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
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