Reflections

As we have now come full circle, a little reflection.  On this trip, we learned a lot about ourselves and how we will travel in the future.  We've learned that organized tours aren't really our thing, and that it really is about the food.  While we enjoyed most aspects of our vacation in China, and are definitely glad we went, it's not the type of vacation we're likely to repeat.  Flying from city to city and moving four different times during two weeks did not make for a relaxing vacation.  In the future our trips will revolve around doing something that one or both of us enjoys, like cooking, eating, driving exotic cars, watching auto races, or lying on the beach with cool drinks.  Those activities may involve traveling to Europe, or Canada, surely the Caribbean; or maybe just a short drive down the road.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, in reverse order:

The Ugly: 

Without a doubt the experience of our trip home was the ugliest part of the vacation.  I have written a letter to United Airlines and have not yet received a response.  I'll follow up if I don't hear back with satisfactory compensation within the next week.  There's no excuse for Business First Class passengers traveling roundtrip to China to be given a non-existent hotel room at a budget motel when the missed connection was clearly the airline's fault, and coach passengers are lodged at the Hyatt Regency.

The next ugliest thing about our trip was the pollution which we encountered everywhere.   It was worse in the big cities, but was bad even along the river during the cruise portion of the vacation.  I had burning eyes and a scratchy throat the entire time we were there.  I felt so sorry for the children who will live their entire lives never seeing really blue skies.

The Bad:

Smoking is commonplace in China, and there are very few no smoking areas.  In one of the hotels, apparently the smoking floors were all full and smoking guests were placed in rooms on non-smoking floors.  This did not stop them from smoking in their rooms.  Smoking is also apparently allowed on tour buses, and the bus we used in Xian had a horrible odor of smoke which permeated everything on the bus.   

While the food wasn't memorable, in most cases it was quite good.  The exception was the box lunches, which were just awful.

The Good:

While flying from city to city wasn't particularly fun, it was necessary in order to experience as much of China as we did.  Viking has this process down to a science, and made it as painless as possible.

Our hotel accommodations were nothing short of spectacular.  Every hotel was a five-star accommodation, with wonderful amenities and great restaurants. 

But the very best thing about our trip was the group of friends that we made during the two weeks.  These are people who I know will be friends for many years to come.  In fact, a reunion has already been scheduled with six of the eight of us!