For those who lack reading material, are suffering from Panda withdrawal, or have insomnia, I've caught up on our reports through our landing back in Hong Kong. I'll just paste them together below:

Shanghai

Our time in Shanghai is a bit of a blur. We did a lot of shopping for pearls the first day. I bought Gail a very nice pearl necklace of sort of large “peachy-colored” freshwater pearls, which did resemble South Sea pearls in that they were very round. Many others in our group bought pearls also. In the evening, we went to the Chinese Acrobatic Show, and it was very good.

The second day was a more tourist-attraction oriented day, which we undertook with Mitch and Bert, our J-G dinner companions. We walked along the Bund (sort of a riverwalk) near where J-G was located. There are many large and beautiful European style buildings from the late 1800s along this riverside boulevard. We took a Disneyland-like ride in a tunnel vehicle that went under the Huangpu River, from old Shanghai to the newer Pudong area. From there we went to the 1,500-foot Oriental Pearl TV Tower. We took two sets of elevators to the observation deck of the Tower, which was pretty spectacular. It is the tower often shown in pictures of Shanghai, with two huge spheres along its vertical rise. Somehow I managed to lose my prescription sunglasses during our time in the Tower. When I realized this, we were almost out of the Tower complex. I decided to head back and look for a lost and found. Eventually, I found someone to ask and they called Security. Much to my great surprise and relief, I was told that they had found some sunglasses, and they proceeded to take me to the security lines where we entered the tower. Sure enough, there were my glasses. How lucky is that!

Next we headed by taxi for the Maglev train station, which was some distance from the tower. This high-speed train runs to the Shanghai International airport. The trip takes about 8 minutes, and the train reaches a speed of 431 km. per hour (almost 260 mph). It is pretty amazing technology. On the train, there is an electronic readout where the speed is continuously displayed. It only maintains top speed for a couple of minutes before it must begin decelerating for arrival at the airport. It was really neat. The train uses a magnetic technology and actually rides on a cushion of air. You don’t really realize how fast you are going. It was very comfortable.

After our roundtrip to the airport, we headed by taxi back to the ship for a late lunch. After that, we headed back out for more wandering and shopping near Yu Gardens and Old Shanghai. Since it was still the National holiday, the crowds were very dense. We watched four girls making stuffed dumplings in a shop window. They were very fast. One cut the dough,, one rolled the dough into a long snake, one flicked the right size dough piece from the rolled dough, and one pushed pork or chicken into the center of the piece. After that they fried the pieces. The line for purchasing the dumplings went on forever so we didn’t even think of sampling them.
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Xi’an and the Terracotta Warriors

As I mentioned before, we disembarked for our trip to Xi’an early October 8 so that the ship could leave Shanghai early to evade Typhoon Krosa. We went to the Regent Hotel in Shanghai for breakfast and it was quite good. Before we left the hotel, I stopped at the Hotel Boutique, and a piece of jade caught my eye. It’s off white, but with a light on it, it takes on a pink glow. I think it is supposed to be a carved flower (Gail think it also looks like a wave). I didn’t have any time at all to bargain (and I’m not sure whether they would in the store). I thought I was getting an extremely good price, but who knows. It’s very heavy.

From the Regent, we were transported to the Shanghai airport for our flight to Xi’an. There were about 100 of us on this excursion. We boarded the plane on time and took off for the 2 hour flight. Lunch was on the plane and not great, though I ate some of both mine and Gail’s. (We had also made some sandwiches at the hotel during breakfast just in case.)

We arrived in Xi’an a couple of hours after takeoff and, as expected, it was very cool—probably in the 60s. Then we proceeded directly to the Terracotta Warriors (sometimes called the Eighth Wonder of the World). I don’t know what exactly I expected, but they were housed in a very modern museum complex (built around them to protect them from the weather and over eager tourists). There are more than 7,000 life-size warriors and horsemen that were created by the Great Emperor Qin Shi Huang, first emperor of a united Chinese people, for his tomb after he ascended the throne in the in 384 B.C. Apparently, prior to this, live persons (soldiers, servants, and concubines) were buried in such tombs to serve their master after death. There is still much excavation going on at the site and one sees warriors and horses in various states of reconstruction. It was like a big jigsaw puzzle. We spent almost 2½ hours at the museum complex, and it was well worth it. There are three pits where these warriors were found. The largest has the army, the second has the cavalry and the third has the military headquarters.

