20250912 Friday, September 12, 2025 At Sea off the Yangtze Delta

20250912 Friday, September 12, 2025 At Sea off the Yangtze Delta

We could have slept in but Janet was up early and wanted to get a load of laundry done.  Much to her surprise, there were already two washers going at 5:30am, but she was able to get her load started, and she set an alarm clock to transfer things into the dryers.  Then she set another timer for when the dryer would be done, but unbelievably, someone had taken her wet clothes out of the dryer and put them in a hamper, and put their clothes into her dryer.  It’s hard to imagine someone raised by wolves would be able to afford to book this cruise, but apparently so.  Or someone has figured how to take malignant narcissism to a whole new astounding level.  

We had another relaxed breakfast in the Restaurant featuring lamb chops, and then Janet attended a Jewelry appraisal seminar where she actually won a nice pendant worth $85.  The chain on it was short enough to serve as a choker, but she was able to put in on another chain she happened to be wearing and has been proudly displaying her winnings. 

The ship’s internet has been agonizingly slow (<0.1MBPS) so Ben has been struggling to get any images posted to the blog.  

The ship had a special Chinese buffet on the Aquavit Terrace featuring a huge squirrel fish, street skewers, and other foods to sample at lunch.  

We attended our first Viking Yi Dun trivia, which they only do on sea days.  We missed the first one because we were on our overland Treasures of Fujian excursion.  We ended up teaming up with two couples we had met on the Treasures of Fujian excursion.  It ended up being an easy trivia, but we were surprised to have won it outright.  Out of 28 questions we got 27, and one other team got 26.  We didn’t know Rwanda is known as the African Land of a Thousand Hills.  The tie breaker was how many seconds long is the song “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”.  That answer was 535. 

 
Our next activity was a Chinese calligraphy “Class”, in which we were invited to copy the characters representing Happiness with brushes, ink and red paper.  There was very little actual instruction on how to use the tapered brush to make the strokes come out the right way, but it did give us some souvenirs to take home.  

Ben attended a lecture on Chinese Technology, which turned out to be an excellent lecture by Dori Jones Yang, a former Business Week reporter.  This prompted us to watch other lectures by Dori on the in room on demand video system. which were all excellent.  

Instead of going to the Winter Garden afternoon tea, there was a formal Chinese tea ceremony in the Explorer’s lounge, which was interesting to watch and see as an artistic performance backed by live Guqin music. There were no tea cakes, but it was interesting to see the woman go through all the ceremonial steps of preparing all the equipment (rinsing and preheating all the cups with boiling water), measuring and washing the tea, which involves skimming off foam and using the lid of the tea vessel to trap the tea leaves, doing the steeping and distribution of the first pour to be tasted, and then repeating the process for subsequent steepings.  

She was able to pour enough tiny sipping cups for everyone in the Explorer’s Lounge to be served, although waiters did pick up the cups from her ceremonial tea tray and deliver them around the lounge.  

Next was the port talk introducing Shanghai and the available excursions.  These may be impacted by a local celebration which may close access to parts of the Bund for parades, but our two day overnight stay in Shanghai will most likely prove to be quite busy.    

Ben has additionally been coordination over WeChat an opportunity to meet his cousin Hu Jing, who is the daughter of one of Ben’s Father’s younger brothers.  We have never met her, and are looking forward to meeting her and her son who has been doing some studying in the US and can speak at least some English.

  
There was a meeting of the Viking Explorers’ Society for repeat Viking guests.  Most people on this cruise have been on multiple other Viking itineraries, so it was mostly just an opportunity to get some appetizers and free cocktails. 

 
We had dinner in the Restaurant and met a couple from St. Louis for some pleasant dinner conversation.  Later, several fellow passengers from our Mongolia extension came in and were seated as we were leaving so we got to chat a bit with them as well.  

We ended our night watching some of the old lectures on the TV that we had missed, and called it an early evening.  We will start tomorrow with a trip to the Yu Garden in Shanghai. 

20250911 Thursday, September 11, 2025. Zhoushan, China

20250911 Thursday, September 11, 2025. Zhoushan, China

Zhoushan has built a very modern and convenient international cruise ship terminal complete with escalators to accommodate the tides and variable ship embarkation deck configurations.  I suspect this has all been developed on reclaimed land as it is serviced by 4 lane boulevards, but it seems that every scrap of land that is usable for agricultural purposes is being utilized in its highest and best use.  There are aquaculture ponds and rice paddies, as well as acres of green houses covering most of the land which is not covered with buildings and roads.  Even small strips of land between apartment buildings have vegetable gardens planted.

