Day 4 was a relaxing sea day for us which ended with a beautiful dinner in the Tuscan Grill speciality restaurant (thanks to our Travel Agent Nancy!) The winds were a bit rough on Sunday night and thus our docking was delayed a little over an hour on Monday. It worked out for the best however as we got to see a spectacular sunrise and transit under the Incheon Bridge, the longest in Korea and 7th longest in the world.

After breakfast it was off to Seoul City. Korea has a history thousands of years old with many conquests. The city itself is incredibly densely settled. There is hardly a square foot that is not occupied by some structure.

Our route took us past The Blue House, equivalent to The White House and home to the South Korean President.

From there it was on to Bukchon Hanok village. An ancient area of the city where locals like to stroll in traditional garb. The area is still occupied as it has been continuously. The streets are incredibly narrow, steep and winding with thousands of tourists scrambling up and down – dodging the occasional delivery vehicle or scooter.

To our Philadelphia friends, think Elfreth’s Alley built on steep hills with cars and ten times the tourists and you’ll have a pretty good idea.

From there it was on to lunch at typical Korean eatery. A hole in the wall down an alleyway.

We had to remove our shoes as it the custom in all Korean homes.

Then we sat and were brought all sorts of Korean delights – Kimchi (cabbage and squid), Acorn Jelly, fish heads, soups, salads). Some were delicious and some we passed on.

From there we explored the Insadong shopping area (neither of us are much into shopping).

Next it was on to the National Museum of Korea which was a gigantic edifice almost impossible to photograph. Quite stunning.

The Museum is filled with ancient artifacts, beautiful artwork, pottery and a massive collection of Buddha sculptures, castings and paintings. Way too much to take in in the 90 minutes we had to race through.

Below is our guide, Kim, who proudly shepherded us around the city without losing one of his flock, not something we would have bet on at the start.

Today is a sea day and tomorrow a travel day to Beijing and a flight to Xian so not sure what kind of connectivity we’ll have.

This evening we met with a new guide, Pamela, who spirited us across the river for an evening cruise to view the amazing skyline of Shanghai. One aspect which can’t be captured in still photos are that many of the buildings have animated lighting, some with live video more than 40 stories high. The skyline is dominated by the “Oriental Pearl TV Tower” (apparently no one has informed the people here we no longer use “oriental”) and the Shanghai Tower (with the search lights) at 128 stories the 2nd tallest building in the world.

Here we are with our guide Pamela who took great care of us and provided more insights into Shanghai, China and it’s people.

The area below is The Bund dating back to the 1920 when it was the financial center of Shanghai. There are still many banks and insurance companies located there but it is now known for its nightlife including jazz at the Peace Hotel, the green topped building.

To cap off the evening, Pamela took us to a new restaurant at the bottom of the Shanghai Tower where we experienced a fantastic dinner of dim sum.

Off to bed and onto our cruise ship in the morning. It is 12 hours AHEAD here.

We had a lovely breakfast at the beautiful JW Marriott overlooking Tomorrow Square. Below is a view from our hotel and a view of the hotel from Tomorrow Square.

Today’s weather is a bit warm for this time of year in Shanghai (upper 70’s) and therefore more hazy than usual. Shanghai is about even with the Carolinas’ latitude wise. Our guide today says it almost never snows due to the proximity to the ocean but they did have a rare one day snowfall last year. We took a morning walk in the People’s Park across from our hotel where we saw many locals doing their morning exercises including this group near the Haagen-Dazs…

Shanghai is an amazing modern city, most of which has been built in the last 30 years. Today we booked a walking tour of Old Shanghai and wound up having a private tour from a delightful young woman Feifei. She took us to the old city which dates back several hundred years.

Much of the old city was demolished to make way for the new Shanghai. Even in the remaining areas, much of what remains was taken over by the government during Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” and most original families were displaced. In older times housing consisted of family compounds where multi-generational families lived together. This is still the case today in the old city but the density is even greater and it is not uncommon for one family to occupy less than a 30′ X 30′ space. Some only 10′ X 10′. Even today many of the apartments/rooms in the old city do not have indoor plumbing. They share common sinks located outside, use neighborhood bath houses and carry their “toilets” to neighborhood disposal areas. Feifei did not have an indoor toilet until she was eight (she was born in 1983 – 8 years after Mao’s death and the end of the cultural revolution.)

Here is a typical street view inside the Old Shanghai…

We were given a tour of an old family compound that is unrestored and pretty much as it was after the Cultural Revolution. During that time the government took over these areas from the families and turned them in mini industrial sites (metal fabrication, machine shops, etc.) Most of the wealthier families fled to Hong Kong or other parts of Asia. Many of the family who lived here went to Canada but the daughter who remained stayed to care for her Father. She was allowed to remain on the compound as she worked in the metal shop.

We took many pictures here of the intricate carvings and when we return I’ll update the blog with photo albums of each site. But here’s one with our guide Feifei…

The streets were a constant bustle of activity lined with vendors of all types and activity. Any space larger than a broom closet had a sewing machine with a tailor. Dogs, cats, pet turtles were everywhere and even a pet squirrel!

Amazingly as busy as it is, Shanghai is probably the quietest city we’ve ever experienced. Walking on streets is reminiscent of the old Frogger video game. All motorized scooters, which are omnipresent, are ELECTRIC and there is a fine for honking a horn. Requires a special kind of “spider-sense” to avoid getting run over but somehow it works.

We took a quick walk through a local indoor market…

Then Feifei stopped at one of the hundreds of food stalls along the way and told us we must try the Zongzi as she made the best in the city – yum!

We finished our tour at the Confucian Temple of Shanghai. It was badly damaged during the Cultural Revolution, but has been largely restored. Although not a God, Confucius was hailed for promoting education and family respect and was thus revered across China with many temples being built in his honor.

All in all a great cultural experience and a wonderful way to start our Far East journey. Tonight, a river tour on the Huangpu to see the city skyline at night.

We made it! This is a post of maps mostly. Hopefully I’ll post some photos tonight or tomorrow morning. The flight was an hour delayed taking off and was flying into a headwind so it took almost 15 hours flying.

We arrived in Shanghai around 8:00 PM and it took about a half hour to clear customs . Rhonda has no fingerprints left from her work as a safe cracker but that’s another story. Our driver was delayed 30 minutes with a flat tire! But all went well after that and we got to the hotel by 10 as it’s an hour drive from the airport to downtown. It was an impressive nightscape as we arrived into Shanghai proper. Shanghai is the largest city in China with 30 million+ people and the 3rd largest in the world after Tokyo and Delhi.

We are headed out for some touring this morning and evening so looking forward to our first full day in China!

We are getting packed and ready for our trip to China, South Korea and Japan.  We fly from Orlando to Detroit Wednesday morning, October 24 and then on to Shanghai, China overnight.  The ship leaves from Shanghai on Saturday which I think will be Sunday back east (have to figure out this time zone thing.  Our itinerary looks like this:

We are supposed to have WiFi on-board so, connectivity permitting. we’ll try to post periodic updates on the trip.  If you’d like to get future updates, (and you didn’t get this automatically already) subscribe to this blog by filling in your email in the area in the upper right corner of this page labeled :

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