Neither of us slept well, I was worried we would not get a wake up call, or not hear the alarm or have problems with our tickets at the airport...a million thoughts ran through our minds.
Both the wake up call and alarm came at 6 am, what was I worrying about. We packed everything up and off to the airport we went.
Our cabbie dropped us off at the terminal and we went to check in. That is when the fun started. Our travel agent gave us paper tickets, like the old days. The tickets were issued by Air India but we were flying Singapore Air. First we went to Air India, they sent us to Singapore Airlineswho sent us back to India who sent us back to Singapore......by this time I was a nervous wreck and we only had 1/2 hour until our flight closed. Finally a supervisor from Singapore Airlines came to Air India with us and they were able to get a proper ticket issued. Needless to say, it is a good thing I go to the hairdresser on Tuesday as I grew a few hundred grey hairs during this exercise.
Oh, did I mention that the cabbie dropped us off at the wrong terminal so after all of this we had to catch a sky train to a different terminal.......with an escort from Singapore Airlines. When we got there the girl told us that there were not 2 seats together on the flight. I think the look on my face scared her as there was no way I was flying for over 18 hours without Kevin beside me. She did another check and found 2 seats together in row 55. She seemed reluctant as she said it was row 55 of 56 but I smiled and said "That's great, we are close to the washroom and the beverage cart, and if the plane goes down, we are the last ones to die". Apparently you shouldn't mention planes going down in an airport....who knew. We barely had time to go to the bathroom before we were on our 18.5 hour flight to San Francisco.
Our plane was huge, 56 rows with 9 seats across. We tried to upgrade to Business Class but when we found out it would be almost 5000.00 more each we figured we would go sit with the rest of the peeps. The meanest thing the airlines do is make you walk past all those lucky people in first class.....just mean. There must have been a lot of no shows as the plane was not full at all. The seats were nice and roomy and the tv screens were about 15 inches and had gaming controls. It was quite lovely. The funniest part of the flight is when they gave us a menu to choose our meals....all 4 of them. The food was awesome and the service was amazing. When we got to Seoul we got off the plane for about 45 minutes and then off to San Fran. When we got back on the plane it was even more empty so Kevin and I each had our own bank of 3 seats and were able to stretch out to sleep. Think I slept for about 3 hours but Kevin couldn't sleep. I watched 4 movies.....The Help was a great movie, I recommend it to everyone.
We arrived in San Fran at noon on Thursday......funny since we left Singapore at 9:30 am on Thursday. We were both a bit tired but knew we had to keep moving. Surprisingly the 18 hour flight was not that bad. We checked into the hotel and then headed to Alcatraz for a night tour. Very cool...and a bit creepy. The weather was beautiful so we could see for miles around the Island. Normally it is quite foggy this time of the year so we were very lucky. We were at Alcatraz for about 2 hours and then headed back to land. We were exhausted and hungry so headed back to the hotel for a bite to eat. We looked at the menu at the hotel and nothing interested us so we started walking. We thought we could watch the baseball game and have some pub food.....no luck, we ended up at 7-11 microwaving a burger and falling asleep before the game was over. Jet lags a bitch.
Our sleep was awful, we were both wide awake at 2 am because of the time change but that didn't stop us from getting on the Hop and Stop bus to explore San Francisco. We were a bit foolish and dressed in shorts and flip flops and went to the top of the open air bus. We froze our 10 little piggies for a couple of hours but then the temps rose and we finally warmed up. The bus tour was about 2 1/2 hours and we saw all the highlights of the city. We went across the Golden Gate bridge and again the weather was amazing with no fog...we were very lucky. After the bus ride we went to Pier 39 and wandered around the pier catching all the sites. The sea lions hang out on the pier and they are so cute.....and loud. We headed ton the cable cars to experience the topsy turvy roads of San Fran. We both hung from the side of the car so had a lot of fun.
Game 7 of themselves World Series was at four. We got back tom the hotel to catch a couple of innings and then head to dinner.....but we both both fell asleep so Kevin went to Subway and grabbed us some dinner. I must admit, I do not remember eating, I was sleeping when he went and fell back asleep as soon as he got home and handed me the sub.
Saturday morning we headed out to Chinatown before heading to the airport. Unfortunately most everything was closed but we still got the feel the area. San Francisco is an amazing place and we will definately go back when we are not suffering from jet lag.
Our amazing journey is over, we had the time of our lives and I am so fortunate to have been able to experience this adventure with the love of my life. I could not imagine experiencing it without him.
I have to apologize for any spelling or grammatical in the blog. I was typing on my IPad and generally did not have time to proofread everything before posting it as my Internet access was less than savory. The Ipad likes to change words on me.....hopefully you could figure out what I was trying to say.
We are back home now. Big thanks to my family trying to keep us awake last night....I think the jet lag is almost done.....15 hour difference reeks havoc on a body.
I hope you all enjoyed our adventure and I hope to see many of you soon.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Friday, 28 October 2011
It's almost over - part 1
I can't believe that the trip is coming to a close. We have had so much fun and I am sure that things happened that I forgot to blog about but if I remember I will simply just add it as time goes on. It was a busy week with very limited access to the internet so here goes what I can remember.
Monday was a sea day, it was glorious outside with the exception of the humidity. It was very difficult to sit anywhere except somewhere with air conditioning because it was 33 degrees with 100% humidity. We had a quiet day reading and doing sudokos. In the evening we went to the casino and to our surprise there were people playing craps.....this was the first time this cruise that anyone was at the table so we thought we would check it out. It was formal nite so everyone was dressed in their Sunday best filtering through the casino to get to the theatre to watch the nitely performance. The craps table was buzzing with activity when suddenly an announcement was made over the loud speaker for some staff to go to a gally in one of the restaurants. The table quickly filled with more chips, dice were being thrown and all was going very well......then all hell broke loose. None of the passengers knew what the 2nd announcement meant, but suddenly the pit bosses were grabbing the plastic cages to cover the chips and all the chips we had on the table were thrown back to us and the casino staff disappeared. All the slots were shut down and some staff from other parts of the ship began putting on their life jackets and preparing the casino for a muster station in the event of an evacuation. The captain came onto the speaker to announce that there was a fire in one of the gally's and that they had to send in people with "oxygen masks" into the affected area. A few minutes later he confirmed that there was a fire and they were attempting to contain it. Then a few minutes after that he announced all was well, people could continue on eating their dinner and sorry for the interruption. It was a blast. Many of the crew, who have been on ships for over 10 years, have never had this happen before. The funniest part was the captain saying at the end "sorry for the inconvenience but when something like this happens we "hit it hard and fast" For the record, it was a dishwasher that caught fire which was the 2nd time such an incident occurred, however this one was much more severe. By the way, did I mention that the ship was in the middle of nowhere when this happened:) Kevin and I are still not convinced that we got all our chips back when the alarm was rung.
Tuesday was a quiet sea day, hotter and muggier than Monday and again we stayed inside the ship for the better part of the day to beat the heat. We also had to do the terrible task of packing......not fun. An early dinner and early to bed as Wednesday was disembarkation day and we had to be up early.
When we got off the ship we were nestled right in the middle of the most massive shipping yard I have ever seen. We had to board a shuttle to the cruise ship centre where our luggage was and it took us over 20 minutes to get there. I would suspect that this port is one of the biggest ones in the world. We got our luggage and found a cab to take us to our hotel.....what a fraudster that dude was. He charged us 40 bucks and our friends only paid 10. Guess they saw us coming. However, he was a nice young man who basically gave us a city tour while taking us to the hotel. We arrived at the hotel at 11:00 am and were delighted to find out our room was ready. We were able to offload the luggage and then head out on our trek of Singapore. We walked for hours and saw many sites. The worlds most expensive (cost of building) hotel is located in Singapore. It is absolutely massive. There are 3 towers and on the top of the span of the towers is a ship. You can go to the top of the tower and sit in the gardens and enjoy the roof top pool, but only if you are a guest of the hotel. The architect who created the building based it on what you see after a Tsunami....boats on top of buildings. There is a huge mall and casino attached to the hotel. The mall has every store you can think of as well as a skating rink.
It poured outside and we did not have an umbrella so we looked like drown rats. Some of the other people on the ship were meeting at Raffles for a Singapore Sling so we headed over there to meet them. We were both very thirsty so opted for a Tiger beer first as we waited for our friends. When they arrived, we asked for the bill for the 2 beers - $44.00.....yes, $44.00 for 2 Tiger beers......that is the most expensive beer that I have ever had and the crazy thing is that we bought the same beers in Vietnam for $1.00!!!! The Singapore Slings are $31.00 for the cheapest ones and go up to $40.00 depending on what kind of booze you want in it.......not a chance. The worst part is that because they serve so many in a day, the mixture they use is now just a powder and the booze is pre-mixed. None of our friends thought that it tasted too good.
We walked down the street to another pub and there you can get 5 Tiger beers for $45.00, what a deal!!!!!
Kevin and I decided that if we ever want to return to Singapore again that we will need to win the lottery first. We had dinner at the hotel as we had to be up at 6 am the next morning to prepare for our 18 hour flight home and opted for the buffet......get a load of this..............$65.00 per person. Thankfully it was 2 for 1. Unbelievable.
You cannot chew gum in Singapore, you cannot buy gum in Singapore. If you have gum you must have got it from Malaysia. You will be fined 300.00 if you are caught chewing gum. If you throw your cigarette butt on the ground and get caught it is a 500.00 fine and there are all sorts of cops watching, if you carry a weapon you get charged 300.00 and if you traffic drugs you get executed. No messing around in this country.
However, Singapore is a very beautiful town and the people are delightful.
I think you have read enough for one day so I will blog again tommorow with the escapades of a 18.5 hour journey to San Francisco.
Off to watch the Cardinals win the World Series.
Until next time.
Monday was a sea day, it was glorious outside with the exception of the humidity. It was very difficult to sit anywhere except somewhere with air conditioning because it was 33 degrees with 100% humidity. We had a quiet day reading and doing sudokos. In the evening we went to the casino and to our surprise there were people playing craps.....this was the first time this cruise that anyone was at the table so we thought we would check it out. It was formal nite so everyone was dressed in their Sunday best filtering through the casino to get to the theatre to watch the nitely performance. The craps table was buzzing with activity when suddenly an announcement was made over the loud speaker for some staff to go to a gally in one of the restaurants. The table quickly filled with more chips, dice were being thrown and all was going very well......then all hell broke loose. None of the passengers knew what the 2nd announcement meant, but suddenly the pit bosses were grabbing the plastic cages to cover the chips and all the chips we had on the table were thrown back to us and the casino staff disappeared. All the slots were shut down and some staff from other parts of the ship began putting on their life jackets and preparing the casino for a muster station in the event of an evacuation. The captain came onto the speaker to announce that there was a fire in one of the gally's and that they had to send in people with "oxygen masks" into the affected area. A few minutes later he confirmed that there was a fire and they were attempting to contain it. Then a few minutes after that he announced all was well, people could continue on eating their dinner and sorry for the interruption. It was a blast. Many of the crew, who have been on ships for over 10 years, have never had this happen before. The funniest part was the captain saying at the end "sorry for the inconvenience but when something like this happens we "hit it hard and fast" For the record, it was a dishwasher that caught fire which was the 2nd time such an incident occurred, however this one was much more severe. By the way, did I mention that the ship was in the middle of nowhere when this happened:) Kevin and I are still not convinced that we got all our chips back when the alarm was rung.
Tuesday was a quiet sea day, hotter and muggier than Monday and again we stayed inside the ship for the better part of the day to beat the heat. We also had to do the terrible task of packing......not fun. An early dinner and early to bed as Wednesday was disembarkation day and we had to be up early.
