Cruises

Tokyo: City Tour

Posted on June 9, 2018 by 2btravel

Exploring Asia Overview
Cathay Pacific B777-300ER Business Class San Francisco to Hong Kong
Cathay Pacific Lounge Review: The Cabin at HKG
Cathay Dragon A330-300 Business Class Hong Kong to Beijing
Lodging Review: Regent Beijing Hotel
Beijing: Dongcheng District
Beijing: The Great Wall
Beijing: Run-ze Jade Garden
Beijing: The Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs
Beijing: The Legend of Kung Fu
Beijing: Tiananmen Square
Beijing: The Forbidden City
Beijing: Hutong Tour via Rickshaw, Tea Tasting, Flying to Xi’an
Lodging Review: Hotel Shangri-La Xi’an
Xi’an: Qing Dynasty Terra Cotta Warriors
Xi’an: Tang Dynasty Dinner and Show
Xi’an Wrap-Up, Flying to Lhasa, Lhasa Home Visit
Lodging Review: Shangri-La Hotel Lhasa
Lhasa: Jokhang Temple and Barkhor Market
Lhasa: Canggu Nunnery and Sera Monastery
Lhasa: Potala Palace
Leaving Lhasa and Flying to Chongqing
Viking Emerald
Shibaozhai Temple
Cruising the Three Gorges
Three Gorges Dam
Jingzhou City Walls Tour
Wuhan: Hubei Bells Performance and Provincial Museum
Shanghai: Shanghai Museum
Lodging Review: Fairmont Peace Hotel, Shanghai
Shanghai: Old Shanghai and Yuyan Gardens
Lodging Review: The New Otani Tokyo Hotel
Tokyo: City Tour
Mt. Fuji and Hakone Tour Returning by Shinkansen
ANA Suites Lounge Review, Tokyo Narita
All Nippon Airways B777-300ER First Class Tokyo Narita to Houston

The Tokyo City Tour was, frankly, a bit of a letdown. Perhaps it was that we’d been traveling for two weeks at this point but the tours from the Viking staff were just better than the ones on this extension. The guide didn’t have a microphone and we didn’t have headsets. Granted, the group was smaller but there’s just so much more you can learn if you can wander a little bit but still hear the guide’s spiel. I will definitely think hard before paying for another Viking extension.

Sensō-ji

Our first stop was not far from the hotel. We were let out near the Sensō-ji, an ancient Buddhist temple. It’s actually just one of several buildings on the grounds and there’s the Nakamise shopping street leading up to the grounds. Since we were just let out near the site, we didn’t really know what we were looking for or looking at which was disappointing after being spoon-fed during the previous two weeks.

The first temple on this site dates back to 645 AD after a sacred statue was found in a nearby river. This is the oldest temple in Tokyo.

Sensō-ji Temple

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Categories: Asia, Japan, Tours, Viking | Tags: Asia, Japan, Tours, Viking | Leave a comment

Shanghai: Old Shanghai and Yuyan Gardens

Posted on June 5, 2018 by 2btravel

Yuyuan Garden

The final day of the main part of the Roof of the World Tour began bright and early as we walked through sections of Old Shanghai on our way to the Yuyuan Garden. This garden dates back to the Ming Dynasty when it was first built in 1559 as a retirement gift from a son to his father. But before it was completed the son was appointed governor of Sichuan and that postponed further construction until 1577. At the time this was the largest and most prestigious garden in the city though its expense eventually ruined the family that built it.

By the 1700s the gardens had fallen into disrepair and a group of merchants purchased it and in 1780 the West Garden was opened to the general public. During parts of the next two centuries some of the buildings were used as headquarters by invaders or leaders of rebellions and the original structures inside the garden walls had nearly been destroyed. In the late 1950s the government appointed someone to restore the buildings. The gardens were fully opened to the public in 1961 and declared a national monument in 1982.

