Category Archives: China

Travel in China in 2016

Friday, seeing Xiamen

We were very excited to arrive in the port of Xiamen,our first port of call on the Chinese Mainland. Our excursion was to visit Gu Lan Gyu (meaning drum, wave, island) which is an island off Xiamen which was a trading port from the early days and is like a holiday island for the Chinese. Just while we were there we saw at least 4 brides getting photographed. It was a beautiful little island with cobbled streets and lots of old Colonial buildings reflecting the island’s past. There are no cars on the island other than a few electric cars and so everyone mostly walks around the island. There were lots of shops and eating places including street food. There is a piano museum which has a superb collection of pianos for viewing. There was a tea shop which also sold various dried food and othe products including bottles of seahorses.

Gulangyi

Gulangyi

Carting goods around on the island

Carting goods around on the island

street food.

street food

seahorses

seahorses

oyster shells

oyster shells

It would have been good to have more time there as we were only able to rush through with our limited time. We walked for hours and all were tired when we got back to the ship.

 

Thursday, a day in Hong Kong

We were looking forward to Hong Kong but the weather wasn’t kind to us. We had decided to go on a “hop on hop off” bus system where there were three bus routes which were colour-coded. Two of the routes were on Hong Kong itself and the third was on the mainland. It took a while to get from the ship to the bus/ferry departure spot in Hong Kong. We decided to take the green route which went to Aberdeen and Stanley. The last time I saw Aberdeen was in the 70s so it had changed considerably … where before it was sanpans where people were living, it was now boats and high rise buildings. It is amazing how many high rise buildings can be fitted onto the island with new ones apparently  under construction. There were too many people from the cruise boat for the buses to accomodate all at once, so there was a bit of waiting time. We had to go upstairs to the double decker upper storey and , although we were given raincoats to put on over our raincoats, we got cold and wet.

Undefeated by the weather, we ventured on to the Peak by tram to see what was left of the view. Cloud had closed in, then rain, our audio equipment was getting wet and we were told that the 360 degree viewing area was closed due to the weather. When we got back to bottom, we had missed the bus and needed to wait for longer so decided to get a taxi to the ferry terminal.

one of the skyscrapers in Hong Kong

one of the sky scrapers in Hong Kong

tram to the Peak

tram to the Peak

view from the Peak

view from the Peak

 

We got the star ferry across to the mainland and after finishing there we got another taxi to go back to the cruise ship. Our taxi driver took us to the wrong terminal and time was ticking on. We were worried that we would miss the ship and it would leave the port. We made it but missed the late afternoon trivia session with Hope!

 

Wednesday, coming into Hong Kong

Ian and I went on a tour of the galley from which the 3500 people on board were kept constantly fed with masses of food and drinks. The tour was at 11 am so most of the cooking had already been done and the dishes were ready for the last minute touches. The main chef is apparently Indian and the indian food on the ship is very good so I asked for the eggplant curry recipe and plan to cook it when we get home. Computer programs are used to track the orders and supply of food to the eating areas. Speaking of technology, the internet was very poor on the ship whch is why these posts are being stacked for uploading when we get internet on mainland China.

galley on board cruise ship

galley on board cruise ship

Hong Kong at night

Hong Kong at night

me at Hong Kong

me at Hong Kong

 

Unfortunately the ship didn’t get into the port of Hong Kong until about 10pm. There was a hold up with leaving the ship and the weather started becoming worse with wind and rain. We braved the conditions on deck 12 to watch the docking but decided to leave our nighttime visit to Hong Kong until the morning excursion.