Scarecrow in a drained aquaculture pond

Fish ponds

Local fishing hole

We did get to sleep in this morning since we did not believe we had an organized off ship excursion.  We had our first breakfast in the Restaurant, which is table service dining.  The main reason to eat here is they have the most delicious lamb chops available for breakfast.  There’s nothing better than lamb chops and eggs over easy to start your day.  

Walnut Dim Sum Bun- EAT ME!

The ship has a shuttle bus that took us from the cruise ship dock into the main business district of Zhoushan, which was on an adjacent island.  

The infrastructure in these coastal islands and cities is astounding.  There are new streets with sidewalks, scooter lanes, lighting and railings all over.  There doesn’t seem to be as much overbuilding of gigantic apartment towers here as was evident in Xiamen and Dongtou.   

Zhoushan’s Downtown

Zhoushan’s fishing fleet heading out.

The island the cruise ship terminal is located on is covered with some sort of aquaculture ponds that can be flooded.  On the way to the main island, we passed a large industrial park. Surprisingly, it was a Boeing plant.

Crossing over a bridge took us to the main island of Zhoushan, which is noticeably more densely populated.  There are apartments that are obviously fully occupied, as evidenced by laundry on every balcony, and the heat pumps are showing some age with rust stains.  Still, the streets are not crowded. Most of the traffic were our tourist buses and scooters, although there are a few Tesla, BYD, Audi and Mercedes Benz sedans driving around. 

The bus took us to the center of the main business district, which is marked by an intersection with a huge high end shopping mall on one corner, and an almost equally large KR Supermarket on the opposite corner, bearing a large KFC sign out front. 

The bus managed to squeeze into an incredibly tight parking lot next to the high end mall, marked by a Starbucks.

We walked through the Starbucks into the air conditioned high end mall, which was just like the high end malls in Shenyang, Shenzhen, Beijing and Xiamen- all NYC pricing and labels.  What was more interesting was to walk straight through the high end mall and cross the street into the Supermarket.  The downstairs had many smaller and lower rent shops and restaurants with actual locals walking about.  There was a hole in the wall barber shop with two barbers working, and it was only ¥15 for a hair cut.  So Ben got a souvenir Zhoushan haircut.

Upstairs was where the real business was.  It was an enormous store like a Walmart Superstore, with everything you could imagine.  It had appliances and electronics, Clothing, gifts, shoes, pets, vegetables and a full fish market with every imaginable type of live seafood swimming in the tanks.  

We did find some ultra compact UV solar and rain umbrellas which came with matching leather shoulder holsters which we bought so that we could be equipped like the locals in the know.

After returning to the ship for lunch, we realized that we had tickets for an optional morning excursion to the Guanyin Altar, which we missed. Fortunately, there was a 1:30pm session that we got rebooked on. 

The Guanyin Altar is a recent construct. Built at a cost of $1.5 billion US dollar equivalents, it is a grand piece of religious architecture. It’s unclear who exactly funded this project but our guide for the day Michael said that during Mao’s reign, all religions were banned as the only allowed dogma was Maoism. After Mao’s death, there was a backlash as people missed their religious beliefs and gradually, the CCP became more tolerant to the resurgence of Buddhism, Taoism and other religious beliefs. 

Guanyin is the Chinese Buddhist manifestation of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, revered as the goddess of mercy, compassion and salvation. While usually depicted as a male in Indian Buddhism, Guanyin is predominantly depicted as female in Chin. She crosses over into Chinese Taoism and folk religions.

The grounds of the Altar are meticulously groomed and it is laid out with ideal symmetry and Feng Shui. The exterior is shaped like a giant lotus bloom and is gleaming white marble with gold trim. 

Unlike in most Buddhist temples, photography and even videography is allowed throughout the complex. This is supposedly because this is not so much of a temple as it is a tribute to the religion and serves as an exhibition to promote and spread Buddhism.

It is grand like the Mormon Tabernacle or Taj Mahal. At the center or the marble building is a grand Altar with a massive monolithic carving of Guanyin, produced from a single old growth trunk imported from British Columbia. It took over 2 years to carve that main image. 

On the dome overhead are 216 Buddha’s leading to a tunnel of light extending through the core of the building like a tokamak of spiritual power.

Multimedia show on the interior dome

There are many additional galleries and prayer rooms on several levels, and other galleries that are more typical museum exhibits, many with English explanatory panels.  As in many other religions there are dioramas depicting worlds of pleasure for the good and worlds of pain and suffering for those who are evil.  One gallery was devoted to explaining the multidimensionality of Buddha’s existence with ten dimensions including dimensions in time.

