Alaska and the Far East Adventure

Our 5:30 departure from the hotel was slightly delayed by one (on this occassion, Scottish) couple, who came down late and then had to check out. With a flight time of 7:25 this made people a little anxious, but our guide assured that we would have no traffic trouble and all would be well. He himself was bemoaning the fact that he had to get up at 4:30 to cycle the 6 miles to work and yet his young colleagues at the hotel couldn’t be sure what time the coach needed to get there.

Anyway, all was well and we arrived at Beijing Airport with enough time to check in. Although the airport is modern, there was an apparent lack of organisation and having identified our check-in counters, with just over an hour to take off there didn’t seem to be any prospect of the long line getting processed in time. Predictably the couple who had delayed at the hotel, although apparently able bodied, demanded a wheelchair and got pushed to the front of the queue!

As we waited we watched to see what happened to the mainy travleelers who seemed to have more than the one 23kg bag per person that is now all that BA allows you in economy, but othe than one Chinese mother and daughter who were forced to unpack on e case and stuff a large amount into their hand luggage, everyone seem to be allowed to take what they liked. When we finally got to the counter, the very young Chinese BA desk clerk said that we coldn’t have seats together on the flight. When I protested I was told that ‘We encourage people to check-in on line’. I explained that this wasn’t possible when you’re travelling and when the follow up was “You could ask the people next to you on the plane”, I had a flashback to United Airlines in 1993 who (after many broken promises had said the exact same thing), I had to explain that we were trying BA against our better judgement and they weren’t impressing me so far. Our seats were changed. Another couple from the ship having the same experience at an adjacent desk actually got upgraded! They did choose to insult the country rather than the airline though. Not a tactic I was likely to risk!

Soon we on our way home and to be fair, the flight was fine - except for the exceedingly poor games offered on the ‘Entertainment’ system which appeared to be developed by someone as a GCSE project and a very limited budget! Having left at breakfast time, with the benefit of the time difference we were home by mid-afternoon which seemed very civilised.

So that completes our journey and although I still have big reservations about cruising it’s certainly a great way of getting a taste of a series of differing and exotic ports while only having to unpack once and it’s very good to have experience a little of China, Japan and Russia first hand. We hope to see more of the first two in the future.

Before that there is ‘unfinished business’ for Jonathan and I with the legacy of our departure from allpay earlier this year. The Employment Tribunal is currently scheduled for January 2008 and when the time comes, I’ll be happy to give you the inside story.

Sapphire Princess arrived in at Xingang on October 1. Strangely Xingang doesn’t actually seem to exist - its just the name of a pier in Tianjin. Not only was it a new month, and our voyage ended but the weather had changed too - it was emptying down with rain. Looking down from our balcony onto the dockside, Jonathan’s worst suspicion were confirmed - all the luggage was being unloaded onto the dockside in the rain!

Once clearance was given and the first group was called to disembark about 30 minutes behind schedule, things moved rapidly, soon we were heading down the stairs to the gangway for the last time. Much confusion abounded with lifts opening and disgorging later groups into the path or earlier ones (and generating the now familiar grumbles) and people randomingly joining in the process on the off chance that they had missed their call and soon we were on the dockside.

About 1,900 passengers disembarked with us and this meant that there was a very long line of coaches parked on the dockside (around 40 in my estimation). Our allotted coach (Purple 1) was somewhere near the far end. Fortunately it filled quite fast and save for a scary moment when a disabled lady had to be pushed and pulled up the steep steps, we were soon on our way to Beijing. After a detour so the somewhat snug backtreets of Tianjin it became clear that although China has good new roads and as in Japan, drivers that wear white gloves, no pays any attention to the rules of the road. Despite this we arrived our hotel in Beijing without major mishap.

Our first sight of Beijing showed that is it now, by and large a very modern city with a huge amount of construction work going on. Our guide amused us greatly by telling us about himself and his family. As a second child born under the ‘one child’ policy he shouldn’t have existed at all and his father had had to bribe officials to register his birth. He explained that in traditionally a father must provide a home for his son before he can get married and that girls don’t want to marry guys who don’t have an apartment but property prices in Beijing make it impossible for fathers to provide for their sons, so young men are now taking out mortgages but this worries the older generation who don’t like the idea of their sons and son-in-law being in debt. He also bemoaned the fact that as his sister and cousins had all gone to the best universities, he occupied the position in the family of the ‘good-looking one’. He was sad that he had now lost this position to his cousins children who were half Hungarian and therefore, being mixed race, exceptionally good looking.

After a quick lunch at the hotel, we changed coaches for our afternoon tour to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. This turned out to be more of an adventure than we bargained for. We had know for sometime that we were arriving in Beijing on their National Day - tha anniversary of Mao’s proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and that therefore as the number 1 tourist attraction, the forbidden city was going to be very busy. Now this seemed like a bit of challenge and I was a little surprised when the afforementione disabled lady and her daughter one again boarded the coach. In addition 2 other of the passengers announced that they would be needing wheelchairs and pushers if there was a lot of walking. Obviously the guides were used to satisfying demanding Amercians and after a quick phome call arranged for charis and pusher at $40 per person. After quibbling over the price, the passengers agreed and our small party of 20 and guide set off about an hour late.

 There is no way to describe the sea of humanity that throngs the Forbidden City on October 1, but it was reputedly 1 million people. Virtually all of them were Chinese. Except us - a party of 20 westerners. If this wasn’t enough as we made our slow progress to the North gate of the city, out of this sea of people came 2 guys with wheelchairs. So now were a party of 20 westerners, mostly fat, with 3 wheelchairs -  and 2 walking sticks. We were quite a sight!

