They say that Paris is “The City Of Light” but last evening we could have sworn that moniker belongs to Shanghai!

Yesterday began the Chinese three-day Labour Day holiday celebrations and he river was full of evening tour boats packed with families and revellers in the city to celebrate on May 1. Of course that meant that Yu Garden, the Old City and the Jade Buddha Temple were massively crowded, it we didn’t care. It was exhilarating to be there among the crowds.

The wonderful thing about traveling by ship is that after each busy couple of days, there’s a day or two to relax and prepare for the next one. As we write this, we’re 45 miles off the coast of China headed north toward Tianjin. We’ll leave the ship for an overnight in Beijing and then it’s on to the Great Wall. We’ll rejoin our floating hotel the next day.