over us.)
It’s very nice. Among other things, we can bring our own wine to the table and be spared the $15.00 corkage fee.)
During dinner, our ship left for Nagasaki, Japan, on the southwest corner of Kyushu, the southernmost Japanese island. We arrived at Nagasaki at 6:00 AM, but it took a long time for the Japanese immigration people to clear the ship so we didn’t go ashore until about 9:00.
We wandered up the hill across from the dock to visit Glover Park, an enclave built by a Scotsman who was a very early business tycoon in Nagasaki, credited with putting the city on the business “map” once the city was opened to international trade after the Shogun period. He actually started the first beer company in Japan (it now makes Kirin Beer) and the Mitsubishi company. The park has a series of homes and gardens, all with spectacular views of the city.
Being a tourist area, it is surrounded by tiny shops selling all sorts of useful and useless trinkets.
After touring the park, I went back to the ship while Becky and Judy soldiered on in their shopping exercise.
We left Nagasaki that evening at dinnertime
and headed for Shanghai, spending a relaxing day at sea on the way. Becky and I vegged out most of he day, watching “Crazy, Stupid, Love” on TV in our stateroom, and having a room service dinner.
We had arranged for a city tour in Shanghai, and soon after docking Wednesday morning we were hustled into one of the more than fifty buses
that had arrived at the dock to handle the load of tourists our ship was going to disgorge.
Our tour guide, Heidi, who said that her real (Chinese) name was too long to spell for us,
was a chatterbox who never shut up, but some of the information she gave us was interesting. (At the end of the tour, she burst into song, apparently auditioning. Slightly bizarre.)
Shanghai is the largest city in China, with more than 22 million people and a huge commercial dock---the largest in China---and some beautiful and interesting architecture in its vast office and hotel buildings. We went with the mob to the 88th floor of the tallest building in the city (The Jin Mao Tower) and had spectacular views of the city.
We then toured Wu Gardens, a collection of buildings, rock sculptures, Chinese-style buildings, and gardens built as a personal residence by a man named Pan a long time ago.
Then we went “next door” to a large shopping area and toured that for the next four hours. Officially, we were on our own, but we decided to stick with Heidi, and let her take us to various shops and to have her join us for lunch.
We noticed a lot of beggars on the streets. I thought communist countries did not have beggars since the state took care of all of the people. I guess I was wrong. Someone with us on the trip said he had been here three years ago and there were no beggars at that time. I wonder what has changed.
There were also street vendors everywhere, hawking cheap watches and every other kind of trinket. That’s quite common, and we expected it.
We fought off the urge to buy anything until five minutes before we boarded the bus to return to the ship. At that point the vendors got desperate and dropped one of the prices to $5.00 for a matching his-and-hers pair of fake Rolex watches. We couldn’t resist. They really are quite nice looking, and I hope they work for at least a few months.
In the center of the shopping area, there was a stage set up for performances as part of the umpteenth Shanghai International Something-or-Other Festival.
The only act we bothered to watch involved ladies in military uniforms waving the Communist Party flag. Very inspirational.
The next two days were spent at sea, heading for Hong Kong. I basically vegged out again.
On Thursday night, we tried a different dining room---Sabatini's (an Italian restaurant) to celebrate Lindsay’s 36th birthday. They charge a $20.00 per person cover charge to use this special restaurant, but it was very nice. For no known reason, a very nice man from Cleveland named Chris Poulos who was on our Beijing tour (and also on our cruise) with his brother-in-law Jerry, decide to treat the group of us to the cover charge. They got the word from Silvio about waiving the corkage fee, so we skated on that again for the bottle of wine we brought to the table. They presented Lindsay with a full-sized birthday cake
from which we all took slices. One of the people at the next table also had a birthday, but apparently the staff had not been alerted, so that table was presented with just the part of the cake we had not eaten.
The next morning, we arrived at the Hong Kong cargo terminal across the harbor from the island, and took the 20-minute shuttle ride to the main area of Kowloon. From there, we immediately hopped on the Star Ferry to the island (or “Central” as it is called).
Our principal reason for heading to the island was so Barbara could buy a sweatshirt at the Hard Rock Café there. (She collects them.)
On the way back to the ferry, we also found a wine store (Watson’s Wine) and bought eight bottles of wine. It turned out to be not nearly enough. After returning to Kowloon, we went to The Peninsula hotel, a Hong Kong landmark, to have a drink in the lobby bar.
The Peninsula is a magnificent hotel, a throwback to earlier times, and, while the service was awful and the prices ridiculous, it is something a visitor must see when in Hong Kong. While we were there, a wedding party arrived, with the bride making her entrance from the classic Rolls-Royce limo the hotel uses to ferry guests around. Very impressive.