Now it’s perfectly acceptable if you’re disabled through age, or anything else to expect attractions in America or Europe to be accessible, but a 600 year old, fortified palace in China? The palace itself is huge, on an almost unimaginable scale from the height and thickness of it huge red walls to the innumerable incense burners, layer upon layer around the temples. Even the cobbles are 14 layers thck - to prevent anyone tunnelling in from underneath. Even the huge crowd (disapating a little in late afternoon) was absorbed in its vastness.  All the structures seem complete and many have been, or are in the process of being completely refurbished in time for next year’s Olympics and these are completely stunning. Every gate way was protected by a huge ramp and the door construction meant that every threshold was 12 inches/30 cms high so the wheelchair pushers certainly earned their money. Wheelchair-bound old lady and her daughter needed considerable help from other members of the group. Despite the crowds it was a stunning experience - one that we’d like to repeat on a less busy day!

By the time we left the City, I was too exhausted to show any interest in the gift shop and we then set of to meet our coach. Our young guide ‘Hannah’ whose pace (presumably set to get the schedule complete in the planned time) didn’t allow much loitering, took the trouble to check with the police the best way of getting our party with it’s high proportion of ambulatory-challenged individuals back to  coach in the huge crowd. We then set off against the flow of people towards the road where coaches were parked. Amongst the sea of people were numerous people selling ‘Rolexes’, postcards and other souvenirs who obvioulsy saw our party as likely customers. However if you were firm about saying ‘no thank you’ they didn’t bother you further. After a short walk we turned left and crossed the road to our coach. We were just pulling away when a smal voice, from a smal man at the back of the coach piped up ‘I haven’t seen my wife since we crossed the road’ and then another ‘and I haven’t seen my husband’. Hannah then took a head count and ascertained, we were, in fact, 4 short!

So now we’ve lost 4 people in Beijing. 2 with sticks. On National day. Amidst 1 million Chinese. At least someone is bound to spot them. After some phome calls and searching and with light fading fast Hannah agrees to go back and search again while sending the driver and us on a drive through Tiananmen Square.

Although it was disappointing not to be able to get out of the coach and look around, it was very pretty all lit and decorated for the holidays. Before we got back to the holiday the driver took a call and passed it to the front seat passenger - Hannah had found the missing people and all 5 of them were already back at the hotel.

Next day saw an early start for our trip to the Great Wall and Summer Palace. This part of the Great Wall (at Juyongguan) is just 50k north of Beijing. Our drive through Beijing reinforced out impression of a city growing and ‘modernising’ ar a phenomononal rate. We passed the site of next year’s Olympics which is nearly complete. The stadium looks amazing - like an emormous loosly weaved basket! There are various other halls and stadiums surrounding it - it appears that the majority of sports will take place on one site. The Olympic Village is just across the road and the athletes will be able to walk to the venues, reducing the need for transport. In addition the citizens will all get a holiday from work during the games to minimize traffic for spectators. We experienced the effect of this for ourselves, as were we there during the Chinese National Holiday so the roads were quiet.

 The Village has 3 sections - flats that will be for sale when the Olympics are over - Section A looked pretty nice but B was swisher and C the best of all. All rooms are section C are oversized with oversized beds. All the Basketball players will be accomodated here.

As always, we arrived at the Great Wall in brilliant sunshine. This section of the Great Wall has a large circular section forming a fort on one side of the valley. I great view is visible from the top, but because of this and the national holiday that section was very crowded, so we gave it a miss and tacked the other side instead. This section although in good condition was unbelievable steep and irregular. The wall is built along the contours of the hill so that at no point could enemies overlook and attack the builders from above, so our short walk had a great deal of climbing up and down stairs. The stairs themselves are also irregular  with steps ranging from a few inches to what seemed like a couple of feet! Our quide told us thay no one is sure of the reason, but it might be that parts of the wall were built by prisoners and their guards didn’t always bother to do quality control checks. He warned the Americans that this is still a problem “We can make things cheap, if you want, but if you want quality you have to send someone to check - that’s where Walmart went wrong.”

Our travelling companion had given us another amusing moment after getting off the coach, our guide disappeared for a few minutes, much to the consternation of the Americans who were doubtful of their ability to go to the toilet on their own!

Next we headed off for some lunch at a restaurant which also housed a ‘Friendship Store’ - a store purely for foreigners. The lunch started badly for me as there were already cold h’or d’eouvres all ready sitting on the tables one of which looked like a folded slice of Spam! It did improve considerably when they started bring, dish after dish of rice, noodles, vegetable and meat dishes. By the time the last dish, a strange whole fish which looked and tasted as if it had been baked in sugar arrived, I even tried that. I couldn’t actually eat it though.  After lunch there was time to purchase souvenirs - only small and light ones in our case.

Next it was back on the coach for the final time, heading for the Summer Palace just outside Beijing. Again, as this was the National holiday the place was packed  which detracted a  litte from the scale and beauty of the place, but it was still very impressive. We crossed the lake on a ‘dragon  boat’, saw the marble boat and strolled the ‘long corridor’. Strangley it reminded me very much of Epcot at DisneyWorld - something to do with the scale of the lake the width of the walkway around it and maybe the throngs of people - but there were about 4 times as may per square foot than I’ve ever seen at Epcot. During the visit our party made quite hit with a party of young girl pedlars selliing postcards and ‘Lolexes’ and ultimately followed us back to coach decreasing the watch price from $20 to $1 as be boarded! The cutest or saddest thing was one had a tiny child of about 2 with her who was holding out packs of post cards too.

Finally as dusk fell on our travels we headed back to our hotel to pack for our early morning trip to the airport.

