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Thread: Off to China

  1. #1
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    Default Off to China

    This October we're doing a 28 day cruise from Beijing to Melbourne with Princess Cruises.

    Mon, 10/17/16 Beijing (tianjin), China
    Tue, 10/18/16 At Sea
    Wed, 10/19/16 At Sea
    Thu, 10/20/16 Osaka, Japan
    Fri, 10/21/16 At Sea
    Sat, 10/22/16 At Sea
    Sun, 10/23/16 Taipei (keelung), Taiwan
    Mon, 10/24/16 At Sea
    Tue, 10/25/16 Hong Kong, China
    Wed, 10/26/16 At Sea
    Thu, 10/27/16 Nha Trang, Vietnam
    Fri, 10/28/16 Ho Chi Minh City (phu My), Vietnam
    Sat, 10/29/16 At Sea
    Sun, 10/30/16 At Sea
    Mon, 10/31/16 At Sea
    Tue, 11/01/16 Bali (benoa), Indonesia
    Wed, 11/02/16 At Sea
    Thu, 11/03/16 At Sea
    Fri, 11/04/16 Darwin, Australia
    Sat, 11/05/16 At Sea
    Sun, 11/06/16 At Sea
    Mon, 11/07/16 At Sea
    Tue, 11/08/16 At Sea
    Wed, 11/09/16 Brisbane, Australia
    Thu, 11/10/16 At Sea
    Fri, 11/11/16 Sydney, Australia
    Sat, 11/12/16 At Sea
    Sun, 11/13/16 At Sea
    Mon, 11/14/16 Melbourne, Australia

    It would be silly to travel all the way to Beijing just to get on a ship and sail back home again, so I'm looking for suggestions on what would be a suitable time to spend in Beijing before boarding the ship back home.
    To grow old is inevitable.... To grow up is optional

    Confidence, the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.

    What could possibly go wrong.

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  3. #2
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    Report back about Osaka please, we are going there the first 10 days of December.
    Cliff.
    If you find a post of mine that is missing a pic that you'd like to see, let me know & I'll see if I can find a copy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers View Post
    Report back about Osaka please, we are going there the first 10 days of December.
    Will do, Only there for 10 hours, don't know how much we'll see.
    To grow old is inevitable.... To grow up is optional

    Confidence, the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.

    What could possibly go wrong.

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    Hi Grumpy John,

    I just returned from 4 week trip to China and we spent 5 nights in Beijing. Most of our time was spent at cultural attractions and I'd say 5 days was definitely enough to see everything we wanted. We spent the majority visiting cultural attractions. Some tips:

    * Allow a day to see the great wall if you are going. We went to the Jinshanling section which had very few other tourists, but a bit more difficult to get to and from. Beware of shonky tour operators and stick to the bigger companies. There is one 'scam' we encountered where Beijing bus staff moonlight as tour operators and will take you half the distance (to Miyun) and offer you a tour after you get there. It was dishonest, but luckily for us relatively harmless.

    * (assuming) you are interested in woodworking I can highly recommend the Red Sandlewood Museum. It was a little difficult to find off the subway line (Sihui east station) - make sure you head east from the subway exit and not west as we did. This was one of the highlights of our visit and saw an overwhelming amount of Ming & Qing dynasty furniture and carvings. There are also a lot of high quality re-productions.
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    * Be adventurous with the food. The best things I ate there were from smaller restaurants and they will be a lot cheaper. Hygiene is an issue, but I never had any problems.

    * Don't trust that a car/bike will stop for you on a cross walk. It's an unspoken rule in China that cars and motorcycles have right of way, owing to the fact that the pedestrian has much more to lose. We had a few close shaves in Beijing including a guy who decided he'd do a u-turn on a very busy cross walk.

    * English is generally poor with the older generations. I had someone who spoke natively, but if you don't and you find yourself hitting a language barrier you might be able to co-opt a younger person into translating . Tourist attractions in Beijing seemed to generally employ people with some english speaking skills.

    * If you are looking for a hotel with a touch of cultural experience I can recommend Courtyard 7. It's a converted courtyard mansion in the hutongs (near Nanluoguxiang, a busy tourist street packed with food & souvenirs) and it's been renovated with some mod cons. The price was pretty reasonable and as a bonus all the furniture (including the bed) was made in traditional Chinese styles which was fun to inspect.

    We also visited the Lama temple, Forbidden city (palace museum), Wangfujing street, Prince Gong's mansion (hutongs) and the Summer palace. Spent half a day at each, with the summer palace taking up most of a day to visit properly. I'd be happy to give my thoughts on those if you are interested in visiting.

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    The Terracotta Warrors & horses are worth a look as well if you have the inclination ,see here The Terracotta Army/Warriors – Discovery and Must-Sees
    Johnno

    Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Grumpy John View Post
    Will do, Only there for 10 hours, don't know how much we'll see.

    How about I give you the name & address of a Guitar shop.
    Cliff.
    If you find a post of mine that is missing a pic that you'd like to see, let me know & I'll see if I can find a copy.

