Day 74: Keelung/ Taipei, Táiwān

The island of Taiwan was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China. The Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China (ROC) was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROC's loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction had, since the loss of Hainan in 1950, been limited to Taiwan and several small islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC represented China at the UN until 1971, when it lost its seat to the PRC.

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, healthcare, public education, economic freedom, and human development. The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.

The PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China policy the PRC refuses diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC. Today, 17 countries maintain official ties with the ROC but many other states maintain unofficial ties through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates. Although Taiwan is fully self-governing, most international organizations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only as a non-state actor. Source:  Wikipedia 

Keelung and Taipei, Táiwān 

Where in the world are we?

The weather didn’t cooperate one bit today for our visit to Taipei, but I guess that wasn’t a surprise after the really rough day and night we’d had. Captain Ravera made an announcement about 8am that our arrival in the port of Keelung would be at 10am, and immediately after that an announcement was made by the Shore Excursions Department with a revised meeting time for all excursions. Some people rightfully grumbled that it would have been nice to have that information a little sooner; after all, the original meeting times began at 7:30am (ours was 7:50am) and we all showed up and were told that it still hadn’t been settled. 

Our revised meeting time was 10am, and by 10:30am we were walking off the ship into a steady downpour which didn’t stop all day. We had booked excursion Taipei On Your Own, and spent the 45 minute or so ride into Taipei looking out the bus windows at a view that was not a bit different than we would have seen driving into any major US city. Taipei looks just like home. 

We were dropped off at the shopping mall under the Taipei 101 building, and stood in the rain looking up at the top of that tall building, which was buried in the clouds. Darn. We had already purchased tickets online to go the Observation Deck on the 89th floor. Oh well; at least we’d be able to say we were up there. 

Looking at Taipei 101 in the clouds

The queue just to get in the Apple Store didn’t get any shorter all day

Taipei 101 displaced the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur as the tallest building in the world when it opened in 2004. It held that title until the completion of the Burj Khalifa in 2010. We immediately made our way through the mall to the ticket counter to go to the top; I had reserved us tickets for noon never imagining that we might just make it to the building by then, but it was nearly noon when we did. Signs were posted telling us that the outdoor observation deck on the 91st floor was closed due to the weather, and that visibility from the top was poor. Well, we had already seen that for ourselves. Did we still want to go up?  You bet. 

We took what had been the fastest elevators in the world (also surpassed by the elevators in the Burj Khalifa) to the 89th floor Observation Deck in exactly one minute. When the elevator doors opened, we walked out to see a view of the inside of a cloud. As we walked around the 89th floor, we did get a bit of a view on one side, but even that soon closed up. Still, we were glad we had gone to the top. Though we’ve gotten pretty familiar with what to expect at the top of these tall buildings, Taipei 101 offered something new to us. 

What tonight’s fireworks will look like

The clouds cleared for a minute

Building details

In the clouds

In the very center of the building, suspended like a pendulum from the 92nd to the 87th floor, a tuned mass damper sways to offset movements in the building caused by strong gusts. Its sphere, the largest damper sphere in the world, consists of 41 circular steel plates of varying diameters, each nearly five inches thick, welded together to form an 18-foot diameter sphere.  On August 8, 2015, strong winds from Typhoon Soudelor swayed the main damper by 39 inches, the largest movement ever recorded by the damper. A video of that movement, as well as a video of the impact of a magnitude 6.3 earthquake nearby on April 20, 2015 was shown and I uploaded copies of them to YouTube. 

The world’s largest damper that minimizes movement of Taipei 101 in typhoons and earthquakes 

We eventually made our way back down to the mall and went to the food court, which we knew would be packed (it was chaos). Fireworks are set off vertically from all levels of Taipei 101 at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and the area around the building is like Times Square in New York City. People were already pouring into the building since it was raining outside. Despite the long line, we bought lunch from the only Michelin starred street food hawker in Singapore who had a restaurant in the food court too. Chef Chan Hon Meng’s Hong Kong BBQ Soya Cbicken and Rice has one Michelin star, and we hadn’t made it to his Singapore street food stand but were determined to rectify that here. Finally, street food that G would eat (I had rice with tofu)!  It was fantastic. 

