The Boat!

On the Saturday in Beijing i didn't really do much, i went to the Lama Temple which is apparently the most important Buddist temple outside of Tibet. Everything was quite peaceful there, lots of Chinese offering incense to the various shrines. I thought it would be more peaceful but there were quite a few people there. The most impressive thing was a giant Buddha carved from one piece of Sandal wood.

On the Sunday i made me way to Tianjin near to the port of Tanggu where i was catching the ferry to Japan. Had to catch the train from Beijing Train Station which was an experience!!!! Hardly any english signs and the Chinese are definitely not a nation that like to queue! Eventually managed to get a ticket (from one of the 90ish ticket windows!!) to Tianjin. One in Tianjin i got the bus to the hostel- it was tipping it down with rain all day and asked a man on the bus for help with the stop i needed, unfortunately he told me one to early so i had to walk for a while in the rain, i looked like a proper drowned rat by the time i reached the hostel!

Tianjin Youth Hostel is the only one in Tianjin but it was quite quiet. Turned out three other people were going to the port on the Monday morning so we all shared the ride down.
We were driven by the hostel owner and with five of us in the car it was quite steamy, not sure he could actually see out the window but we made it to the port in one piece!

The cabin on the boat was quite basic but nice 4 berth but only myself and a chinese lady in there...(Tomoko who was at the youth hostel the night before was in a 16 person tatami room so i was grateful i wasnt down there!)

There wasnt much to do on the boat so we just watched dvds mostly. Tomoko had a whole leonardo decaprio dvd collection so we watched most of his films....barring titanic....didnt think that would be a good idea being on a boat!

The two days went quite quickly, there wasnt much to see from the boat....lots of mist!

Went through quarantine in the port in Kobe where they took our temperatures with what must have been an infra red gun! Then through to immigration to get fingerprinted and a phototaken!