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LIVE from the 2018 HAL Grand World Voyage!

Scrapnana

By Scrapnana,
in Holland America Line

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Scrapnana "Live from...." Rare

Scrapnana

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At Sea – March 11, 2018

 

Skipped water aerobics again because of the cool, cloudy weather.

 

We had two people join us for knitting today – Maria Faith from Peru and Doreen who is part of the Craft Cruise program. Total of nine today.

 

We were only able to get 10 for morning trivia. Two teams tied with 14 (out of 15).

1)Which Asian volcano last erupted in 1707?

2)What is the national flower of Vietnam?

3)The avocado tree originated in which country?

4)In welding terminology what is “MIG”?

5)Where did Gordon Ramsey open his first restaurant?

 

I had lunch from the taco bar and then read until time for arts and crafts. Nancy had said previously that only those who made the bracelet yesterday could make the matching earrings today. Because of this nobody had to arrive early for seats.

 

Read and knitted by the Lido pool until time for afternoon trivia. We managed 12 points but the winning team had 16 out of 17 .

1)What Japanese company made the first portable transistor radio in 1955?

2)What does Google call their employees?

3)What soccer team did David Beckham play for at age 20?

4)What Japanese city gave Washington, D.C. the cherry blossom trees in 1912?

5)Which Asian country is home to Anthong Marine National Park?

 

The big talk around the ship today was the deck 6 flood. Somewhere around 10 last night a pipe burst (at least that is the most reliable story I have heard) and flooded the hallway near the aft portion of deck 6. Some water seeped into cabins. They were pulling up carpeting from the hall and putting it over the aft railing to dry. They vacuumed water out of the cabins and set up dehumidifiers. Guests affected were given a bottle of wine, chocolates, and a suggestion that there might be a monetary consideration.

 

Tonight was SINGO (like Bingo) with Jamm. I had not been in a few weeks because of the Cruise Specialists cocktail party and Canaletto dinner. Last week I got caught up doing something else.

 

Gala night tonight and once again most looked quite nice. The theme was "Red Lantern Dinner". The six of us were back for dinner. I had shrimp cocktail, surf and turf, and lemon meringue cheesecake for dessert.

 

The show was called “a la mode” with the Amsterdam singers and dancers. I debated going since I have an early tour tomorrow but I had the blog almost up-to-date so I went. It was very good.

 

Phu My is the port tomorrow and I will be doing a Cruise Critic private excursion to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).

 

 

Morning trivia…

1)Mt. Fuji

2)lotus

3)Mexico

4)metal inert gas

5)London

 

Evening trivia…

1)Sony

2)Googlers

3)Manchester United

4)Tokyo

5)Thailand

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Scrapnana "Live from...." Rare

Scrapnana

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Phu My, Vietnam (port for Ho Chi Minh City) – March 12, 2018

 

I signed up for a private excursion on the Cruise Critic roll call. We ended up with 10 people and the final cost was $38 which included lunch, a morning coffee, and an afternoon ice cream.

 

We met Zoom, our guide, at the port entrance at 7:30 and headed off to Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh city although still often called Saigon). After an interesting ride in, we were at our first stop, the Rex Hotel, before 9am. The Rex Hotel is where the evening press briefings were given during the war. These briefings were nicknamed the “five o’clock follies”. We had a choice of coffee or soda and a beautiful view of the city. We had a short walk across the pedestrian area to pick up our van.

 

After an interesting ride through Chinatown (I have never seen so many lanterns for sale) we stopped at a Chinese temple dedicated to the Heavenly Lady Goddess of the Sea. There were hundreds of little birds for sale at $1 each. You buy one and then let them go.

 

Our next stop was for lunch at Pho 2000. It is a very popular spot with tour groups and locals. President Clinton once ate there. We had beef pho and spring rolls.

 

When lunch was over we had to cross the street to get to the Ben Thanh Market. Actually, crossing the street wasn’t too bad even though the motorcycles don’t always stop. Someone told me when crossing the street always keep going forward. The cyclists are prepared to go around you but if you step back they are not expecting that and may hit you.