It was 3:15pm when we met back up with our group, only to be told that Princess had changed our meeting time to 4:15pm, but not until after we had all dispersed after our arrival. Lovely. That really didn’t give us enough time to do anything (the mall was packed with people waiting in line in the rain to get in) and we ended up just standing around for an hour until 4:15pm. Then, when we arrived back on the Sapphire Princess at 5:15pm, looking a bit like drowned rats, we had no time to shower before dressing formally and going to dinner late. 

Luckily, a nice New Year’s Eve dinner and sharing the bottle of Veuve Cliquot champagne we’d been awarded during the three day cruise with the two couples seated near us went a long way to smoothing our ruffled feathers. We missed the start of the 8pm performance of Filipino vocalist Anna Fegi-Brown, but even that was fine, because attending the 9:45pm performance instead will help to keep us awake for the several parties around the ship at midnight. 

I will publish this now, before the show starts, and those parties and the rest of the New Year’s Eve celebrations will have to wait until tomorrow’s blog post. 

Our friend at the next table said something tonight that we’d ever heard before, but it makes perfect sense. Health is like the number 1 that comes before a lot of zeros, which are things like money and happiness and love, etc. All the 0’s in the world are worthless without that leading 1. To that end, I hope everyone has a safe and fun New Year’s Eve and a healthy and happy 2019.

Day 73: At Sea

Today was more than bouncy. Today was rough. And wet and windy and cold. In our favor, I had been mistaken about moving clocks ahead an hour overnight; however, that still lies ahead either New Year’s Eve or the night after. Japan and South Korea are an hour ahead of where we currently are, but then we’ll move clocks back an hour before we disembark in Shanghai. 

At some time during the night, G turned on ESPN and the Florida v. Michigan game. Luckily, I slept through most of that nightmare, but was awake for the Clemson v. Notre Dame game. And that set the stage for the first part of our day. I got coffee and pastries from the Horizon Court Buffet and brought them back to G, and then when pizza opened at 11am got that for him too. Honestly, those couple hundred feet from our cabin to the buffet and pizza bar were as far as I wanted to walk. It was that bad.

But, were we at home, we would be cozying away hours and days watching football, so it felt very familiar to do the same on the Sapphire Princess today. Plus, we were still dragging from our long day yesterday. We have not both been well at the same time since we re-boarded the Sapphire on November 28th in Singapore. It’s a lucky thing that we haven’t run fevers, because our temperature has been taken as we disembark the ship in several of these ports (by a heat sensitive camera-type thing). As it is, it’s only stopped me in one port (Singapore), but I’m convinced we’re both going to finish this season on life support. These well-timed sea day are saving us. 

The Bowl games ended early afternoon our time, and we napped and watched movies until it was time to get ready for dinner. My Fitbit, when synced, told me I got 2 hours and 2 minutes of sleep the night before last and less than an hour last night…but had done nearly an hour of exercise in my sleep. Like I said, it’s been rough, and although we are sleeping, we really aren’t getting good rest. Luckily, that’s what sea day afternoons are for. 

We went to dinner in the Vivaldi Dining Room; having missed it last night and eaten sparingly all day, we were hungry (the erratic bouncing of the Sapphire Princess made us tired but not seasick). I have really been enjoying some of the local cuisine food options on the menu, some of which are vegan and others that are adapted for me. We celebrated my birthday tonight with a pack of waiters and headwaters Nazzario and Felix singing me Happy Birthday. I blew out the candle on my cake, and Joffrey whisked it away because it had dairy…but brought me an extra scoop of passion fruit sorbet as reparation. 

Captain Ravera made a ship-wide announcement during dinner that silenced the Vivaldi Dining Room in an instant. We knew when we heard the bing bong bing that precedes announcements that something was up. Apparently this winter monsoon is causing us to slow down to half-speed, delaying our arrival in Keelung, the port for Taipei, tomorrow morning. We are currently in the narrow Taiwan Strait which is acting as a funnel, and we are facing wind gusts up to 75 knots (over 85 mph!) and 22 foot swells. As rough as it is, Captain Ravera said it would be much worse if he kept normal speed, but that he will try to make up time if things improve overnight. 

