World Cruise - Day 67 - Mar 19 - At Sea

Foggy continues to be the word of the day, although warmer foggy than yesterday.  Today the high should be about 73 and tomorrow in Hong Kong it is expected to be a high of 77 and partly cloudy, so we might actually see the sun after living in a cloud shroud for the past few days.

Pete, we overnight in Hong Kong, so we will have two full days there.  We plan to spend one day on Hong Kong Island and the other day in Kowloon.  Sydney, Hong Kong and Dubai are our three overnight (i.e. two day) stops on this cruise.

We tied at 17 in trivia, then lost the tiebreaker:  What is the population of Hong Kong as of July 2007?  6,900,000 (we weren’t even close).  Here are the three questions we missed:  At age 41 in 2008, she competed in her 5^th Olympic games, a first for any US swimmer.  Dara Torrez (we put Hillary Miller).  This small, colorful pet fish was named after the naturalist who brought it to the UK.  Guppie (we said goldfish).  In 1964, Bruce Meyers sold the first fiberglass body kits for one of these, which also included a VW engine.  Dune buggy (we said helicopter).  Other interesting questions:  KRK Island is the northernmost island in the Mediterranean in which sea?  Adriatic.  Before Europeans named it Mount Cook in this country, the Maori called it Aorengi or Cloud Piercer.  New Zealand.  Crescent-shaped wind formed dunes are common on this planet.  Mars.  Valmouse and St. Benoit are nice, soft, runny examples of this type of cheese.  Brie.  Vienna’s Temol Coffee House introduced this warm, sweet beverage on New Year’s Day.  Hot chocolate.  Neutrality and voluntary service are two of the seven principles of this European service organization.  Red Cross.  In 1999, George and Laura Bush bought the 1,600 acre Prairie Chapel Ranch in this town in Texas.  Crawford.  With the death of Pope Sixtus in 1590, it ended his plan to convert this building in Rome into a wool factory.  Coliseum.  This group was solid as a brick with the song Brickhouse.  Commodores.

This afternoon I went to a presentation by Paul and Sarah Su on the Silk Road in China and also another presentation on South America:

Paul and Sarah are very experienced world travelers and both are excellent photographers.  Paul takes their photos and videos and puts them together into a slideshow format with background music, then he provides commentary along the way.  Very artfully done with all of the beautiful pictures.  I was surprised to learn that they took all of their photos with a predecessor camera to the Canon SX230 (which is what I use as my pocket camera), although they now own both a Canon S100 and SX230.  No DSLRs, since they are often traveling months at a time and need to keep everything light.  For example, they have now spent over 2 years just in South America, staying there for about 4 months at a time each year, typically using Buenos Aires as their base.  Their presentations are outstanding.  They have one more presentation coming up.

Paul told a really interesting story that took place during one of their tours in the Silk Road of China.  I asked him if I could tell it (at least what I remember) on the blog and he said yes.  Paul and Sarah were traveling with a tour group on a bus and they made a stop in a small village with public bathroom facilities.  The tour guide told them to all use to the bathroom, since they would not have a public facility for quite a distance.  They all used it except for Mr. X, who didn’t like the smell of the bathrooms, which he considered to be too smelly and too primitive.  So they all got back on the bus and about an hour later, Mr. X told the tour guide that he really needed to go, so the tour guide said they would stop in the next town.  In the next town, the only “facilities” to speak of consisted of two planks of wood separated by about a foot and out over the top of the cesspool.  So Mr. X went out, pulled down his pants, did his business, then when he looked down, he noticed something floating in the cesspool below.  He pulled up his pants, then looked down beneath the boards to realize that it was his passport, which had fallen out of his pocket.  He ran back to tell his wife (I love that part—tell the wife, she will get it for you), they went back out onto the boards and were trying to get the passport with a stick, but each time they tried to get it, it just sunk further into the cesspool.  Finally, I desperation, a local boy from the village walked by and Mr. X asked if we would go into the cesspool to retrieve his passport.  He said he would, but he wanted $100.  Mr. X said yes, go ahead, I need to get my passport.  So the boy went into the cesspool, got the passport, came out and cleaned up the passport as best he could with one newspaper, then wrapped it nicely in another newspaper and went back to the man to collect his $100.  Mr. X then said he only had $50, which he gave to the boy.  The boy then went back out on the boards and dropped the passport back into the cesspool, so Mr. X was out $50 and still didn’t have his passport.  Mr. X said that was all he had and the boy said it would take another $100 to get the passport back.  Mr. X asked the tour guide to loan him the money, which he agreed to do.  So the boy again retrieved the passport, cleaned it up and wrapped it in newspaper and exchanged it with Mr. X for $100.  When he got back on the bus, Mr. X had to sit in the back due to the smell of his passport, still wrapped in newspaper, no one would sit by him.  At the end of the tour, at the airport, Mr. X still had his passport wrapped in the newspaper when he took it out to present it to the customs official.  By this time, the passport had gotten crusty and the pages were all stuck together with a brown film around the edges.  The customs official took one look at the passport, then pried open the first page.  Then he licked his finger to flip the first page, then licked his finger again to turn the second page, then looked up at Mr. X and said, “Chocolate?”  “Um, yes, chocolate,” replied Mr. X.

So discussing Paul’s story at cocktails before dinner, Chuck thinks the story was all just a story made up by the tour guide, that I got it wrong, that it wasn’t really a tour that Paul and Sarah were a part of.  Andrea also said she didn’t think it was a tour Paul and Sarah were personally a part of, but she did think the story was true.  I thought it was true, but I’m kinda gullible that way.  Chuck said he thinks the story may have come from Slumdog Millionaire (one of the first scenes has a lot of similarity), but it apparently happened (or at least was told to Paul) in 2005, so it predated Slumdog by several years.  So maybe the story (and maybe even Paul’s telling of it) was the inspiration for Slumdog?  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it…

Afternoon trivia we got 15 out of 20, winning team got 16, so at least we were spared the agony of another tiebreaker loss.  Questions we missed:  What is diphenhydramine hydrochloride better known as?  Benadryl (we said bleach).  What Spanish city is considered to be the bullfighting capital of the world?  Seville (we said Madrid).  What Michael Jackson music video was directed by Martin Scorsese?  Bad (we said Thiller).  In what state can you eat the world’s largest enchilada?  New Mexico (we said Texas).  Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem made their debut as the house band for what TV show?  The Muppet Show (we said Dr. Demento).  Other interesting questions which we got right:  Which country was split into two in the velvet divorce?  Czechoslovakia.  What Shakespearean play formed the basis for New Moon?  Romeo and Juliet.  What country is famous for gouda and edam cheeses?  Netherlands.  Clarified butter used in Indian cuisine is better known as what?  Ghee.  In what southern state was Elvis Presley born?  Mississippi.  What novel features slave owner Simon Legree?  Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  What animal is a flying gunard, dragon wrasse, or lump sucker?  Fish.  What international humanitarian organization was founded in 1971 by French doctors and journalists?  Doctors without Borders.

Evening entertainment was Tim Barton doing a classical piano recital:

He played works by Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, Gershwin and Joplin.

Tomorrow is Hong Kong, day 1 of 2 as we overnight in the city.