Dead sea?

Hazy, warm, fairly quiet seas

But then we haven’t been going very fast today either. It isn’t that far from Taiwan to Hong Kong.

My raspy throat and pulmonary involvement have been tough for the past few days so I took longer to get moving this morning. Ed ordered in tea and oatmeal and I plodded along while he went to the destination talk for Sanya, China, the stop after Hong Kong.

I did make it to the culinary demonstration which is always fun as the chefs and other staff poke fun at each other and do crazy things with food.

Trivia was fun with the Aussie couple and another from Ohio. The Aussie is relocating to England. He has dual citizenship and his wife is in the early stages of Pick’s disease a type of dementia. He’s very interesting and knowledgeable as he is a water engineer and is very knowledgeable about water issues in the US. Except for the northernmost cities, allthe coastal cities in Australia have desalination plants.

English Pub Lunch

This is offered occasionally and we had heard good things about it so we went here as our time was limited. I had fish n chips and Ed had shrimp n chips. Quite good actually though the malt vinegar wasn’t nearly tart enough for me.

Last WWII talk

This was very poignant and touching. He told the stories of several true heroes of WWII and the first few were black men who did extraordinary things in terms of achievement and sacrifice. Along the way he told us a little about his career as a naval pilot with grace and no chest thumping. He saw his best friend get shot down and wasn’t able to help him. Very tough.

Penguins

This was a DVD we checked out with great hopes. It took Ed a while to figure out how to make it work (I would have been useless) and we watched about 15 min of it and then hummed and hawed about whether or not to finish it. In the end, we shut it off. But the cartoons were cute.

Book Review

The readers reviewed a book by Jodi Picoult (sorry I don’t know this author although I recognized the name. It deals with many issues including racial, sibling rivalry, white supremacist, and such. The readers were mostly white, one black woman, some Jews, Aussies, US, and one lady from UK. A man also joined in. It was interesting to hear the different interpretations of events in the book and the personal stories and revelations of the readers. It made me think a lot and I was surprised at the emotions the discussion brought up in me. I only listened as I haven’t read the book.

Trivia this afternoon: Frances and I got there late as we were at the book review. We were able to make some contributions despite our tardiness and we don’t have to hang our heads in shame over our performance.

Dinner was formal with the traditional baked Alaska as dessert. Lucian leaves us tomorrow to return to his home in Romania. I have become very fond of his with his very dry sense of humor. He is also very bright and I got a lot of insight into the politics of the Balkan region.

Photo issues

Show

Was a Motown group: two guys from Detroit who met in Japan. Go Figure.

Mardi Gras

Celebration at 9 pm on the upper deck. I’m taking my mask I made the other day.