It is so rough that production show Do You Wanna Dance was cancelled tonight, and a musical show of some sort is being substituted. We chose to return to our cabin instead, and are increasingly grateful for the VOD TV in our cabin. We are supposed to meet for our shore excursion at 7:50am tomorrow, and we really still need to show up then, if only to be told when to return based on our revised arrival time. The weather forecast calls for an all-day rain  tomorrow, with a high around 60. Oh joy.

And finally, I forgot to mention that our cabin steward Homer from the Philippines had the entire day off yesterday in Hong Kong. He was celebrating 25 years with Princess Cruises. 25 years!  We were so excited for him, and couldn’t wait to hear all about it today. Apparently he found some good Filipino food and didn’t return to the ship until after dark. I love when nice things happen to good people!

Day 72: Hong Kong

Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after Qing China ceded Hong Kong Island at the end of the First Opium War in 1842.The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War, and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898.The territory was returned to China when the lease expired in 1997. As a special administrative region, Hong Kong's system of government is separate from that of mainland China.

Originally a sparsely populated area of farming and fishing villages,  the territory has become one of the world's most significant financial centers and commercial ports. It is the world's seventh-largest trading entity, and its legal tender (the Hong Kong dollar) is the world's 13th-most-traded currency.  Although the city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, it has severe income inequality.

The territory has the largest number of skyscrapers in the world, most surrounding Victoria Harbour. Hong Kong ranks seventh on the UN Human Development Index, and has the seventh-longest life expectancy in the world. Although over 90 per cent of its population uses public transportation, air pollution from neighboring industrial areas of mainland China has resulted in a high level of atmospheric particulates. Source:  Wikipedia

Kai Tak Cruise Terminal on the Kawloon Peninsula across from Hong Kong Island

Where in the world are we?

The Sapphire Princess had an extended stay in Hong Kong today, which means that we had a nearly 13 hour day ashore. It is 11pm as I start this post, and we move clocks ahead a hour overnight, but, thankfully, tomorrow is another sea day. I promised myself I would sleep until at least 9am.

We were out on the open decks by 7am to watch as the Sapphire Princess sailed through Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. As soon as the ship was at her berth at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, we went to the Horizon Court Buffet for breakfast. By 8:30am the ship was cleared and we were walking through the cruise terminal. The Kai Tak Cruise Terminal was opened in 2013 on the site of the former Kai Tak Airport. Called the “Rolls Royce of Cruise Terminals”, it more closely resembles a new airport terminal than a ship terminal. However, it is huge, and we were warned it would take about 20 minutes to go from the ship to the terminal‘s exit. It did. We walked over 18000 steps today and I think at least 3500 were just a round trip through the terminal.

State of the art Kai Tak Cruise Terminal

It may be the Rolls Royce of cruise terminals but it lacked an ATM, and I exchanged about US $75 in the Hong Kong dollars in the terminal. We had decided to skip HOHO bus tickets at US $72 each and put that money toward taxis and Ubers to get to just the sights we wanted to visit. We lucked out this morning; a couple from New Zealand behind us in the taxi queue were also going to the Victoria Peak Tram station on Hong Kong Island, so we shared the taxi. The dispatcher spoke English and told the driver where we wanted to go, and also gave us a card to give to a taxi driver on our return. It had the name of the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Cantonese. 

We drove through a tunnel underneath Victoria Harbour from the Kowloon Peninsula side to the Hong Kong Island side. After about 25 minutes, we arrived at the tram station and stood in a long queue to ride the funicular. Over an hour later, we had bought our tickets and were finally boarding a train up Victoria Peak. The Peak Tram was Hong Kong’s first public transit system and has been in operation since 1888. This is an incredibly steep funicular, and we were pressed against our seat backs at several times on the ride up. 

Over an hour wait to buy tickets and board the tram. 

Peak Tram entering the station

Once at the top, we had 360 degree views of  Victoria Harbour and the Hong Kong skyline. Hong Kong has more skyscrapers than any other city in the world. The high today was about 60F, but it was cooler and windier on Victoria Peak and we were glad we had dressed for the weather. We had waited in line so long that it was lunch time and we were hungry, so we ate at a restaurant offering Chinese food at the top and enjoyed the views from a window-side table. 

Hong Kong and Kowloon skyline - Do you see the Sapphire Princess?