I then headed back to the ship with the wine while the rest went looking for pearls and other goodies. Becky knew about a pearl place (“Pan Am Pearls”) from our stop here 15 years ago, and zeroed in on it.
We spent the next two days relaxing at sea, on our way to Vietnam.
The highlight was a special “Dinner with the Chef” the second night out. There were seven of us who met the Maitre d’ at 7:00 PM in the lobby bar just outside our normal dining room---the Savoy. We then donned white chef’s coats
and entered the kitchen for a couple rounds of hors d’oeuvres (including caviar) and champagne and a vegetable-carving exhibition. (The fellow made birds and flowers out of turnips. Very clever.)
We then went back into the dining room for a multi-course dinner (on the menu, the entrée was called “Double Impact Surf & Turf”
consisting of lobster tail, scallops, filet mignon, and lamb chops) with very nice wines (certainly better than the ones we were buying along the way), including a 2008 Merlot from the Ferrari-Carano Winery in Sonoma, which we had visited only a month previously. Altogether a fine way to dine, which cost us a trifling $190.
Our first stop in Vietnam was at Nha Trang, a seaside city that was a major R&R stop for GIs during the war. The port is not deep enough for a ship as large as ours, so we anchored offshore and took tenders to the shore. The tenders bounced around a lot on the choppy water, and it was a bit of an adventure getting on and off.
The only interesting things in Nha Trang were the lack of cars (there were buses and taxis, but very few private cars) and the presence of a fascinating embroidery shop.
Otherwise, it was a dump. We took a ride up the local river on a small, dirty, old boat, ending up at a dirty village where we watched them make the pointy coolie hats right on the street and where they make rice paper in a dirty, hot, old factory (?) that is spread out all over the village. In a riverside restaurant, we had a lunch consisting of unidentifiable food with ants (I hope they were uninvited) in the dipping sauce.
Very appetizing. We also visited an orphanage, but I stayed in the bus. I was already depressed enough.
The following morning, we arrived at Phu My, our second stop in Vietnam, at about 7:30 AM. This time we docked, not anchored, so we didn’t have to fool with tenders. At least an hour before we were to start disembarking, there were already 57 buses and 22 vans waiting to take us on tour.
Phu My has a huge, brand new container port (with no containers yet) but it is the gateway to Saigon, which is 2½ hours away by bus. Since the end of the war in 1975, Saigon has been called Ho Chi Minh City officially, but, according to our guide, everyone but the officials still call it Saigon.
The trip to Saigon was bumpy (the roads are terrible) and the scenery was boring. The only surprise was the number of motorcycles, motor bikes, and motor scooters, (only young students and old women ride bicycles). China had a lot of the motorized vehicles, but Vietnam has a lot more of them (proportionally, at least).
There are 42 million, according to our guide, with a population of only 87 million people in the entire country. And they dart in and out of traffic without fear. Our driver was on the horn all the way to Saigon, and I must say he did a great job of not killing anybody.
Saigon was much as I had envisioned it. Being the former capital of South Vietnam, it had a lot of substantial buildings, even some new ones (the American embassy building has been demolished and replaced on the same site with a consulate), and a lot of trashy shops and motor vehicles. One of the sites we visited was the War Remnants Museum, which, being run by the communists from the north, had a very anti-American story to tell.
I don’t know how much of the story was pure propaganda, but it was interesting to see their version of what happened. According to our guide, Saigon has grown (in population, at least) enormously since the end of the war due to the movement south of many, many people from the very depressed north, which he said was still a mess with little progress in the past 35 years.
To mock the victory of communism over capitalism there, we had lunch at the local Hard Rock Café.
I’m glad we went to Vietnam, but I certainly don’t need to return.
We then hit the sea for another two days on our way to Thailand. We docked at Laem Chabang. Again, we had to take a bus---for the 5-hour round trip to Bangkok, leaving us about 4 hours to tour the place. Becky had arranged with two of her former Xanterra employees who live in Bangkok to help us see what they thought important.
Jeab (pronounced Gee-Ab) and Fernando (both western nicknames, because their Thai names are unspellable and unpronounceable) met us at the Asia Hotel, where our bus dropped us off, and took us to the Grand Palace, the highlight of any visit to Bangkok.
It is a magnificent complex of buildings and statues, and, like most palace grounds, surrounded by a large wall. Becky opined that by comparison the Forbidden City in Beijing is a dump.
We then went to lunch at the Arun Residence, a nice restaurant right on the local river, where Jeab ordered some delicious Thai food.
