March 27, 2016

March 27  aboard the Viking Emerald stop at Yueyang

     Today is Easter Sunday and our first full day on board. We started the morning at 7 with 25 minutes of group introduction to Tai-chi. The fog was thicker this morning and the river is at least one kilometer wide. Visibility is about half a kilometer. There was a slight wind at the back of the ship on the sun deck. A long sleeve shirt and long pants were comfortable. The temperature was about 12 C.  Tai-chi was lead by Tian and translated by Noah, the ship’s river guide. The movements were similar to what we knew from seven years ago, but the progression to the next move was different from the style we had learned. The ship has passed many freighters of varying sizes. We headed to the on the second deck main restaurant for breakfast. We joined Gail and Ed and Liz and Shel.  The buffet included made to order omelettes and french toast, bacon, sausages, baked beans, breads, oatmeal, fruit, yogurts, Chinese noodles, congee, and much more.  There were small chocolate Easter eggs on all the buffet food tables and at reception.  We stopped at reception to get the “Guest Passport” needed so that the ship can make sure people have returned to the ship.  Within an hour of a scheduled excursion start time you collect the pass and when you embark again you turn it in, or the staff is collecting them as passengers come back on board, the same procedure as on other Viking ship tours.

The distance between Wuhan and Yueyang is about 160 km. As we got closer to Yueyang, the river traffic got busier.  At 9:30, as we docked in Yueyang (sounds a bit like “you are young”) the passengers participated in a safety exercise with lifejackets.

    Excursion announcements were made and, even though it is Sunday, we visited students at a Viking River Cruises sponsored elementary school, about a 25 minute drive away.  The students welcomed the 7 buses, of about 30 people, with a drum band and then 15 minutes of songs and dances by different groups of children. Some passengers took story books and colouring books for a few children, plus pencils and wrapped candy to be shared by all.  The class sizes are between 40 and 45 in the elementary school.  The temperature was about 15 C.  Not much walking only 1.25 miles.

   We were back on the ship for lunch and the rest of the day we were travelling upriver with a blue sunny sky overhead, but a haze slightly shrouded the views at ground/river level. This was the start of the 400 km journey to Yichary to begin the Three Gorges stretch tomorrow.  The Chinese name for this river, which has muddy brown water, is Long River, as it is the third longest rivers in the world (after the Nile and Amazon rivers) flowing over 6,300 km from the Himalaya Mountains in Tibet to Shanghai.  Only a small local stretch of the waterway is called Yangtze, but the early European explorer, Marco Polo, mistook that local name as the name for the whole river.

  Lunch was from noon to 2, followed by a lecture about the Yangtze River.  We stopped to browse in the Tailor Shop where there are jackets, dresses, vests and blouses to buy or have custom made during the cruise.  I found a lovely red mandarin jacket with small black dragons on it to buy.  We decided to walk along the stairways and corridors of the four decks of staterooms and the sundeck in order to accumulate five miles of walking today.  We even stopped in the exercise room and tried to figure out the electronics of the two treadmills and walked a mile in about 18 minutes, before returning to walking the corridors.  There were several dozen people sunning themselves on the sun deck. The sun was warm, but the temperature was only about 19 C.

   The rest of the afternoon schedule was a lesson to learn some Mandarin (Chinese) words at 3; then at 4 Afternoon Tea with sandwiches & pastries; or if that was not of interest at 4:15 you could learn the game Majhong. The daily Cocktail Hour was from 6 to 7 today including the Captain’s Toast to the guests at 6:15, then the daily briefing of tomorrow’s activities. The Chinese Dinner started at 7.  To end the day at 9:15 there was a show of Chinese Minorities costumes.

   We chose to have Afternoon Tea at 4. There were tiny sandwiches of either tomato & cucumber or tuna as well as a variety of pastries, plus, there was live music provided by a singer and keyboard player. By 4:30 we had managed to register 4 miles, and went back to the stateroom to write the blog and catch a quick nap.

   The Captain’s Toast occurred at 6:30 followed by the daily briefing by Ben the Program Director. I wore my new Mandarin jacket to the Chinese dinner.  We joined Lorraine and Gary and then Ken and Stephan joined to our group. Sharon and Janna had developed colds and were staying in their stateroom.  The Dim Sum style dinner was tasty with slices of crispy Peking duck, wonton soup, a green salad, fried rice, slices of beef in a sauce, kung po chicken, deep fried sole, noodles and steamed asparagus with cashews. For dessert we ordered Mango mousse with mango slices. Then a surprise for Lorraine and I – birthday cake with our guide, Gao joining the waiters accompanied by a guitar player to sing happy birthday.

 We went up to the Observation Lounge on Deck 5 to get seats for the Minorities Costume Show and after it ended climbed the stairs to Deck 6 in the Emerald Lounger to dance several dances before returning in.  Again we reached our walking goal with 11,802 steps that equalled 5.21 miles today.