Melsea's 1st Half World Cruise, Arcadia 2016 Part 5

[melsea]

Day 5. At Sea.
18th March 2016
Evening Casual.

Breakfast
Talk by Jonty, Cash in the Attic
Lunch
Unpacking
Evening meal, very nice. Freedom Dining
Show, The Blue Jays, Rock'n'Roll

Day 6. At Sea.
19th March 2016
Black Tie

Bright and sunny day, well most of it anyway.
Sat in the Crows Nest. Watched two BBC programmes on iPlayer which I downloaded before I came out, ones I did not have time to watch. Looking out to sea you could see lots of small fishing boats, looked like we were playing battle ships as at one point we looked as though we were heading for two of them ahead of us, but of course we steered clear but even so there was a lot of fishing going on.
Went to shore excursions to put my name down on the waiting list for two tours and see if either come through. Not hopeful but just have to have a little faith there. I should have look at my Cruise Personaliser at the hotel in HK but forgot to do this.
Evening Gala Party with Captain & Staff. Captain told us that 1150 of us joined in Hong Kong. 370 are doing the whole cruise. Which I think is the least number I have come across over the years to do the whole thing.

Day 7. At Sea Palm Sunday.
20th March 2016

Evening Casual
Breakfast
Had intentions to see Jonty's talk but when I got there I was feeling as though I was going to fall asleep, so I upped & left, went back to the cabin with the purpose to just shut my eyes for a moment, instead I slept for 2 hours!
We had a little bit to eat when it was afternoon tea.
Went to the crows nest for a while. Joined the camera club and hopefully will have the competitions categories soon.
At 5.30pm I made my way to the collection point for retrieving our passports for our visit to China tomorrow.
Evening meal went well and we almost have the perfect table for 2.
Evening show was performed by Arcadia's Headliners. The show was 'New York City Rhythm' it was a new show and it was excellent, the three guys who are the singers were superb probably the best three I have heard in a long while.
Bill went to Mass where he joined the staff, this was held in the upstairs area of the Meridian Restaurant.

Day 8. Xingang, China 1st Day
21st March 2016 Evening Casual.

No phone call for either tour I had put my name down for.

Did not get out as early as I wanted. We had breakfast and I then went on shore. The shuttle bus was to take you to a shopping Mall which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. I could not get connected at all even though everyone else seemed to even if it was not for long. I did however just take my new mini iPad and although I was able to get connected at the hotel in Hong Kong it did not want to know here in China.
I looked around the the fairly empty mall and while in one I bumped into a passenger I had seen before, it was a lady from Australia who was on Aurora last years World Cruise. Her name is Joan and comes form Melbourne. We had quite a chat. I had a look outside but it did not lend itself to venture further afield so after about 2 hours or so I made my way back to the pick up point of the shuttle bus which did not take long to arrive, the journey back was a bit less as it was able to travel the stretch of road that wasn't affected by roadworks and so we got back in 25 mins. Arriving back at the terminal we put our bags through the security X-ray machines and as the same on the way it we had to show our passport photocopy stamped with the shore exit & entry that was done when the officials came on board at Hong Kong.


Day 9. Xingang, China 2nd Day

22nd March 2016 Clocks to go forward tonight. Set it to Seoul, Korea.

I had set the alarm for 06.15 as Bill suggested that I go down to where the tours are meeting and ask if there is any availability on any of the tours, unfortunately the tours I wanted to do were the ones for Beijing and they were full and even if there had been they would not have been able to add me as the Chinese needed the names and passport details in advance as you would be leaving the Province but there was a space on the Highlights of Tian Jian, so I said yes I would go on that. I quickly went back to the cabin to let Bill know which tour I was on. So off I went.
The journey to Tian Jin was around 1 hour & half. We visited a few places. The day was more cloudy and cooler than yesterday which was almost 20 degrees with cloudless skies. Even here the weather can change from day to day.
The tour included lunch which was okay, I liked about 80%, we had either water, beer or Sprite to drink, so I had the Sprite as I didn't want the beer as I know I would be falling asleep a lot sooner than I wanted, as it is I fell asleep on the way there.

TiaJan Port
Went to Palladium Theatre to see if I could get onto tour which I did but not the one I wanted but it was a tour.
Highlights of Tian Jan.
Coach 12.
Old style museum where we saw different aspects of China
New modern museum with Old Chinese artefacts and Jade on display.
Then lunch which was 80% okay. I didn't go hungry.
Taken to a place that had a large gold Buddhas, there several small statues of Buddhas.
Last stop was at a market place that had a few Chinese there too but there was another Buddha Temple there.


The tour got back to the ship at 6.30pm where another 2 coaches had arrived and so there was a good few of us going through the security. They had three gates operating but I noticed they were plugging in the fourth one so that we could get through quicker, good on them for doing this.
Arrived back at the cabin where I said a quick hello as I needed to queue to put our passports in for our next inspection of another country, this time South Korea. We will be visiting 2 ports there. Have not visited there before and I would imagine almost everyone on board haven't either, in fact neither has the ship so we should get plaque to honour this fact, well the ship will.

In the evening we did not go down to dinner as I was very tired. I got the food from the buffet and brought it back to the cabin to eat. I watched a couple of programmes from the BBC iPlayer and fell asleep soon after.