Saturday, September 29 was our last sea day. Sea days are normally fairly relaxing, but with a lot to fit in before our last two ports there was plenty to do. First of all in the morning I wanted to attend the ‘Culinary Demonstration and Gallery Tour’ and then we both wanted to see the Port Information and the ‘Scholarship at Sea’ – Port Personalities (Deng Xiao Peng) lectures which took us well past lunch time. Then, after lunch there was to be an interview with the captain. I never actually got to the galley as bay the time the culinary demonstration ended, the audience for the first lecture was arriving so I stayed put. The gap between the 2^nd lecture and the Captain’s interview was a bare 25 minutes and, by now, it was well past lunchtime so we decided to make a quick dash from the theatre (Deck 7) to the Pizza counter on Deck 14. Sadly this led us to witness the worst bout of ‘lift rage’ to date. A small group of us piled in to the lift went up a few floors, the doors opened and few more people attempted to get in. I think I may have mentioned that some of the American passengers aren’t comfortable with the idea of making room for others, so despite the fact there was plenty of room they just stood their ground. Unfortunately the new boarders were American too so they squeezed in anyway. Too things will stop the lift going any further; if it’s overloaded the alarm buzzes, if someone is too near the door, the doors don’t shut. Guess what happened. At which point a ‘lady’ in the back started shouting ‘there are too many people’. No reaction. So then she gets more direct and starts screaming “Get out, get out” at which point large gentleman in the doorway replies “You get out”. I wondered if I should point out that if someone moved in to the person-sized space in front of me no-one need get out and we can all get some lunch but the large man finally gives up and steps out and we ascend, tut-tutting all the way to Deck 14. The afternoon was occupied by laundry and various administrative tasks which involved trying to stand in 3 separate queues simultaneously, which was all completed just in time to get ready for the Captain’s Farewell Dinner. Sunday Morning started with our arrival in Dalian, China. As in Vladivostok, we had elected to do a walking tour. Also as in Russia the tour was conducted by university students. Dalian is a startlingly vibrant city. Although there are some run down buildings and areas (including the dockside) the number of elegant, high-rise buildings that have been built in the downtown in recent years plus the European style older buildings make Dalian a very attractive city. Our students, known as Michael, Serena, Alexandra and Jackie with 4 year English majors at the local university and spoke guided and entertained us with jokes and singing as well as escorted us the length of one of Dalian’s main road from on of it’ squares to another. Despite its modernity there is one thing that marks Dalian out as Chinese. They have vehicles, good roads and traffic signals, but no one takes a blind bit of notice of any of them. If you need to cross a road you just do it (unlike in Japan where they obediently wait until the walk signal shows before starting to cross, even when there is no traffic). The traffic won’t stop unless you walk in front of it. After our walk we adjourned to the University café for soft drinks and then it was on to the ‘Kite-Flying’ part of the day. The kites were handed out on the bus and Michael directed us to assemble them (which quickly proved to be a bad idea, a bit like putting on your life jacket before leaving the aircraft) then we drove to a park on a hill overlooking the city and tried our luck. I might not have got mi kite in the air first but I was the first to get it right to the end of its string. Then I showed Jonathan how to do it and he was equally successful.It was a really good day and everyone involved really enjoyed it. At our beverage break we had chatted with another British couple and they had a story to cap our left-rage episode. Apparently last year while on a World cruise, two American passengers got into a fight over a machine in the launderette and had to be put ashore on Pago-Pago! Well that’s all for the moment as we disembark in the morning to transfer to Beijing. I may post more from there, but if it’s not possible – I’ll see you all when we get home. 

