As I’m feeling much better today, me, Sarah is writing the blog. Alan was too busy anyway playing with photos taken today to find the time to blog. I wonder if he will have the time to comment. I’m blowing a raspberry at Sarah right now.
We awoke this morning to discover the rough weather of the past two days had gone and we were cruising, ever so slowly. As we slowly cruised we came across more and more ships and as we got closer to Shanghai, the ship traffic increased. Not surprising really. It’s the busiest shipping container port in the world.
Because of the colder weather, the Colonnade has become extremely busy of a morning as no one wants to eat outside. We ended up sharing a table with a few other people today, not our usual antisocial selves. In fact, we are anything but antisocial, although when it comes to food time, Alan needs to concentrate on how much he can put away in the short period of time without having to include conversation.
After breakfast we returned to the room to watch the ships go by and very slowly, land started to come into view.
Midday and trivia time came and today we had another good day, including me who, instead of giving Alan the chance to veto my answers, I gave them to the group. I was able to contribute 5 answers today, including the bonus 50 point question which I got right, yay for me!!!
We started to head to the Colonnade for lunch but Dad said that it was totally packed so we went to the other only indoor dining venue, the dining room. It was almost empty and really lovely. Unfortunately our usual dinner table was being occupied so we had to sit somewhere else. However, it was close to my favourite person on this ship, Moise, our Bell Captain and server extraordinaire. I’ve told Alan that he’s going on my list and he said I have to wait until after we get off the ship. What a party pooper.
When we finished the main course Alan made the decision that we would go to the Colonnade for dessert as there he can get plenty little ones over one normal sized one in the dining room. There, we sat with an elderly US gentleman who was very entertaining. He and his wife cruise all the time, and are one of those couples who are on the entire 109 day world Seabourn cruise. He was full of funny stories.
We returned to our cabin and watched the Shanghai skyline come into view, finally docking at 3.30pm, making it approximately 8 hours to get into Shanghai from the start of the river. Definitely a slow boat to China.
We could not believe our luck, the port is right opposite the highrise of Shanghai and the view outside our cabin is spectacular, as you can see below.
At 4.15pm, we were told in a letter received the day before, we needed to do a face to face with immigration. No announcement came through so at about 4.30pm we went down to get off the ship but the queue was long and people coming back said it took a really long time and it was freezing.
We decided to wait a little while so we went to the Observation Deck so Alan could eat again (scones of course) and we then returned to the room to get a little more rugged up. I only had 1 scone this time. I didn’t want to spoil my dinner. 30 minutes after our last attempt, we walked straight off the ship, right up to an empty immigration counter, got our passports stamped and we came back onboard. It was quite chilly but, of course Alan will say it was freezing. It was ridiculously freezing outside. I don’t know how it wasn’t snowing.
We waited for night to fall and took some lovely night photos of the skyline and The Bund as we made plans to hit the streets tomorrow, bright and early.
Dinner was in the dining room again and then Alan and I went on the hunt for staff members to have their photos with Nev and Trev. They are becoming quite popular around here. Some of the staff are a bit surprised when we ask them for a photo with our boys, but most love it and are only too happy to pose. I’m not sure that Neville is too impressed with being used as a hat, though.
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