Day 23 - A nothing day in Port.

We had a fair sleep and thankfully, Paula’s head was much better, but the rest of the body wasn’t, so she elected to stay on-board and as I’d resolved the internet issues, I had no inclination to go ashore either.  Although the terminal has Duty free shops, there was no sign of them being open yesterday and with most people out at the Wall or in Beijing City, we had no idea when they’d be open.  As it transpired, some lucky travellers did catch them open, and found prices very cheap – including the booze.

As it was a port day for us and Paula was taking it easy, not  a lot to write about.

Looking out, the haze was down all day and it was rather weird.  If you can visualise a foggy November day in the UK, but 30 degrees higher, that is what it was like.

A very light lunch, billed as beef goulash soup.  My brothers will remember growing up at a time when about 4 ounces of stewing steak went into a full pressure cooker of stew and you had to whistle when you got a piece of meat!  Well, I would have whistled just once through two bowls of soup – and the meat was only about 2mm in size anyway. The bread roll was very fresh though.

A lazy afternoon.

As it was open dining, we opted for the buffet (yet again) and a fairly light but protein packed meal, before starting to watch the film out on the open deck.  ‘Joy’. Based on a true story, but a combination of quiet dialogue, a low sound level and the people in smokers corner jabbering away, we left after about 15 minutes.  A chat to three of the staff who had enjoyed their day out, but as others also told us, nowhere near the 3 hour drive each way we’d been warned about on the tour paperwork.  More like 90 minutes, though we were still happy enough to have stayed on board..  They claimed the Folk Loric show in the Vista wasn’t exactly riveting, so we headed for the cabin and watched “A Royal Night Out”, supposedly Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth out amongst the revellers on VE night in 1945.  We thoroughly enjoyed it too.

The clocks were changing to plus an hour again.

At round 11pm, we left Tianjin, amid news of the Chinese refusing to accept a UN ruling on their claim to 90% of the China Sea and also refusing to accept responsibility for the environmental damage.  I think that it was probably a good time to leave China and although we didn’t do anything, we weren’t too worried or disappointed.  No doubt tomorrow, we’ll be hearing all sorts of tales from the trippers.

For us, two more sea days now before a return to an unscheduled port in South Korea – Busan.  We, along with several of what could loosely be called ‘Our Group’, have booked on a Princess tour, so we’ll assemble beforehand to get onto one coach.  Last time we were in Busan in 2012, it rained so we didn’t see much of it and from memory, took the shuttle into town for a while, then back again.  This time, we have thousands of Dong to spend, as we’d originally booked a tour with Joanne at Jeju, July 10^th, which of course was cancelled.