To get there from the Grand Palace, we had to walk almost a mile, but ended up right across the street from one side of the palace property. (The palace property is that large.) After lunch, we walked to some unique street-shopping areas, which, according to Jeab, turn into crazy, loud, party areas at night (complete with transvestites).
I then returned to the Asia Hotel to wait for our bus, while everyone else went shopping---which, no surprise, I find quite boring.
Bangkok appears to be a fascinating place, and well worth re-visiting. And it was great seeing Jeab and Fernando after all these years. They really made our visit to Bangkok memorable.
We then hit the sea for another two days of relaxation, on our way to Singapore, which was the final stop on the cruise.
Altogether, we covered nearly 5,000 statute miles (specifically, 4,970.3, according to the official ship's log) during the cruise. All things considered, it was a wonderful time---in spite of the fact that Barbara and I failed miserably at Trivia each day at sea,
we all ate everything we could get our hands on, and I gained seven pounds on the trip. (Arrrrgh!)
Singapore was a delight. It is modern, upscale in every respect, and clean as a whistle. Since it’s only two degrees north of the Equator, it’s also hot and humid. It’s kind of a tropical version of Switzerland (without the mountains). We were last there in 1997, and it was fun to return. They ban outdoor smoking in a lot of areas, setting aside some marked space on the sidewalk occasionally. It's strange to see such regimentation, but that's what Singapore is all about. It took me more than an hour to find a piece of trash on the ground. Surprisingly, it was at the fabulous Raffles Hotel, a landmark well-known for serving Singapore Slings in the upstairs Long Bar.
Naturally, we had to have one (for a meager $22). It wasn’t really worth it, but one mustn’t leave Singapore without having had one.
We toured the city for a while on a double-decker bus, then the girls decided to do a “bit” of shopping.
At that point, I decided to hop on the subway and head for our hotel (The Crowne Plaza at the airport) to rest and dry off.
The subway system in Singapore is terrific.
Even so, I couldn’t understand why the one I was riding on a Sunday afternoon was so crowded (sardines have more room) until nearly everyone got off at the last stop before the airport. It turns out that there was a huge local fair near that location.
The hotel is actually located in one of the three airport terminals, as is a shopping mall that was crowded with non-travelers.
It’s quite different. We decided to skip a normal dinner and just have cheese and crackers (and wine, of course) which we picked up at the mall.
Our flight from Singapore to Beijing was scheduled to leave the next morning at 9:30 from a different terminal. To get to the one where Air China was located, we took the “sky train.” It took us all of three minutes to get from the hotel lobby to the ultimate terminal. How efficient is that? The plane was a little late leaving, due to the outgoing traffic. (We left the gate on time but sat on the runway for the next half-hour.) It didn’t matter, though, since we were scheduled to have a six-hour layover in Beijing before the flight to Los Angeles. The six-hour flight to Beijing was uneventful, and the stewardesses were just as pretty as on our first flight to Beijing. The first time we landed in Beijing, it was dark out. This time it was daylight, and we could not help noticing the very heavy smog over the city---much worse than it ever was in Los Angeles.
The airline had given us a voucher for an “express hotel” at the Beijing airport.
It turned out to be a tiny hotel on the third floor of the terminal, providing miniature rooms (with private bathrooms across the hall) so people with long layovers can sleep, take a shower, watch TV, and generally relax for a while. We did all that (except watch TV since we couldn’t figure out how to work the remote), and also had time to have pizza and wine at the Pizza Hut down the hall.
One sad note: Just before we left for Singapore, we received word that a long-time friend had passed away rather suddenly. "Dr. Bob" Newhouse was a fine doctor, a wonderful man, an occasional RVer (with his sweet wife, Beverly), and a good friend. We will miss him.
We left Beijing at 10:00 PM (again, a half-hour late) Monday night and pretty-much slept during the uneventful eleven-hour flight to Los Angeles. We arrived at LAX at 5:00 PM that same evening (I love that International Date Line effect), zipped through Immigration, and got stuck in a ridiculous Customs line that took almost a half-hour to get through. The story was that the Bradley Terminal is being remodeled and the facility at Terminal 2 is not equipped to handle two 747s arriving within a short time of each other. Anyway, it was nice to be home again.
We picked up our truck at the Marriott, and headed for Acton, an hour-and-a-half away, where our “home” was being stored during the Asia trip. We had originally planned to spend the night at The Jonathan Club in downtown LA, but Becky wanted to sleep in her own bed. Since she was willing to drive, I was more than willing to go along with the plan. We arrived at the RV park in good time (stopping on the way for groceries and fuel), our home was still intact, and the trip was officially over.
What a wonderful experience. .
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