Prelude to Dalian

Despite our adventures in Beijing, I still decided to go to the library after dinner. Books have always been a reassuring object to me. Horace Mann wisely said, "A room without books is like a house without windows." Since we were in a floating house with relatively few windows, I opted for the room with books, besides the exotic paintings on the faux conservatory(-style) ceiling felt so decadent, so how could I resist?  What better place to read a play by Wilde or an essay by Shaw! Of course I didn't do that, I knitted, but still I imagined reading Pygmalion as I tried to correct for the 3rd time the mistakes I had made the day before on my green possum wool shawl.

Since it was March 17, the ship had celebrated St. Patrick's day while we were in Beijing, but they greeted us at dinner with this decor. (I went by and photographed it after the fact.)

The morning of the next day we got up and went to breakfast  before heading out into Dalian. Look at these marvelous socks knitted by one of our breakfast colleagues!

Dalian was already visible from the patio outside the Panorama room, but we had not yet arrived.

This meant we could enjoy watching the ship glide into port while we ate our breakfast.

It was a beautiful sunny day and Dalian seemed clean and cheery after the oldness and grime of Beijing.

The skyline was modern and enticing.

Of course there were some familiar Beijing sights too. (Yes, I know I am obsessed - call it a baby boom "duck and cover" generational thing.)

As we dined, we watched the seabirds and the barges passing by and then drank the last of our pretend coffee before heading to our rooms to prepare for disembarking.

Natalie (my roommate) and I were excited, we had signed up for an excursion with a visit to a "typical" Chinese family.

This would be my first excursion organized by the ship and I was excited to see what I  had been missing.