Then we were transported to the Sofitel Hotel in Xi’an. I had never realized that Xi’an is one of the largest cities in China—I think third largest—with a population of 8 million. The hotel was very nice. After check-in, we had about an hour to change to go to the Tang Dynasty Theater for a dinner show at 8:30 PM. Many people were just too tired, and they decided to eat at the hotel. We were glad we went to the show. Dinner was better than we expected, and the show was very entertaining. Musicians and dancers performed several major “acts.” We were pretty exhausted by the time we returned to the hotel.

The next morning was cold and rainy. We stopped by the Xi’an City Wall and walked around it and there was a very nice shop there. They had some incredible carved ivory among many other things, but sanity prevailed. Prices were also incredibly high. Then we went to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, which was okay. However, the weather was fairly miserable, so we were glad to leave for the airport for our flight to Guilin. This time, we all had lunch at the airport, which wasn’t great, but a lot better than the airplane food. At about 1:30 PM, we boarded the plane for our 2-hour flight to Guilin.

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Guilin and the Li River

We arrived at Guilin at about 3:30 PM. The weather was considerably warmer than Xi’an—probably in the 80s, with partly cloudy skies. It took about an hour to get to the Sheraton Hotel, where we checked in. Nothing more was planned for the day, so we caught our breath and wandered around the hotel after getting our bags in the room. Each hotel was less fancy (and nice) than the previous one. The Regent in Beijing was magnificent. The Regent in Shanghai (where we only at breakfast) looked almost as nice. The Sofitel in Xi’an was not bad. The Sheraton needed work.

We had what was billed as a “Western Buffet” for dinner, and it wasn’t all that Western (which was okay), but not very good either. Afterward, because it was a beautiful night, several of us walked to a nearby lake where there are two impressive pagodas in the middle of the lake, each 130 feet high and built in an antique style. They are lit beautifully at night. Then we walked to a pedestrian shopping area and just window-shopped. We saw a lot of young people. In many ways, it reminded one of being at a Western shopping mall.

We then walked back to the hotel and “crashed.” After another buffet hotel breakfast, we headed to the embarkation point for our Li River cruise at Zhu Jiang. This area is what is often pictured on Chinese scrolls and other pictures and painting with karst formations jutting vertical limestone outcrops rising out of the earth. It is unlike anything we’ve seen elsewhere. The cruise was scheduled for about 4½ hours and included a luncheon. Our excursion had arranged boxed lunches from the hotel. The cruise itself, was gorgeous. One just meanders with dozens of other boats down the river. One noteworthy item is that the River is extremely shallow this time of year and you can easily see the bottom. Not only that, but the boat often scraped the bottom, and at least once we were sort of stuck, and had to all move to the front of the boat to become unstuck. The shallowness also kept us from going as fast as scheduled, so by the end of the cruise, we were running somewhat late for our 5;30 PM flight to Hong Kong. It was a wonderful morning and afternoon. Words don’t do it justice.

Our flight to Hong Kong was uneventful, though a little late, so we didn’t arrive back at the ship until about 8:45 PM. I had made reservations at the French restaurant on the ship, but they were given away, which was fine, as we decided to all drop our overnight luggage at our cabins and head straight for the main dining room so we could have dinner together before most of our friends disembarked the ship the next morning. We were glad we didn’t have to pack.

Will write up Hong Kong later. Right now I'm getting ready to go to a cooking demonstration by Guest Chef Stephen Lewandowski of New York's Tribeca Grill and Vietnamese restaurant Mai House. This segment has a Food and Wine focus. Gail is up in the Observation Lounge (her favorite place on the Mariner) reading.

Boy do we miss the LCT/Panda gang.

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Eugene and Gail

Thanks so much, Eugene and Gail! Loved hearing all the details and looking forward to your further adventures.


??please! When were the warriors first unearthed and did travelling exhibits? I think I remember seeing an exhibit of same in Seattle sometime in the 1980s and according to local friends wasn't that popular. I may be having CRS (you'll know when it hits you-maybe!) I did try to google but lost patience!

The warriors were discovered by some farmer digging a well in 1974. I think you my be correct and they went on exhibit, but we didn't hear about that.

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Eugene

Nice summary!

Masaki

There were four or six of the warriors exhibited quite a few years ago at the Vancouver Exhibition. That would be in the 1980's?