Beijing, China

I just got back from an amazing 10 day trip to China...  we spent 5 days in Beijing and the surrounding area...  We made a lot of stops...  I'll just briefly tell you  about them (don't want to put you to sleep!!!) we arrived in the evening and headed to our hotel (oops, no pics... what was I thinking???)  There were 35 of us traveling... most from SW Washington.

Janet doing sign duty while our guide tried to locate our bus.

Our bus for the next 5 days

The next morning we were off to see China...  lots of traffic...  we timed our trip so that we were there for the national holiday week... all government workers & schools were closed... SO everyone was going to the sites that we were going to...  I guess it could have been worse...  the tolls were free which keep the lines from backing up.

Ming Tombs - Beijing Changling Tombs
Our first stop was the Ming Tombs. Here's a tidbit from the internet:

The tomb of the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty(1368-1644), Zhu Di and Empress Xu. Among the 16 emperors of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Zhu Di (1360-1424), also honored as Emperor Yongle, made the greatest contribution to the country and had the most far-reaching impact on history. During his time, the Ming Dynasty reached its peak. In 1409, Emperor Zhu Di built Changling Tomb. He was the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty to build a tomb. After that another 12 tombs were built. Changling Tomb is the largest and the most completely preserved of these tombs. Because of its grand ancient architecture, brilliant culture and long history, the site is one of the most significant attractions in Beijing.

some pictures taken as I walked around...

Damask Stockings

Different views of the Emperor statue

flowering bush (just to add a splash of color to this blog)

Gold hair piece with jewels

headless (hat) from the Emperor's era

Sign we found on the ground (no idea what it says!!)

 After we left the tombs, we headed to the Great Wall...  We were dealing with some rain in the morning, which was a blessing in disguise...  we didn't have to deal with the smog... therefore we were able to the see the Great Wall...  (I had heard that some people weren't so lucky)

Janet and I with proof that we were at the Great Wall of China

This was the "gate" to the section we were visiting.

When looking for a bathroom I found this "room".  I did a little research, and I think these are lucky prayer boards.  The Chinese believe that red is for luck.

 Hope you enjoyed the pictures... I'll continue our adventure in the next post.

until we meet again...
Kim

Oh the life of retirement...

Ahoy Maties! It's been way too long since I've posted.  After a month long trip I turned into a vegetable.  Well at least when it came to writing that is...  Let's see if I can get you up to date on my adventures...

Baltic Sea Cruise

I had difficulty with wifi so I haven't posted about this cruise.  Can I say awesome!!!  It was a nine day cruise around the Baltic Sea.  I think I left off with Copenhagen... so the cruise had several stops... Wannemude, Germany... a quaint sea port that seemed to be very popular with the Germany folk. It was very touristy, for lack of a better word. Then it was on to Tallin, Estonia...  St Petersburg, Russia...  Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden.


I would say, the highlight of the cruise was St Petersburg.  It was actually the only stop that I had a tour and mostly because the was the only way to get off the ship! The was so much history to take in... Peter the great was a man who loved gold. to the extreme...  below are some of my pictures from the cruise.

Sand Castles near Ship dock in Wannemunde Germany

solo travelers for a cirque dreams show

Robert, darling server at the show

Add caption

Sunset at 11pm!!!

 next group of pictures were taken in St Petersburg Russia

Pickpocket warning!!!

Absolutely the longest escalator in the world! spooky long!

me with one of the masters!

opulence every where!

Church of the Blood

And the last three days of my trip were spent in Paris!!!

Copenhagen & beyond... (a cruise around the Baltic Sea)

Copenhagen.  My first cruise ended here... it was a time to say good-bye to friends made over the last 16 days.  I know I will be sharing more travels with some of them in the future.  Many of us continued on for the 2nd half of our cruise: 9 days around the Baltic Sea.

Copenhagen is a beautiful city.  I took a HOHO bus (hop on-hop off).  It's the best way to travel around to see cities.  I'm going through my pictures and geez, I sure didn't take many of Copenhagen... sigh... but here's a few:

Look, tulips, in Denmark!!! (sad we didn't see more... maybe if we had taken the train to Amsterdam)

I wasn't the only one taking pictures.  So was Eric & Paul.

Barber shop...

The Little Mermaid.  Big tourist draw.

Then we're off onto cruise # 2... first stop Warnemunde, Germany. A small town on the Coast, about 2 1/2 hours away from Berlin.  There were several people that chose to take the train in, but it sounded like a rushed trip... I just didn't want to take any chances with missing the ship.  I ended up taking the train into a neighboring city,

until we meet again!
Kim

Rotterdam, day 2

Ahoy Maties! I found it difficult to post to the blog during my cruise... wifi was at a premium price and free wifi was sketchy at best.  So this post will be the first of the "catch-up" posts...

Rotterdam, The Netherlands... day 2

Several of us got the hop on, hop off bus to explore Rotterdam...  the thing that struck me the most was the architecture...  creative... unusual... enjoy the pics (click on the picture for a larger image)

How odd...  This a an apartment building

The cubic house (got this image from the web)

We took the HOHO to the "marketplace" but it was considered a holiday since Rotterdam's team was playing soccer, so we were unable to get inside.  it was amazing from the outside.  I took a few pictures, though I don't think they did the building justice.