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Categories: Asia, China, Cruises, Tours, Viking | Tags: Asia, China, Cruise, Tours, Viking | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: Fairmont Peace Hotel, Shanghai

Posted on June 3, 2018 by 2btravel

We had chosen this Top of the World tour in the Beijing to Shanghai direction because you get to do the rickshaw tour of the hutong and you don’t if you take the tour in the Shanghai to Beijing direction. But we came to realize we were fortunate to have done the tour that way for a couple of other reasons. First, after being on tours or traveling every day for a week, by the time we got on the boat we really enjoyed having a few afternoons with nothing to do but nap and watch the scenery. The other reason was that had we stayed at the Fairmont Peace Hotel first, we might have been disappointed with the other hotels on our tour.

The Peace Hotel was orignally called Sassoon House and was built by Sir Victor Sassoon in the late 1920s. It’s a beautiful art deco building that was closed for three years for renovations and reopened in 2010 when Fairmont took over running it. Continue reading →

Categories: Asia, China, Cruises, Fairmont, Hotel, River Cruise, Viking | Tags: Asia, China, Fairmont, Lodging Review, Shanghai | Leave a comment

Shanghai: Shanghai Museum

Posted on June 1, 2018 by 2btravel

We left Wuhan and flew to Shanghai on Sunday. Our schedule got re-arranged a bit as we were scheduled to see the Shanghai Museum the next day but since it was closed on Mondays we stopped by before we even went to the hotel. I was floored by the line to get in. Pro tip: go as part of a group so you can use the group entrance!

The Shanghai Museum

The museum was founded in 1952 and the current location was opened in 1996. There are over 120,000 pieces in its collection. The building has four or five levels and it has eleven permanent galleries and three temporary ones:

Gallery of Ancient Chinese Bronze
Gallery of Ancient Chinese Sculpture
Gallery of Ancient Chinese Ceramics
Gallery of Ancient Chinese Jades
Gallery of Ancient Chinese Paintings
Gallery of Ancient Chinese Calligraphy
Gallery of Ancient Chinese Seals
Gallery of Ancient Chinese Numismatics
Gallery of Chinese furniture in Ming and Qing dynasties
Gallery of Arts and Crafts by Chinese Minorities

Atrium of the Shanghai Museum

Here are just a few items that I found interesting.

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Categories: Asia, China, Cruises, Tours, Viking | Tags: Asia, China, River Cruise, Tours, Viking | Leave a comment

Wuhan: Hubei Bells Performance and Provincial Museum

Posted on May 31, 2018 by 2btravel

The next morning, a Saturday, we awoke in Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province and the most populous city in Central China with over 10.5M residents in the city itself and over 19M in the metro area. That’s roughly 3200 people per square mile.

Hubei Provincial Museum

Bells Performance

Our first stop for the day was the auditorium at the Hubei Provincial Museum where we would be treated to a bell performance. That doesn’t sound all that exciting but was actually pretty cool. I had visions of a number of different hand bells but this was different. These 65 bells were uncovered in the tomb of Marquis Yi who died approximately 430 BC. He was the ruler of Zeng, a minor state in what is now Hubei province.

These are zhong bells which means they are made of bronze and cast in a lens shape (think of two circles slightly intersecting) rather than a circular shape. The mouth of the bells also has a “cutaway” profile and on the outer surface there are 36 studs placed symmetrically on it. This allows these bells to produce two different tones, depending on what part of the bell is struck. The bells uncovered in the Marquis Yi tomb are still playable though the concert was performed on replicas.

There were six musicians, two on zither-like instruments, two on woodwinds and two playing the bells.

Musicians for the Bells Performance

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Categories: Asia, China, Cruises, River Cruise, Tours, Viking | Tags: Asia, China, River Cruise, Tours, Viking | Leave a comment

Jingzhou City Walls Tour

Posted on May 29, 2018 by 2btravel

Our stop the next day was in Jingzhou (jing – zhō) where we could choose to go visit an elementary school that Viking helps support or we could go visit the ancient city walls. Of our immediate group of 12, 7 went to the school while the other 5 of us went to the city walls.

Today Jingzhou has just under 6M inhabitants but “only” about 1.2 live in what we’d consider the metro area. Due to being situated right on the river the city has been a transportation hub and distribution center for 6000 years.

Our bus took us to the visitor’s center and we began the easy walk toward the city walls. On the way there we stopped to look at this picturesque bridge.