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    Have a top trip John and please post some photos. Safe travels, Cheers, crowie

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    Quote Originally Posted by John Saxton View Post
    The Terracotta Warrors & horses are worth a look as well if you have the inclination ,see here The Terracotta Army/Warriors – Discovery and Must-Sees
    Unfortunately John, time won't allow us to travel to see the Terracotta Army, but thanks for the suggestion.
    To grow old is inevitable.... To grow up is optional

    Confidence, the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.

    What could possibly go wrong.

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    We have been to the travel agent and organised the following tours in Beijing.
    Day 1. A private 3 hour guide of Beijing backstreets.
    Day 2. Panda House and Summer Palace.
    Day 3. Full day tour of the Great Wall at Mutianyu and Ming Tombs at Dingling.

    We are staying 4 nights at the Novatel Beijing Peace Hotel which is walking distance from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.
    To grow old is inevitable.... To grow up is optional

    Confidence, the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.

    What could possibly go wrong.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Grumpy John View Post
    We have been to the travel agent and organised the following tours in Beijing.
    Day 1. A private 3 hour guide of Beijing backstreets.
    Day 2. Panda House and Summer Palace.
    Day 3. Full day tour of the Great Wall at Mutianyu and Ming Tombs at Dingling.

    We are staying 4 nights at the Novatel Beijing Peace Hotel which is walking distance from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.
    John, you could even have a go at the half marathon on the Great Wall

    Great Wall Marathon

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    Quote Originally Posted by Grumpy John View Post
    Unfortunately John, time won't allow us to travel to see the Terracotta Army, but thanks for the suggestion.
    We've been to China a couple of times now(by Princess Cruises as well) but have yet to see the Terracotta Warriors! It's still on the bucket list as a to do.Next trip full cruise around Japan ,unfortunately there's only a day in each port.
    Johnno

    Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film.

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    Quote Originally Posted by John Saxton View Post
    We've been to China a couple of times now(by Princess Cruises as well) but have yet to see the Terracotta Warriors! It's still on the bucket list as a to do.Next trip full cruise around Japan ,unfortunately there's only a day in each port.
    Any tips on buying clothes in Beijing as I'm thinking of not packing much and buying clothes in Beijing as there are no baggage limits on the ship.

    Also do you have any recommendations on shore excursions in Vietnam and Hong Kong We've alread booked shore tours for Kyoto and Taiwan.
    To grow old is inevitable.... To grow up is optional

    Confidence, the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.

    What could possibly go wrong.

  14. #13
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    John we did'nt have time to shop in Beijing due to doing the great wall at that time as well as the Beijing usual tourist haunts such as the Forbidden Palace,Temple of Heaven ,Tiananmen Square it was pretty much full on.
    Clothes were cheap as I recall in Ho Chi Minh as I recall the wife mentioning.We also went to the Cu Chi tunnels there an interesting experience ,but no good if you're claustraphobic ,mind not everyone in our party went down the tunnels we did to see how they managed to hide from view.
    The War Remnants Museum is another possibility that we ventured to, as well as the Lacquer furniture place half of which is a jewellry manufactured display that my wife managed to entertain herself with eyes agog.
    Johnno

    Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Grumpy John View Post
    ...
    Also do you have any recommendations on shore excursions in Vietnam and Hong Kong We've alread booked shore tours for Kyoto and Taiwan.
    John, I did a similar Princess cruise, Singapore to Shanghai, with my partner and her mum (98 at the time).

    Vietnam; we went to Hue as well as Ho Chi Minh. We took a ship tour in Ho Chi Minh and they took us quickly to see the Post Office and their Notre dame cathedral. The post office was designed by Eiffel of tower fame, so I found it interesting. They also took us to see the old presidential palace (the one where the tanks crashed through at the fall of Saigon, filmed by Neil Davis. The actual tank is there too. Interesting to me as I remember the fall and later read Tim Bowdens book about Neil Davis. We didn't go in to the palace grounds, I am not sure why. We sent some time at the City Museum, had lunch in one of the better hotels (Majestic) with local dancers. We had a performance of water puppets and a visit to a temple (Taoist, I think, not the usual Buddhist) and an obligatory visit to a place to relieve you of your money. In our case it was a lacquer works, which was interesting for the artisan skill still on display (woodwork and lacquering). Overall a reasonable dip into the place but like all ship tours they tend to race you through the place in question (except for where they want to sell you something) and I felt we probably got some good insights but there may have been better and more interesting things I just don't know about.

    Regards
    SWK

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    In Hong Kong the ship stayed overnight so we were able to spend more time there and see the light show at night. As above, on a ships tour you wont have time to see things in depth. We didn't go on any of teh ship tours we just spent our first morning there leisurely at the Art museum near the ship dock and didn't bust a gut to get around. The open top double deckers are good, you can buy a day ticket and get on and off as you please and they have people pointing out landmarks and history.
    Obvious things to do are;
    Go up the peak and take the furnicular railway down (or I suppose go up instead!)
    Stanley Area on the southern side of the island (was a sort of beach resort area in British days and has a famous market, some temples and other landmarks)

    My overwhelming impression of Taipei was the soldiers drilling _everywhere_ you go. But then, it sends a message to the Chinese.

    Regards
    SWK

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