When we got off the ship we were nestled right in the middle of the most massive shipping yard I have ever seen. We had to board a shuttle to the cruise ship centre where our luggage was and it took us over 20 minutes to get there. I would suspect that this port is one of the biggest ones in the world. We got our luggage and found a cab to take us to our hotel.....what a fraudster that dude was. He charged us 40 bucks and our friends only paid 10. Guess they saw us coming. However, he was a nice young man who basically gave us a city tour while taking us to the hotel. We arrived at the hotel at 11:00 am and were delighted to find out our room was ready. We were able to offload the luggage and then head out on our trek of Singapore. We walked for hours and saw many sites. The worlds most expensive (cost of building) hotel is located in Singapore. It is absolutely massive. There are 3 towers and on the top of the span of the towers is a ship. You can go to the top of the tower and sit in the gardens and enjoy the roof top pool, but only if you are a guest of the hotel. The architect who created the building based it on what you see after a Tsunami....boats on top of buildings. There is a huge mall and casino attached to the hotel. The mall has every store you can think of as well as a skating rink.
It poured outside and we did not have an umbrella so we looked like drown rats. Some of the other people on the ship were meeting at Raffles for a Singapore Sling so we headed over there to meet them. We were both very thirsty so opted for a Tiger beer first as we waited for our friends. When they arrived, we asked for the bill for the 2 beers - $44.00.....yes, $44.00 for 2 Tiger beers......that is the most expensive beer that I have ever had and the crazy thing is that we bought the same beers in Vietnam for $1.00!!!! The Singapore Slings are $31.00 for the cheapest ones and go up to $40.00 depending on what kind of booze you want in it.......not a chance. The worst part is that because they serve so many in a day, the mixture they use is now just a powder and the booze is pre-mixed. None of our friends thought that it tasted too good.
We walked down the street to another pub and there you can get 5 Tiger beers for $45.00, what a deal!!!!!
Kevin and I decided that if we ever want to return to Singapore again that we will need to win the lottery first. We had dinner at the hotel as we had to be up at 6 am the next morning to prepare for our 18 hour flight home and opted for the buffet......get a load of this..............$65.00 per person. Thankfully it was 2 for 1. Unbelievable.
You cannot chew gum in Singapore, you cannot buy gum in Singapore. If you have gum you must have got it from Malaysia. You will be fined 300.00 if you are caught chewing gum. If you throw your cigarette butt on the ground and get caught it is a 500.00 fine and there are all sorts of cops watching, if you carry a weapon you get charged 300.00 and if you traffic drugs you get executed. No messing around in this country.
However, Singapore is a very beautiful town and the people are delightful.
I think you have read enough for one day so I will blog again tommorow with the escapades of a 18.5 hour journey to San Francisco.
Off to watch the Cardinals win the World Series.
Until next time.
Monday, 24 October 2011
Almost home
Kevin and I were siting in the balcony enjoying a nice quiet evening before dinner when the older couple beside us decided to bring put their IPod docking station and rock to the oldies. Apparently they are both hard of hearing as the volume was quite high. We remained quiet and listened to the music.....when they started signing quite loudly we almost hated a gut. Kevin had to go in the cabin for fear of laughing out loud.
We were on an excursion on Saigon and had a 10 minute stop to take photos from a large square in the middle of town. The bus was waiting for us as we tok photos. We all got back on the bus with the exception of 4 people. We all sat on the bus for another 25 minutes waiting for them to finish their shopping in the Post Office. When they finally came back on the bus they simply went to their seats, they were completely oblivious to the fact they held us all up. Some people just don't get it
Traffic in Saigon is crazy. The population is about 10 million and there are more than 5 million motorcycles on the road. There is no semblance of order and people drive wherever the want, including the sidewalks.
Electrical in Saigon is just as crazy as in other parts of Vietnam, except in Saigon. We actually saw the electricians fixing the wires. There are so man wires running from post to post that instead of having a bucket truck that they stand in, they just sit on the bundle of wires and it supports their weight.....and they are doing this during a rain storm. Crazy
We went to a Lacquer factory while in Saigon and it is really interesting the steps they go through when you purchase a piece of furniture that has any sort of inlay. I am sure these people get paid a dollar a day to do the work that they do, but they certainly charge a lot for it in the gift shop.
The roads in Vietnam are the worst that we have been on, and I think that the bus we travelled in for 2 hours didn't have much of a suspension system. It is amazing that the road from the port to the main highway was not even paved. By far Saigon was the poorest city that we were in, with several shanty towns and garbage everywhere. It is definitely not on the list of places we want to return.
We were quite happy when we had a 2 hour break from the tour to do what we wanted. We stopped for lunch at a bar and had a couple of local beers to try to defeat the heat. It is amazing that in this climate you can drink 5 litres of water in a morning and not have to use the toilet. Then it was back on the bus for another 2 hour tour.
A quiet day at sea on Saturday, nothing of real excitement happened.
Sunday we headed to Bangkok (tee hee, I always laugh when I say that name). We opted for a afternoon tour as we did not set sail until midnite so we were able to take in the sights and sounds of a port in the evening, not very often you can do that. We had another 2 hour bus ride from the port into Bangkok and unfortunately our bus did not have air conditioning so the bus was very hot. The funniest part was that we were the last two to get on the bus, we like to sit at the back. The first 2 seas were reserved for handicap passengers so we to the back, that is when we found out there were no more seats and the guide told us to sit in the front, you should have heard all the groans from then gummers, they were pissed. The view from the front was amazing, but our driver was a maniac and that made for a very interesting view of the cars weaving in front of us. Fortunately they were able to get us a new bus, 1 1/2 hours into the journey and it was marvelous from there. The driver was a much better one than the one before so I didn't have to white knuckle it anymore:). We had a lovely tour guide, probably the best of the entire cruise who guided us the Bangkok with ease. We were supposed to do a river cruise but it was cancelled because of the high water levels and impending flooding. At first we were a bit pissed that that portion of the tour was cancelled as it was the real reason we wanted the tour, but when we drove to where the boats were to sail from we could see why it was cancelled. You could not even see the docks, they were submerged. Everywhere you drove in Bangkok there were sand bags. There is supposed to be more flooding closer to the end of the week. The flooding that they had a week ago has caused 6000 people to lose their jobs. Countless homes were affected and now they are trying to rebuild. This is the worst flooding that Thailand has had in 30 years.
We went to some amazing temples (yes, we do not need to see another temple for another 10 years), one of the temples was called the reclining buddha temple, it had this huge buddha laying down taking a nap, it was huge. Then we saw part of the Royal families motorcade pass us, wow - they have nice cars. We then headed to the Marble Temple where we saw all the monks doing their chant......that was very cool. It was a very special day in Thailand yesterday because on October 23rd every year they celebrate the life of King Raman the 5th. He was the most influential King that Thailand has ever had. He revolutionized what Thailand is today. There were big pictures of him all over the city and there were celebrations going on everywhere. Our guide explained that normally it is much busier in Bangkok but most people are staying at home because of the flooding. We saw about 100 cars parked along an off ramp (heading up) and they were parked there so that their cars would not get flooded. Who knows where they live, they jsut found the highest piece of ground they could and parked. We had dinner at a beautiful restaurant in a very nice hotel.....probably one of the best meals that we have had. The hotel was situated on the river and because the water tables are so high, the water was already starting to come through the walls of the hotel. i am sure we will be able to watch the devastation on tv this week.
Thailand is a beautiful place, however you can tell that there are definitely some very poor areas of town. It is not very clean compared to a lot of the places we saw in China.
We went to a market at night and they have peep shows all along the streets. Guys come up to you with a menu of things that you can get......and it is not food. It is far to "adult" for this friendly blog so you will have to ask me about it when we see each other.
Only 1 1/2 more days on the ship and then to Singapore for a quick day trip and then the long flight to San Francisco......we are both dreading that flight. I probably wont post another blog until we get to San Francisco on Thursday so enjoy your week and we will see you all soon.
We were on an excursion on Saigon and had a 10 minute stop to take photos from a large square in the middle of town. The bus was waiting for us as we tok photos. We all got back on the bus with the exception of 4 people. We all sat on the bus for another 25 minutes waiting for them to finish their shopping in the Post Office. When they finally came back on the bus they simply went to their seats, they were completely oblivious to the fact they held us all up. Some people just don't get it
Traffic in Saigon is crazy. The population is about 10 million and there are more than 5 million motorcycles on the road. There is no semblance of order and people drive wherever the want, including the sidewalks.
Electrical in Saigon is just as crazy as in other parts of Vietnam, except in Saigon. We actually saw the electricians fixing the wires. There are so man wires running from post to post that instead of having a bucket truck that they stand in, they just sit on the bundle of wires and it supports their weight.....and they are doing this during a rain storm. Crazy
We went to a Lacquer factory while in Saigon and it is really interesting the steps they go through when you purchase a piece of furniture that has any sort of inlay. I am sure these people get paid a dollar a day to do the work that they do, but they certainly charge a lot for it in the gift shop.
The roads in Vietnam are the worst that we have been on, and I think that the bus we travelled in for 2 hours didn't have much of a suspension system. It is amazing that the road from the port to the main highway was not even paved. By far Saigon was the poorest city that we were in, with several shanty towns and garbage everywhere. It is definitely not on the list of places we want to return.
We were quite happy when we had a 2 hour break from the tour to do what we wanted. We stopped for lunch at a bar and had a couple of local beers to try to defeat the heat. It is amazing that in this climate you can drink 5 litres of water in a morning and not have to use the toilet. Then it was back on the bus for another 2 hour tour.
A quiet day at sea on Saturday, nothing of real excitement happened.
Sunday we headed to Bangkok (tee hee, I always laugh when I say that name). We opted for a afternoon tour as we did not set sail until midnite so we were able to take in the sights and sounds of a port in the evening, not very often you can do that. We had another 2 hour bus ride from the port into Bangkok and unfortunately our bus did not have air conditioning so the bus was very hot. The funniest part was that we were the last two to get on the bus, we like to sit at the back. The first 2 seas were reserved for handicap passengers so we to the back, that is when we found out there were no more seats and the guide told us to sit in the front, you should have heard all the groans from then gummers, they were pissed. The view from the front was amazing, but our driver was a maniac and that made for a very interesting view of the cars weaving in front of us. Fortunately they were able to get us a new bus, 1 1/2 hours into the journey and it was marvelous from there. The driver was a much better one than the one before so I didn't have to white knuckle it anymore:). We had a lovely tour guide, probably the best of the entire cruise who guided us the Bangkok with ease. We were supposed to do a river cruise but it was cancelled because of the high water levels and impending flooding. At first we were a bit pissed that that portion of the tour was cancelled as it was the real reason we wanted the tour, but when we drove to where the boats were to sail from we could see why it was cancelled. You could not even see the docks, they were submerged. Everywhere you drove in Bangkok there were sand bags. There is supposed to be more flooding closer to the end of the week. The flooding that they had a week ago has caused 6000 people to lose their jobs. Countless homes were affected and now they are trying to rebuild. This is the worst flooding that Thailand has had in 30 years.
We went to some amazing temples (yes, we do not need to see another temple for another 10 years), one of the temples was called the reclining buddha temple, it had this huge buddha laying down taking a nap, it was huge. Then we saw part of the Royal families motorcade pass us, wow - they have nice cars. We then headed to the Marble Temple where we saw all the monks doing their chant......that was very cool. It was a very special day in Thailand yesterday because on October 23rd every year they celebrate the life of King Raman the 5th. He was the most influential King that Thailand has ever had. He revolutionized what Thailand is today. There were big pictures of him all over the city and there were celebrations going on everywhere. Our guide explained that normally it is much busier in Bangkok but most people are staying at home because of the flooding. We saw about 100 cars parked along an off ramp (heading up) and they were parked there so that their cars would not get flooded. Who knows where they live, they jsut found the highest piece of ground they could and parked. We had dinner at a beautiful restaurant in a very nice hotel.....probably one of the best meals that we have had. The hotel was situated on the river and because the water tables are so high, the water was already starting to come through the walls of the hotel. i am sure we will be able to watch the devastation on tv this week.
Thailand is a beautiful place, however you can tell that there are definitely some very poor areas of town. It is not very clean compared to a lot of the places we saw in China.
We went to a market at night and they have peep shows all along the streets. Guys come up to you with a menu of things that you can get......and it is not food. It is far to "adult" for this friendly blog so you will have to ask me about it when we see each other.
Only 1 1/2 more days on the ship and then to Singapore for a quick day trip and then the long flight to San Francisco......we are both dreading that flight. I probably wont post another blog until we get to San Francisco on Thursday so enjoy your week and we will see you all soon.
