At first I was thinking that this might have a little bit of the "second book syndrome" in that it felt like there was just a series of events happening along this very, somewhat boring voyage to China with no cohesiveness to the story. But then, when we got to the last chunk I completely changed my mind. A lot of what happened on the voyage played into the overarching theme of this book which was views on dragons' rights and freedoms. We start to see Temeraire question why the English breed their dragons for war and war only. When they finally end up in China and Temeraire sees the spectacular way Chinese dragons live, he has a great sense of justice built up in him that him and his friends back home should be living differently. How he reflects on killing the sea serpent was sad and eyeopening as well. The fact that he chooses to go back home to hopefully begin to make changes in Britain really shows to his character as a dragon. He simply is the best.
Some other things I whole heartedly enjoyed were when Temeraire got sick and couldn't taste anything on the ship and the Chinese people aboard began preparing him meals with spices that he found to be utterly delicious. I giggled and smiled at Temeraire learning how to write with his love interest and then casually drinking tea. I'm imagining this gigantic beast enjoying the dainty things in life and I am very much hear for it.