This is a short post documenting a few activities that took place at the conclusion of our excursion while docked at the port of Shanghai (at Waigaoqiao) which had seen us take a tour of the ancient water town of Zhujiajiao.

Our honeymoon cruise aboard Diamond Princess took place in November, so while it was still just about light by the time we’d reached the port and boarded the ship at the end of the long drive into the megacity, it wasn’t long before darkness fell. The early part of the evening – following a quick freshen up, of course – included a stroll around the promenade deck to see what the port area looked like from the ship. Cruise ports in general tend to fall within one of three categories:

• No port at all to speak of; you take a tender boat to and from the ship
• A dedicated cruise terminal
• Docking facilities shared with some other purpose

Of the latter category those other purposes can be ferry or fishing uses, or, more typically, commercial and industrial ports, and Shanghai at the time was most certainly an industrial area. The views from Diamond Princess were not only dark but fairly bleak, harshly-lit, concrete and steel.

Over the years that we’ve been cruising we’ve discovered that we’re not really interested in going to see evening shows. In fact, if you’d asked me if we ever went to shows I might have said only once, because the only one I could remember was a Madness tribute act aboard a P&O cruise ship. However, when I stumbled upon a few photographs for the evening of this Shanghai port stop I realised that we had actually attended a performance on this very first cruise of ours; I’d almost completely forgotten about it, which is not to say that it wasn’t good. The pictures below – excusing the quality, once again – show the skills of the Chinese acrobats who’d boarded the cruise ship to entertain the passengers. I certainly took enough photographs to indicate I must have been impressed at the time even if, perhaps in comparison to all the other amazing sights and experiences of this trip, the memory of what we’d seen that night swiftly faded into the background.

After the acrobats had performed and departed the ship, and after Diamond Princess had left the port of Shanghai, and after we’d had some food somewhere in there, we ended up in Skywalkers Nightclub. On these Grand-class cruise ships operated by Princess Cruises Skywalkers is quite probably our most-visited spot on the vessel. We will typically finish every evening with a couple of hours of listening to music, maybe strutting our stuff to a tune or two, people-watching (if we’re not the only people around; which happens more often than you’d think, and happened an awful lot on this particular cruise), and, naturally, grabbing some late drinking opportunities. Jack Daniels and Coke would be my go-to drink for this cruise, and with us often being the only people around in venues at night we soon got to know many of the staff and they got to know us too, to the point that I would frequently walk into somewhere like Skywalkers or Explorers, catch the eye of a waiter, nod, get a smile, and get a drink in short order without even having to say a word or show my cruise card. What’s not to love?

The following day would be a sea day as Diamond Princess made her way towards the Japanese city of Naha on Okinawa.

I can’t actually remember much about the breakfasts. This was, if you didn’t already know, our first foreign holiday together, the first time either of us had been out of the country in well over a decade, we’d just got married, and thoughts of blogging about travels didn’t exist. In short, cut us some slack. Like you even wanted to know what breakfast in an international hotel was like anyway.

As for the lunches, while I cannot tell you what restaurants we visited in Beijing on this pre-cruise tour other than one (I made a note – Wahaha restaurant – so we almost certainly went there for one of the meals), I did at least take some photos and videos, and I can recall some details. I can tell you, for instance, that each day’s food was a different type of cuisine. One day we had Cantonese-style, another was Szechuan, and another was Hangzhou. The styles were very different and you definitely didn’t think you were getting the same thing each day. Unless you were an American woman in our group.

Excuse me! Can you tell us what sort of food we are going to be having at the restaurant today?

Yes, certainly. Today we are visiting a restaurant in an old theatre and you will be able to make your own Peking duck in the traditional style!

Wait. Are we having Chinese food again?

Yes, yes we were having Chinese food again. Funny that. It was lovely. It was completely different to what we’d had on the days before that. Don’t be like that woman. Embrace the culture when you’re travelling.

So, let’s take a look at some of the photos and videos from two of our visits to restaurants in Beijing.

One of the restaurants promised very fresh food. Some of it was still alive and in tanks as we arrived.

