2015 Jeju, South Korea & Nagasaki

Well this is quite different from Shanghai! Hardly a high rise in sight.

Trip to look at the Dragon's head rock

well that's what they say!!

Then on to Hallim gardens, rather lovely mix of different types of gardens, opera playing over daffodil gardens and jazz in other parts.

I am as most of you know a sucker for bougainvillea and they had some.

We also stopped on a road where the coach appears to roll up hill, optical illusion of course and therefore difficult to take a photo, but they seem very proud of it!

Whole island most southerly part of South Korea heavily into tourism, mainly Chinese and Korean but rather cool for us. Very short visit as sailed away mid-afternoon heading to Japan.

Welcome to Nagasaki. The sun is out again which shows off the wonderful natural harbour.

 First stop on our tour is the Atomic Bomb Museum close to the site of the second bomb dropped at 11.02 am local time. We passed by the Peace Garden so a coach type shot of this powerful statue.

The Mitsubishi shipyard which was the actual target is some way from the bomb site across the bay 

and clearly therefore virtually all the casualties were civilian, with Japan already on the back foot and no notice given it seems 'unfortunate' that more dialogue hadn't taken place after the first bomb. The museum tells the story and shows the effects many of which only became apparent long after the war had ended.  

The range of damage was considerable with lots of articles melted and damaged by the blast as much as heat.

It is of course a sobering place but the emphasis everywhere on peace and not letting it happen again means that it is not quite as depressing as I feared it might be.

A rather pleasanter visit to Dejima which was the trading post of the Portugese during the period of 'Edo' when Japan closed it's borders to European trade. A small island with just 15 people there during the typhoon season, but nice houses,

and a lovely garden.

Our final stop was at Glover Gardens, beautiful houses situated on the hillside overlooking the bay, just visible through the trees,

built by the Scotsman Glover and his English compatriots Walker and Ringer. (Clearly names with 'er' at the end essential!) the view from the top across the bay to the dockyard is lovely as already seen above.

The houses are not too shabby either

The Oura church having survived the bombing protected by the hillside, is catholic and was used by the European traders, built in 1864 it is the oldest gothic wooden building in Japan. Christianity spread inland from the coast during the 1500s but the Shogun's recognised the threat to their way of life and banned most trading (apart from via Dejima) and christianity for over 200 years towards the end of the 16th century. This church and another memorial commemorate the martyrdom of 26 people, including a few children, who would not renounce their Christian religion in 1597.

This was followed by a tram ride and lunch in a local restaurant with some of my fellow passengers. Some very good 'shrimp' and local beer with

an amusing notice to boot.

Our guide had previously mentioned that up until recently they haven't travelled much and so foreign languages have been learned from books and so sentence construction and of course pronunciation has not been good, an understatement in this case.

A tram ride back to the ship where we had a lovely display of dancing from some primary school children

 and then some drummers played as we left to another glorious sunset.

2015 - Hong Kong & Shanghai

Celebrations and New Year over

It must be time to travel again and this time have vowed to do blog as I go along! Hopefully the rest of last year will follow along quite quickly once I get back, well that is the plan.

Left Salisbury on lovely clear sunny morning for Heathrow, so roof down, music blaring the joys of being footloose and fancy free. Good flight to Hong Kong, a necessary evil in my desire to see more of Japan than the average land based tour. Fellow passengers generally older than me but not all and some fairly sprightly ones amongst them. Glad I have double cabin even at the cost, as plenty of room to unpack and check out where everything is before jet lag caught up. Just before dinner there was a chance to get some photos of the island all lit up.

The following morning I took a tour round Kowloon, where we are docked, visiting the Chi Lin Buddhist Nunnery and Nan Lian Garden. Whilst looking old, the temple has been re built from the original 1934 version (although in a style dating back 100s of years)

 and the gardens only date from 2005 with imported trees. It is a very tranquil place amid the high rises of the surrounding area as you can see. The sun came out so very pleasant to wander around 

and watch other people working.

Back to the ship after local vegetarian lunch and the jade market, (all too garrish for me) so decided to make the trip on the Star Ferry across to Hong Kong Island partly so could take picture of Minerva which is fairly small as this shows

and get a daylight shot of Hong Kong island

(Rather proud of this one below)

Couldn't take too long as sailing at 17.30 just as lights starting to come on and clouds coming in

with a final reminder of the season (if you can read the geetings!).

3 days at sea until due to dock at Shanghai but plenty of films and lectures to occupy one's time, not to mention exercises(!), as well as trying to get my sleep patterns rather more in tune with local time. Had to batten down the hatches and were prohibited from walking round the decks for a while because of very high winds. Fortunately not buffeting from the side but walking becomes more interesting when either the floor meets you before you expect it or worse disappears when you are putting your foot down. Once we had turned into the estuary some rolling then it all calmed down for our long trip up the river to the port.

Welcome to Shanghai!

View from the ship, quite stunning.

Morning city tour visiting the Jade Budha Temple, the most prestigious in Shanghai

The old against the newest skyscraper in town,

as you can see full of tourists and not just off our ship!

Then to the Yu Garden in the old town, weather glorious cold and clear .

With an arty shot

plus a look at the roof decorations

After lunch took a walk along the Bund with great views of the skyline

and where the tragic events of New Year's Eve took place when too many people came to watch the fireworks. Rather liked this artwork lots of rubbing going on for luck as ever, with the more colonial buildings in the immediate background.

Then walked through the city to the Museum which has some interesting art, (but on the way saw this building, Sauron's Tower anyone if you have seen Lord of the Rings.)

and beautiful jade, like this which dates to about 2,500 BC!

Didn't have time to do it justice unfortunately and have to be up at silly o'clock to visit a village on the outskirts of the city tomorrow so unlikely to have the chance to go back.

Another beautiful day although the air quality is getting worse and becoming more hazy, and this is the sun rising, not something that happens to me too often.

They have made attempts to restrict cars and increase public transport but in a city of 26 million people it is undoubtedly difficult.

Trip out to village past the second most important temple

and this rather wonderful plant butterfly.

The local side streets could be anywhere it seems

The village, which is clearly designed for tourists of all nationalities including other Chinese, has been developed from it's original existence as a small village on a lake. It is however very picturesque as you can see.

This is air drying pork, right on the path with all the tourists walking past,

  we had a boat ride back to the coach.

Next stop a silk factory where they make quilts using the silk from double cocoons, very lightweight and labour intensive, here they are stretching the silk which can't be spun, tough work.

Plenty of buying opportunities both of the quilts and pillow cases and some very expensive silk quilt covers, strangely i managed to abstain.

Late lunch on the ship and sit in the afternoon sun before cast off and watching the sunset as we set off down the river. The river is very wide and very well used for barges as well as tourist boats with a constant flow, 

so organising our turn round was left to the river police, clearly one doesn't mess with them!

Can't get better than those!