Looking toward Repulse Bay and Aberdeen

By the time we waited in another queue (not as long) to make the return trip back down the mountain, it was after 2:30pm and we were glad we had scaled back our plans for the day. We followed the excellent signs for about a 20 minute walk to Central Pier. We wanted to take the famous Star Ferry back across the harbor, and purchased tokens from a machine for the ride. The Star Ferry ride took only 10 or so minutes, and deposited us on the Kowloon side, but not near the cruise terminal. 

Double decker tram

The famous Star Ferry

Central Pier

Hong Kong Maritime Museum

A Star Ferry

From the ferry terminal, we walked up to Canton Road, a major shopping street. The sidewalks were packed with people, and it took some time to walk over to Austin Road West, home to the International Commerce Center (ICC), the tallest building in Hong Kong. At 108 floors high, it was the fourth tallest building in the world when it was opened in 1998; it is now the 11th tallest in the world. We had purchased tickets to the Sky100 Observation Deck on the 100th floor. It was almost 5pm by the time we had walked through the Elements Mall to the base of the building and taken an elevator to the 100th floor. It is not at the very top of the building; the Ritz Carlton Hotel occupies those highest floors. 

Observation Deck of the ICC Building

Hong Kong after dark

Kawloon side (and Sapphire Princess) on the left, Hong Kong island on the right

Ferry terminal

Symphony of Lights from the 100th floor of the ICC

Symphony of Lights

We were able to see the skyline during daylight (though it was pretty hazy by then), and then watch as darkness fell and the city lights came on. The view was beautiful, and there was a laser light show on the windows at 6:30pm and then we had coffees at the café up there and stayed until the Symphony of Lights, a laser light show on the Hong Kong skyline set to music, began at 8pm. To watch it from that height was amazing. As soon as it was over, we took an elevator back down and walked through Elements Mall to a taxi stand I have never seen so many ultra high end stores in one place. Hong Kong has the world’s highest number of billionaires per capita, and it would require that kind of money to shop at these stores. 

We handed the taxi driver the card we had been given this morning, and, after about 25 minutes we arrived back at the cruise terminal. We had spent only about US $30 on transportation today (and walked a lot), so we returned to the ship with local currency left over, but that is better than running short. Our iPhone batteries were exhausted, our backup battery was exhausted and we were exhausted…and hungry. We grabbed a quick dinner in the Horizon Court Buffet, finishing just as it closed at 10:30pm. G was asleep in about 20 seconds, but I will only be able to sleep once this post is uploaded.  And then I will crash. 

We loved Hong Kong; it’s definitely one of our very favorite cities we’ve visited this season. It’s an extremely walkable town, with excellent signs and crosswalks, and we would love to return some day. So many places, so little time. ;-)

Day 71: At Sea

Oh, we were bumpy all night and today. Bumpy and rainy and windy…but still in the low to mid 70s. We’re hearing we won’t get out of the 30s the day we’re in Busan, South Korea; one morning soon we’re going to wake up to winter. 

It’s hard to be highly motivated on days like this. We both slept fitfully, repeatedly awakened by the lurch, then shudder and drop as the ship hit the largest swells. After breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet, I returned to the cabin and repacked a few things in my suitcase. I had emptied it a few days ago to turn in at Guest Services. They gave it to the ship’s upholsterer to repair the detached wheel and it had been returned the next day, not like new but good enough to make it home, and that is all I need. We paid $99 each for these spinner Samsonite suitcases nine years ago at Sam’s Club, and they have certainly been hard used. 

And then I re-watched the lecture on Hong Kong that we had sat through yesterday. There is a lot to absorb on that one. As much as we are still focused on learning about our remaining four ports of call, we are in a familiar place on this cruise, still cruising but also thinking ahead to Hawaii. It’s easy to be excited about the time we’ll spend there. It is so completely different than cruising, and, especially after this season’s cruises, will be much simpler. As grateful as we are to have enjoyed the Sapphire Princess’ VOD television, we are finding ourselves increasingly impatient with shipboard internet speed and availability. I can’t see us ever cruising again for four and five months at a time like we used to. 

We asked Enrichment Lecturer Dale Erhart and his wife Laurel to join us for lunch in the International Dining Room. G has really been enjoying his talks about being a jet fighter pilot in the Canadian Air Force followed by his career as a pilot for Air Canada and later a private pilot for the rich and famous. G kept busy after lunch with his normal sea day activities but I continued my non-participative ways and spent the afternoon reading in the covered Calypso Pool area. The outside decks were closed off, and the pools and hot tubs drained due to the increasingly rough seas. 