There were some interesting looks from everyone at some of the dishes that were then presented. I’d like to say that we were brave and had a go at the chicken head but my recollection is that nobody on our table did. Everything else was tried, though.

Some photos from just outside the restaurant were taken as well.

Our last restaurant meal in Beijing was to the old theatre mentioned before. This was where we got to try some Peking duck and was also memorable for the sea lion swimming about in a small pool in the restaurant entrance. I would like to say for certain that sea lion was not on the menu but I can’t. I’d like to think it was just there as a tourist draw and while it’s something we don’t agree with I can say that the animal appeared to be well looked-after.

Our evening meals were left to us. I know that a lot of people in our pre-cruise tour group dined at the hotel in which we were staying and I suspect it was very good there; for the price I’d expect it to be. That price was shockingly high, though, as we discovered on the first evening and while we’re not tight with money even we have our limits. Dining there for one evening would have cost us a fortune so doing it for all three would have left us with a sour taste in our mouth before the cruise had even properly begun. Luckily, following a quick chat with the guide who’d accompanied us on the first day exploring Beijing we discovered that one road behind the hotel there was a local restaurant with better prices.

That restaurant was the Great Wall Restaurant and I’ve included some photos of a small, fold-out menu as well as a shot from a larger one that was provided to us at the table, the reason for that being pretty obvious if you’ve got the mind of a juvenile like us.

The Great Wall Restaurant was absolutely fabulous. The food was incredible; the variety of dishes was superb; the price was laughingly cheap. About twenty pence for a bowl of sticky rice, for instance. Their most expensive bottle of wine – something the waitress was hesitant to serve us initially because she thought it might be too costly – was fourteen pounds. We have drunk Chinese red wine in China and we’ve drunk it out of glasses barely larger than thimbles. On top of that the restaurant brewed its own light and dark German-style beers (you can see that in the first photo from the menus above) which was under a pound a pint and it was absolutely wonderful. Another British couple we got talking to visited that same restaurant every evening specifically for the beer alone.

The heat of the day and spread-out nature of the Chinese city had really surprised us so we were glad to be back on the ship with about an hour before the scheduled departure and checking the Princess Patter we saw that afternoon tea was still available so decided the chance of some sandwiches, rolls, and cakes with a cup of tea or two would be a nice change from what we’d normally do (burger or pizza and a beer, as you’d possibly guessed). Afternoon tea is served in the International Dining Room on the ship and is free of charge.

We then returned to our room so that we could watch the sailaway. Princess do have sailaway parties on the top deck with the resident band usually but even though they’re a bit more relaxed and not as embarrassingly jingoistic as the ones you get on P&O, for example, they’re still not really our sort of thing. Our balcony gave us a good view of the international cruise port in Xiamen.

And we waited. And waited. And waited a bit more. A couple of coaches that had been out on excursions were late getting back due to traffic problems. The good thing about going on a ship-organised tour as opposed to doing things yourself is that the ship will wait for you in those circumstances.

We waited long enough that the moon started to make an appearance behind one of the nearby buildings.

And then without really realising it the ship was edging away from the port, making its 180 degree turn once we were sufficiently far enough way from the dock, and starting its slow run out towards the sea. With Diamond Princess now facing southwards our balcony on the starboard side of the ship gave us a pleasant view of the sunset over the Chinese mainland and spread of Xiamen there.

We passed between the pylons connecting the island of Xiamen to the mainland again.

As the sun finally vanished in the murk of the horizon we glanced back to see something we hadn’t expected: a Xiamen light show. We knew Hong Kong put on a light show as we’d seen it before (Hong Kong Harbour Light Show) and were expecting to see some of it again on this cruise but hadn’t realised Xiamen had its own version. While the buildings may not have had the grand scale of Hong Kong and there seemed to be less in the way of coordination in the lights we could see, they were, nevertheless, arguably far more impressive than Hong Kong. Some buildings had stylised, color-changing waves; others Chinese writing; others had pirate ships animated in the lighting. If you’re ever in Xiamen after the sun goes down then it looks like the light show along the waterfront of the city is something that should be seen.