Friday heralded the arrival of summer on the Sapphire Princess. Not only did we arrive in Kagoshima to bright sunshine and a temperature of 80°F but the crew had all changed into their tropical uniforms. This means the deck crew are in rather glamorous ‘whites’ while the buffet waiters are in khaki shorts and patterned short-sleeved shirts. This seemed very strange as their normal uniform is a military style white jacket with epaulettes. The cruise ship terminal in Kagoshima is brand new and the Sapphire Princess was the first ship to dock there, so everything was absolutely pristine, with ‘Welcome to Kagoshima’ picked out in flowers on the dockside. Our planned excursion for the day was ‘Satsuma Peninsula, Chiran & Ibusuki’, but before we boarded the bus we came to notice once again that can only be regarded as the ‘miracle of the coach numbers’. As I told you last time the travellers in the ‘customer profile’ for this particular holiday tend to be ‘senior’ Americans. Now quite a few of them have trouble getting around. We had already learned that it was best not to get to the meeting point too early, otherwise you end up with the most competitive element. You also have to bear in mind that most of these people have cruised many, many times before and have had plenty of time to work on their tactics. Well they may hobble into the meeting place but as soon as their bus number is called (or possibly the previous one!) they are off, like greyhounds out of a trap, in order to get the best seats on the coaches. Happily leaving them to it worked a treat and one ended up near the back of the coach with the other more laid back (and younger!) members of the party.Our Japanese guide, Hiroko, had obviously experienced some of this pushing and shoving herself as in her introductory talk she asked people not to rush as on the previous day, two senior members of her party had fallen down, and taken her with them!Kagoshima is on the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, Kyushu and formally known as Satsuma and is renowned for its small oranges (and enormous radishes!) and our first stop was at Chiran where there is a Samurai village which is basically a 17^th century housing estate, where some of the gardens are now open to the public. The gardens are quite small but beautiful arrangements of rocks and green plants although apparently they do have some colour when trees blossom in the spring. They make great use of natural elements and mimic mountains and rivers, even ‘borrowing’ distance features such as a volcano from the background. It was at Chiran that we sampled Green Tea, something I have studiously avoided the fashion for at home, but I actually found it quite pleasant – tasting like a cross between tea and vegetable stock!Our next stop was at a hotel in Ibusuki which is a spa town where you can take hot sand baths for ‘Western Style’ lunch which was a whole lot better than the similar one in Sapporo although once again featured ‘cream of corn soup’ but this was more palatable warm than cold. The steak and chips was good although served in a Japanese size and style (i.e. small steaks, a tiny floret of broccoli, half a stuffed cherry tomato and a neat pile of 5 fries!) this was perfectly adequate for lunch. We were spared dessert which was good as it had been crème caramel and tinned fruit cocktail in Sapporo. From what I see the Japanese don’t use a lot of sugar which is another reason they stay slim and healthy. After lunch we explored the beautiful hotel gardens, which overlooked the sea, while others hit the hotel shop. Once again I noticed that the hotel shop, alongside all the usual touristy things, sold loose vegetables! I couldn’t think of a reason for this.From there were moved on to ‘Nagasakibana’ the Japanese seaside where we again walked, looked at the sea and viewed Mt Kimon aka ‘Satsuma Fuji’ as it is a symmetrical conical volcano in the style of Mt Fuji. Our stop at Lake Ikeda (home of Issy, Japan’s answer to Nessy) provided for us a very humorous moment. The coaches stopped in a car pack separated from the coast by a road, a straightforward, two-way highway. Hiroko warned us that we should not cross it as it was ‘very dangerous’. However having observed that the traffic was almost non-existent, we decided that this warning was only intended for those who drive on the opposite side of the road to the Japanese and ourselves and wouldn’t look the right way. Anyway a couple of daring photographers crossed before us so we thought we would take the risk. We made all the right observations, crossed took photographs and returned to the kerb. We made all the observations again but, as we stepped into the road, 3 of the coach drivers stepped into the road in unison halted the imaginary traffic and stayed there until we were safely on the other side. They really don’t leave anything to chance in Japan!Our final stop was at the Satsuma Pottery shop. Although this was a typical tourist opportunity-to-buy stop, it did seem to be a genuine local product with a wide variety of items with a wide variation in prices depending on whether or not things were hand decorated. However labelling and display was a bit inconsistent and my first choice turned out to be 10 times the price of similar items on the same shelf but fortunately I did query this before purchasing. It’s very difficult to say ‘Is this the right price, or is the an extra zero on the end? When you don’t speak each others’ language, especially when the only question they are expecting is “How much is the total in dollars?”  Having completed our purchases we all climbed back on the bus for the last time. In the unique Japanese way, the entire staff lined up behind a banner with pictures of themselves on it, thanking us for our custom and bowed and waved us away. For the last leg of our journey Hiroko entertained us with Bingo, played for prizes of green tea! On arrival back at the ship we were entertained by Japanese ‘Taiko’ drummers as sailed in to the sunset. They also fired fireworks at us as we left harbour.Our second day in Japan reinforced our impression of a very efficient and friendly country, which we would like to visit again, one day.

Thursday morning saw an early start in Pusan, Korea or Busan as it’s called locally.

Pusan is the 3^rd largest port city in the world and the port is huge, with miles and miles of containers. The city is generally very modern with hundreds of high rise apartment blocks (all helpfully numbered on the outside with their address).

The ships schedule demanded a very early meet for our excursion -at 6:45!

We were met on shore by a fleet of buses, mostly ‘Kia Grandbird Super Premiums’. These took us off to the Beomeosa Buddhist temple about an hour away from the port. This was a fascinating place to visit and would have been more so had our coach had a good guide. However on this occasion we were unlucky as ‘Mr Chung’ seemed to have quite limited English. He did however read out the complete program for the second half of our excursion en route!

After a short time at the temple, we were re-boarded the bus for the Pusan Cultural Centre which we reached at 10 o’clock. This would have been fine but it turned out the doors weren’t due to open until 10:30 with the performance at 11:00 so people did feel that such an either the early start was unnecessary or we could have had more time at the temple. However the weather was beautiful so we made the most of the sunshine.

The performance was also well worth waiting for with instrumental performances and dancing. The drummers were amazing, but the frantic ‘small gong’ bashing may have been partly responsible for my subsequent headache!

We returned to the ship in time for lunch and the rest of my day was pretty much written off with a bad headache, but Jonathan tells me that the Koreans gave us a good send off.

On Wednesday we had watched a presentation by the Korean Tourist Authority which included their ‘Dynamic Pusan’ and ‘Sparkling Korea’ campaigns. These certainly embodied what appears to be the Korean characteristic of optimism. Everything is shiny and new on the surface but not quite as well organised or efficient as the Japanese. If the grinding of the gears on our bus was anything to go by, this is also true of the ‘Kia Grandbird’ too.

Tuesday saw our arrival in Vladivostok in time for breakfast. Of all the ports we have visited so far this proved the most bureaucratic. There was some fairly late change to the immigration procedures. Originally all passports were collected during our crossing from Alaska and the intention had been that the relevant authorities for the second half of our trip would come aboard, check and stamp as necessary and return them to the custody of the ship. However this was changed in Vladivostok as the Russians insisted passports be carried at all times. They all put some heavily made up female military personal on board to check photos and stamps both entering and exiting the ship. I’m not sure whether they though some of the passengers were planning to stay in Russia illegally or they were afraid some of the citizens might abscond, but it was a bit of nightmare for the ship trying to recollect everyone’ passports again when they came back on board.

The view from the ship indicated that there had been at least some development in Vladivostok since 1992 as we were docked directly in front of a new railway station. We had elected to take a walking tour of the city and after disembarking and were met by our young guide Olga and her assistant Tanya. Of course one of our American companions thought it appropriate to open conversation with Olga by pointing out that she shared her name with the eldest daughter of the last Tsar and that the whole family was executed by the Bolsheviks. Then she started interrogating her about whether she was allowed to vote now and did she think her vote made any difference. I was actually within spitting distance of telling her to back off but fortunately, her husband beat me too it! Olga’s English was very good and she made an adequate job of showing us around the town but traffic noise and talking billboards sometime made it impossible to hear her. She did tell us that although she remembers little of the Soviet period that some of the older citizens still have a Soviet mindset and that some things did work better in the Soviet period but on the whole she felt that democracy was a good thing. Her ‘assistant’ Tanya seemed to have a role to make sure that no one wandered off the prescribed route – although this was probably for our own safety, as we were allowed to go back in without any guides in the afternoon, it seemed a little sinister.

