We arrived in this port town early this morning. This is the launch for those going to Bejing and to see the Great Wall. Since we have been here, we decided to take the shuttle bus into this port city to their Friendship Store. We had to wear sweaters and jackets because it was really cold. We were told it would get up in the 60s, but it never got higher than the 40s!
It was a mad house getting off the ship because they didn’t clear it until 9ish and all the overland tours and day tours were trying to get out. We were also told that while immigration was clearing another ship, no one could leave our ship – which was going to be around 9:30 a.m.
We got to the shuttle bus a little after 9 and were just waiting to leave when Doug realized that he had forgotten his money and credit card back in the safe in our room. We raced off the bus and Doug literally ran back to the cabin. He had less than 5 minutes. I was waiting at the gangway when they said that they were closing us down. Just then I saw his head coming around the corner. The Chinese officials did let us go - around a back way to save time, and we literally made it with less than a minute to spare. Our hearts were racing! It would have meant we would have had to wait another 45 min. or so until immigration would let us leave the ship.
It was a 25 minute bus trip into this town. It was so smoggy, you couldn’t see two blocks in front of you. Seems all we saw were poor, run down housing and smoke stacks. The Friendship stores have changed, apparently. They used to be just for the tourists. Now, while they are still government run, they are for the locals as well, and they carry everything from clothes to kitchen appliances. And no one spoke English. So, it made it difficult to find what we were looking for. We did find one picture we liked a lot. We tried to communicate that we wanted it out of the frame so we could roll it up to take it back home. That was a challenge in and of itself. Then, when they took the frame off, it was glued at the edges to what would be very thick poster board. So, the salesperson had to use a razor blade to release it from the glue joint. All in all, it worked out, but took a very long time!
We then tried to find something to eat, but ended up in places that didn’t look that promising. We found a hotel that looked nice, but since no one spoke English, we were taken to the massage floor and asked to take off our shoes. So, we knew we needed to leave that hotel!
Had lunch on the ship, took a nap, had a nice dinner in the Italian restaurant on the ship, and then went to the big screen movie – It’s Complicated. That was the evening entertainment since many passengers were off the ship. We were just glad to be in from all the smog.
I’m not including pictures because 1) you can’t see much with the smog and 2) it would mainly be just smoke stacks!
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