All-too-soon we left the attractive lights of Xiamen behind and passed some of the industrialised areas that marked the boundary of the city before hitting the sea and starting the run south towards Vietnam.

For us, then, the evening followed pretty much the standard pattern: showered, changed, off for a pre-dinner drink or two, then dinner itself followed by a quick nose around the various lounges to see what was going on before heading up to Skywalkers nightclub to people-watch, drink some more, and dance as much as our tired bodies would allow us.

We’d visited China before back in 2008, at that time hitting Beijing and Shanghai and visiting lots of the historical places of interest. While we’d stayed in Beijing for three days that was mostly as a hotel base and we’d not explored any of the city itself outside its major tourist attractions. In Shanghai we’d visited one of the old water towns on the outskirts of the vast metropolis. The excursions we could find for Xiamen were also non-city-based, hitting the island of Gulangyu or ancient areas or parks, and because we weren’t massively interested in what was on offer and because we’d never really visited a modern Chinese city before we decided that we would do our own thing for a change and check out modern as opposed to ancient culture.

Pulling up a map of Xiamen before the cruise and looking at where the ship would be and how far things that piqued our interest were we reckoned we could do what we wanted on foot. With the benefit of hindsight this was a mistake. To start with, it was a lot warmer than we’d been anticipating so our walking pace was significantly lower than we’d allowed. On top of that when you look at a map you get a feel for distances as the crow flies or as traffic moves but pedestrian routes are sometimes a little more convoluted to navigate especially when you’re somewhere you don’t know. The end result was that our plan to head down to Xiagang, check out some places there, then head back very soon changed to “Let’s just see how far south we can get before X time and then turn around.” We could have gained ourselves some time and possibly stuck to our original plan if we’d taken the free shuttle bus laid on by Princess Cruises that would have taken us halfway to where we wanted to go but, fools that we were, we walked it anyway.

Chinese immigration as we got off the ship was super-easy; a quick flick through to check the visa, glance at the photo, glance at me, stamp the document, and then through. Dear Japan: this is how to do immigration.

We turned right as we came out of the terminal and started heading due southwards soon after.

While we knew we just wanted to hug the shoreline and head south there was a brief moment only about five minutes into our walk off the ship when I pulled my phone out to look at the map quickly as it wasn’t clear which of two roads to head down would be the most direct route. We were standing beside a small bit of parkland in front of some tall buildings and a man was jogging around. He immediately turned and ran to us.

“Hi there! Are you lost? Can I help?” he asked in perfect English. We then spent five minutes talking to him about the city, about the ship (he was fascinated by the ship as he’d never been on a cruise), and about his work (he was actually Taiwanese, had studied in London, and was working in Xiamen). He gave us some advice about places to head to, looked doubtful that we’d make it to Xiagang (he was very right there), and all-in-all that’s the sort of casual, helpful, local experience we love to have when we’re travelling. We thanked him and carried on.

The road we followed took us over an area where water came into the island to form a large lake. The curving, white overpasses of roads were covered with vines that made us think of those post-apocalyptic movie scenes where nature starts to retake control of the land from a devastated population. We found it very attractive.

This then took us to a waterfront path that curved around the side of a large park that our jogger friend told us was one of his favourite places to run around. Looking across the water we could see the Dongyucun area of Xiamen and looking back the way we’d come brought our travelling home, Diamond Princess, back into view at the terminal.

This waterfront path was very popular with Xiamen locals and with families with young children in particular on account of its proximity to the water and a number of sandy play areas. Subsequently, in order not to create any unnecessary trouble I kept photography to a minimum around here. The Bay Park in Xiamen is a lovely spot with occasional interesting pieces of artwork and worth a wander around to get away from the city if you’re staying in the area. Be careful of kite-flyers as this was a popular spot for them too and we just ducked out of the way as one plummeted to the ground and the trailing rope went taut in front of our faces (the flyer waved a worried apology and we laughed it off).