Bridge in a Jingzhou park

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Categories: Asia, China, Cruises, River Cruise, Tours, Viking | Tags: Asia, China, River Cruise, Tours | Leave a comment

Three Gorges Dam

Posted on May 27, 2018 by 2btravel

When we awakened the next morning we found that overnight we’d been through a series of locks and were now moored just downstream from the Three Gorges Dam. The dam is the world’s largest power station as far as installed capacity, meaning how many megawatts it can sustainably generate. The dam opened in 2009 but wasn’t fully functional until July 2012. The locks, which are off to the side were completed a bit later.

The government set up an excellent tour program for the dam. Our bus driver took us to the welcome center where we all checked in and then were put on one of the buses specifically for the tour. That dropped us off at the foot of a hill that had a series of escalators to take us to the upper-most viewing area.

Escalating up to the Observation Plaza

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Categories: Asia, China, Cruises, River Cruise, Tours, Viking | Tags: Asia, China, River Cruise, Tours, Viking | Leave a comment

Cruising the Three Gorges

Posted on May 25, 2018 by 2btravel

After leaving Shibozhai, we had the remainder of the day to ourselves aboard the boat. It was terrific to be able to recharge our batteries a bit and there was always interesting scenery outside our balconies.

Our next day was spent sailing through two of the three gorges of the Yangtze. We entered the Qutang Gorge first. It’s the shortest, narrowest and (according to the literature) the most spectacular of the three.

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Categories: Asia, China, Cruises, River Cruise, Tours, Viking | Tags: Asia, China, River Cruise, Tours, Viking | Leave a comment

Shibaozhai Temple

Posted on May 23, 2018 by 2btravel

We awoke the next morning to find ourselves already at our first port of call. The view from our balcony gave us a clue of what we’d be exploring today.

This is Shibaozhai, which means “precious stone fortress”. This multi-story pagoda is built against the side of a stone hill and at the top is a temple. But first, we had to reach the area. Continue reading →

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Viking Emerald

Posted on May 21, 2018 by 2btravel

Our previous experience with Viking boats was on the 3-deck boats that cruise the rivers of Europe, like the Rhine and the Danube. The boat that is known as the Viking Emerald is not like that at all. During the cruise we learned that only Chinese-owned boats were allowed to traverse Chinese rivers, so this boat was actually owned by a Chinese company and leased by Viking though it was apparent that Viking had been in charge of the decor as there were lots of similarities to the European river cruise boats.

The Emerald (right) at our first port of call

As we had previously experienced, we received a warm welcome once we arrived – perhaps even more than usual because the staff was all aware of the ordeal we’d been through in Lhasa. The boat was already bustling with other passengers who’d done the Imperial Jewels of China tour. That tour is the same as our Roof of the World tour but without the stop in Tibet. Though the Emerald is a little larger than the European boats, the lobby made us feel right at home as the layout was very similar.

The Emerald has six decks (Viking deck plan):

Deck 1 is mostly below waterline and is for the crew
Deck 2 has the restaurant in the stern, the lobby, and passenger cabins in the bow
Decks 3 & 4 have passenger cabins both fore and aft
Deck 5 has passenger cabins in the stern and the Observation Lounge in the bow.
Deck 6 has an outdoor area in the stern, the gym, beauty salon, doctor, spa and internet cafe mid-ship and the bar in the bow

An elevator is available on Decks 2-5. Once reaching Deck 5 it was quite an impressive view down to the lobby floor.

View from Deck 5 down to the lobby

My roommate for this trip wanted to be sure we had a great time so we booked a suite, which at 301 sq. ft. was about 50 sq. ft. larger than the standard cabins. Unlike the European boats, all passenger cabins on the Viking have a balcony, though they’re all quite small. Continue reading →

Categories: Asia, China, River Cruise, Viking | Tags: Asia, China, River Cruise, Viking | Leave a comment

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Cruises

Tokyo: City Tour

Sensō-ji

Shanghai: Old Shanghai and Yuyan Gardens

Yuyuan Garden

Lodging Review: Fairmont Peace Hotel, Shanghai

Shanghai: Shanghai Museum

Wuhan: Hubei Bells Performance and Provincial Museum

Hubei Provincial Museum

Bells Performance

Jingzhou City Walls Tour

Three Gorges Dam

Cruising the Three Gorges

Shibaozhai Temple

Viking Emerald

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