During our afternoon walkabout we visited the department store ‘GUM’ which was a revelation as it was a multi-story, galleria type shopping mall full of expensive looking clothes, furs, shoes, handbags etc, topped with a swanky-looking tea room. It was completely out of keeping with almost everything else we had seen in the city.

Our overall impression of the city was very much somewhere struggling to overcome the legacy of its Soviet past. The port is ringed with cranes, but it appears to have little capacity for modern container freight. There are also a large number of ships of various types many of which appear to be rusting away, but on closer inspection were manned and obviously still in use. Some of the roads are choked with traffic – bizarrely they drive on the right but import most vehicles from Japan, so the cars are also right-hand drive. Other side streets are less busy and Olga’s example seemed to indicate that it’s perfectly acceptable just to wander across streets and weave in and out of traffic as a pedestrian. Both pedestrians and vehicles had to take care though as enormous holes in the road are dug without any sort of warning signs or barriers to protect them, or indeed, the poor person working in the hole! Pavements are very uneven and kerbs huge; elegant old buildings are coated in black grime, possibly from the heavy traffic, nearby factories, or a century of neglect. Maybe all three. Everywhere you go there are people with makeshift little stalls selling various bits and pieces. Drinking in the street, broken glass and piles of litter abound. At the sports harbour there was evidence of people sleeping rough. How on earth they will survive a Siberian winter? The young people, whilst fashion conscious, obviously don’t have access to Western brands while cloths shops stock garments in fabrics that haven’t been seen in the west for 30 or 40 years, such as crushed velvet coats.

Our guide, Olga had spent some time in England this summer and liked it very much. She said the TV was much better than the US TV they get there. When I asked her where she went, she answered ‘Croydon’, which wasn’t the answer I was expecting!

The most surprising thing about Vladivostok was that docked alongside 4 Russian destroyers was the USS Lasson and we saw a large number of US sailors in port. This probably accounted for the large number of attractive, long-legged mini-skirted Russian ladies hanging around the docks! It also made some of the American members of our group very excited. One lady stopped and asked them (the sailors) ‘Where are you from?’ and then, presumably not having found any Russians to distribute her bounty too, started handing out Princess after dinner mints to them. They looked a little surprised!

That evening large numbers of locals came down to the docks to gaze at the Sapphire Princess and wave us off. Several groups made attempts to pass the security guard on the gate and were turned back. At one point 4 little boys, about 10 years old appeared near the fence, their clothes were dirty and torn and they were wearing coats several sizes to large. They were sent on their way by a soldier. I couldn’t help wondering were they were going to be sleeping at night.

Predictably, we were for the first time, late leaving port as the Russians had to check all passports before we were allowed to leave. As our captain said ‘It is ze Russian way’.

Vladivostok was an experience but it seems, to me an overwhelming sad place. I hope one day it achieves its dreams.

As hoped weather and sea conditions continued to improved en route to Japan and we docked at Muroran on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido on Sunday morning.

After 5 seas days, everyone was keen to get on shore and with a limited number of excursions the logistics of getting everyone organized in the right groups was bound to include some standing in line. However, this was done quite efficiently and our group heading for ‘Sapporo and Historic Village’ turned out to be 400 strong and needed 10 coaches to convey us the 70 miles to Sapporo.

Our Japanese guide, Eriko proved to be very efficient keeping us busy throughout on both legs of the journey. She had original been involved in production of the traditional Japanese Kabuki theatre and on visiting the USA and finding Japanese-Americans moved to tears by art that she decided to become a cultural ambassador. Not only did she point out everything we passed in the Japanese countryside (including sheep and cows) but introduced the Japanese pictograph language, played music, distributed sweets and even sang to us. I don’t think anyone got a chance to doze on our coach!

Obviously it’s not possible to claim to know or understand a culture through a brief, escorted visit to one city but I think we certainly got an essence of the Japanese people and in very many ways they are exactly as you might imagine, but possible more so – efficient, polite, shy but friendly and about as different from our transatlantic cousins as you can imagine.

The Hokkaido countryside was reminiscent of the U.K. in some ways. Firstly the Japanese drive on the same side of the road as the British. Hokkaido has only been settled in the last 130 years so is less populated than the rest of Japan and therefore the roads are not huge. The climate is temperate and all this seems to combine to give you a similar perspective of the landscape. However the skyline is broken up by volcanoes and there are far more trees than at home. In urban areas the streets and building layouts reminded me more of North America both in proportions and colours but the rooflines are different and of course there a very few readable signs and it did make me aware how dependent we are on reading signs to understand our surroundings.

The people themselves seemed unfailingly polite which provides a bit of a contrast with some of the American cruise passengers. Eriko explained that getting a bus drivers licence is very hard and that all bus drivers wear white gloves and hats but we soon discovered that this glove wearing custom also extends to lift operators and other uniformed workers.

Our first stop was at the ‘Historical Village of Hokkaido’ – the Japanese don’t seem to feel the need to give attractions names, just sticking to a factual description.

The village was a cross between Main Street and St Fagan’s with historical buildings arranged along a street and in several lands. We watched a traditional street performance where some dancers made various shapes out of bamboo mats and had time for a fairly quick look around the rest of the site before moving on to Sapporo. ‘Western Style’ lunch at a Sapporo hotel was a little disappointing but catering for 400 (mostly elderly and American) westerners in a limited time can’t be easy, but it was very efficient. The buses were all directed and waved into the dropping off point by several white gloved hotel employees and then we were all directed to the banquet room by further carefully positioned staff.

