Thursday, July 17, 2009
Woke up at 2:30AM due to our wonderful neighbor’s arrival to their room. A few bangs on the wall and a call to the front desk and they were quiet and we were able to fall back asleep again! Whew.
Raining and raining and humid.
Welcome to an authentic Chinese breakfast. Meat, noodles, vegetables and tea. And chopsticks (we may be hungry soon). Really enjoyed seeing and tasting the Chinese breakfast and they had a good giggle over us being there! We made friends quickly and had a nice breakfast.
Packed up and headed back to the airport for a shuttle to the bus to the ship. All is wet and well here in Beijing.
Still pouring rain, we headed back to the airport and had a little bit of trouble finding the group but we did. We were on a nice bus with only a few passengers so we all had windows to see the rain pouring down them! It rained and rained. We had an interesting rest stop at a highway gas station with a shop and Gene bought a very light pair of flip flops for $1.60. Arriving at the pier after the 3 hour drive, we had no porters to help with the bags and there was utter pandemonium in the waiting area. No signage, no instructions and the disembarking passengers were just coming off -- and this was at 1PM (they are usually off the US ships by 9AM).
We waited and waited and finally had to go through checkin and customs and document clearance but it was a very different checkin than we have ever experienced with any other cruise.
Daily Limerick: Beijing’s a nice town, so they say, but it rained every tick of today. So nothing could be finer, we are on our ocean liner in China and sailing away.
In the rain, we boarded the ship. the Costa Classica. The crew are Chinese and Philippino and they try very hard. The officers are Italian and this ship seems to be based most of the time in Asia. Our stateroom was #4030 on a lower level with a huge round window. Rosalyn was our stateroom attendant and very nice. We ate in the buffet area and then had open seating for dinner (only for tonight). I explored the pool and spa and ended up in the jacuzzi and steam room. Wonderfully relaxing! There was a nice welcome show with various acts - Chinese acrobats, Afri-Arimba dancers, an Italian tenor and soprano.
The next few days it rained… all day long! Hard to believe the weather was so miserable but we relaxed with naps and scientific lectures (could almost nap through those also!). Met several interesting types of passengers which were mostly the eclipse chasers and the family members they dragged along with them. They are indeed chasers and have many claims to fame of visiting the most countries to see as many eclipses as they can, even if the eclipse only lasts for 40 seconds! A whole new way to travel, in my opinion. Go for a 40-second eclipse and then add on an African safari since you are there anyway.
Photos: Tablemates from Texas and the path of the eclipse