Our gentle amble in the increasing heat along Xiamen’s pretty waterfront area just to the north of the tip of Gulangyu island continued and we passed areas where fishing vessels operated from as well as the island-based location of a pylon connected to one we’d passed beside on our cruise into the city earlier in the day. The clear blue skies and tall, new, gleaming architecture of Xiamen’s city skyline continued to draw the attention of my camera too as the straight lines, reflections, and repetitive patterns of these buildings are very appealing to me.

The area we were walking along now was the picturesque part of the Lujiang residential area. There was a ferry terminal here with a service to Gulangyu but from what we’d read online before this was only for local people and tourists needed a longer ferry from closer to the cruise terminal. Whether that’s accurate or not or whether that remains to be true at some point in the future I obviously can’t say for sure but it’s worth checking out if you’re considering looking at a map of Xiamen and aiming for this as your way to get across to the island. A set of odd sculptures attracted a lot of attention from many people with cameras – myself included – and we spotted what we guess was a school or university group filming and photographing for some reason too.

It was around this part of Xiamen that the free shuttle bus from Princess was dropping off and picking up people. We checked the time and our pace of walking and the fact we’d used up all the water we’d brought with us by this point; rather than carry on we decided we’d head inland a bit to check out the more commercial areas and to see if we could find a shop to get more liquid inside us. As luck would have it we spotted what looked like a much older section of the city with buildings only a couple of storeys high, lots of shops, lots of colour, lots of character. That was the direction we headed.

As we wandered the roads mostly devoid of traffic between bright signs, umbrellas, awnings, and lines stretched across with drying clothes we then spotted a narrower section, busier in terms of pedestrians, where market stalls lined the streets. Food stalls were common with lots of choice of shellfish and vegetables, and there were an abundance of smells as we strolled through. Probably the oddest sight was a bag of live starlings (or similar) by one woman sat in a chair next to a stall of household bits and pieces. Were they for food? Were they for pets? Who knows!? We ended up stopping at one place and buying some odd items that were intended to come back as souvenirs. Sadly, only a few survived the trip.

We emerged from the narrow streets, market, and older buildings back into a more modern area of the city and very soon had spent more money in a few convenience stores, stocking up with water, snacks, and lots of odd-looking sweets. We were on a casual look-out for some white jade, something similar to a piece my wife had liked the look of on our first visit to China in 2008 but which we’d not really had the money to afford at the time. Checking out a large department store we found a place specialising in jade inside and there were some very nice pieces there indeed but the only white jade we found had a yellow gold clasp and chain (my wife really wanted white) and was too big; large enough to trigger a gulp reaction in us once we did the conversion of the price tag in our heads. Maybe some other time.

We started tracking roughly northwards now knowing we could take our time and get back to the ship with an hour to spare before we were due aboard. This took us under some more of the foliage-covered overpasses and between the towering blocks of stone and glass that I always find so photogenic.

The walking and heat was tiring us out a bit so when we reached a place where we had to decide whether to carry on towards the ship or to take a bit of a detour and head in the opposite direction to see what Bailuzhou Park had to offer it took us a split second to choose the more direct route. Looking at the map it didn’t seem like it should take us too long to visit the park in the middle of the lake but we’d already been caught out by the deceptive distances in Xiamen so it was probably the right call. We kept the lake on our right-hand side but carried on in the approximate direction of the cruise terminal.

We’d already walked past Bay Park on the walk southwards earlier in the day so as we came alongside its opposite side on our return trip to the ship we crossed the road and walked through it this time around. It was a very attractive, tranquil park with a mix of wide, concrete areas and grassy, tree-lined sections with meandering paths through it.

Emerging from the park we found ourselves in familiar territory having walked the same roads several hours earlier.

We made our way back to the cruise terminal with only a small delay as what was described as the entrance was ringed off by security for some reason who ushered us away without any indication of where we should go instead. We eventually hunted down one of the exits instead and found a way back in through the snaking lines of people coming and going using the distant view of staff in Princess Cruises uniforms as our direction guide.