It was planned that all passengers from each bus of 40 should sit in groups of 8 at the 5 tables with their bus number on it but this proved a little challenging for some of the free-spirited colonials!

After lunch we were bussed the short distance back to Odori Park where we were set loose to explore.

It is very strange to be in a city where you don’t look like most people. Of course the adults generally politely don’t stare but the kids are a different matter looking at you wide-eyed with more than a degree of fear! One lady did stop and asked in halting English why she was seeing so many foreigners today and I explained that although we were from England most were Americans and that we at all came form a cruise ship at Muroran. I was delighted when she understood me, although quite why I was impressed at myself for speaking my own language, I’m not sure! The vast majority of Japanese dress very smartly – few people walk the streets in casual clothes. Virtually all women are well groomed. They are generally tiny and very slim (although getting taller and compensating for any lack of height with high heels) which made me think casually dressed, overweight westerners looked very scruffy by comparison. They must think we look a sight!

We managed to use an ATM successfully to extract a small amount of cash as credit cards aren’t universally accepted in Japan. This was quite an achievement as the machines are nothing like those in Europe of the US – even the keyboard is different with the numbers arranged in a line rather than the familiar keypad layout. Fortunately the screen was touch sensitive and I immediately hit on the idea of touching the ‘English’ button which meant I then got prompts and verbal instructions in English, which was a big help!

Next we headed for the Mitsukoshi department store which at ground floor level was very western, although possible more upmarket with many designer brand cosmetic counters. However down in the basement food hall things were distinctly Japanese. Not only were the majority of counters stocked with fish and fish products of every shape, size and kind, the staff behind the counters are obviously are vying giving their sales pitch to you from the moment you come down the escalators. Everything looked extremely fresh but having no need for fishy souvenirs, we looked around but didn’t buy.

We then strolled through the Tanuki Koji shopping arcade which was … very Japanese…with lots of shops selling a variety of things. This brought us back to Odori Park where we successfully bought 2 tickets to the viewing platform of the TV tower. This wasn’t a big achievement but as the Americans in front of us seemed to be making heavy weather of this simple transaction, I was again, quite pleased with myself. The view over Sapporo and beyond was spectacular and photos and video taken we returned to our meeting place at the tower base to meet with Eriko, our bus and the return journey to Muroran and the Sapphire Princess.

All in all it was a very interesting day. However, the intuitive amongst you might have noticed that we are not entirely enjoying the company of our American fellow travellers. Being confined with them on a coach trip for a whole day didn’t help but unfortunately a sizeable minority of them seem determined to conform to the stereotype that Americans have with the rest of the world.

We’ve always known that on the whole Americans at home are nicer than those who travel, but I’ve never worked out whether this is because they get obnoxious when they travel or only the unpleasant ones travel. To be fair, I’m generalising here, we have met some perfectly nice Americans on this ship but the ones who stick out are the rude, inconsiderate, self obsessed, ill-mannered, apparent majority.

We first noticed it one night a dinner – the elderly ‘southern gentleman’ next to us spoke to the waiter in a very curt, usually monosyllabic, manner (and also ordered for his wife!) In the theatre they plonk themselves down at the end of the row and force everyone to squeeze past them. In the lifts they make no attempt to make room for people. At the bar they again order by shouting ‘coffee’ and seem incapable of saying please or thank you to the crew. They are constantly amazed by the idea of putting the clocks back as you go round the world – despite living in a country that has several different time zones! We even heard one couple complain that they had lost a day of their lives that they were never going to get back!

Anyway our excursion companions seemed to embody all these faults in spades. Firstly a strange little woman got on the bus late and demanded that she have the (already occupied) front seat as she needed to keep her (short, fat) leg straight and extended into the aisle. The occupants of the seat were not happy about being moved with the husband initially asserting, ‘OK I’ll go to the back but she’s staying here’. Once she got her way she sat all day with her leg and foot in a perfectly normal position! At lunch she claimed that she couldn’t drink her Coke because it had ice in it and she’d been told never to have ice in foreign countries and on return to the ship she sprinted across the dock (despite her walking stick) to barge into the line for re-boarding near the front, instead of joining the end with everyone else! Across the aisle a lady with a very ‘southern accent’ appeared to not listen to a word Eriko said and asking questions that had already been explained several times. (At one point she drawled what sounded like ‘Dau yau naut have a WHITE problem?’ (after Eriko had said their fish and seaweed diet kept the Japanese healthy) which turned out to be ‘Do you not have a WEIGHT problem’. Another couple of women just behind us moaned constantly to each other across the aisle; one even complaining that she hadn’t wanted to go on this trip but it was all the tour office would give her! She also claimed that the ship’s internet connection was so bad that have spent $50 on a package she ‘only got out one email’. Then there was the woman in front who asked what time the tour was due back and when told 5:30, complained that she had to be a dinner for 6:00, despite the fact that the tour had always been listed for returning at this time. She clearly thought they would say that they would change it and get 400 people back early just for her.

On return to the ship we found a crowd of locals gathered at the dock. Eriko said that this was because only a couple of cruise ships a year dock at Muroran and that it was a big local event that was even going to be covered on TV. We shouldn’t have been surprised as even when we disembarked in the morning small crowd of local were there waving our buses off! Although it was getting dark everyone made their way out to deck (at the captain’s request) to watch a dance troop perform and then we sailed away accompanied by waving glow sticks and calling out ‘Sayonara’ and ‘Good Bye’ into the night.

It was in all a special day, unspoiled by our companions. However on our next excursion, we are going to try to suss out our travellers more carefully, before boarding the bus!