The afternoon program ended with a multimedia display on the inner lotus blossom dome covering the central Altar.  It was inspiring and wonderous display of movement, sounds and colors, but it was hard to get a sense of what it was about. Perhaps it was just about getting the viewer into a state of mind disconnected from the harsh realities of day to day living.

It’s nice that the Altar was air conditioned and equipped with nice bathrooms, so it was a comfortable place to spend an otherwise very hot and humid day.  

We got back to the ship with time to get showered and grab a bite to eat before the evening’s included excursion.  Just about everyone on the ship loaded up onto buses and were taken to a huge outdoor venue for something called Impression Putuo.  It’s an unusual venue in that the audience sits in the center of a giant lazy Susan with a movable screen around the circumference that allows scene changes to occur by rotating the audience platform, taking advantage of the geography of the site to provide different and dramatic backdrops to the action of all the cast.

The movable screen can be segmented and parts can be moved independently to achieve different effects.  The cast, meanwhile, are maneuvering their way through the terrain in darkness and revealing themselves with lights either from the stage, or carried as lanterns or even searchlights for dramatic effect.

There are many scenes where actors interact closely with the audience in the foreground of the stage, and others where the stage rotates against the background while the actors walk in front of the stage.  It is all done very imaginatively.  

Something like this would be right at home at a Disney theme park, but the dialog was entirely in Mandarin.  A program was handed out with a plot synopsis in English, but it was much too dark to be able to read it in the theater.  For the most part, we just watched it unfold and enjoyed the effect, and could guess for the most part what was going on through the emotions expressed by the actors.  The plot loosely follows the journey of discovery of a young man who decides to become a monk.

The last scene invited audience members to cast their own lotus blossom lanterns on the water as a way to present their wishes to Guanyin.  It made for a powerful scene as hundreds of audience members carried their lanterns behind a procession of monks as the stage rotated against the back drop in the night.  

When we got back to the ship, we got a surprise reception by the ship’s crew, who had formed a gauntlet dancing to Beatles songs, and handed out Gin and tropical fruit juice cocktails.  To be honest, it felt a little strange after the journey of Buddhist enlightenment we had just experienced through the show.

  
The ship did open the World Cafe for a late night snack including wine and beer service.  That just happened to coincide with Ben’s usual cruise ship soup run.  

Tomorrow will be our first sea day on this cruise.  We missed the first sea day because we were on our overland Treasures of Fujian excursion.  We look forward to it.

20250910 Wednesday, September 10, 2025. Dongtou, China

20250910 Wednesday, September 10, 2025. Dongtou, China

Dongtou is another coastal Island district off the mainland of China, but we are now in the East  China Sea, and not the South China Sea. Dongtou actually consists of ~300 islands, although only about a dozen are actually inhabited. There are seven bridges connecting the 8 main islands to the mainland. 

As in Pingtan, the Chinese government has been using land reclamation to expand Dongtou into what was once the sea. What were once sleepy fishing villages on the sea now appear like refugees tucked against hill sides or surrounded by tall building complexes linked by 4 lane boulevards with very little to no traffic. 

Most people seem to get around on scooters. Unlike in Beijing, many of these are still gasoline powered and accompanied by the noise, exhaust and heat.

There is still evidence of the fishing industry with trawlers and other fishing boats tied up in small bays and inlets.  There also appear to be a lot of traps being fished as there are dense collections of various improvised floats of various sizes and colors in shallow waters. These are probably crab pots but another industry here is growing seaweed. Sargassum Fusiformis or Hijiki is grown extensively around Dongtou. This is classically done on hemp nets staked in shallow tidal waters with bamboo posts. 

We boarded the first bus headed to our tour, which was to Wanghai tower. There is an over 1000 year history of there being a tower in this location with a panoramic view of the surrounding waters and islands. The current building is less than 20 years old but pays homage to the historical structure. It shaped like a big pagoda with 5 stories.

 
There was a choice between two included tours in Dongtou. The first was this tower, which promised panoramic views but would require scaling lots of stairs. The other option was a visit to a large Buddhist Temple on flat ground and few stairs. 

Today’s guide Rita explained as the bus was heading to the tower how you can think of Beijing as being the 60 year old matron of the family, Shenzhen is the 30 year old woman, and Xiamen is the 20 year old.  Dongtou is still very young and has potential, but hasn’t really developed her personality yet.  Rita told a funny story about her early tribulations with the English language during her time studying in the US.  During an early hotel stay, she called the front desk and asked for hookers to be sent up to her room, when what she really needed was hangers.  In another incident, she asked for directions to the subway, and was pointed to the sandwich shop instead of the Metro.  

When our bus arrived at the parking lot, it was evident that some climbing would be required because the parking lot was probably 150’ in elevation below the base of the Tower. Our guide did take us slowly and everyone in our bus was able to make the ascent to the base of the tower without too much difficulty, but just about everyone was glistening with sweat from the climb. 

