Why & How I Fell In Love with Asia
(Cruising China 2 )

By Mel Berman
        Mr. Berman was born and raised and lived in Chicago and moved to Indianapolis 18 years ago. Before his retirement last year, he was an entrepreneur sourcing for U.S. companies in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. He had made over 50 trips to those localities and traveled extensively through China. He and his lovely wife Jane, a Hong Kong native currently reside in Carmel, IN. AAT readers shall enjoy his future articles in taking a graduate course in Asian Studies and his marriage to Jane resulting in his further exposure to Chinese culture and travel in Asia.  
        Continuing on with our cruise to Asia after our visit to Suzhou, our next scheduled port of call was Dalian, China. A city I was very anxious to see as I had been told by other Americans it was one of China’s most beautiful. It lies on the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula bordering the Yellow Sea in Liaoning Province and features deep blue bays and dazzling beaches. In China, it is often referred to as “Hong Kong of the North.” The avenues are wide and tree lined, and in years past it , enjoyed a dynamic mayor who was the son of a high ranking Party member and he worked energetically during his tenure to make Dalian the city it is today. Due to the cities geographic location over its long history, the city had been governed at different times by both Koreans and Russians. In the downtown area you can still see some of their influences in the architecture of the buildings which was quite interesting.
        It was our misfortune that during the night before we arrived in port and during the day we were there, we had snow and fairly high winds which hampered our tour. Traffic moved slowly and our ability to walk around some of the scheduled venues was difficult. Even though we had winter clothes we were not traveling with the kind of boots you would have wanted to trudge through deep snow.
        Be that as it may, Dalian did not disappoint. Its squares and parks were beautiful and since the snow was very fresh, shimmering in unblemished white. Of particular note was Zongshen Square in the core of the city and it is here you can see the classical buildings I mentioned earlier, and Xinghai Square built in 1997 to commemorate the return of Hong Kong to China. It features a Huabiao which is a column carved with images of clouds and topped with a mystical creature.
        One last interesting comment is that Dalian is considered to have the most beautiful women in China. The mayor wanted to showcase this fact and as you drive through the city, the traffic police at many of the busy intersections are beautiful young woman. They were truly beautiful in their fur lined caps.
        Our next port of call was Tianjin, China. While being a huge city in itself, it was the closest port to Beijing and all but one of the scheduled tours Princess Cruise Line offered was for different sights in Beijing of which there are many. A few years ago Jane and I spent several days in Beijing touring the Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven, The Great Wall, The Summer Palace and Ming Tombs and Tianamen Square with the government buildings open to the public as well as what is left of the hutongs. So we elected to take the only tour available for Tianjin, a very large city in its own right, so large that it has been designated by the government as a Special Municipality with considerable autonomy. However in as much as it is relatively close to Beijing, it is more often than not ignored by foreign tourists who having to choose between the two, obviously choose the excitement of Beijing. The land excursion featured four locations to visit. The night before docking, we were advised two of the four locations had to be canceled and Princess Cruise Line offered to allow us to cancel the tour or receive a 20% discount. We elected to cancel and remained on the ship for the day which turned out nice because we literally had the whole ship to ourselves as 95% of the passengers were on the various tours offered in Beijing. I would guess that there were only about 50 people on the ship that day so we had the internet room, library, gym etc pretty much to ourselves. It was cold outside so it worked out to be a nice day to totally relax and un-wind for the schedule ahead would be quite busy.
        The next column will cover Vladivostok, Russia (a pleasant surprise as well as the delightful city of Hakata, Japan on the northern tip of the island of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands.
        To reach these cities, if you examine a map you will see that we had to cruise for 2 days right along the coastline of South Korea and then North Korea before arriving at Vladivostok. It is interesting to note that all during the time we cruised near North Korea, the TV stations in our cabin TV that required satellite transmission were blocked out by…. guess ‘who’.