Back in Japan today at their lowest island which is along way south of the main Japanese islands. This island formed an important sea trading port during the early days of both European sailing mid 1500s onwards and also for the local countries of the time. The population is over 300,000 and it was flattened in WW11 when the allies drove upwards towards Japan. Apparently there are still US defence bases stationed at various places around the island. Okinawa is a nice island and very Japanese - by that I mean, after leaving China, order is back everywhere, nice roads, extra clean taxis, less traffic and hassle. We visited the Shurijo Castle, which belonged to the Ryukyu kings from 1400s to 1800 (Okinawa didn't become part of the Japanese empire for a very long time). The ... read more

It was a nice day today, hazy to clear sky and about 20 degrees. We caught a taxi to the Shanghai Museum. It’s a nice new building with lots of marble however it’s an arts museum. It had quite old statues, old writings, water paintings and the history of money. The most interesting thing I thought, was the use of spade and arrow shaped coins a couple of thousand years ago and then the adoption of paper money commencing in the 10 century! We then walked around the Peoples Square with its immaculate lawns and white pigeons (no-one walks on the lawns in public parks). Squashed in between the massive and uniquely styled skyscrapers just off the square were a few old late 19th and early 20th century buildings. We then walked down a very long ... read more

At last we are back at sea and now for two days travelling from Beijing to Shanghai around the coast and thru the Yellow Sea. The sea here is almost that colour (in fact its the same colour as the Yarra) even 200 miles out to sea. This is caused by the Yangtze river draining its silt into the sea for hundreds of years. Let me tell about two nice people we met for breakfast. Bob & Barbara who now live in Alabama. Bob is in his early 80s and when he was 17, he was on one of the US warships that landed at Nagasaki 3 weeks after the bomb was dropped in 1945. His ship was involved in the clean up of the town & his job involved obtaining local assistance where he could ... read more

We woke this morning in the port suburb of Tianjin under murky skies - fog/smog. After waiting for about 1½ hrs for local customs clearance, we started on the 3 hr bus trip to Beijing and the Great Wall. The traffic to Beijing was so bad we had lunch before we got to the wall. The Chinese banquet lunch was jummy! About 3.00pm we reached the wall at Juyaugan which apparently is one of four places that tours use for seeing the Great Wall. It wasn’t what I thought is was going to be - it’s a very steep hill of rising steps up to a guard post. Then after that, it starts again the same way, and on and on it goes upwards. The wall is about 10M above the rocky mountain terrain all the ... read more

A different day today, meeting people, walking the deck, resting, eating and dancing and I snuck in a small sleep after lunch). After breakfast we did some deck walking to get up the steps. AB did a walk as well. We all went in the Boce competition and collected some more $s vouchers (Mum won two!). The ship's gives out dollar rewards for enterng and winning various on board events - the more you win the more dollars you have at the end to redeem towards a free T shirt or cap etc. We met diffrent American couples for lunch and at tea and we met a Dutch couple who travel the world, or so it seemed - it was also a time to catch up on a few things about the world and some potentially ... read more