We were greeted on the square in front of the tower by an amazing series of cultural performances. These started with an ensemble of women drummers who worked the drums with both arms while modulating the tones with the heel of one foot on the head of the drums. It was quite the powerful performance. 

Next, a troupe of women dancers carrying various sea creatures on poles did a precision dance weaving the sea creatures like schools of fish in the sea across the plaza. 

The final performance was an ensemble of men singing a melodic and rhythmic series of tunes that could have been a mashup of K-Pop, Rap and pop opera. 

We were then lead into the building to begin our tour in earnest. There is a large sculpture consisting of 3 sail like elements covered with shell lining scales paired with an eroded stone pillar.  This lobby occupies two of the exterior floors.  The stair cases are in the corners of the building and are narrow.  

It seemed like a lot of stairs and turns to get to the next floor which contained exhibits about the fishing history of Dongtou and fishing technology.  There were many models demonstrating the versatility of design to suit various roles.  One of the more interesting designs was for a very small mud boat, which was actually more of a sled for getting around mudflats where a man might just end up getting sucked into the quicksand like mud.  Fishermen used these almost like a kick scooter, keeping their weight and one knee inside the boat, and using the other leg like a paddle to scoot the boat forward in the mud.  With just a tiny bit of water, they could really scoot around the mudflats efficiently.  

The next floor was dedicated to exhibits on various customs and traditions surrounding holidays and celebrations through out the year and over the course of lives.  These included marriage, childbirth and seasonal festivals. 

The next floor had exhibits on music, art and folklore.  There are lots of stories incorporating animals of the sea interwoven with the folklore of coastal people.  There were also musical instruments on display and our guide Rita actually played a flute that was on display. 

The top floor was dedicated mostly to a walk around viewing platform.  There was a central lounge area with a gift shop selling tea and seaweed products, among other items.  

The view was truly panoramic and showcased just how many islands there were in Dongtou.  Unfortunately, weather had moved in lowering the visibility ceiling, and sprinkling a tiny bit on us.  Going down the stairs was much quicker and easier than going up.  

There were several pagodas and pavilions around the main tower including one with a huge bronze bell that is rung to bring good fortune to fishermen.

After returning to the ship, we grabbed a bite to eat at the pool side grill.  The pool area was much too hot and humid to be comfortable, but the staff were happy to bring our food to us from the grill to the World Cafe.  Janet had her first Viking cheeseburger of the trip, and gave the onion rings a big thumbs up.  Ben had Dan Dan noodles and chicken wings, which were also quite good.  

After lunch, Ben took the ship’s shuttle back into town to walk around the town’s central shopping district Zhongxin Street.  This was a pedestrian mall with a wide street and many shops, but there was also a large part of the area still being developed behind construction panels.  Off the main street were a few alleys with many tiny shops.  There were several featuring a sewing machine in the front.  Others had seemingly random collections of merchandise and a couple had a shop keeper dozing on a folding recliner lounge in the middle of the tiny shops.

We both took advantage of the thermal spa today.  Then we went to attend a lecture on ancient Chinese history, which was a brief overview of the dynasties and some of the pre dynastic figureheads including Confucius and a brief mention of the chaos of the 3 Kingdoms period between the Han and Tang dynasties.  

Next was a port talk for tomorrow’s destination of Zhoushan.  While Dongtou has 300 islands, Zhoushan is off the delta of the Yangtze River and is an archipelago of over 1400 islands and 3000 reefs. It is most famous for Mt Putuo, which is one of Buddhism’s 4 sacred mountains.  It is dedicated to Guanyin, the goddess of mercy and there are many temples, statues and caves related to her worship.  The included excursion is an evening outdoor multimedia show with Mt Putuo as the back drop.  

Dinner tonight was in Manfredi’s Italian Restaurant.  On Prior Viking cruises, there was always a chef chiseling away at a huge wheel of parmigiana near the restaurant entrance.  That was notably missing.  But the rest of the restaurant and meal were on cue for Manfredi’s.  We both had the fried shrimp and calamari appetizer and mushroom soup to start.  We also shared an appetizer that was fried dough balls filled with cheese and topped with prosciutto.  It was the first time we had ordered that, and we will probably order it again in the future.  Janet had chicken parmigiana and Ben had marinated lamb chops for the mains.  Both were delicious, but Janet’s chicken parmigiana was as big as her head, so she couldn’t finish it.  She could barely get a tiny scoop of gelato in for dessert.

We called it a night after dinner since we were nearly suffering food comas.  We look forward to sleeping in a bit tomorrow.