We missed out on our original plan of places to visit mainly because we skipped using the free shuttle bus, thinking we’d be able to walk at a faster pace than we managed. We regret that but cannot regret that we saw some things as a result that we possibly would have not seen otherwise and we wouldn’t have had that pleasant encounter with the helpful jogger. Every decision leads to positive and negative results. Xiamen is more spread out than perhaps a look at the map might lead you to think so that’s something to bear in mind if you’re visiting for a short period of time such as during a cruise ship stop but it’s certainly a place we wouldn’t mind visiting again and for longer and with a more definite plan of how to get around and check out its sights.

The next post will cover our departure from the city before Diamond Princess would head southwards towards Vietnam.

The next port of call was Xiamen in the Fujian province of China. Xiamen was a city we’d not heard anything about prior to booking the cruise and, indeed, didn’t really find out a whole lot about in the lead-up to it either. Arriving fairly early in the morning but still having trouble sleeping in because our body clocks weren’t adjusting very well to the initial long flight eastwards that had rapidly lost us hours followed by the cruising generally westwards that was now triggering time changes overnight and slowly gaining us hours, we had plenty of time to kill as we cruised towards the port. We had another wander around the ship, taking more photos, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine.

It wasn’t at all surprising to see the main swimming pool devoid of any people braving its frigid temperatures especially once we started to move from the open sea, passing Zhangzhou harbour on the port side and starting to follow the curve of Xiamen island clockwise. This had the effect of funnelling a pretty nippy north wind down the length of the ship which you’ll be able to hear in the video at the end of this post.

The daily Radio Taiso exercises were being shown on the movie screen out on the deck and there were – as usual – people joining in. We made a point to join in on sea days only so contented ourselves with simply observing for a while as Diamond Princess got closer to the Chinese city.

We decided to stay out on deck so that we could see any interesting elements on either the mainland or island rather than limiting ourselves to just what was visible from our balcony and we’re glad we did because there was some very odd-looking architecture on the port side, the Haicang district.

A pair of matching buildings were the most prominent sign of large construction as we cruised past the Xiagang residential district on our starboard side. When we’d been looking at maps of the city prior to our cruise this had been one area of interest on account of some interesting-sounding museums, historical and religious buildings, and even bars in close proximity. No tours or excursions went anywhere near here, though, and it was sufficiently far away and our time in the port was sufficiently limited that we weren’t quite confident enough we could get to it, do it justice, and get back to the ship. Were we to return and have more time in Xiamen this is part of the city that would definitely deserve more of a look around.

One of the most well-known attractions of Xiamen (apparently it’s one of the top attractions in China) is Gulangyu Island, a place with no cars or bikes permitted. Several excursions hit this island but we didn’t feel they offered very good value for money once we’d checked to see how much it cost to just take the ferry across on your own. While the ferry seemed cheap and while we’re always keen to take boat trips to places even when we’re cruising, though, we also didn’t think there was quite enough on the island to warrant a short stop for ourselves. Again, it’s one of those places that looks like it would be good to spend a large chunk of a day on simply because of the difficulty in getting around the place to find all the spots of interest.

After Gulangyu we then carried on through the deeper water of the channel between the island of Dayu on the port side and a smaller island on the starboard where a pylon spanning the channel between the island of Xiamen and the Chinese mainland and a lighthouse were situated.

From there it was a slow but steady approach to Xiamen’s international cruise terminal taking us closer to the bulk of the modern buildings of the city’s Dongdu district.

As Diamond Princess came alongside in Xiamen we spotted reflections of another cruise ship docked ahead of us, one with a yellow funnel. We never did work out which ship it was.

The video below (temporarily removed) covers some of the approach to Xiamen on Diamond Princess and gives you a feel for just how windy it got along that final channel towards the cruise terminal.

In the next post we’ll cover what we saw in Xiamen itself and our thoughts on the city as a cruise ship destination in general as well as what impact it had specifically for this Princess Cruises itinerary.

You can see more photos of our trip as well as longer video clips here: Zhujiajiao, Shanghai, China.

Video temporarily removed.

Video temporarily removed.

The buildings and signs of local life in and around Zhujiajiao were fabulously, authentically, traditionally Chinese. Much like our visit to the Beijing Hutongs the contrast with modern life in China was both wonderful to experience and exactly what we’d come to see on our Asian cruise.