Our first evening entertainment in the Princess Theatre was an interesting experience. As mentioned previously, sea conditions were worsening and over dinner the ship had developed a small, but discernable list to starboard. The show was billed was as a ‘Salute to Broadway’ and featured a quartet of vocalists and the Princess Dancers. From curtain up it was clear that the female voices were a bit on the low side (I’m not suggesting they were transvestites!) and didn’t provide much of a contrast with their male counterparts voices. Both females had large pinned up hair dos and the one had the largest mound of curls that I had seen since the sixties! The tribute started with a large ‘Cole Porter’ section which took up a large part of the program. However they eventually moved on to ‘West Side Story’, ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Les Mis’ which I found more enjoyable. There were several quick onstage costume changes and the dancers were quite good and were obviously working under very trying circumstances, on a swaying ship but the overall impression was one of some cheesiness!During the night you could certainly tell that sea conditions weren’t improving. The ship was constantly in motion and occasionally we experienced major ’judders’ – described by the ship’s comedian as ‘like being hit by a torpedo’. It reminded me of turbulence on an aircraft, although Jonathan thought it more like travelling on a train in the UK, but of course it went on for much longer than either. Morning came eventually and the whole idea of getting out of bed was a bit scary and on looking out of our window it was clear that the sea was higher and more turbulent with lots of breaking wave. However on checking on the Sapphire channel on TV the weather the sea was officially still ‘moderate’! Once out of bed, negotiated our way round the ship was not too difficult, but we found it a changed place. All decks were closed, swimming pools emptied, bars cleared of glassware and the buffet waiters, instead of handing out napkins and cutlery were offering to carry filled plates to tables. By this time the official whether conditions were ‘Sea conditions: Very Rough’ i.e. waves of 12 – 18ft which agreed much better with what we could see out of the window. With decks out of bounds the ship seemed much more crowded but we took the opportunity to take advantage of the variety of entertainment the ship offers. In the morning we attended the second of a series of lectures about ‘Port Personalities’ on Ernest Gruening, a former Senator of Alaska which was very good. Jonathan also went to one on which was billed as ‘The Mongol Empire & Russian Penetration into Central Asia’ but turned out to be something slightly different and less well presented than the former. In the afternoon I went to see the film ‘Miss Potter’ with Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor which I enjoyed and might not have seen if the cinema had not been with walking distance. I look forward to catching up on a few more I have missed before we return home. Yesterday evening we braved our second show in the theatre, this time a stand-up comedian who was pretty good. By this time we found we were either getting used to the rough seas of the weather was improving! During the night we not only crossed the International Date line (moving from Tuesday 18 to Thursday 20 in one go!) but also put the clocks back 2 hours. The sea returned to moderate, the sun came out and the decks re-opened. We were joined at breakfast by on of the ship’s newest recruits – a DJ who had joined the ship at Whittier. He is only onboard until Japan and has replaced someone else who quit suddenly. DJing is his second job and he normally does weddings and functions. He was from Orange County, California the home of Disneyland. We had a very relaxing day attending more lectures and in the afternoon I visited the spa for a massage and facial which was very nice. Although the relaxing atmosphere was a little disturbed by the pounding of feet on the running track that runs overhead. We topped the day off by going to the onboard Trattoria ‘Sabatini’s’ which didn’t disappoint in any way. It’s much more intimate than any of the other dining venues and although ‘upscale’ the staff were all very friendly and unintimidating. The good (or bad – depending on how you look at it, I suppose!) was that although it was a 5 course menu you didn’t have to choose the antipasta or pasta courses as the brought them to you anyway. By the time we had finished the cold anti pasta (about 8 items) and the hot antipasta (2 items) we were pretty much full but after a half-hearted attempt at the salad course and a small portion of 2 types of pasta, we were unable to do justice to my plate of scallops and Jonathan’s array of 8 langoustines. We did manage small deserts though – coffee crème brulée for me and zabaglione for Jon. I also had a very nice raspberry mojito – my first of the holiday!Once again the clocks went back an hour overnight – they have now gone back 5 hours since we left Alaska with a further 2 to go before we reach Japan. This does make it easier and easier to get up in the morning. After yesterday’s improvement in the weather, it got very rough overnight and this morning the decks are closed again and swimming pools being emptied. It does look as if it’s starting to improve again now – we shall have to wait and see how the day turns out.

Our overnight passage from Whittier to Kodiak Island, although noticeably ‘rougher’ than previously, turned out not to be too bad at all and by the time we disembarked at Kodiak Island as usual it was another spectacularly sunny Alaskan day! Kodiak is not a regular cruise ship port and therefore much more of a ‘real’ place. So much so, that our transport from the dock was a fleet of school buses (It was Sunday so they were available!). We made 2 stops at museums the Baranov Museum which dates from the Russian era and the Alutiiq Museum which preserves the artefacts and traditions of the native people. Both museums contained many interesting exhibits. Our bus then took us out for a fairly brief stop at Fort Abercrombie, Kodiak’s Military History Museum which is based in a WWII bunker and contains exhibits from that period. And a chair removed from one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces (!) Finally we were treated to a display of Alutiiq dancing by a small group including a very cute 3 year old called Star. She didn’t know all the steps, but of course, she stole the show. The bus dropped us in the town centre where we came upon a fantastic drumming display by the Kodiak Island drummers – a group of 20 or more young drummers and percussionists who had were amazing. Their leader managed to get an equal number of cruise passengers involved in with various percussion instruments too. After a slight delay while we waited for 4 passengers who had missed the ship in Whittier we departed Kodiak around 5:40pm. Once again Captain Bates has warned of bad weather ahead. As a result our planned course has been changed to allow us to sail just north of the Aleutian Islands to allow us to gain some protection from the weather. So far (Monday afternoon) the weather has not been too bad but the sea is becoming noticeably ‘higher’, so it is getting interesting. As this is our first day of five at sea we tried some new things. We had both breakfast and lunch in the International Dining Room which was table service and therefore much more relaxing than the buffet. I also watched a cocktail and flaring demonstration which was fun and made a half-hearted attempt at a quiz. Tonight we have our 3rd ‘formal’ dinner and we hope to finally to make it to a show. Coming soon: Sea Conditions: Very Rough!