We ate a light dinner; this cruise’s Most Traveled Guest cocktail party was held in Skywalkers at 7pm, and it was really quite a ride up there. Several times we grabbed our beverages to keep them from sliding off the tables.  We skipped all entertainment tonight, and instead are watching the movie Skyscraper in our cabin. Since it involves a fictional building twice as tall as the Burj Khalifa set in Hong Kong, it’s obviously a topical choice. 

I’m not sure how much sleep we’ll be getting tonight. The ship is like a bucking bronco right now, not rolling or pitching but rising and dropping erratically.  But tomorrow is Hong Kong, and our excitement in being there will likely carry us through our long day (9am to 11pm) in port. 

Day 70: At Sea

There was no doubt about how I was going to start today’s post: What a difference a day makes!!!

Captain Ravera had warned us, in his sail away announcement last night, that we were heading into a monsoonal flow, and that the seas, which had been very kind to us of late, would grow angry over the next couple of days.  He was certainly right; we could feel some minor bouncing in our cabin when we awoke this morning.  But we were unprepared for how quickly the weather turned cooler. Almost overnight, this ship cooled down, and when we walked across the Lido Deck on our way to breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet before 8am, the shorts and T’s and sandals we’ve lived in since we arrived in Dubai over a month ago suddenly left us chilly. 

I should clarify here, that by chilly, I mean our temperature topped out at 78F today. That 78F marks a big cool down tells you just how hot we’ve been in Southeast Asia. The real feel temps are nearly always over 100F.

We lingered over breakfast. I’m not sure why we were up so early, particularly after we moved clocks ahead an hour last night (we are now 13 hours ahead of EST), but we were asleep in about 3 seconds last night, so I guess that makes sense. In fact, I watched the Rod Stewart tribute act and typed last night’s blog post with literally just one eye open at time.  I learned years ago to convince myself I’m actually sleeping when I do that and it served me well during overnight work and study sessions. 

Following breakfast we attended Destination Expert Narelle Froude’s lecture on Hong Kong. Narelle continues to do a yeoman’s job on these lectures, and she is surely one of the very best at what she does. I was at the Shore Excursions office a couple of days ago and saw the long line of people waiting to talk with her during her desk hours which she has each day, and after every lecture she is swamped by people with questions. Today we were among them. We have learned to not try to see everything we want in these cities, but to choose two or three things on which to focus our time and energy. They are simply too large and too crowded to move easily between the different sites. 

British Pub Lunch was offered in the Savoy Dining Room today, and we ate there, and then returned to the cabin. I wanted to watch the movie, The Man Who Invented Christmas on TV.  Thankfully it is VOD, because I kept falling asleep and had to back up and resume viewing. It’s main draw for me was Dan Stevens as Charles Dickens, but Christopher Plummer as Scrooge was fantastic, too. G was in and out of the cabin, preparing for this cruise’s egg drop contest. Once again his egg survived the drop from Deck 7 to Deck 5 in the Piazza; I think he has perfected his technique, but he likes to change it up a little each time to keep it interesting. 

We ate lightly at dinner, just one course, and went to the late Captains Circle party this evening. We were honored to be this cruise’s third most traveled guests with almost 1100 days. Number two had less than 100 more and number one just under 1800. A couple from Australia that we had met last year on the Golden Princess came up to say hi. They won the bottle of champagne that we donate back each cruise for another drawing after the three usual bottles are raffled off. 

We skipped production show Let Us Entertain You tonight and instead went to the Horizon Court Buffet for coffee and dessert and are now back in the cabin watching another movie. It’s a bit rough tonight. Captain Ravera said we’d be in 50 knot winds overnight, and the seas are the bounciest they’ve been in Southeast Asia. We don’t get seasick, but it does make us feel tired. 

Or maybe that’s due to the fact we’ve now been at this for 70 days. ;-)

Day 69: Phu My/ Ho Chi Minh City

We had a 6:30am wake up today, timed to be able to allow us to have a leisurely breakfast and make it to our excursion meeting time of 8:15am. While we ate, we could see that we were going to be spared the hot sun today, and, in fact, might get a rain shower (we didn’t). But the cloud cover gave us a nice break from the oppressively hot sun we’ve frequently experienced lately. 