The building... apartments on the outside, inside is the market place.

peering into the building - and through the building

A closer look (flowers were gorgeous)

You can see the ceiling has been painted into a masterpiece

Here's a better picture at night (found on the web)

 There was a lot of police presence because of the soccer game.  The stadium was close by, you could hear the chanting.  Everyone walking around before the game were either in jerseys or scarves representing their team.  After we were back on the ship, you could hear yelling as a parade of people walked across the nearby bridge and a fireboats had water plumes...  they won their game.

crowds cheering on the bridge while fire boat  sent plumes of water in the air.

artistic view of bridge

Rotterdam was a beautiful city. The day is now done and we're off to our final destination of this leg of the trip...  Copenhagen Denmark.

until we meet again

Kim

Rotterdam...

We arrived in Rotterdam, The Netherlands this evening...  So a group of us went exploring... we wanted to try a dutch dinner...  To get there we walked over a bridge (found these love locks along the span of the bridge. I had actually never heard of them before)

A love lock or love padlock is a padlock which sweethearts lock to a bridge, fence, gate, or similar public fixture to symbolize their love. Typically the sweethearts' names or initials are inscribed on the padlock, and its key is thrown away to symbolize unbreakable love.

Here is a pic of the cruise ship on our walk to dinner

We found a pub that was very popular for the locals.  We took a look at the menu, all in dutch...  kind of determined a couple of things but were very grateful when the server brought us an English menu... we ended up having the meatballs, what the restaurant was famous for.

On the way back to the ship we walked along the waterfront... stopped for a few souvenirs...  here's some great evening pics of the ship:

until we meet again...
Kim

Turmoil at sea....

First I'd like to say, I love, love cruising.  This cruise has been great as far as meeting new friends. We all have a love of cruising, and do it as often as possible. And this cruise for the most part has been excellent. Great entertainment, wonderful staff... awesome company of new friends.

BUT, there have been some blips along the way that have made me a bit frustrated.  Yesterday was the last straw that made me a bit emotional.  Let me go  back a few days.

Our first planned stop on this cruise was the Azores.  After 6 days as sea (sometimes quite rough & wild) we were looking forward to putting our feet on solid ground.  But, the seas were still too rough, so it was determined that we were going to skip docking - it was just too unsafe.  So, off to another sea day...

Next stop, Brest, France.  The lines to get off the ship were soooooo long.  it took some 2 1/2 hours to get off ship. (still wondering how that happened)  I don't remember such a fiasco before...  we were not docked at a regular cruise port.  There wasn't much there.  We were not allowed to walk around there.  For $15 we could take a shuttle to town. (or for free, they would shuttle you to the gate, then you had a 4 kilometer walk to town).  I found a spot on deck 8 where I was able to find some free wifi...  it overlooked where the passengers were getting off and on the ship.  On this particular day, the rains were heavy.  The disorganization of the people getting back on the ship was awful... the tide made the gang plank a real hazzard (way too steep - and there were many passengers with disabilities)  Add to that, in the rain, people had to wait in line for 2+ hours to get back on the ship. One friend took a tour.  When they got back to the dock it was pouring down rain. The bus driver would not let them stay on board the bus until the rains died down... how rude. Here's a picture of the very very long line waiting to get back on the ship.

Needless to say, I was glad I decided not to get off... but on the other hand, sorry I didn't get a chance to see some of the WWII history (Brest was almost completely destroyed during the war.)

Next stop: Southampton, England.  We had to go through immigration before we could leave the ship.  The UK immigration officials were supposed to come on board in the Azores, but because we didn't dock there, that didn't happen.  And they refused to come on board in Brest.  Soooooo, we had to go through immagration before we got off ship in Southampton.  Add to this cluster, the ship had a propulsion problem, so we were getting into port about 4 hours later than originally planned.  Getting 4,000 people through immigration was rediculous.  We docked at noon, and it wasn't until 5pm before I got off the ship. (and there were many many more after me)  I was so frustrated and so near tears over the frustration.  We had until 11:30 that night to spend in town, but most of the shops closed at 6pm.  What the hell!??

this is an anchor from the Queen Mary

Needless to say, I got back on board early... played the anti-social card... Went to the thermal spa for a good long soak (felt so good after the couple of miles of walking to get to the stores that were mostly closed).  I continued with the anti-social thing but grabbing dinner and hiding in my cabin...  had a long, well needed sleep and hopefully a much better attitude.

Well the whoas continue... we won't be stopping at the port in Brussels since we are off on our schedule. (dang!)  Tonight we will land in port at Rotterdam... good thing, we are staying there over night and won't leave until 6pm tomorrow night.  I'm hoping to get to Amsterdam, which is about an hour or so away from the ship to see the Anne Frank house/museum.

I guess this was a downer of the post.  Had to get it out of my system.  I can't let these blips in life get me down.  So I'm now going to put on my happy face and get on with the "fun".

until we meet again...
Kim