While taking one of the photos of the rivers running through the water town I got talking to a young American couple also taking loads of shots of the scenery. It turned out that they took stock photography and sold them as a means to fund their travels. When we returned from our cruise I checked stock photography sites for several months to see if I could see anything on them that they might have uploaded but never did which was a shame.

One of our stops in Zhujiajiao was at a rice museum which showed an example of the Chinese windmill used in its preparation although I’m not entirely sure how any longer. I really should get into the habit of making more notes to accompany the photos of the places I visit.

Zhujiajiao is a water town comprising of several rivers breaking up the land into islands and 36 stone bridges joining them back up again. Getting around the town can be done on foot, by bike (if there aren’t too many other people around), or, as you could probably guess, by boat. Our excursion would naturally include a water taxi ride.

Just outside the walls of the town while we waited for our coach to return and pick us up were signs of more typically modern Chinese life.

Hanging around in a tour group while plenty of people went about their daily lives also gave me a great chance to sneak in a a few photos of the local Chinese people in and around Zhujiajiao.

With Shanghai being so large and Zhujiajiao being on the opposite side of it to where the cruise ship was docked the coach journey back took quite a while but did allow us plenty of time to see the sprawling city and the vast amounts of construction taking place. The disparity between what we saw from the coach windows and what we’d experienced in the water town was immense. In the video below you can see the Shanghai World Financial Centre in the distance.

The Temple of Heaven in Beijing is large and spacious, but so much of that space was filled with people that our arrival was to ripples of noise from every direction; different types of music overlapping; distant singing; that undulating murmur of thousands of people engaged in conversations. Our guide had already explained that this was one of the main meeting places for locals to come and engage in social activities including exercise, dancing, singing, playing games, and even just avoiding solitude for some of the more elderly citizens. It was a friendly, welcoming riot.

Note: videos in this post have been removed, hopefully temporarily, while a replacement hosting solution that doesn’t use multibillion companies trying to fleece even more profits out of people is sought.

After watching some of the local Chinese men and women performing some Tai Chi we were led, slowly, through a long, covered walkway area, absolutely rammed with people. It was a mix of tour groups (a few international groups such as our own, but the majority coming from elsewhere in mainland China to see their nation’s capital) and locals filling this space, with the latter set using some benches and shade to take part in games of dominoes or Mahjong or cards, singing, dancing, or engaging in crafts including knitting. Fabulously noisy, filled with life. It’s an experience I cannot recommend highly enough if you ever visit Beijing.

Passing through the covered walkway of activities we then approached the most impressive structure in the complex, a building that we originally thought was the Temple of Heaven itself but was in fact the Hall Of Prayer For Good Harvests. No idea what it was used for but if I had to guess I’d say it was perhaps some kind of hall, maybe one in which people could pray and ask for harvests, and most likely good ones. Circular and built on a marbled base, the hall is completely wooden and constructed without using nails. The one seen today dates from the late nineteenth century as the previous building on this spot was struck by lightning and burned down.

As is the way with many of these excursions you’ll take when you choose to cruise, we then had some free time to explore as we wanted before meeting back at the entrance to the public park. The architecture of the buildings was undeniably fabulous but we’d seen plenty of this style in Beijing over the previous few days. On the other hand, the Chinese people taking part in their social activities were utterly enthralling so while many others in our tour group took a look around the halls either side of the most impressive, multi-tiered one we were all stood around at this point my wife and I decided to head for some of the open spaces in which people were dancing or exercising instead.

One thing we spotted around this time was an argument breaking out between a group of men and women in their seventies, seemingly over cheating in dominoes as far as we could tell. Raised voices and a little bit of shoving was surprisingly lovely to witness.

The following video is one that just makes my heart smile. I’m not one for line dancing when it is associated with cowboy hats but older people in China is a whole different matter.

The range of activities was great to see. The Temple of Heaven was a place where you could see that it would suit almost anybody somewhere in the grounds. Right next to the more energetic line dancing there was ballroom dancing on show. We felt at the time and still feel that this sort of group activities place primarily for elder people to meet, enjoy the open air, enjoy the company, enjoy engaging their brains, or get a little bit of physical fitness is something that could really do with appearing in more cities around the world.