Thursday, 20 October 2011
VIETNAM
I forgot to tell you about our funny experience in Shanghai. Kevin decided to wear his red and white loud mouth shorts that day. He looked very nice with a matching red shirt. As we walked down one of the walking streets a lady looked at him and politely said "you should be younger to wear those shorts". We broke out into laughter.....Kevin gets called old in China and I got called fat in Korea......well at least the people are honest:)
Why do women over the age of 60 feel the need to wear two piece bikinis??
Why is it that when Kevin and I are the only ones on an elevator and the doors open and we try to get off that the gummers, normally two, have to bowl us over to get onto the empty elevator??
The light show leaving Hong Kong was beautiful. All of the buildings were lit up and the lights danced to the music. There are a lot of insurance companies here and their signs were shining brightly.....ugh, reminded us of work.
We had a nice quiet sea day yesterday, we went into the slot tournament but didn't make it to the final this time....oh well, maybe we will do one more before we go home. We had a lovely meal at the steakhouse, Kevin decided not to get the 22 ounce porterhouse this time and opted for the 16 ounce sirloin instead. I took a walk on the wild side and had a 6 oz filet mignon, much to their chagrin I had it well done. We gained an hour last nite but it still didn't help us get out of bed any earlier this morning.
We woke to a downpour of rain as we got to Vietnam, it was actually quite refreshing. It was about 30 degrees outside with 100% humidity. I don't think I could ever get used to this humidity.
We headed to town where we were able to get free wi fi for as long as we wanted so we were able to get caught up on paying bills and replying to some emails. We ran into a couple of crew members and we shared a taxi for a tour of the city. It worked out to 10 per person and we travelled for about 3 hours. Our first stop was a temple. The sign outside said that when you are purchasing your tickets you are not to show too much cleavage......too funny. We walked around this beautiful temple and then headed back to our taxi who was waiting for us. We then travelled to the Long Son Pagoda. This area commemorates Buddhist monks who protested the abuse of the Diem regime in the early 1960's by setting themselves on fire. There are plaques for 7 monks who set themselves on fire. There is a white buddha, which is quite uncommon that stands about 100 feet high and has a temple inside. Also in this area is a area where the ashes of the Vietnamese are kept. People who live here as well as Vietnamese people from all over the world have their ashes stored here after they pass. It is still a working temple and the Buddhist monks meditate during the day and then go to school at nite. There were young people who were also going to school there and they took us for the tour. There is no cost to go into this temple area, however you are expected to give them a good tip at the end and buy postcards. All the money, so they tell us, goes towards the cost of schooling. When we arrived at this location one of the students looked at Kevin's belly and told him that he was Buddha, I almost cried I was laughing so hard.
The electrical wiring here is crazy. As the story goes, if your father is a electrician than you need to be one as well because nobody can figure out the wiring that you have strung so you need to teach your children so if something goes wrong that they will know how to fix it. It is difficult to explain what it looks like but suffice it to say that there is about 200 feet of wires hanging in big loops at the end of each pole.
The traffic is also crazy, there are motorcycles and mopeds everywhere. It would appear that cars have the right of way because they just zoom around these machines.
The best part of Vietnam is the fact that 100.00 US dollars is 1, 280,000. We were millionaires for a few hours:) We passed by an incredibly huge Catholic Church on our way back to the shuttle stop. The cab driver stopped so that we could take photos, only in Vietnam:)
We stopped for a beer, $2.00 and some salad rolls....very yummy and then back to the ship.
When we got on the shuttle bus this morning I thought Kevin was going to have a heart attack. At first glance the bus has 2 seats on either side, but as the bus filled up we noticed that there was another seat that plopped down into the middle of the walkway. A woman, who I think was about 65, but Kevin swears she was at least 70 bent over to sit down and wouldn't you know it, she was wearing a thong. It was pulled up so high that it was in the middle of her back. I didn't see it so was not quite as traumatized as Kevin but he could not hold back his disgust.......so when she got up to get off the bus I had to sneak a look.......disgusting....and presumably quite uncomfortable.....yuck. I think that is worse than the 2 piece bathing suits we have seen.
Tommorow we are off to Ho Chi Ming City (Saigon) for another day of adventures. Forecast is 31 degrees and rain......blissful. We are taking a short tour and then walking around on our own. It is a 2 hour bus ride to get from the Port to Ho Chi Ming City so hopefully we can sleep a bit as we leave early.
A birthday shout out to Jen, hope you had a good one.
Until tomorrow
Why do women over the age of 60 feel the need to wear two piece bikinis??
Why is it that when Kevin and I are the only ones on an elevator and the doors open and we try to get off that the gummers, normally two, have to bowl us over to get onto the empty elevator??
The light show leaving Hong Kong was beautiful. All of the buildings were lit up and the lights danced to the music. There are a lot of insurance companies here and their signs were shining brightly.....ugh, reminded us of work.
We had a nice quiet sea day yesterday, we went into the slot tournament but didn't make it to the final this time....oh well, maybe we will do one more before we go home. We had a lovely meal at the steakhouse, Kevin decided not to get the 22 ounce porterhouse this time and opted for the 16 ounce sirloin instead. I took a walk on the wild side and had a 6 oz filet mignon, much to their chagrin I had it well done. We gained an hour last nite but it still didn't help us get out of bed any earlier this morning.
We woke to a downpour of rain as we got to Vietnam, it was actually quite refreshing. It was about 30 degrees outside with 100% humidity. I don't think I could ever get used to this humidity.
We headed to town where we were able to get free wi fi for as long as we wanted so we were able to get caught up on paying bills and replying to some emails. We ran into a couple of crew members and we shared a taxi for a tour of the city. It worked out to 10 per person and we travelled for about 3 hours. Our first stop was a temple. The sign outside said that when you are purchasing your tickets you are not to show too much cleavage......too funny. We walked around this beautiful temple and then headed back to our taxi who was waiting for us. We then travelled to the Long Son Pagoda. This area commemorates Buddhist monks who protested the abuse of the Diem regime in the early 1960's by setting themselves on fire. There are plaques for 7 monks who set themselves on fire. There is a white buddha, which is quite uncommon that stands about 100 feet high and has a temple inside. Also in this area is a area where the ashes of the Vietnamese are kept. People who live here as well as Vietnamese people from all over the world have their ashes stored here after they pass. It is still a working temple and the Buddhist monks meditate during the day and then go to school at nite. There were young people who were also going to school there and they took us for the tour. There is no cost to go into this temple area, however you are expected to give them a good tip at the end and buy postcards. All the money, so they tell us, goes towards the cost of schooling. When we arrived at this location one of the students looked at Kevin's belly and told him that he was Buddha, I almost cried I was laughing so hard.
The electrical wiring here is crazy. As the story goes, if your father is a electrician than you need to be one as well because nobody can figure out the wiring that you have strung so you need to teach your children so if something goes wrong that they will know how to fix it. It is difficult to explain what it looks like but suffice it to say that there is about 200 feet of wires hanging in big loops at the end of each pole.
The traffic is also crazy, there are motorcycles and mopeds everywhere. It would appear that cars have the right of way because they just zoom around these machines.
The best part of Vietnam is the fact that 100.00 US dollars is 1, 280,000. We were millionaires for a few hours:) We passed by an incredibly huge Catholic Church on our way back to the shuttle stop. The cab driver stopped so that we could take photos, only in Vietnam:)
We stopped for a beer, $2.00 and some salad rolls....very yummy and then back to the ship.
When we got on the shuttle bus this morning I thought Kevin was going to have a heart attack. At first glance the bus has 2 seats on either side, but as the bus filled up we noticed that there was another seat that plopped down into the middle of the walkway. A woman, who I think was about 65, but Kevin swears she was at least 70 bent over to sit down and wouldn't you know it, she was wearing a thong. It was pulled up so high that it was in the middle of her back. I didn't see it so was not quite as traumatized as Kevin but he could not hold back his disgust.......so when she got up to get off the bus I had to sneak a look.......disgusting....and presumably quite uncomfortable.....yuck. I think that is worse than the 2 piece bathing suits we have seen.
Tommorow we are off to Ho Chi Ming City (Saigon) for another day of adventures. Forecast is 31 degrees and rain......blissful. We are taking a short tour and then walking around on our own. It is a 2 hour bus ride to get from the Port to Ho Chi Ming City so hopefully we can sleep a bit as we leave early.
A birthday shout out to Jen, hope you had a good one.
Until tomorrow
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
FUN -
If we were on the Amazing Race today, we definitely would have lost that leg of the race, but luckily we were not the last ones to get to the pitstop so we have survived another day. Hong Kong is one freakin big area, it has 6,980,412 people (in 2007) Because our ship is so big we could not dock in the cruise ship area so we docked at the shipping yard. I have never seen so many containers in my life. We were a bit late getting in as so many vessels were entering this area and cruise ships do not get any preferred passage.
We awoke to the banging of huge drums just outside of our room. It was spectacular.
After a quick breakfast we boarded the 20 minute shuttle bus ride to the ferry terminal and headed off to get our bus passes. For 150 Hong Kong dollars each we could use our bus passes on any subway, bus or ferry. That works out to about 15.00 Canadian. Once you have finished your day, you return the pass to them and they refund what you did not use. So we spent 300.00 dollars and got 250.00 back. We went on a ferry 2 times, a bus and 2 subways so for a mere 3 dollars each we travelled a long way. Taking all this public transportation is preparing me when I come home and no longer have a company car:(
We got lost first thing in the morning and walked the same road 4 times before finally realizing we were going around in circles. We eventually found the ferry to take us from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. We took the ferry to Wan Chai and again walked and walked looking for the 15c bus to get us to the highest point on the Island. We could not find it and I was getting frustrated. A very nice man who spoke english got on his Iphone to see where the stop was and could not locate it, that is when he realized we took the wrong ferry, we were supposed to go to Sheung Wan instead.....aaaargh. He tried to find us a bus route to take and then when we asked how much a taxi would be he told us it would be about 30 Hong Kong Dollars, less than 3 bucks Canadian so he flagged a taxi for us, gave the driver directions in Cantonese and off we went. What a wonderful man.
Once we got to the right side of the island we went up to Victoria Peak on a tram. It travels up a very steep incline to get us 1805 feet above sea level. The views on Hong Kong Island as well as the surrounding islands was magical. There are high rise apartment buildings everywhere, and most of the complexes have between 5 - 8 towers. We suspect that probably about 100,000 people live in these complexes.
Many of the older parts of Hong Kong are soon going to be demolished for more of these buildings to go up. It is very bitter sweet for the people who live here as the culture is changing rapidly.
When we came down from the tram the bus 15c was right outside of the entrance....funny. We took the bus back to the Ferry to walk around Kowloon. We really wanted to go see the park that has over 12,000 statues of Buddha, but the subway was going to take too long and given our inability to find anything fast today we opted to just walk around.
They have a tremendous amount of markets here, including flower markets, gold fish markets and clothing/knock off markets. The flowers are amazing and we bought a huge bouquet to bring back to the ship for 12.00......at home it would have cost well over 75.00. We have made some really nice friends on the ship (crew), so we put them in a vase (cost 2.00) and brought them down for them.
Susy, if you ever decide to come here, make sure you stay for a week and bring lots of money. There is every designer store you can imagine here and they are all huge. Many of them had line ups outside as they only let a certain amount of people in at a time. Cartier, Hermes, D&G, Versace.....you name it, they got it here.
There are times during the day when you are walking in Kowloon and you would think it is nighttime because all the high-rises and huge trees cover the sun.
7-11 stores are very popular in Asia. Most of the stores are about 10 x 20 but there are at least 50 people in them at any given time. You can buy everything in these stores so they have become quite popular with us.......yet again today we were able to smuggle local beer on the ship.....at a cost of less than $2.00 Canadian for a supercan.
Tonite we get a special treat as the captain has arranged for us to cruise through Victoria Island, this does not happen on every sailing. There are many corporations who sponsor the event and it is supposed to be a spectacular light show with music that is synchronized. It is to last about 15 minutes so we will go to the top of the ship so that we can get a panoramic view. We are off to Nha Trang the day after tomorrow so will have a relaxing sea day tomorrow to prepare.
Mount On (Good Evening) from very hot and very humid Hong Kong.