We had booked Princess excursion Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) On Your Own again for our visit today. We had enjoyed ourselves so much last time we were there that we thought we’d like to do it again and see a few new things. The drive from the port in Phu My is not as far as Bangkok is from Laem Chabang, and though it’s still at least 90 minutes each way, we actually left a little early and were being dropped off at the now-familiar Bitexco Building shortly after 10am. 

Phu My, Vietnam

Where in the world are we?

Buddhist Temple near Phu My

Long load on a motorbike 

Traditional cyclist

Common scene, store fronts with residences behind 

We wanted to do another walk through of the Ben Thranh market, and see the parts of it we had missed last time, mostly the ‘wet market’, or produce and fish stalls. The fish stalls in particular sell out early, and there had been nothing much left to see when we went in the afternoon last time. Ben Thranh is tightly packed, not air conditioned and intensely humid. In addition, shoppers are constantly hounded to look at this stall, or that one. It’s all part of the experience, but it’s definitely a crazy time. We saw a press crushing sugar cane for sugar cane juice with lime, and just had to try that. It’s like a limeade, and tastes delicious in the heat. 

We walked quickly through the fish stalls. Fish markets are always odorous, but Ben Thranh seems to take it to a whole other level, even though a lot of the fish is kept alive in tubs with air bubblers. Stall after stall offers Vietnamese coffees, teas and candies, and some are lunch counters, with locals lined up to get the food they know is good. 

Notre Dame Cathedral

Back of Notre Dame Cathedral

Undergoing a renovation for several years. 

Opera House

Street vendor

Cooking and selling, street-side

My fourth pho so far, about US $2.50

Squeezing sugar cane juice 

Served with a little lime juice. Yum!

Seems like a lot of work for not much food

Mobile produce department

From Ben Thranh we walked back to the Bitexco Building. We know exactly where the free, clean Western bathrooms with toilet paper and hand washing sinks AND soap are, and used them, then went up to the food court on the 4th floor. It is clean and air conditioned with several food vendors offering enough variety to keep us both happy. G had a chicken sandwich and fries and I had another bowl of pho. I load mine up with bean sprouts and Thai basil and lime juice but no hot peppers. It’s delish!

After lunch (and updating our iPhone apps using the fairly fast WiFi in the food court), we walked back outside and arranged for rides in cyclos, the Vietnamese bicycles with a seat in front of the handlebars to carry one person. These guys are notorious for taking advantage of tourists, and we carefully spelled and everyone agreed to what we were going to see and how much we would pay. We rode through the area with French colonial buildings including the opera house and the port office and Notre Dame Cathedral, which resembles Notre Dame in Paris. It is undergoing a several year renovation and visitors can’t go inside. 

Finally we saw what is called Reunification Palace, the home of the American Embassy during the Vietnam War (which they call the American War). This is the site of the famous rooftop helicopter evacuation during the Fall of Saigon. We stood in front of it and wondered what was gained from that whole war (and the same could be said of two recent wars, too). 

Traditional cyclo rides to finish the day 

The American Embassy famous for the helicopter pic when the Americans pulled out. 

Now Reunification Palace

  

The American Embassy prior to that

The cyclos took us back to the Bitexco Building, and, sure enough, tried to claim that the price they quoted was for each of us, not both of us. I paid them what we had agreed to and walked away, starting to cross a major street. They took up their case with G, who told them he had no money and they had already been paid, so they came back to me while I was in the middle of the street with motorbikes zipping around me. Without stopping (which can be deadly…the trick to crossing is to keep an even pace and let the motorbikes avoid you), I turned around and started walking backward, yelling at them the entire time. I think they thought I was crazy, and finally gave up. And G just shook his head. He knows I’m crazy, and tough as nails when it comes to that kind of thing. 

At 3pm we were boarding the bus for the trip back to the port. It was a quiet bus on the return trip; these days simply wipe people out. We were back on the ship shortly before 5pm, with enough time to shower before dinner. There is simply nothing better than feeling clean again after a day in HCMC. 