The final activity we saw being performed involved lots of ribbon-twirling, just showing that there was a full range of physical exertions or lack thereof on show and represented by the people of Beijing. In addition to looking pretty it was also one of those things that felt very Chinese; not the sort of thing you’d see taking place in a park back home, and isn’t that a fantastic reason to go travelling?

And it wasn’t just the older crowd and tourists from far and wide enjoying everything going on in the Temple of Heaven.

We could easily have spent most of an entire day in the Temple of Heaven in Beijing; it was that engrossing. However, it was now time to meet our bus outside the entrance and bid a fond farewell to the Chinese city. One last sight, and a very pleasing one, was that of a man composing poetry with water on the paving slabs of the ground.

From the Temple of Heaven we had a stop at a restaurant (the one with the seal in the pool on that link) before we were taken down to Tianjin where our very first cruise would commence on Diamond Princess.

Westerners tend to be larger and heavier than the Chinese people we were encountering and cruise passengers tend to be a little heavier too so there’s plenty of praise to be levelled towards the pedicab drivers whose job it was to take couples of us from near the restaurant to our destination. Our driver was probably happy to see that we weren’t the largest in our group although we certainly weren’t the smallest either.

The video (removed for now) below contains much of the pedicab ride through the streets of Beijing towards the Hutongs and gives you an idea as to how much traffic there was to contend with at the start as well as some sights of the attractive lakeside area close to our destination. I’d like to be able to tell you exactly where in Beijing this was all shot and where we specifically went for this trip but I didn’t think to make a note of that information at the time and it’s not that easy to work out from looking at maps now. My best guess is that this is close to the Qianhai Lake area.

At the conclusion of our pedicab ride to the Hutongs we had some time to wait until all the passengers on this Princess Cruises-arranged excursion arrived so there was a chance for a few snaps of the area. It was very pretty, very peaceful, and probably not what you instantly conjure if imagining what China’s capital city looks like if you’ve not been before.

Once everyone had been accounted for we were then split into groups to each visit a different Hutong and learn a little about everyday life from the people in this part of Beijing. Our hostess was friendly and perfectly charming although she didn’t speak a word of English and all explanations and questions and answers came through our guide’s translations. The house was small, cramped, a little cluttered but homely because of it, and everything you’d expect from the age of the place; the courtyard for which the type of building is famous was surprisingly large and was used to house birds and grow vegetables. With the proximity to the lake and the overall size of the Hutong there was a lot of appeal to it and this visit was a lovely experience that’s to be recommended.

Our visit to the Beijing Hutongs concluded, we returned to our waiting pedicabs which would take us to the final stop for the day. A local man was holding a large grasshopper in his hand which was nice, I suppose.

The last stop on this full day excursion in Beijing was to… somewhere. I know, I know, that’s not terribly specific. In fact, it’s only the fact that I took some photos at all that I know we went somewhere because it isn’t listed on any of the documentation we’ve got for this pre-cruise visit to the city. I can tell from timestamps that it was only ten minutes away from the Hutongs by pedicab but whether this was a religious temple or an imperial palace or a public park or some combination of the three I can’t say. It’s a shame that this holiday was taken before the explosion of use of phone cameras as I would most likely have had one or two snaps at the time that would have encoded the geolocation but as it is all I’ve got are some photos of buildings, ponds, and sculptures to look at. If my guess about Qianhai Lake area for the Hutongs is correct then this might be the Haopujian gardens. Let’s just pretend it is. Wherever it is and whatever it is, it was interesting to see a Taihu stone present, reminding us of the day before’s visit to the Summer Palace.

Our trip to Beijing in 2008 took place in November so the days were short and the sun was starting to set by this time. As we made our way by pedicab for the last time to where our bus would return us to the hotel for the evening we received what I’d like to think was a salute from two workers in the doorway of a building.

The following day would be our last day in Beijing before boarding Diamond Princess in Tianjin and it would start with a fabulous trip to see the Temple of Heaven.