 

Zoom walked us in and explained about the fixed price stalls which are run by the government and the privately-owned ones where you can negotiate. Even without the signs it is easy to tell the difference because the workers in the government stalls are not as enthusiastic about selling to you.

 

I quickly got lost inside with all the crowded stalls and wasted about 10 minutes finding the entrance where we were to meet. I still found time to do some shopping.

 

After a quick photo stop at the Presidential Palace (a building that was seen often in the news during the war), we went to the Post Office and Notre Dame Cathedral. The cathedral is being restored so much of it is in scaffolding. The Post Office looks more like a train station. Inside it has souvenirs for sale but still functions as a post office.

 

Our last stop was at the War Remnants Museum. It is mostly propaganda depicting those who were against the Vietnam War and the US involvement.

 

We drove past the villa Westmoreland used during the war as we were headed to a lacquer factory. All of us were tired by that point and decided not to go. On the way back to Phu My, Zoom asked if we wanted to stop at a Buddhist Monastery and we declined that, too.

Arrived back at the ship about 4:00 and I looked around at the few stalls by the ship. They didn’t have any real good deals and nothing like the scarves and purses I saw at other Vietnamese ports in 2014. I was back on the ship by 4:30.

 

Bonnie, Rodney, Marilyn, and I joined with two others for trivia. We had 12 but the winning team had 15 out of 17.

1)Where is your tragus?

2)Which state has a coastline of over 6600 miles?

3)What is the name of Spiderman’s childhood sweetheart?

4)What color is the cross on the flag of Finland?

5)How many squares on a Scrabble board?

 

Only four of us at dinner. I had fruit, a spring roll, and a burger that had pork BBQ and an egg on it (unusual item on the dining room menu), and a tropical fruit sundae for dessert.

 

Skipped the show and finished processing my pictures before getting to bed. We lost an hour of sleep. Ugh!

 

One sea day until Singapore.

 

Trivia…

1)ear

2)Alaska

3)Mary Jane Watson

4)blue

5)225

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Scrapnana "Live from...." Rare

Scrapnana

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A quick question, if you can remember way back to January 28. Did you go to a talk by Barbara H about Alofi, Niue, and what kind of guidance did she give?

 

Roy

There were no organized tours on Niue. A few people hired people in cars (I don't think they were actual taxis) to drive them around. We were there on Sunday so very little was open. I walked until I was tired.

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ski ww Holiday Sharing Rare

ski ww

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We loved Saigon. We did a tour on those bicycle rich shaw, it seems that rush hour is all day long, but very interesting. Love reading your blog, good thing I`m not on your trivia team I`m not getting many right.

Allan

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Scrapnana

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At Sea – March 13, 2018

 

Slept late to make up for missed sleep yesterday. Only a handful of us for Sit and Stitch. I made arrangements with two other knitters to visit a yarn shop in Singapore.

 

Morning trivia had us living up to our nickname, “The Bridesmaids”(as in “always the bridesmaid never the bride”), for our tendency to come in second. We had 12 and the winners had 13.

1)What is a spinnaker on a boat?

2)What is a rhino’s horn made of?

3)Whois the villain in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty?

4)What is the 28th state?

5)What element joins iron to make steel?

 

Spent much of the afternoon getting up my post for yesterday. Blogspot was not letting me upload pictures but finally got it to work before dinner.

 

We did another zentangle drawing in arts and crafts. Only about 60 present since non-jewelry days usually do not draw a full house.

 

Read and knitted for a short while before evening trivia which was very hard. The winning team only had 10 out of 17. We had 7.

 

1)Who said, “I have never had an accident worth talking about”?

 

2)Who was Clark Kent’s high school sweetheart?

 

3)By law in China you must be what to attend school?

 

4)What novel contains the longest sentence in literature?

 

5)What Dickens’ novel was left unfinished when he died?