We awoke to the banging of huge drums just outside of our room. It was spectacular.
After a quick breakfast we boarded the 20 minute shuttle bus ride to the ferry terminal and headed off to get our bus passes. For 150 Hong Kong dollars each we could use our bus passes on any subway, bus or ferry. That works out to about 15.00 Canadian. Once you have finished your day, you return the pass to them and they refund what you did not use. So we spent 300.00 dollars and got 250.00 back. We went on a ferry 2 times, a bus and 2 subways so for a mere 3 dollars each we travelled a long way. Taking all this public transportation is preparing me when I come home and no longer have a company car:(
We got lost first thing in the morning and walked the same road 4 times before finally realizing we were going around in circles. We eventually found the ferry to take us from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. We took the ferry to Wan Chai and again walked and walked looking for the 15c bus to get us to the highest point on the Island. We could not find it and I was getting frustrated. A very nice man who spoke english got on his Iphone to see where the stop was and could not locate it, that is when he realized we took the wrong ferry, we were supposed to go to Sheung Wan instead.....aaaargh. He tried to find us a bus route to take and then when we asked how much a taxi would be he told us it would be about 30 Hong Kong Dollars, less than 3 bucks Canadian so he flagged a taxi for us, gave the driver directions in Cantonese and off we went. What a wonderful man.
Once we got to the right side of the island we went up to Victoria Peak on a tram. It travels up a very steep incline to get us 1805 feet above sea level. The views on Hong Kong Island as well as the surrounding islands was magical. There are high rise apartment buildings everywhere, and most of the complexes have between 5 - 8 towers. We suspect that probably about 100,000 people live in these complexes.
Many of the older parts of Hong Kong are soon going to be demolished for more of these buildings to go up. It is very bitter sweet for the people who live here as the culture is changing rapidly.
When we came down from the tram the bus 15c was right outside of the entrance....funny. We took the bus back to the Ferry to walk around Kowloon. We really wanted to go see the park that has over 12,000 statues of Buddha, but the subway was going to take too long and given our inability to find anything fast today we opted to just walk around.
They have a tremendous amount of markets here, including flower markets, gold fish markets and clothing/knock off markets. The flowers are amazing and we bought a huge bouquet to bring back to the ship for 12.00......at home it would have cost well over 75.00. We have made some really nice friends on the ship (crew), so we put them in a vase (cost 2.00) and brought them down for them.
Susy, if you ever decide to come here, make sure you stay for a week and bring lots of money. There is every designer store you can imagine here and they are all huge. Many of them had line ups outside as they only let a certain amount of people in at a time. Cartier, Hermes, D&G, Versace.....you name it, they got it here.
There are times during the day when you are walking in Kowloon and you would think it is nighttime because all the high-rises and huge trees cover the sun.
7-11 stores are very popular in Asia. Most of the stores are about 10 x 20 but there are at least 50 people in them at any given time. You can buy everything in these stores so they have become quite popular with us.......yet again today we were able to smuggle local beer on the ship.....at a cost of less than $2.00 Canadian for a supercan.
Tonite we get a special treat as the captain has arranged for us to cruise through Victoria Island, this does not happen on every sailing. There are many corporations who sponsor the event and it is supposed to be a spectacular light show with music that is synchronized. It is to last about 15 minutes so we will go to the top of the ship so that we can get a panoramic view. We are off to Nha Trang the day after tomorrow so will have a relaxing sea day tomorrow to prepare.
Mount On (Good Evening) from very hot and very humid Hong Kong.
STILL HAVING FUN
Shanghai is a beautiful city, but is it ever crazy. We caught a shuttle in and it took over an hour to get through traffic. We had 2 crew members come with us, Ashley and Orest are both from India, and they knew all the hot spots to go. Ashley is about 6'2 and weighs about 250 pounds so he was my bodyguard. Orest was my negotiator. I got a nice cover for our IPad for 20 bucks, would have paid about 75 for it at home. If you want something specific and they do have it in the store you are in they will take you to their "aunts" store. I was dragged by a very small Asian woman by the elbow, very tightly until we reached the small store. These stores are about 10 x 10 and have more stuff in them then we an fit it our house. I was taken into the back room and then into another back room before they showed me what I wanted. Then came the negotiations. The rule of thumb is to cut their price in 4. However this can take some time and given how patient I am at the best of times I am a bad negotiator......queue Ashley and Orest. The funniest part is that they took over the negotiations and the shopkeeper asked if I was their mother....yes, the 5 foot, white blonde chick is the mother of these 2 East Indian fella's. We were successful in cutting down the price by 4 times. We walked through the market and each stall had the same stuff, but these shopkeepers are relentless. You are best to look directly at the ground because if you make any sort of eye contact you are a goner!!!!!
We went for a nice authentic Chinese lunch...the menus are a riot. We stayed with normal food just to be on the safe side. After lunch we hit a couple more shops and walked for miles but our time was short so we did not go to the 2nd largest building in the world:(. Kev and I have agreed that we are definitely coming back to Asia and spending the time we need to see everything we want to. Basically Shanghai is a shopping town so that is what we did.
The cab drivers here are crazy, cranky and like to rip off Westerners. Our first cab driver did not want to pick us up but was told by the boss he had to take us. This resulted in him taking us on a wild goose chase throughout the streets of Shanghai.
We saw a hypnotist show and it was hilarious. Kevin was bugging me to go onstage but I just wanted to watch. We enjoyed it so much. One fella was an absolute riot, we were crying when the show was over.
2 sea days of beautiful weather. Nothing much fun happened, I think all the wacko people got off the ship in Beijing....there is a really odd threesome of Russians, really unattractive older man and 2 very young, robust girls.....one who has so much Botox in her lips I am unsure how she eats. Kevin and I have been trying to figure them out. He thinks he is their daddy, I say he is their "Sugar Daddy".
Last night the hypnotist was back on stage. All afternoon Kevin was bugging me to go on stage, I was reluctant but decided to go must for a lark.....we an hour later I left the stage and apparently was the star of the show. Kevin had a smile from ear to ear and that made it all worthwhile. I am going to see if If I can get a video of it so I can see how much of an ass I made of myself. The worst part was all the people on the ship laughing as I walked by.
Quiet night after that, I am not sure how I will return to work when we get back as Kevin and I have a habit of sleeping until 10 am on sea days. Perhaps I will have to work from noon - 4 instead.
Until next time
We went for a nice authentic Chinese lunch...the menus are a riot. We stayed with normal food just to be on the safe side. After lunch we hit a couple more shops and walked for miles but our time was short so we did not go to the 2nd largest building in the world:(. Kev and I have agreed that we are definitely coming back to Asia and spending the time we need to see everything we want to. Basically Shanghai is a shopping town so that is what we did.
The cab drivers here are crazy, cranky and like to rip off Westerners. Our first cab driver did not want to pick us up but was told by the boss he had to take us. This resulted in him taking us on a wild goose chase throughout the streets of Shanghai.
We saw a hypnotist show and it was hilarious. Kevin was bugging me to go onstage but I just wanted to watch. We enjoyed it so much. One fella was an absolute riot, we were crying when the show was over.
2 sea days of beautiful weather. Nothing much fun happened, I think all the wacko people got off the ship in Beijing....there is a really odd threesome of Russians, really unattractive older man and 2 very young, robust girls.....one who has so much Botox in her lips I am unsure how she eats. Kevin and I have been trying to figure them out. He thinks he is their daddy, I say he is their "Sugar Daddy".
Last night the hypnotist was back on stage. All afternoon Kevin was bugging me to go on stage, I was reluctant but decided to go must for a lark.....we an hour later I left the stage and apparently was the star of the show. Kevin had a smile from ear to ear and that made it all worthwhile. I am going to see if If I can get a video of it so I can see how much of an ass I made of myself. The worst part was all the people on the ship laughing as I walked by.
Quiet night after that, I am not sure how I will return to work when we get back as Kevin and I have a habit of sleeping until 10 am on sea days. Perhaps I will have to work from noon - 4 instead.
Until next time
Friday, 14 October 2011
I think it's Friday
I think today is Friday....can you tell we are on vacation....I asked someone yesterday what day it was and they said Friday so maybe in China it is Friday 2 days a week;)
We had a sea day today so we can sleep in....because we never sleep!!!!! We had to go through "thermal imagining" today. Which meant we had to walk through the lounge and the Chines Immigration people looked at us through a thermal imager to make sure our temperature was not too hot. We have actually done this in other ports but were not aware of what they were doing. Today the actually told us. If your body temperature is too high then you are sent to your cabin for 3 days to cool down and you cannot leave your cabin. You Are quarantined. We both have a cold which we cannot shake but thankfully our temperature is not too high. Not sure how many people have to stay in the ship when we land in Shanghai tomorrow.
Has been a lazy day, we slept until 9 and then needed a nap at 1 to refresh. Quiet afternoon and evening in preparation for tomorrow. One of the crew is going onshore with us tomorrow to help us bargain for deals. There is a tower that has 94 floors, it is the 2nd highest building in the world with the highest observation deck in the world, it is like the Calgary Tower as it has a glass floored observation deck. We are looking forward to going on it.
Shanghai is the largest city in China with a population of 24 million people........24 times the size of Calgary with a much smaller land mass. The cruise terminal we land in is brand new and we are the first ship to dock there. We are hoping we are on the right side of the ship to see everything.
Lots of fishing boats in the horizon, they look beautiful with all their lights. It take 4 hours to dock the ship so the cruise in will be very surreal. I think we start into the port 2 am and finally get in at 6 am......I think we will sleep for most of it.
Oh yeah, I HATE craps.
Until tomorrow, have a great day!
We had a sea day today so we can sleep in....because we never sleep!!!!! We had to go through "thermal imagining" today. Which meant we had to walk through the lounge and the Chines Immigration people looked at us through a thermal imager to make sure our temperature was not too hot. We have actually done this in other ports but were not aware of what they were doing. Today the actually told us. If your body temperature is too high then you are sent to your cabin for 3 days to cool down and you cannot leave your cabin. You Are quarantined. We both have a cold which we cannot shake but thankfully our temperature is not too high. Not sure how many people have to stay in the ship when we land in Shanghai tomorrow.
Has been a lazy day, we slept until 9 and then needed a nap at 1 to refresh. Quiet afternoon and evening in preparation for tomorrow. One of the crew is going onshore with us tomorrow to help us bargain for deals. There is a tower that has 94 floors, it is the 2nd highest building in the world with the highest observation deck in the world, it is like the Calgary Tower as it has a glass floored observation deck. We are looking forward to going on it.
Shanghai is the largest city in China with a population of 24 million people........24 times the size of Calgary with a much smaller land mass. The cruise terminal we land in is brand new and we are the first ship to dock there. We are hoping we are on the right side of the ship to see everything.
Lots of fishing boats in the horizon, they look beautiful with all their lights. It take 4 hours to dock the ship so the cruise in will be very surreal. I think we start into the port 2 am and finally get in at 6 am......I think we will sleep for most of it.
Oh yeah, I HATE craps.
Until tomorrow, have a great day!
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Nagasaki
Not much to report about yesterday in Pusan since we had just been there 6 days earlier. We walked around the market and went to a huge department store that has a waterfall feature that is quite spectacular. The water show lasts about 20 minutes and is done to music.
When we arrived in Pusan we were greeted by Koren Dancers and singers. To be honest, they sound like Native Indians when they sing.
Today we are in Nagasaki, Japan....all I can say is wow. It is the site of one of two nuclear detonations during WW2. One the morning of August 9, 1945, 3 days after the atomic bomb in Hiroshima was dropped, the B-29 BOCKSCAR arrived over the city of Kokura to drop the second bomb which they called "fat man" It was too cloudy in Kokura so the pilot was told to head towards Nagasaki as it was the "Plan B" location. At 11:02 a.m., fat man was dropped. Its energy equivalent once it exploded compares with the explosive forces of 21,000 tons of TNT. Atomic bombs are much more destructive than TNT. Approximately 40,000 Japanese died instantly and tens of thousands more suffered injuries. By the end of the year, almost 150,000 people were dead from unimaginable injuries. The Japanese surrendered shortly thereafter. We walked through the Museum which had many artifacts from that fateful day. It was quite a daunting experience. There had the actual clothes that people were wearing (not the ones at the epicenter as they were burned to ashes, both the people and their clothes), lunch boxes that were completely fried, they showed photos of actual people and the damage that they sustained. There are still people alive today that experienced the A bomb, many are permanently scarred and are always in pain. Some of them are advocates to end nuclear war....understandable.
