Day 22 - Tianjin and 25 is the key to success. Wooho!

Arrival at the container port of Tianjin was at 4am, but such has been the smooth seas so far, that we couldn’t really tell the difference between cruising and being berthed. We were awake just before 7am, in time to watch the British GP and a win by Lewis Hamilton from flag to flag, well, safety car start to flag. (It was the traditional Silverstone downpour before the start.  Now I know that I am biased, but the BBC World News had the Euro Soccer cup (won by Portugal – which will please at least one member of our family), Murray’s win at Wimbledon (which few people on board this ship cared about), but no mention whatever of a British driver winning the British GP, the first GP of the world championship back in 1950 also at Silverstone, with a crowd of 139,000.  Ditto, our UK daily news-sheet delivered to the cabin.  Half a page on Murray and not a mention of Hamilton. At least Hamilton is English and not a Scot who wanted no part of England!

First pic is for Marie…  It should have been posted yesterday, but I hadn’t downloaded.

Paula wasn’t too good with a bunged up nose, achy body and not feeling very robust – especially in the less than clear air (see pic) and 35 degree heat (that is 95 degrees Fahrenheit).

She managed toast for breakfast and at last, we have sweet, ripe, pineapple.  Oh, and a coffee and choccy croissant of course.

Ship berthed on the starboard side at the container port/cruise terminal.

Our el Cheapo, $30 Vodafone pre-pay phones did NOT work.

We were issued with our passports and two photocopies.

On shore face to face with immigration was compulsory and they stamp one copy.

Passports handed back into the ship’s staff immediately after immigration.

If returning to the ship before going ashore, or going ashore at all, the stamped copy has to be shown.

Stamped copy has to be handed in to the ship before the ship leaves port.

Free shuttle every half hour to Tianjin, AEON Mall.

Bearing in mind our arrival in Tianjin was a day earlier than planned, most people weren’t out on tour. The procedure was as follows. Head for the Vista lounge, where you would be issued with a numbered ticket, then as per tender ports, wait until your number was called, before going ashore in groups of 50, so as to not to crowd the terminal.  On the Wake Show, we were told that Immigration would finish at 10:30am, and wouldn’t be around later or on day 2, so attendance being compulsory, we joined the usual long line at 9:30am, stretching back to the seafood bar again.

Cruise staff were issuing the numbered tickets OK, but the Vista lounge was packed, so the queue only moved as the next group exited for processing.  When we finally got our ticket, we were 1175 and they were just calling the 800-850.

We dutifully trooped ashore by which time there was no-one entering the lounge and the announcement was made that immigration would extend their time – which had to be a given!

Immigration was totally straightforward and we handed our passports back, turned round and returned to the ship.   Paula had already decided that she wasn’t going back ashore and given the huge queues being processed, the shuttle bus queue with 45 seater coaches on a 30 minute schedule certainly didn’t bear thinking about.  We were back in the cabin at 10:30, so a total of an hour, which is no worse than the usual time to get through many airports.

On our walk through, the Customer Services Director claimed that the internet emails out hiccups had been fixed. Yippee.  I therefore wasn’t very impressed when mine resolutely refused to go, so determined to get things sent whilst ashore, I loaded the laptop and headed for the shuttle-bus. 

By this time, no queue at all though 65% of those on board were staff, enjoying a welcome day ashore.

We were told it was a 45 minute journey to the mall, but it was 35 minutes, once again through well maintained and clean, tree and bush lined, modern roads – and loads of massive apartment blocks.

It appears that there is a lot of land reclamation going on too and unlike NZ, they have built the wide, 3 and 4 lane roads in each direction, in anticipation.  Once again, a total reliance on traffic lights and unlike everywhere else, lights were red or green arrows only, not the familiar straightforward red and green lights.

And so, into the AEON mall, as in 2012. Nothing has changed, with the popular AON supermarket attracting many cruisers claiming that a couple of beers and cold soft drinks were very cheap.  At this point, I wished I’d converted some cash.  The ATM wouldn’t accept my Onesmart card and nor would McDonalds, so somewhat frustrated, I headed for the bank.  They wouldn’t change money without a passport, which of course, we’d surrendered,  and a photocopy wasn’t acceptable. Ho hum.

I then bumped into Jim and Marie from NZ and Marie told me that someone she knew had resolved her outgoing email issues, when the IT person on duty at the time (not the manager apparently) had changed the outgoing port settings for her email account.  This gave me renewed hope and I couldn’t wait to get back and see the IT dept.

Standing outside in the 35 degree heat for the next bus started as an orderly queue.  When the bus arrived, it was one with two doors and needless to say, some way back in the queue broke ranks and headed for the rear door, which was slowly disembarking mobility challenged passengers. Chaos reigned then when people who had been queuing patiently, had to wait for the next bus, in the heat, whist the smug queue jumpers were safely aboard.

Once back on board, Paula and I went for a quick bite and I patiently waited for the clock to tick over to 5:30pm, when the IT desk was manned, but in the meantime, I went to my outgoing settings and vaguely remembered that years ago, my service provider (IPN Net) guru John, had advised changing from port 25 to 2525.  On a hunch, I changed it to 25 and Eureka!  The 12kb text message to Marilyn that had been sitting in my outbox for two weeks, went OK.

Next was to try the oldest blog post – Darwin, but part 2, so that it reads better.  It too went.  I then did a joyous happy dance, as one by one, I moved blog emails into the Outbox from the Drafts folder.  You have no idea what a relief that was, as writing the daily blog is very much part of cruising for me and I know that the insomniacs love it, as do one or two avid followers. To keep writing, knowing that it was just stuck on the lap top, was getting a bit pointless, other than for my own addiction to diary writing.

With that out of the way, yet another curry and I took Paula a jelly, as I thought it would be easy to eat. She didn’t even hear me re-enter the cabin!

We ambled down to the atrium mid-afternoon, but there were so few staff on duty, that we gave up waiting and headed for the buffet instead for a hot drink.

The rest of the day was just lolling around until a light meal at the buffet, (open dining tonight) then we sat out on deck, or lay out on deck to be precise, watching the movie ‘Tomorrowland’. The sound quality was excellent.  Quite a silly film but enjoyable for all that.

Back to the cabin for an early 9:30pm, a late shower and bed, but doing Codeword puzzles as it was far too early to sleep, for me anyway.

Another day in Tianjin tomorrow, with many people doing long tours as originally planned, either to the Great Wall or Beijing City.  We have nothing planned and Paula needs to rest and recover.  A squirt of ‘First Defence’ seems to have helped a lot, at least with the head.

I retired, happy and so grateful to bumping into Marie, but the question has to be asked, “Why  wasn’t this ‘fix’ published by the ship?