The glaciers of College Fjord provided an apt and entertaining finale to the Alaska part of our cruise. Although from our and half the other passengers’ point of view our cruise from Vancouver to Beijing is one cruise from Princess and hence the crew’s point of view our imminent arrival at Whittier marked the end of the Alaska season (and 16 calls at the same, often cold, ports) and the beginning of the Far East season.Therefore while were viewing the Harvard glacier at in College Fjord, the Sapphire launched her ‘Rapid Rescue Boat’ with 5 crew members aboard, ostensibly to pick up a chunk of glacier ice to bring on board for people to get a close up view. They headed off almost out of view and when the Captain(ie  radioed them to ask if they had been successful they replied that while capturing the ice, ‘a bear cub’ had clambered into their boat. Of course, the bear cub turned out to be a crew member in a bear suit and they returned and circumnavigated the ship with the 6ft bear cub wrestling other crew members in the small boat. It made everyone smile (and Jonathan laugh out loud!) That evening we dined in the ship’s virtual restaurant. In addition to the 4 including ‘Anytime Dining’ rooms on board there are also 2 speciality restaurants available at a nominal extra charge. The Trattoria, ‘Sabatini’s’ is on Deck 7 but the Sterling Steakhouse doesn’t really exist! It’s actually one corner of the gigantic ‘Horizon Court’ buffet which gets curtained off of an evening and exists only until dinner and disappears by morning, rather like ‘Brigadoon’! It does have the advantage of fantastic views through the floor to ceiling windows and being quite small is more intimate and relaxing than the other dining rooms (especially the infamous buffet itself). Anyway, the food was good (even if the Venetian murals are a bit incongruous with a Steakhouse) and the scenery was splendid, so we were pleased we had picked that particular evening to dine there.With only a short hop from College Fjord to Whittier we were tied up at the dock before bed time.As I mentioned above Whittier marked the ‘end’ of the Alaska cruise and the ‘beginning’ of the Far East cruise, and as far as Princess was concerned, the start of a whole new season. This apparently means chaos for many passengers. Obviously they don’t go through this process every cruise or even on every ship, but they do presumably, do it on every ship that relocates every year, so you would think they would have a tried and tested process.Our first indication that it wasn’t going to be a seamless process was when we were issued with our original ‘cruise cards’ they were only valid until September 15. We were told not to worry and that new ones would be issued for the second part of the cruise and as promised new cards were provided on the evening before we arrived in Whittier. Then we discovered that there was a ‘pre-inventory’ i.e. pre- stock-taking sale being held and that all the shops on board had to close at midnight for stock-taking, but it was on disembarkation at Whittier that the fun really started.Prior to Whittier we had explored the ports on our own but as there was nothing to explore at Whittier we had booked an excursion that was due to depart at 9:30. However while we were having breakfast at 8:10 they suddenly called our tour to meet on the quay. So off we went, armed with our new cruise cards, as requested. It was extremely windy on the Whittier dock, but fortunately the dock was, at least covered. Leaving and entering the ship necessitates inserting your cruise card in a security machine, which emits a loud, satisfied ‘bong’ if all is in order and a variety of other noises if they is something wrong. We proceeded to the designated meeting spot where we mentioned to Erin that an 8:10 call seemed a little early for a 9:30 trip and having checked she discovered her despatch schedule was wrong. Luckily she was able to get clearance for those of us returning to the ship to go back on board. However, those who were on the same trip but had disembarked for the final time were not so lucky. On the way back we met other people who were querying the early call (and being told it was correct!) but who were also told that they should have brought both there cruise cards with them as they needed the old one to disembark and the new one to re-embark as they would need there photo taken again and linked attached to their new card. These people were confused because they had already tried their old cards in their stateroom door and found them no longer working. Anyway we re-boarded and disembarked again just after 9 only to meet with the next obstacle. Whittier is a really tiny place and is so desolate in the winter that it doesn’t have any houses. All residents live in a purpose built tower block so they never have to go outside. The only road & rail access is via a one-way tunnel which allows out going traffic through on the hour and in on the half hour. The trip seemed to be designed to reach the tunnel just after the relevant ‘slot’ closed and meant 28 minutes waiting before we could go through at 10 o’clock. This still left ample time to reach our first stop the ‘Portage glacier cruise’ at 10:30.The cruise turned out to be great. We all boarded a small ferry-type boat the MV Ptarmigan which was able to get up close (300m) to the face of the Portage glacier. This was impressive enough but we were fortunate to have it ‘calve’ a large piece of ice right in front of us AND I had the video running at the time. We made two further stops, one at the Alaska Wildlife Centre which is situated on part of the site of the nearby town of Portage which was washed away by the 1964 tsunami. All that remains is a a few tumbledown cabins and a lot of dead trees – killed by the saltwater that remained behind and soaked into the ground – quite an eerie sight. The centre contains only rescued animals and we were able to get a lot of pictures of native fauna such as bear, moose and bison up close. Our final stop was at the Begich-Boggs visitor centre where we stayed until 1:50 – just early enough to wait another 28 minutes for access to the tunnel back into Whittier. We boarded the ship to a variety of beeps, bongs and alarms from the security machines depending on which card you had used and whether or not you needed a new photo taken.Although the organisation of this trip was lacking in some places we felt that on balance seeing the glacier and having it calve in front of us was worth all the hassle!That evening the Captain warned that the weather was about to change for the worse and that we should not leave things standing on shelves that might fall over in the night.