Steve and Cathy's Blog

We are scheduled to take the Highlights of Tianjin five-hour excursion that begins at 7:45am. We signed up for this tour four months ago, so Cathy checks the excursion description to see what we are set to see. The synopsis begins this way: “Depart the pier for the one-hour drive to Tianjin … “ Uh oh. Not more time on the bus!  (Hence the map at the beginning of this post as a reminder) Now we

The Westin Beijing Financial Street is a beautiful hotel catering to people on huge expense accounts. The amenities that one can enjoy at such a place would make a guest just want to never check out. As Cathy and Steve arrived the previous evening after 9pm and are leaving less than eleven hours later, a Motel Six would have been plenty of accommodation. However, the breakfast is extraordinary, especially if you like fish dishes for your

5:30am. Br-r-r-n-g-g-g! B-r-r-n-g-g-g! This is your wake up call. And they’re off!!!   The Xi’an – Beijing Oceania race continues! Cathy, of course, is already awake and slacker Steve sleeps in until the wake up call. Cathy comes up with the morning plan. In order to avoid the less punctual of our fellow tourists, the Knights will be the very first ones down in the lobby and check out no later than 6:15. Then we will leave

As explained in our Special Post from March 29th through April 4th, weather problems sunk our plans to take a special trip from Shanghai to Xi’an to Beijing. But a substituted, shorter trip was made available, and we decided that if we were ever, ever to see the site of the Terracotta Army that dates from 210-209 B.C. (yes, that is 2,227 years ago!), we must go. It will be a non-stop, two-day sprint, but it

This is going to be an interesting day for many reasons. We arrive at an enormous artificial island specially built for the anticipated growth in cruise ship traffic. Insignia, we find out later, is the first American cruise ship ever to call on Sanya (see the picture at the beginning of this post). The Chinese government has gone to great lengths to provide extra security: Chinese Coast Guard vessels are also at the pier, helicopters fly

Since the posts of our journey are running a week behind, I am going to skip ahead to the time period that is the title of this particular post. A great deal has happened since we left Hong Kong, all due to weather. There were two scheduled Sea Days for March 29th and March 30th. At this point, who knows what we did, but we do recall that the weather began to deteriorate in that visibility

We board our junk right from the tender dock on Deck 3 of Insignia. No need to ride one of our lifeboats into Ha Long City and then get on. What an advantage. It was a very clever setup. The tour company used a boat that has a flat steel platform as a dock extending from the ship. The junks would tie up to this other boat, and we would come out of our ship, cross

This is what Cathy and I call a virtual Sea Day, as our new arrival time in Ha Long Bay is now around 6:00pm. We know that the staff of Destination Services has been working overtime trying to rearrange everything for everybody. It is an unenviable job, but we have seen them work miracles before. We choose to sit in Destination Services to be there when they open up at 9:00am. We are hoping that we

We wake up this morning and immediately feel a change in the weather. Gone is the heat and humidity we have been whining about. The temperature is in the high seventies. The other condition we notice is that of the sea. It is active, with nine-foot waves pushed by a stiff wind coming right at the ship. Apparently the ship has been contending with this adverse sea condition all night. Once again, we are thankful that

A quick note to two.  First of all,we are having issues with the Internet.  This was predicted by the cruise line due to the area through which we have been passing, which, coincidentally or not, is Vietnam and China (you may connect the dots or not).  I have many more photos I would like to add to this post, but I can’t download them into the app I am using for this blog.  I will update