We ate dinner in near silence…and so did the couple next to us, and the couple next to them, and the group of four next to them. We move clocks ahead an hour overnight; I think this will be a very quiet ship tomorrow morning, the first of two sea days in a row. 

The show in the Princess Theater was a Rod Stewart tribute act by Dave Patten. I’m not a huge fan, but it was a new show for us so naturally we went. It was actually quite good, and many people apparently are huge fans and the audience was very engaged. There was a second show in Explorers Lounge by piano entertainer Joey Yates, but we barely made it through the Rod Stewart tribute show, so that was never in the cards. 

The cities don’t get much smaller from this point on, but they do get closer to the port and the weather is going to start to cool as we head north. In fact, by the time we reach Nagasaki, we could be facing our coldest temps of the season. I’m not saying we’ll like it, but this ship has been hot since it arrived in Singapore, and it will be nice to move our cabin thermostat off the lowest temperature setting where it’s stayed for the last four weeks. 

Day 68: Merry Christmas at sea

Merry Christmas!

We never did wake up to attend last night’s midnight interdenominational Christmas service. We were surprisingly wiped out after our day at the Siam Bayshore (I had to force myself last night to write yesterday’s blog post). I think it simply takes less and less to wear us out each day as this season progresses. But there was another Christmas service this morning at 9:15am in Club Fusion, and we easily made it to that one. 

I was awake at 6am, and took advantage of that time to wash out the clothes I had worn yesterday. I should have done that last night, but since I had clean clothes to wear today, didn’t absolutely have to. Washing and rinsing and wringing and hanging…it’s the glamorous side of a season of cruising. ;-) I am sending very little to ship’s laundry these days, and G never has. I could probably wash another load of my dinner clothes at the passenger laundries, but it may have to wait until we get to Hawaii or return home. 

MUTS featured an entire line up of Christmas movies starting at 9:45am. Elliot, the Tiniest Reindeer, Four Christmases, the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Muppet Christmas Carol, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Man Who Invented Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas. And Pope Francis’ Mass from St. Peter’s Basilica, his Christmas message and the Queen’s Christmas message played on our cabin TVs. A Holiday Family Fun Fair was held in the Piazza this morning, the trivias were all holiday oriented and, of course, there were the usual sea day activities offered, too. I love when Christmas Day falls on a sea day; it’s much more inclusive and fun than when it’s a port day (not to mention that so many things are closed in ports on Christmas Day). 

The biggest event began around 10am when the First Officer on the bridge made an announcement that they were seeing something on radar that looked suspiciously like reindeer and a sleigh. Around 11am we were in our cabin when we heard the ship’s horn blow several times in quick succession. Santa was here!  We did not go down to the Piazza to see him, but we have in the past and know that it’s a darling scene. 

From that point until dinner, it was a rather usual sea day. We had a nice lunch in the International Dining Room, and then did what we seem to do best on sea days this season: napped on and off and watched movies all afternoon. Not to belabor the point, but restful sea days are the only way we can get through these long, hot days in big Southeast Asia cities. 

Tonight was formal night # 236 of the season. (One more. Just one more.) The dinner menu was nice but not spectacular as the cutbacks to Princess food continue. G ordered beef medallions and was served single medallion smaller than a deck of cards, certainly not more than 3 ounces. Seconds could not be placed on the same plate so Joffrey got him another whole entrée.  Really, it’s Christmas!  However, we still had the same wonderful dessert choices: panettone, English pudding and sauce and gingerbread soufflé. Oh, and mandarin sorbet for me (I had salmon and salad for dinner). 

As is typically done on Christmas cruises, we had a Christmas variety show in the Princess Theater tonight. It was a hard decision, to choose between that and It’s a Wonderful Life on MUTS, but we’ve seen that movie at least 183 times, so live entertainment won out. It was especially nice this year, with a harious version of The Twelve Days of Christmas done by the Cruise Director’s staff. During the pre-show wait, the cruise staff passed out white balloons that turned the Princess Theater into a huge party. 

They brought the little kids from kids club up for two carols at the end. 

Tonight, more sleep is winning out over watching White Christmas on MUTS. We have still another early morning tomorrow as we take a bus 90 minutes into Ho Chi Minh City. We considered just staying on the ship…for about a minute. The sights and sounds and smells of Saigon are drawing us back.