 

All six of us were back for dinner. Most of the selections did not thrill me and I ended up with the French onion soup, a blackened chicken Caesar salad, and fruit with a scoop of watermelon sorbet for dessert.

 

Skipped the show because I have another long tour tomorrow.

 

In Singapore tomorrow.

 

 

Morning Trivia…

1)a sail

2)keratin

3)Malificent

4)Texas

5)carbon

 

Afternoon Trivia…

1)Captain Smith of the Titanic

2)Lana Lang

3)intelligent

4)Les Miserables

5)Edwin Drood

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kazu "Live from...." Rare

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I'm no pro at trivia, but quite sure the answer to Afternoon Trivia, question two is Lana Lane (not Lang).

Probably a typo ;)

 

Sorry dinner didn't have tempting offerings, Kathi.

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Scrapnana "Live from...." Rare

Scrapnana

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Singapore – March 14, 2018

 

I was up early and watched the sail-in to Singapore from my deck. I chose the “Best of Singapore” tour that lasted 7.5 hours (although it was advertised in the brochure as 8.75 hours). I have been to Singapore twice before but I had not taken a tour and I really learned a great deal (even if it was hot and tiring).

 

We had a beautiful new (2 months) bus and our guide was Georgie. Our first stop was at the Sultan Mosque. We walked a couple of blocks and saw a number of the “shop houses” which are two story buildings where originally there was the shop on the ground floor and the shopkeeper lived above.

 

After a drive through Little India we drove to Clarke Quay where we boarded a bumboat. We sailed by Boat Quay, the Fullerton Hotel, under the Cavenagh Bridge, by Merlion Park (the Merlion – half lion, half mermaid – is the symbol of Singapore), the financial district, the Customs House, and ended up at the Marina Bay Sands.

 

We walked through the Marina Bay shopping centre and then through the lobby of the hotel to get on a lift to the observation deck on the 56th floor. We had time to get some pictures before heading back downstairs and managed to survive two down escalators in the hotel! Surprisingly, the land on which the hotel is built is leased for only 30 years. Provided the hotel complies with the guidelines set forth by the Singapore government, the lease can be renewed.

 

We had a short stop at the City Gallery to see a model of Singapore and Georgie explained about the plans the government makes to improve the city.

 

It was getting time for lunch so, after a short drive through Chinatown, we walked to our restaurant for dim sum. As typical in China, the food was served family style with a lazy susan. As soon as we were finished we could leave and have some time for shopping.

 

The Intercontinental Hotel was our next destination for what Georgie called our “happy drink” which was a Singapore Sling. Normally the stop is at the Raffles Hotel where the drink was invented but the hotel is closed for remodeling at the present time. I don’t think anyone was upset since the Intercontinental had free high-speed wi-fi! We were worse then a group of kids with no talking and everyone holding a device.

 

Gardens by the Bay was our last stop. This opened in 2012 and cost a billion Singapore dollars to build. The two parts are the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest. Amazing displays and nicely air-conditioned.

 

A few things I learned on the tour…

 

1) To cut down on cars in Singapore, by 2020 GPS will track each car and charge the owner for the kilometers driven (Singapore has excellent and relatively inexpensive mass transit and they want to promote the use of it)

 

2) The humidity averages 90% year round

 

3) The Arab “shop houses” were more highly decorated than the Malay ones because the Arabs were wealthier

 

4)Singapore has no natural resources so they consider their people as such

 

5) You cannot cut down any trees (even on property you own) without permission

 

We returned to the terminal at 5:00 and I spent 75 minutes using the free, not so high-speed (but not bad) wi-fi.

 

Ate dinner in the Lido (really good rotisserie chicken) and then walked out on the back deck to see the lights of Singapore. Met up with Cyndi and Ed and had another Singapore Sling (“when in Rome…”) and we talked until about 9:30. It was a beautiful evening with a nice breeze (the predicted thunderstorm did not materialize).

 

I am too tired to process my pictures tonight (it normally takes over an hour to choose the ones I want, resize them, and get them loaded onto the blog) so check back for them.

 

Smooth sailing until next time!

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