Our mode of transportation today was street cars. Yes, I was on public transportation and I still don't like it. All of the street cars were donated from different countries after the bomb and they are very old. It is very much like being in San Francisco here as the streets are very hilly and there are lots of street cars.
We walked through Ground Zero where they have a black monolith to mark the site. There is a beautiful "Peace Memorial Park" where there are many statutes donated by other countries to commemorate that day. Many school children were in the park and it appeared that they were singing the national anthem. They placed origami wreaths at the main statue and there was quite a ceremony associated with it. We were not 100% sure what was going on, so I shall google it when I get home to find out the significance of those origami wreaths.
The little Japanese children that were in the parks all wanted to say hi to us. We would say hi back and then they would giggle. They were so proud to be saying hi or hello.
We went to Chinatown for lunch and it was quite delicious. There are noodles that are specific to this region so I had some. Kevin had some soup with noodles and pork.
Kevin went to church....it cost him 4.00 so he thinks he is good for a while. The church was built in 1864 by French Missionaries. It was quite a small, plain church but had an awesome cemetery next to it but unfortunately we could not get access.
We sat beside a guy the other nite in the bar who was just tossed out of the restaurant because he only had a short sleeved shirt on and it was formal nite and you have to wear a long sleeve shirt......he was most upset that he paid for a cruise and then was refused to eat......I suggested he borrow a blouse from his wife, or just go to the buffet.......we saw them in the buffet later that nite.
Last nite we shared a table at dinner for the first time......we have been very lucky over the past 18 days to have our own table, at first we were apprehensive but the other 4 were a riot. We laughed for 2 hours. No talk of prune juice, bowel movements or previous surgeries.....magical!!
Most of the washrooms in Asia are squatters, it is amazing how long you can go without using a washroom here:). Today when we entered the port I went to the washroom.....reluctantly and to my surprise not only was in a built in bidet but it also had a dryer.....unfortunately I could not figure it out so it was business as usual.
Before we left there was a presentation from the deputy mayor to the ship. The ship was built in Nagasaki at the Mitsubishi plant so they gave the captain flowers. The also had a kindergarten class sing and dance for us........the cutest thing I have seen on this cruise. They sang and danced to "head and shoulders knees and toes"
We have successfully smuggled beer onto the ship from each port......We feel the need to supper the local economy in each of the ports. They have all be quite good.
A little bit of Triva....then next time you are in a Chinese restaurant and order a Tsing Tao, make sure you pronounce it correctly "chindao"
Tommorow is another sea day so we can sit back and relax and recharge for our next port of call Shanghai.
Konichiwa from Nagasaki.
When we arrived in Pusan we were greeted by Koren Dancers and singers. To be honest, they sound like Native Indians when they sing.
Today we are in Nagasaki, Japan....all I can say is wow. It is the site of one of two nuclear detonations during WW2. One the morning of August 9, 1945, 3 days after the atomic bomb in Hiroshima was dropped, the B-29 BOCKSCAR arrived over the city of Kokura to drop the second bomb which they called "fat man" It was too cloudy in Kokura so the pilot was told to head towards Nagasaki as it was the "Plan B" location. At 11:02 a.m., fat man was dropped. Its energy equivalent once it exploded compares with the explosive forces of 21,000 tons of TNT. Atomic bombs are much more destructive than TNT. Approximately 40,000 Japanese died instantly and tens of thousands more suffered injuries. By the end of the year, almost 150,000 people were dead from unimaginable injuries. The Japanese surrendered shortly thereafter. We walked through the Museum which had many artifacts from that fateful day. It was quite a daunting experience. There had the actual clothes that people were wearing (not the ones at the epicenter as they were burned to ashes, both the people and their clothes), lunch boxes that were completely fried, they showed photos of actual people and the damage that they sustained. There are still people alive today that experienced the A bomb, many are permanently scarred and are always in pain. Some of them are advocates to end nuclear war....understandable.
Our mode of transportation today was street cars. Yes, I was on public transportation and I still don't like it. All of the street cars were donated from different countries after the bomb and they are very old. It is very much like being in San Francisco here as the streets are very hilly and there are lots of street cars.
We walked through Ground Zero where they have a black monolith to mark the site. There is a beautiful "Peace Memorial Park" where there are many statutes donated by other countries to commemorate that day. Many school children were in the park and it appeared that they were singing the national anthem. They placed origami wreaths at the main statue and there was quite a ceremony associated with it. We were not 100% sure what was going on, so I shall google it when I get home to find out the significance of those origami wreaths.
The little Japanese children that were in the parks all wanted to say hi to us. We would say hi back and then they would giggle. They were so proud to be saying hi or hello.
We went to Chinatown for lunch and it was quite delicious. There are noodles that are specific to this region so I had some. Kevin had some soup with noodles and pork.
Kevin went to church....it cost him 4.00 so he thinks he is good for a while. The church was built in 1864 by French Missionaries. It was quite a small, plain church but had an awesome cemetery next to it but unfortunately we could not get access.
We sat beside a guy the other nite in the bar who was just tossed out of the restaurant because he only had a short sleeved shirt on and it was formal nite and you have to wear a long sleeve shirt......he was most upset that he paid for a cruise and then was refused to eat......I suggested he borrow a blouse from his wife, or just go to the buffet.......we saw them in the buffet later that nite.
Last nite we shared a table at dinner for the first time......we have been very lucky over the past 18 days to have our own table, at first we were apprehensive but the other 4 were a riot. We laughed for 2 hours. No talk of prune juice, bowel movements or previous surgeries.....magical!!
Most of the washrooms in Asia are squatters, it is amazing how long you can go without using a washroom here:). Today when we entered the port I went to the washroom.....reluctantly and to my surprise not only was in a built in bidet but it also had a dryer.....unfortunately I could not figure it out so it was business as usual.
Before we left there was a presentation from the deputy mayor to the ship. The ship was built in Nagasaki at the Mitsubishi plant so they gave the captain flowers. The also had a kindergarten class sing and dance for us........the cutest thing I have seen on this cruise. They sang and danced to "head and shoulders knees and toes"
We have successfully smuggled beer onto the ship from each port......We feel the need to supper the local economy in each of the ports. They have all be quite good.
A little bit of Triva....then next time you are in a Chinese restaurant and order a Tsing Tao, make sure you pronounce it correctly "chindao"
Tommorow is another sea day so we can sit back and relax and recharge for our next port of call Shanghai.
Konichiwa from Nagasaki.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Happy Thanksgiving from the Yellow Sea
"I don't know".......these are the words that we most heard in Dalian. Although our nephew Trevor lives there, he has not embraced all the sites so we learned and guessed a lot about the city. We had a wonderful time and were quite happy that we were able to find each other so quickly in such a big place. It was wonderful to have a guide that spoke the language as most of the taxi drivers don't. Walking across the street in China i as Trevor says "a real life game of frogger" it is crazy. There are millions of people and cars here and they all need to get somewhere so often you will see people standing in the middle of traffic along a busy street trying to leap between the cars to get to the other side of the street. We have been smart so far and just follow a local in hopes we will make it across safely. Cars do not yield to people, however they seem to be more careful with foreigners as there is too much paperwork if they hit you. We had a huge cup of coffee to start the day and then headed to labour square. This is right along the water and it s beautiful site. There are many olympic statues here of all the events, which is odd as Dalian did not host any part of the olympics. It is amazing to see all the development. Large areas of the city have demolished homes where new ones will be built. The building standards in China are not nearly as good as ours and therefore homes do not last very long. There is no property tax here so people shabbily build homes and apartments buildings and then demolish them 10 - 20 years later as it is cheaper to rebuild then it is to do it right the first time. There are many traditions in China, too many to tell, but you want to make sure that you follow them as the Chinese are a very superstitious bunch. It is perfectly ok to spit, hack and blow your nose by holding one nostril and discarding the remans of the other on the street but you cannot point your finger at anything. That has been difficult for Kevin and I as we are constantly trying to find places and pointing is the easiest way......that being said, we are getting better. The Chinese are also very random, we walked through Xinghai Park where people were playing card games, tai chi, singing, dancing....you name it, they are doing it. It is quite fascinating to watch them. People also dress very oddly here....no explanation for that, they just do. Our time was very limited as it was a short stop for us so we did not get to see everything, however what we saw was amazing. It was great to spend time with Trevor as we were his first Canadian guests. We had a great Japanese meal, yes Japanese in China and then we headed back to the shuttle stop. We were lucky to find an international phone and I was able to call mom, sorry about waking you up at 11:30 mom, the time change makes it tough to communicate with our friends back home. We headed back to the ship for an uneventful evening as we had to be up at 5 am Monday morning to go to Beijing.
5 am comes very early and as most of you know I am not a morning person. We headed to the bus for a 3 hour drive to Beijing. Some days it can be shorter and some longer based on the traffic. One of them most interesting things about China is their forward thinking about infrastructure. You have to build the roads and the home/apartments before you can bring the people in. As we drove to Beijing there were many "ghost cities" the funniest part is that the roads are completed with the exception of the off ramps so you will see a road that suddenly ends. I would suspect that when the factories are built and the people need to move to these cities that the off ramps will be completed and there will be access to the towns. There is also a huge amount of money here. As we drove to Beijing we saw all the beautiful mansions that were nestled away from the roads. There is very much a class system here and only certain people are able to live in certain areas, this was more prevalent years ago but still has some relevance today.
Our first stop was the Forbidden City. Crazy!!!! This is like nothing I have ever seen in my life. It is on 142 Hectares of land and it was there for one person "the emperor" He was the only man that lived on the premises.....yes, there were other men, but there were all castrated in order to work there so that the Emperor would be the only one who had access to the woman. There was an Empress but she did not see her husband very often. Everything was done on his schedule and they lived in different palaces. There were up to 3000 woman on the premises at any given time and they were all chosen by way of beauty contests. The more the emperor liked a woman, the bigger her living quarters would be. She would give him one child, preferably a male and once she had the child it would be moved to another area in the quarters for someone else to take care of. Not sure what these woman did every day but it seems to be a good life. There is a square that the emperor would make his speeches from and I would suspect that most than 10,000 people would be in the square. We stood in the spot where he would speak to these people, quite daunting. The temples all look the same, the only thing that is different is the size. There is an outer temple area where the fortunate were able to come to, and then the inner section was only for the Emperor, his wife and the woman and servants. We were only able to spend 3 hours there but I suspect you could spend an entire day and still not see the entire area.
Off to Tianamen Square........wow.....the entire population of Calgary can fit in the square. There is a mosoleum for Mao on one side of it and a huge photo of him on the other side. It was a Chinese National holiday last week, this holiday is like our Canada Day, but it lasts 3 days and Trevor said that most people take the entire week off. Because of the holiday the square was decorated with many beautiful flowers and there were paper lanterns lining all of the streets. Not sure how many people were in the square when we were, but I would hazard a guess that it would be around 50,000. If we were there last week during the holiday it would have been packed.
We had an amazing Chinese lunch, I actually ate everything except the duck egg rolls. I wished that there was more as it was so good. After lunch we headed to the Temple of Heaven but time was running short so we were only able to stay for 30 minutes and then headed back to the bus for the long ride back to the ship.
Tuesday is a sea day so we were able to sleep in......we had to move our clocks forward an hour (we are getting closer to home) but both of us slept until noon......we missed the first half of Monday night football!!! Lazy day today as we prepare to go back to Pusan, South Korea tomorrow. We were there already last week but loved it and are excited to go back. There were only 300 people that stayed on the ship from Whittier so there are a lot of new/confused and lost faces on the ship now. I guess we must have looked like that 16 days ago:)
Here is some stats from our cruise from Whittier Alaska to Tianjin (Beijing) We travelled 3011 kilometers, which equates to 5052 Nutical Miles with outside temperatures ranging anywhere from 10 degrees to 22 degrees. We travelled anywhere from 13.4 - 19.6 knots an hour.
