Phil's China Viking Yangyze River Cruise - Blog 1

Following a long queue at gate 3 Heathrow to board our British Airways flight to Shanghai, I started to wonder how long it would take to board the new superliners... Hmm

Anyway after an univentful flight which was severely lacking in a regular drinks service and smiles from the cabin crew, my first sight of China was a multitude of high rise apartments as far as the eye could see (from my aircraft seat!).

I still had 3 forms to complete for imigration, but what a contrast to arriving in America. Listen USA - this is how to treat your visitors. The signs above the booths said "Welcome, we will look after you". Everyone smiled and was quite charming.

The journey to the hotel from the airport is approx 1 hour.

Day 2

On the road at 8.30 am for our Viking tour of East Shanghai. Our Viking tour guide provided 2 bottles of drinking water for each of us - a nice touch. First stop is a Chinese garden of Peace and Comfort.

These gardens were part of peoples residences during the Ching Dynasty. Following the tour of the water gardens we stumbled across the international oasis of "Starbucks" coffee!

A quick pitstop at the side of the Huang Pu river which is a tributary of the Yangtze, for photos of Shanghai's skyline.

Fantastic views but a little spoiled by the "Hello People". These are what the locals call street traders..! (there will no doubt be future refrences to these people). They stop you every minute to try and sell you something. Everything costs $1 from rolex to postcards.

Now its off for a local lunch.

There are 34 different provinces in China and all have different styles of cooking. In England the most popular is Cantonese. Apparently Northern Chinese eat more noodles and Southern Chinese are known as the Rice People - no prizes for guessing why! We are in Shanghai at the moment which is in the south and here food is typically cooked with chilli's and vinegar. We are going for Shanghai Dim Sum.. Here goes!

The restaurant is above a Chinese embroidery gallery which is a traditional handicraft of China. This embroidery is made by women and is also known as "woman's needlework". These skills have been employed since the Han Dynesty.

Well lunch was an experience - on the whole it was fine and the Chinese are charming, but one of the courses looked like a bush tucker trial - "Help! I'm a travel agent get me out of here!"

all suggestions welcomed...

I love our Chinese guides interpretation of our language; now lunch has finished, we have been told to "enjoy some happy time before meeting outside in 10 minutes, avoiding the Hello People before getting on the Bonnie Bus!" Bonnie by the way is our Chinese guide.

Next stop, the Shanghai Museum - founded in 1952 to introduce ancient Chinese civilization to the modern world. This is a must see whilst in Shanghai, it is truly amazing with pieces dating back to 6000 BC.

Quite a busy day in Shanghai on my Viking River cruise experience, but very well organised...time for a rest before our Chinese Acrobat show - all organised by Viking.

Tomorrow we fly to meet our ship and hopefully we can travel to the airport on the fastest train in the world..430 km per hour. Can't wait...