Greetings From the Other Side of the World, Day 8: Sea Day

 Sea days are nice.  Sea days are especially nice if they are hot and sunny.  I wasn't anticipating sunny, given the monsoons we experienced yesterday, but the weather gods prevailed.


A brief rundown, then, of how we spent the day on the Viking Orion sailing the South China Sea:

  1. Breakfast.  As previously mentioned, the food is quite delicious and we are taking ample advantage of all the restaurants on the ship.
  2. My Friend Jeanie™and I had massages in honor of her birthday, which is today (October 28 on this side of the International Date Line).
  3. We plunked ourselves on deck chairs, then lowered ourselves into the Infiniti pool overlooking the aft of the ship.  Dan-o enjoyed the adjacent hot tub.
  4. At noon, we played Trivia and came in tied for second place.  The questions that caught us up were: what is a group of flamingos called (a flamboyance) and what is the smallest flowering plant (wolffia globosa).  The winners knew the flamboyance.  No one knew the flowering plant.
  5. Dan and I enjoyed Pho on the aft deck for lunch.  Jeanie and Bill ate indoors.  Available to diners in the World Cafe was a whole roasted suckling pig, apple in the mouth and all.
  6. We all found various places to read and nap until a lecture at 3 p.m. about the nature of time.  The lectures have been extremely informative, interestingly presented.  We've been speculating how the retired professors giving them landed this gig.
  7. Information about shore tours was presented next, so we hung around and waited for that to begin.  The Shore Tour director warned that if we thought the traffic in Hanoi was bad, we ain't seen nothin' yet when it comes to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon.  She suggested that if you found yourself in a situation where you needed to cross a street, you surreptitiously attach yourself to a local then run when they run.  Sounds like fun!
  8. Dinner, then skipping the 9 p.m. entertainment for the pleasure of our cabins and bed.

From what I can tell looking outside this morning, I believe we're in for another day of deluging yet again, at least it will be warm.  Think I'll stash some deck towels in the bus to dry off in between stops.

Onward!

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