Day-35: Dalian, China - Yes, That's Snow

Day-35: Saturday, March 8, 2014

Beginning Location: Yellow Sea En-route to Dalian, China

Interim Location: Dalian, China

Final Location: Yellow Sea En-route to Tianjin, China

A note for the nautical types amongst us.

A Long Ship: Stern Drifting Left, Bow Drifting Right

With the extra hour of sleep it was no problem being up early for the morning's trivia session. Today we tied for 1^st place. Here are some of the questions:

• Brian May, the guitarist played for what popular group?
• How many dots on a pair of dice?
• In radio jargon, what does the term AM stand for?
• What is the softest mineral known to man?
• What river flows both north and south of the equator?
• In Pyscho, what was used to simulate blood in the shower-stabbing scene?
• What is the color of the cross in the Swedish flag?
• What insulates the ice cream in a baked Alaska thereby keeping it from melting?

By this point in the cruise some of the trivia players were getting a little testy. Seems that they had forgotten the game's two rules related to challenging answers:

• Rule #1: No matter what you think is the correct answer, the moderator's answer is what counts.
• Rule #2: If you disagree with the moderator, see rule #1.

At 1000 we had our last enrichment lecture entitled “Marco Polo, The Merchant of Venice, Tradesman, Explorer, Adventurer, Survivor”. The presentation didn’t really offer much in the way of knowledge about China but did provide some details to the story of Marco Polo and his family. The speaker also shed some light on the possibility of trade between the east and west earlier that the 12^th century.

We arrived in Dalian, China around noon and were met with falling snow, yes that's correct SNOW! Our tour "Walking Tour of Dalian with Kite Flying" looked iffy at best, nevertheless everyone had to clear customs in Dalian.

The Sky Is Falling

Welcoming Committee

Red Left Returning

With our tour scheduled for 1330 we headed down to lunch and sat next to the Kansas couple we met on Day #1 of the cruise. Today I had what will likely be my last hot dog on this cruise, they were really good.

At 1330 we headed down to the assembly point to tell the tour folks that, being afraid of snow, we were bailing on the walk and kite flying. Some of our friends were still planning to go, but with the cold and snow, it didn’t seem like a good idea. (LATE REPORT: We made the correct decision)

We then boarded the “immigration” bus and drove about a half mile to the Chinese checkpoint where we dutifully stood in line and went through a face-to-face immigration check. Upon completion of the check we returned to the ship for a relaxing afternoon.

The ship was underway at 1845, a few minutes early as everyone was on board and ready to go. In hindsight no one is really sure why we visited Dalian, perhaps to facilitate the immigration into China.

We had dinner in the Grand Dining Room with Canadian friends.

Following dinner we attended the "end of cruise" show at 2130 which was followed by an assembly of the housekeeping and food service staff where the “Sailor of the Month” was announced and both the customers and staff could thank each other for a successful cruise.

We followed the show with one more drink at Martini’s before turning in for our last night at sea.

Tomorrow we arrive at Tianjin, the port city serving Beijing.