We both wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving, we are both very fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends and are thinking of all of you while we are away.
5 am comes very early and as most of you know I am not a morning person. We headed to the bus for a 3 hour drive to Beijing. Some days it can be shorter and some longer based on the traffic. One of them most interesting things about China is their forward thinking about infrastructure. You have to build the roads and the home/apartments before you can bring the people in. As we drove to Beijing there were many "ghost cities" the funniest part is that the roads are completed with the exception of the off ramps so you will see a road that suddenly ends. I would suspect that when the factories are built and the people need to move to these cities that the off ramps will be completed and there will be access to the towns. There is also a huge amount of money here. As we drove to Beijing we saw all the beautiful mansions that were nestled away from the roads. There is very much a class system here and only certain people are able to live in certain areas, this was more prevalent years ago but still has some relevance today.
Our first stop was the Forbidden City. Crazy!!!! This is like nothing I have ever seen in my life. It is on 142 Hectares of land and it was there for one person "the emperor" He was the only man that lived on the premises.....yes, there were other men, but there were all castrated in order to work there so that the Emperor would be the only one who had access to the woman. There was an Empress but she did not see her husband very often. Everything was done on his schedule and they lived in different palaces. There were up to 3000 woman on the premises at any given time and they were all chosen by way of beauty contests. The more the emperor liked a woman, the bigger her living quarters would be. She would give him one child, preferably a male and once she had the child it would be moved to another area in the quarters for someone else to take care of. Not sure what these woman did every day but it seems to be a good life. There is a square that the emperor would make his speeches from and I would suspect that most than 10,000 people would be in the square. We stood in the spot where he would speak to these people, quite daunting. The temples all look the same, the only thing that is different is the size. There is an outer temple area where the fortunate were able to come to, and then the inner section was only for the Emperor, his wife and the woman and servants. We were only able to spend 3 hours there but I suspect you could spend an entire day and still not see the entire area.
Off to Tianamen Square........wow.....the entire population of Calgary can fit in the square. There is a mosoleum for Mao on one side of it and a huge photo of him on the other side. It was a Chinese National holiday last week, this holiday is like our Canada Day, but it lasts 3 days and Trevor said that most people take the entire week off. Because of the holiday the square was decorated with many beautiful flowers and there were paper lanterns lining all of the streets. Not sure how many people were in the square when we were, but I would hazard a guess that it would be around 50,000. If we were there last week during the holiday it would have been packed.
We had an amazing Chinese lunch, I actually ate everything except the duck egg rolls. I wished that there was more as it was so good. After lunch we headed to the Temple of Heaven but time was running short so we were only able to stay for 30 minutes and then headed back to the bus for the long ride back to the ship.
Tuesday is a sea day so we were able to sleep in......we had to move our clocks forward an hour (we are getting closer to home) but both of us slept until noon......we missed the first half of Monday night football!!! Lazy day today as we prepare to go back to Pusan, South Korea tomorrow. We were there already last week but loved it and are excited to go back. There were only 300 people that stayed on the ship from Whittier so there are a lot of new/confused and lost faces on the ship now. I guess we must have looked like that 16 days ago:)
Here is some stats from our cruise from Whittier Alaska to Tianjin (Beijing) We travelled 3011 kilometers, which equates to 5052 Nutical Miles with outside temperatures ranging anywhere from 10 degrees to 22 degrees. We travelled anywhere from 13.4 - 19.6 knots an hour.
We both wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving, we are both very fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends and are thinking of all of you while we are away.
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
yippee
When you get on a ship you often have to surrender your passport. This is good as it speeds up the immigration process as the officers come on board and they can mass stamp the passports. In Japan we were given a photocopy of our passport as well as a visitors visa that we had to carry with us while we were at shore, at the end of the day it was mandatory that we returned the visa papers. When we were ready to set sail, they announced that about 8 people had not returned their paperwork. This means the ship cannot be cleared until all the papers are returned. It is actually embarrassing as they announce not only your name but your cabin number o ver the loud speaker. When we arrived in Russia it was mandatory to carry our passports and then we had to surrender them when we came on board....well, we were over an hour late in departing because about 25 people had to be paged to return them to the front demo. One lady was paged 3 times before she finally clued in. It was magical as we set sail from Russia, there must have been about 1000 Russians standing t the pier to wave us off. There are not many cruise ships that go to that port so it is quite exciting for them.
Wednesday was a sea day and it was gorgeous outside. We sat on the deck and read, played sudoku and slept, ok, I slept....this traveling is hard on a old girl. Kevin signed us up for a wine tasting seminar in the afternoon. It was very fancy with little canapés and a plate of tomatoes, salt and lime. It was very interesting to taste a wine and then have some salt, or tomatoes and see how the taste of the wine changed. Kevin learned quickly that he could not gulp the wine as they only gave you a little taste, I had to share my Champagne with him so that he could taste the difference after eating a tomatoe.....we had most of our canapé eaten before the rest of the table so they had not give us more......it is really hard to find food on the ship so you have to take advantage when you can......kidding, there is food everywhere all the time. A funny thing we heard at the wine tasting was "what do you call a meal without wine (or beer)......breakfast:)
I no longer a fan of craps....I will leave it to you to figure out why.
We found out that the average age on the ship is only 68.5, a lot less than we thought. It is nice to be well below average.
We docked in Busan, South Korea this morning. A very beautiful port. The best part is the free shuttles that the tourist bureau has provided us in both Japan and South Korea. There are a number of stop and go buses and it is free so no need to take the over priced excursions that the ship offers. We are able to get free Wi Fi almost every where we go so that is much better than the unreliable Internet on the ship.
We love our IPad, we were able to talk to Chad when we were in Russia and he showed us a panorama of the kitchen....it was super clean. Today we face timed with Rick, Sidney, Mitch and Heather.....what a cool option on the iPad. Hopefully we can face time with more people as we travel.
Kevin has decided that perhaps I need to start wearing a helmut. When we were talking to Chad I wanted to show him the ship, I lost my footing and feel into a wall giving me a very nice bruise on my arm. Then yesterday during trivia I walked into a pole adding yet another bruise on the same arm, then walking the stairs to our room, I fell up the stairs. He keeps reminding me that I am getting old but I am sure some of the passengers figure I am a battered wife.
The temples in Busan are amazing. We went to a temple where they were worshipping and it was cool. You must take you shoes off and get a pad to sit on and then listen to the words of the man at the front. He does a lot of banging on the drums. The Busan tower is also very interesting. There is a observatory where you can see the entire city. It is in 2 distinctive parts, one very old and one very modern.
The port in Busan is the 5th largest container port in the world. There are beautiful beaches here and more than 8 million people visit the area every year. There is also a monument that we saw from the top of the observatory that is a U.N. cemetery, the only one of it kind in the world where the dead of 16 Korean War allies rest in honored peace.
We went to the fish market, which opens at 6 am and fresh fish and other funny looking items are kept. It covers many blocks and doesn't smell too swell. Some of the fish are alive and flopping around in the water bins that they are kept in. The woman that sit at these stalls throw water on the fish to keep them alive. There is also a huge area where they dry the fish....this is a delicacy here. You walk around and hanging from strings, much like laundry lines are fish that have been gutted and spread out. We saw a lot of octopus and crabs in the fish tanks. It was quite an amazing scene. The locals come here and haggle over the price. All the stalls look the same so I guess some fishermen are better than others?
There is also an open air market that spans for blocks where you can buy leather goods, ginseng, crafts and lots of knock offs. You can get a brand name purses and wallet for under 10 bucks. I am sure we will see a lot more of this when we get to China. One of the staff on the ship told us we can buy an Ipad 2 for 200 bucks. That is a lot cheaper than at home, but I am not certain that they are actually Apple products.
We went for lunch at a restaurant that had 4 items on the menu. There were only 2 other white people in the place. The way they described the meals was quite unappealing "cow meat off the bone in noodles and rice" They also give you some bok choy to put in it and a mysterious veggie. You can add salt and hot sauce to it. Kevin put 3 scoops of hot sauce and the older man that was helping us was laughing......I don't think he has seen someone put that much in their bowl. We shall see if the effects of this sauce effect Kevin:) Who needs prunes....
I forgot to mention the words of wisdom that we were given by our guide in Japan "may you have a very long life until you die" Very profound.
Another sea day tomorrow, but Kevin and I are doing the 5km Run for the Cure on the ship. We have to walk around the ship deck 8 times to do the 5km. Should be a breeze compared to all the other walking we have done.....and did I mention all the stairs as well.......ugh.
Our adventure has been fantastic so far and I am certain that it will continue that way.
Annyung haseyo from Busan South Korea.......next stop China
Until then...........
Wednesday was a sea day and it was gorgeous outside. We sat on the deck and read, played sudoku and slept, ok, I slept....this traveling is hard on a old girl. Kevin signed us up for a wine tasting seminar in the afternoon. It was very fancy with little canapés and a plate of tomatoes, salt and lime. It was very interesting to taste a wine and then have some salt, or tomatoes and see how the taste of the wine changed. Kevin learned quickly that he could not gulp the wine as they only gave you a little taste, I had to share my Champagne with him so that he could taste the difference after eating a tomatoe.....we had most of our canapé eaten before the rest of the table so they had not give us more......it is really hard to find food on the ship so you have to take advantage when you can......kidding, there is food everywhere all the time. A funny thing we heard at the wine tasting was "what do you call a meal without wine (or beer)......breakfast:)
I no longer a fan of craps....I will leave it to you to figure out why.
We found out that the average age on the ship is only 68.5, a lot less than we thought. It is nice to be well below average.
We docked in Busan, South Korea this morning. A very beautiful port. The best part is the free shuttles that the tourist bureau has provided us in both Japan and South Korea. There are a number of stop and go buses and it is free so no need to take the over priced excursions that the ship offers. We are able to get free Wi Fi almost every where we go so that is much better than the unreliable Internet on the ship.
We love our IPad, we were able to talk to Chad when we were in Russia and he showed us a panorama of the kitchen....it was super clean. Today we face timed with Rick, Sidney, Mitch and Heather.....what a cool option on the iPad. Hopefully we can face time with more people as we travel.
Kevin has decided that perhaps I need to start wearing a helmut. When we were talking to Chad I wanted to show him the ship, I lost my footing and feel into a wall giving me a very nice bruise on my arm. Then yesterday during trivia I walked into a pole adding yet another bruise on the same arm, then walking the stairs to our room, I fell up the stairs. He keeps reminding me that I am getting old but I am sure some of the passengers figure I am a battered wife.
The temples in Busan are amazing. We went to a temple where they were worshipping and it was cool. You must take you shoes off and get a pad to sit on and then listen to the words of the man at the front. He does a lot of banging on the drums. The Busan tower is also very interesting. There is a observatory where you can see the entire city. It is in 2 distinctive parts, one very old and one very modern.
The port in Busan is the 5th largest container port in the world. There are beautiful beaches here and more than 8 million people visit the area every year. There is also a monument that we saw from the top of the observatory that is a U.N. cemetery, the only one of it kind in the world where the dead of 16 Korean War allies rest in honored peace.
We went to the fish market, which opens at 6 am and fresh fish and other funny looking items are kept. It covers many blocks and doesn't smell too swell. Some of the fish are alive and flopping around in the water bins that they are kept in. The woman that sit at these stalls throw water on the fish to keep them alive. There is also a huge area where they dry the fish....this is a delicacy here. You walk around and hanging from strings, much like laundry lines are fish that have been gutted and spread out. We saw a lot of octopus and crabs in the fish tanks. It was quite an amazing scene. The locals come here and haggle over the price. All the stalls look the same so I guess some fishermen are better than others?
There is also an open air market that spans for blocks where you can buy leather goods, ginseng, crafts and lots of knock offs. You can get a brand name purses and wallet for under 10 bucks. I am sure we will see a lot more of this when we get to China. One of the staff on the ship told us we can buy an Ipad 2 for 200 bucks. That is a lot cheaper than at home, but I am not certain that they are actually Apple products.
