At Sea (& Sally's Birthday)

Sally with Joey

            14 Oct 2013 – Happy Birthday to my lovely wife Sally, the second year in a row that we have spent Sally’s birthday on a cruise ship.  This time last year, we had been stranded ashore at Akaroa, New Zealand for the night.  But that next afternoon Jesse just had to tell the other passengers on the tender that it was Sally’s birthday (!), and so they sang happy birthday to Sally as we rode back to the ship.  This morning Joey, our cabin steward, decorated our cabin door with a happy birthday plaque and balloons.

On a sad note, we received the bittersweet news today from our daughter-in-law, Terri, that Sally’s brother, Joe, had passed away on the morning of 12 Oct 2013.  We were sad to hear that Joe is gone, but we are glad that his long suffering has finally come to an end.

After sleeping a little late this morning, especially Sally, we went to a late breakfast, then a 1.5 hour swim (not constant swimming!), then to lunch.  Since it was 85 degrees or hotter on deck, the pools and surrounding areas were more crowded than usual.  We missed the Cha Cha lesson at 11:15 AM (but didn’t think we would learn anything in a basic lesson, anyway), so we spent the remainder of the afternoon lounging around in our cabin.

Happy Birthday

Dinner Table

Tonight we enjoyed another formal dinner, with lobster on the menu.  Also, the waiters and dining room captain all sang happy birthday to Sally, joined in by the rest of our table and some of the other passengers, while a tasty birthday cake (with a candle) was served.  The frosting was like dark chocolate candy.  After dinner, we joined the other Captain’s Circle Members in the Club Fusion for our second cocktail party, where we enjoyed complementary cocktails.  (Since we didn’t finish dinner until 7:30 AM, we arrived after the ceremony started and missed the preliminary dancing.)  Afterwards, we danced to only one song in the Wheelhouse Bar before the Electrix Duo went on break – at which time we returned to our cabin.

When we opened our cabin door, we soon saw that our room steward, Joey, had decorated our entire bed for a final birthday celebration.  He had shaped our bedcover into a large heart, with many small, red chocolate candy hearts spread out along the cover.  Near the pillows were two kissing swans shaped out of blue and white beach towels. 

Thinking more about large cities in China that we have visited so far, namely Qingdao, Beijing, and Shanghai, Shanghai seemed the least attractive to us.  All three have a lot of high-rise apartments; Qingdao and Beijing both have many tree-lined streets.  Shanghai is the economic center of China and (our guide told us) the most modern city in China.  The cost of an apartment is twice as much in Shanghai as in Beijing, and a car license costs the equivalent of $4,000 to $5,000 in Shanghai.  In order to take the required driving test, driving class costs $600, plus an extra $200 in tips for the instructor.  Traffic is terrible Monday through Friday in Shanghai, often turning the streets into parking lots.

For these reasons, people might choose to live in Suzhou, if possible, but especially after they retire.  Both apartments and car licenses cost half as much in Suzhou, and there is a rapid transit connecting Suzhou and Shanghai.  In Suzhou, building high-rise buildings is not allowed because it would destroy the historical flavor of the city.

At any rate, our guide told us that we were visiting the Shanghai/Suzhou area in the best time of the year.  In spring there is a lot of rain, with flooding in late May and June; and summer is very hot.

We slept late on Tuesday, 15 Oct 2013.   After breakfast and a little more relaxing, we attended a Tango dance class in Club Fusion.  We may have finally mastered a new Tango dance step.  Since we still feel a little awkward doing the step, we’ll have to keep practicing!

There was a “Mexican Fiesta” buffet set up for lunch, so Jesse had two soft-shelled tacos, soup, peach cobbler, and ice cream for lunch, while Sally stuck with her usual soup and salad.  After lunch, Sally napped while Jesse did a little hand laundry and watched more of the Government shutdown saga on television.

The movie “Life of Pi” was shown on television today.  We managed to see the beginning and the end, but without the closed captions, Sally wasn’t able to hear much of it, so we will have to watch the whole movie again when we get home anyway.

After dinner (filet mignon and jumbo shrimp), we went to the Club Fusion for dancing, but they were playing very unfamiliar Latin music.   We weren’t sure of the language but, since there were several dancers there speaking what sounded like Portuguese, we assumed the music was Portuguese also.  The songs all sounded similar, but we couldn’t figure out how to dance to them.  After about 15 minutes there, we went to the Explorer’s Lounge, where the Electrix Duo was playing ballroom dance music and several other couples were dancing.  We danced until their 8:15 PM break, and then returned to our cabin for the night.