We went for lunch at a restaurant that had 4 items on the menu. There were only 2 other white people in the place. The way they described the meals was quite unappealing "cow meat off the bone in noodles and rice" They also give you some bok choy to put in it and a mysterious veggie. You can add salt and hot sauce to it. Kevin put 3 scoops of hot sauce and the older man that was helping us was laughing......I don't think he has seen someone put that much in their bowl. We shall see if the effects of this sauce effect Kevin:) Who needs prunes....
I forgot to mention the words of wisdom that we were given by our guide in Japan "may you have a very long life until you die" Very profound.
Another sea day tomorrow, but Kevin and I are doing the 5km Run for the Cure on the ship. We have to walk around the ship deck 8 times to do the 5km. Should be a breeze compared to all the other walking we have done.....and did I mention all the stairs as well.......ugh.
Our adventure has been fantastic so far and I am certain that it will continue that way.
Annyung haseyo from Busan South Korea.......next stop China
Until then...........
Monday, 3 October 2011
Vladivostok, Russia
Today we docked Russia and have been walking for 3 hours straight. Tis is partly because we got lost, but it was a good way to see more of the town. Vladivostok is best known as the Pacific end of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It is the longest continuous railway track in the world. The town was closed to tourists until 1992. The town is quite bland and the people are very cold, very difficult tom get them to smile.
We walked out to a Naval Fotress which had the bunkers and all the artillery from the war. It was quite daunting. Took lots of photos of the artillery, it is amazing how far some of those torpedoes and bombs can travel. We also went to see a submarine that was part of the war. There are a lot of naval ships here as well as it is the main base of the Pacific fleet of the Commonwealth of Independent States. There were a lot of navel ships here and we could see all the crew in uniform on the ships.
There were some of the staff on the ship that would not get off the ship as the Countries that they come from were occupied by the Russians and they don't want any part of seeing the country. These are young people who are filled with hate towards the Russians......deep seeded hate.
Thankfully we have been eating alone as of late so no prune stories to tell.
Shout out to my sister Joy on her birthday today as well as my good friend Beth. Hope you are both enjoying a great day.
Tomorrow is another sea day and then we head to South Korea.
Stay tuned for more adventures.
We walked out to a Naval Fotress which had the bunkers and all the artillery from the war. It was quite daunting. Took lots of photos of the artillery, it is amazing how far some of those torpedoes and bombs can travel. We also went to see a submarine that was part of the war. There are a lot of naval ships here as well as it is the main base of the Pacific fleet of the Commonwealth of Independent States. There were a lot of navel ships here and we could see all the crew in uniform on the ships.
There were some of the staff on the ship that would not get off the ship as the Countries that they come from were occupied by the Russians and they don't want any part of seeing the country. These are young people who are filled with hate towards the Russians......deep seeded hate.
Thankfully we have been eating alone as of late so no prune stories to tell.
Shout out to my sister Joy on her birthday today as well as my good friend Beth. Hope you are both enjoying a great day.
Tomorrow is another sea day and then we head to South Korea.
Stay tuned for more adventures.
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Hello from Japan
Muroran, Japan
The morning is hectic, everyone is a bit anxious to get off the ship and things are taking a lot longer than anticipated. The Japanese immigration was having issues with their "sensitive equipment" and so are only processing 55 people every 5 minutes. There are more than 3000 people on the ship so things are moving quite slow. The lines are crazy, they wrap around different floors of the ship and boy are the people upset. Kevin and I were at the front desk and people were telling the staff they want compensation for this inconvenience.....not sure what they think they can get as everyone has been inconvenienced, some of us just handled it better than others. Our excursion to the volcano does not leave for another 3 hours so we should be able to get outside and wander around, have some gyoza and Sopooro and kick back.
We were supposed to get off the ship at 9:50 but with the delays it was past 11:00. We stood in line for about 25 minutes before getting into "the room" with the sensitive equipment....finger printing and photos were taken of each passenger. If you were fortunate enough to pass the test you were able to leave the ship...we both passed:) Off to Muroran we went on the shuttle bus. What a beautiful city of approximately 90,000 people. First stop, 7-11 to get some Japanese Yen. The smallest denomination we could get is 10,000 which works out to about 150.00 Canadian dollars. The funny thing is that it is a single bill. After walking for awhile we decided to stop and have some authentic Japanese food. We were hoping for some soup but stumbled upon a buffet and decided that would be good as well. We had no idea what we were eating as everything was in Japanese but it was fabulous. Back on the bus to go back to the ship to head out for our excusrion to Lake Toya and Mount Usu. At Lake Toya we both dipped our feet into the hot springs, the story says that if you go into the hot pool you will extend your life by 7 years.....not sure how they monitor that but we were not going to argue. We were able to see Mount Hokkaido Fuji.....not to be confused with the real Mount Fuji. Every region has its own Mount Fuji, they just add the name to the region you are in so there are over 130 Mount Fuji's in Japan. The people in Japan are amazing, very courteous and happy. Given everything they have been through this year, it is amazing how they are handling everything. We went off to the volcano where we took a gondola to the main area and then walked up 132 stairs to the summit. If we had more time we would have been able to walk down to the area where the volcano is steaming, but we had a good view of it and were happy to stay a bit further away. Sapporo beer is brewed in this area so we thought we would stimulate the economy a bit more and have one....and then smuggled two more into the ship for a treat later on in the cruise. The ship sails shortly and then we have a sea day on Monday and then head to Vladivostok Russia on Tuesday. Our itinerary gets very busy over the next week so many more adventures await us.
We are having an amazing time, wish you could all be here with us to experience it.
Sayonara from Muroran Japan....see you in Russia
The morning is hectic, everyone is a bit anxious to get off the ship and things are taking a lot longer than anticipated. The Japanese immigration was having issues with their "sensitive equipment" and so are only processing 55 people every 5 minutes. There are more than 3000 people on the ship so things are moving quite slow. The lines are crazy, they wrap around different floors of the ship and boy are the people upset. Kevin and I were at the front desk and people were telling the staff they want compensation for this inconvenience.....not sure what they think they can get as everyone has been inconvenienced, some of us just handled it better than others. Our excursion to the volcano does not leave for another 3 hours so we should be able to get outside and wander around, have some gyoza and Sopooro and kick back.
We were supposed to get off the ship at 9:50 but with the delays it was past 11:00. We stood in line for about 25 minutes before getting into "the room" with the sensitive equipment....finger printing and photos were taken of each passenger. If you were fortunate enough to pass the test you were able to leave the ship...we both passed:) Off to Muroran we went on the shuttle bus. What a beautiful city of approximately 90,000 people. First stop, 7-11 to get some Japanese Yen. The smallest denomination we could get is 10,000 which works out to about 150.00 Canadian dollars. The funny thing is that it is a single bill. After walking for awhile we decided to stop and have some authentic Japanese food. We were hoping for some soup but stumbled upon a buffet and decided that would be good as well. We had no idea what we were eating as everything was in Japanese but it was fabulous. Back on the bus to go back to the ship to head out for our excusrion to Lake Toya and Mount Usu. At Lake Toya we both dipped our feet into the hot springs, the story says that if you go into the hot pool you will extend your life by 7 years.....not sure how they monitor that but we were not going to argue. We were able to see Mount Hokkaido Fuji.....not to be confused with the real Mount Fuji. Every region has its own Mount Fuji, they just add the name to the region you are in so there are over 130 Mount Fuji's in Japan. The people in Japan are amazing, very courteous and happy. Given everything they have been through this year, it is amazing how they are handling everything. We went off to the volcano where we took a gondola to the main area and then walked up 132 stairs to the summit. If we had more time we would have been able to walk down to the area where the volcano is steaming, but we had a good view of it and were happy to stay a bit further away. Sapporo beer is brewed in this area so we thought we would stimulate the economy a bit more and have one....and then smuggled two more into the ship for a treat later on in the cruise. The ship sails shortly and then we have a sea day on Monday and then head to Vladivostok Russia on Tuesday. Our itinerary gets very busy over the next week so many more adventures await us.
We are having an amazing time, wish you could all be here with us to experience it.
Sayonara from Muroran Japan....see you in Russia
Friday, 30 September 2011
Not too much to report these days. We have been At sea for the last 5 ays and I am looking forward to walking on land. The weather has been less than favorable but things seem to be looking up. It should be warm enough to watch a movie under the stars...with pants, warm socks, long sleeve shirt, hoodie and only 2 blankets....no umbrella needed:)
I have 2 questions that I can't seem to find an answer to:
Why do people always want to talk about disgusting things at breakfast?
Why are people from Britain so bitchy?
This morning the nice old people we were sitting with eating their boiled prunes made a point of telling me that it was a myth that eating prunes and drinking prune juice would make you regular. Apparently they have been doing it for the last 10 days with no results. What would make you think that I would be the least bit interested in your bowel movements.....at any time let alone breakfast.
My Bitchy Brit stories are far too numerous to mention...just suffice it to say they are one mysterious bunch who seem quite entitled. Now I will stop my rant now.
I have developed a nasty head cold......murphy's law.....only get sick every 5 years and I guess it was my time. Hopefully it will pass soon so I can start breathing again.
I have developed a penchant for craps....the game, not the prune induced ones. I like it so far because I am winning....stay tuned as this to may change.
Davey, thanks for the entertaining emails. Once we get inland we will respond but rest assured Kevy is doing well going "all in" The Internet on the ship is brutally slow, took me 10 minutes to send an email and then I lost connection. Hoping to find some Wi Fi when we get to Japan.
Miss you all, hope to have a more interesting blog next time.
From somewhere in the Pacific ocean
Not too much to report these days. We have been At sea for the last 5 ays and I am looking forward to walking on land. The weather has been less than favorable but things seem to be looking up. It should be warm enough to watch a movie under the stars...with pants, warm socks, long sleeve shirt, hoodie and only 2 blankets....no umbrella needed:)
I have 2 questions that I can't seem to find an answer to:
Why do people always want to talk about disgusting things at breakfast?
Why are people from Britain so bitchy?
This morning the nice old people we were sitting with eating their boiled prunes made a point of telling me that it was a myth that eating prunes and drinking prune juice would make you regular. Apparently they have been doing it for the last 10 days with no results. What would make you think that I would be the least bit interested in your bowel movements.....at any time let alone breakfast.
My Bitchy Brit stories are far too numerous to mention...just suffice it to say they are one mysterious bunch who seem quite entitled. Now I will stop my rant now.
I have developed a nasty head cold......murphy's law.....only get sick every 5 years and I guess it was my time. Hopefully it will pass soon so I can start breathing again.
I have developed a penchant for craps....the game, not the prune induced ones. I like it so far because I am winning....stay tuned as this to may change.
Davey, thanks for the entertaining emails. Once we get inland we will respond but rest assured Kevy is doing well going "all in" The Internet on the ship is brutally slow, took me 10 minutes to send an email and then I lost connection. Hoping to find some Wi Fi when we get to Japan.
Miss you all, hope to have a more interesting blog next time.
From somewhere in the Pacific ocean
I have 2 questions that I can't seem to find an answer to:
Why do people always want to talk about disgusting things at breakfast?
Why are people from Britain so bitchy?
This morning the nice old people we were sitting with eating their boiled prunes made a point of telling me that it was a myth that eating prunes and drinking prune juice would make you regular. Apparently they have been doing it for the last 10 days with no results. What would make you think that I would be the least bit interested in your bowel movements.....at any time let alone breakfast.
My Bitchy Brit stories are far too numerous to mention...just suffice it to say they are one mysterious bunch who seem quite entitled. Now I will stop my rant now.
I have developed a nasty head cold......murphy's law.....only get sick every 5 years and I guess it was my time. Hopefully it will pass soon so I can start breathing again.
I have developed a penchant for craps....the game, not the prune induced ones. I like it so far because I am winning....stay tuned as this to may change.
Davey, thanks for the entertaining emails. Once we get inland we will respond but rest assured Kevy is doing well going "all in" The Internet on the ship is brutally slow, took me 10 minutes to send an email and then I lost connection. Hoping to find some Wi Fi when we get to Japan.
Miss you all, hope to have a more interesting blog next time.
From somewhere in the Pacific ocean
Not too much to report these days. We have been At sea for the last 5 ays and I am looking forward to walking on land. The weather has been less than favorable but things seem to be looking up. It should be warm enough to watch a movie under the stars...with pants, warm socks, long sleeve shirt, hoodie and only 2 blankets....no umbrella needed:)
I have 2 questions that I can't seem to find an answer to:
Why do people always want to talk about disgusting things at breakfast?
Why are people from Britain so bitchy?
This morning the nice old people we were sitting with eating their boiled prunes made a point of telling me that it was a myth that eating prunes and drinking prune juice would make you regular. Apparently they have been doing it for the last 10 days with no results. What would make you think that I would be the least bit interested in your bowel movements.....at any time let alone breakfast.
My Bitchy Brit stories are far too numerous to mention...just suffice it to say they are one mysterious bunch who seem quite entitled. Now I will stop my rant now.
I have developed a nasty head cold......murphy's law.....only get sick every 5 years and I guess it was my time. Hopefully it will pass soon so I can start breathing again.
I have developed a penchant for craps....the game, not the prune induced ones. I like it so far because I am winning....stay tuned as this to may change.
Davey, thanks for the entertaining emails. Once we get inland we will respond but rest assured Kevy is doing well going "all in" The Internet on the ship is brutally slow, took me 10 minutes to send an email and then I lost connection. Hoping to find some Wi Fi when we get to Japan.
Miss you all, hope to have a more interesting blog next time.
From somewhere in the Pacific ocean
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Birds, Reindeer and Flying Pigs
The weather has been less than great for us....the warmest it has been is 11 degrees....however in a few short days it will be very warm so this gives us something to look forward to, and the probably complain about.
Monday was a eventful day. We started our exercise regime by walking around the deck 3 times. If you do it 2 .5 times then you have walked a mile. We had intentions of going around another 2 times in the afternoon but the wind was crazy...they had to strap down any moveable fixtures on the deck to make sure they didn't fly away.
Given that it was so dreadful outside I went for a relaxing massage. When I entered the spa there was a lady holding a bird in a towel and there was a Steve Irwin type guy talking to here. I figured he must be walking around the ship with a bird showing it to the passengers.....boy was I wrong. Tis lady picked the bird up from the deck outside figuring that it was injured and was making it clear to the poor man that it was too windy for the bird to fly so he needed to put it in a birdcage until we get to Japan on Sunday. she was quite dismayed to find out there are no bird cages on the ship.....not sure how that story ended as I was afraid of laughing out loud so quickly went to the serenity room.
We have changed our watches 5 times already and we have only been gone 3 days. Tonite we go back another hour and when we wake up it will be Thursday....I will never be able to enjoy Wednesday September 28th, hopefully it is an uneventful day. If you thought daylight savings time was bad, I would not recommend this cruise:)
Rick, don't read this part out loud to the kids.......Kevin ate Rudolph yesterday at lunch......who will drive Santa's sleigh this year. They tried to get me to taste it....Reindeer and Blunt Fish Chili but for the sake of all the little kiddies out there, and you too Marcia, I just couldn't do it!!!!!!!
We had a very quiet afternoon watching Monday nite football.......yes, it was on at 2:30 in the afternoon for us. I guess once we are in Asia that it will be Tuesday morning football.
It was formal nite on then ship......Kevin just loves to get dressed up for these events. We were seated beside a couple from Kentucky, I would entire a guess that they were in their 70's. So you can only imagine my surprise when I noticed quite a large tattoo on her back (she had on a fancy dress). The fact that she was in her 70's and had a tattoo was not the funniest part, the fact that it was a flying pig was something I had never seen.....so being the inquisitive type I had to ask what the significance was. Apparently she really likes pigs, however this was a huge pig with smaller wings so she made it clear that in reality he was too big to fly.....really.
Kevin is teaching me to play craps. I am a really good shooter. I had one run of about 25 throws before I crapped out......you should have seen all the chips. Everyone liked the "lady shooter" during that little run.
This afternoon we are doing our first Ryder Cup challenge. It is North America against the World. The winner gets "ship prizes" like a deck of cards.....woo hoo
Over and out from somewhere in between Atka Island and Adka Island.
Monday was a eventful day. We started our exercise regime by walking around the deck 3 times. If you do it 2 .5 times then you have walked a mile. We had intentions of going around another 2 times in the afternoon but the wind was crazy...they had to strap down any moveable fixtures on the deck to make sure they didn't fly away.
Given that it was so dreadful outside I went for a relaxing massage. When I entered the spa there was a lady holding a bird in a towel and there was a Steve Irwin type guy talking to here. I figured he must be walking around the ship with a bird showing it to the passengers.....boy was I wrong. Tis lady picked the bird up from the deck outside figuring that it was injured and was making it clear to the poor man that it was too windy for the bird to fly so he needed to put it in a birdcage until we get to Japan on Sunday. she was quite dismayed to find out there are no bird cages on the ship.....not sure how that story ended as I was afraid of laughing out loud so quickly went to the serenity room.
We have changed our watches 5 times already and we have only been gone 3 days. Tonite we go back another hour and when we wake up it will be Thursday....I will never be able to enjoy Wednesday September 28th, hopefully it is an uneventful day. If you thought daylight savings time was bad, I would not recommend this cruise:)
Rick, don't read this part out loud to the kids.......Kevin ate Rudolph yesterday at lunch......who will drive Santa's sleigh this year. They tried to get me to taste it....Reindeer and Blunt Fish Chili but for the sake of all the little kiddies out there, and you too Marcia, I just couldn't do it!!!!!!!
We had a very quiet afternoon watching Monday nite football.......yes, it was on at 2:30 in the afternoon for us. I guess once we are in Asia that it will be Tuesday morning football.
It was formal nite on then ship......Kevin just loves to get dressed up for these events. We were seated beside a couple from Kentucky, I would entire a guess that they were in their 70's. So you can only imagine my surprise when I noticed quite a large tattoo on her back (she had on a fancy dress). The fact that she was in her 70's and had a tattoo was not the funniest part, the fact that it was a flying pig was something I had never seen.....so being the inquisitive type I had to ask what the significance was. Apparently she really likes pigs, however this was a huge pig with smaller wings so she made it clear that in reality he was too big to fly.....really.
Kevin is teaching me to play craps. I am a really good shooter. I had one run of about 25 throws before I crapped out......you should have seen all the chips. Everyone liked the "lady shooter" during that little run.
This afternoon we are doing our first Ryder Cup challenge. It is North America against the World. The winner gets "ship prizes" like a deck of cards.....woo hoo
Over and out from somewhere in between Atka Island and Adka Island.
Sunday, 25 September 2011
We made it
SLOP - smells like old people
Saturday was a very long day of travel. We were up at 4am to start our adventure. From Calgary to Seattle to Anchorage to Whittier Alaska we finally made our way onto the Diamond Princess....a small little boat with 2800 passengers...average age 88
Traveling from Anchorage to Whittier by coach we saw an amazing abundance of color as the trees were all in different stages of preparing for fall. We passed through Turnaway Bay which ran alongside the highway for miles. The tide was out and all you could see if the silt along the edge of the bay. If you walk on this silt you will be sucked in worse than quicksand. Beluga whales are often seen in is area as they follow the salmon and gobble them up. The bay will freeze over in the winter and the whales we smash the ice with their heads so that they can come up for air. There are an incredible amount of waterfalls and glaciers along this highway but it was pouring rain so no photo ops available.
The drive from Anchorage to Whittier is about 45 minutes, but it can be much longer if you miss the schedule for the tunnel. There is a one way tunnel, through a mountain that goes into Whittier, but if you are not there on time you have to sit in your car for an hour waiting for it to go your way. Inside the tunnel they have emergency safe houses in the event of an emergency. You can get out of the vehicle and hunker down to a fine meal of freeze dried meat until it is safe to leave the tunnel. The total length of the tunnel is 2.5 miles long and you can only go 25 mph in there. It was originally used for locomotives but within the last 10 years they drilled it out and created the safe houses so that vehicles could drive through as well. The trains still run through the tunnel and it is an eerie feeling driving over the tracks......and it is pitch black!
The ship is beautiful, our room is huge.....the bathroom is bigger than the one we had at the Delta airport in Calgary. The weather......well we will ignore that for now.
I hope neither of us need medical attention while we are on here. A gummer wiped out on the deck and it took 10 minutes for a medical person to show up. Poor girl was last seen with a big sling on her arm, lousy way to start the trip.
There is a huge outdoor screen where they show movies and sports. If it wasn't freezing outside we would be watching NFL football today on a lounged with a cool beverage. As itis, we are sitting inside, with our jackets just chilling (literally)
Dar's faux pas # one - Kevin says no more sitting with other people during meals and I have to agree. Watching the old girl next to him eating her boiled prunes and talking about her thyroid being removed....twice, was enough for both of us........ROOM SERVICE:)
Saturday was a very long day of travel. We were up at 4am to start our adventure. From Calgary to Seattle to Anchorage to Whittier Alaska we finally made our way onto the Diamond Princess....a small little boat with 2800 passengers...average age 88
Traveling from Anchorage to Whittier by coach we saw an amazing abundance of color as the trees were all in different stages of preparing for fall. We passed through Turnaway Bay which ran alongside the highway for miles. The tide was out and all you could see if the silt along the edge of the bay. If you walk on this silt you will be sucked in worse than quicksand. Beluga whales are often seen in is area as they follow the salmon and gobble them up. The bay will freeze over in the winter and the whales we smash the ice with their heads so that they can come up for air. There are an incredible amount of waterfalls and glaciers along this highway but it was pouring rain so no photo ops available.
The drive from Anchorage to Whittier is about 45 minutes, but it can be much longer if you miss the schedule for the tunnel. There is a one way tunnel, through a mountain that goes into Whittier, but if you are not there on time you have to sit in your car for an hour waiting for it to go your way. Inside the tunnel they have emergency safe houses in the event of an emergency. You can get out of the vehicle and hunker down to a fine meal of freeze dried meat until it is safe to leave the tunnel. The total length of the tunnel is 2.5 miles long and you can only go 25 mph in there. It was originally used for locomotives but within the last 10 years they drilled it out and created the safe houses so that vehicles could drive through as well. The trains still run through the tunnel and it is an eerie feeling driving over the tracks......and it is pitch black!
The ship is beautiful, our room is huge.....the bathroom is bigger than the one we had at the Delta airport in Calgary. The weather......well we will ignore that for now.
I hope neither of us need medical attention while we are on here. A gummer wiped out on the deck and it took 10 minutes for a medical person to show up. Poor girl was last seen with a big sling on her arm, lousy way to start the trip.
There is a huge outdoor screen where they show movies and sports. If it wasn't freezing outside we would be watching NFL football today on a lounged with a cool beverage. As itis, we are sitting inside, with our jackets just chilling (literally)
Dar's faux pas # one - Kevin says no more sitting with other people during meals and I have to agree. Watching the old girl next to him eating her boiled prunes and talking about her thyroid being removed....twice, was enough for both of us........ROOM SERVICE:)
Friday, 23 September 2011
NO MORE SLEEPS
Just getting ready to head to the airport for our adventure of a lifetime. We leave on Saturday morning at 6:30 am so it will be a very early morning, but this time tommorow I will be relaxing on my balcony watching the waves go by and hopefully seeing some kick ass northern lights. Kevins luggage is 2 pounds heavier than mine.....this will change by the end of the trip with all the deals I plan to find:)
Anchors away!!!
Anchors away!!!
Saturday, 10 September 2011
14 more sleeps
The suitcases are out and the clothes are starting to make their way to the spare room for the big trip. May seem odd to all of you that I start packing 2 weeks in advance, but it helps me to remember to bring everything. Whenever I think of something that I need to pack, I throw it in the spare room. The bad news is that I pass by that room and wonder where the heck is all this stuff going to fit. I need to be cautious in my packing this year as there are so many great places to shop in Asia that I need to leave lots of room for all my purchases:)
Monday, 29 August 2011
Less than a month away
It is hard to believe that we will be leaving for our Asian cruise in less that a month. I decided to get with technology and create a blog that everyone can follow while we are away. It will be much easier than sending emails and I will try to post funny and interesting stuff while we cruise through Asia. We leave on September 24th so check my blog after that for interesting little tidbits of the Millers adventure.
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