Cruising the Luzon Strait

No, I hadn’t heard of it either.

We woke to bright sunshine and immediately opened out balcony door to let in the warm, fresh sea air.  That sent all the papers flying!  The two yellow health forms we need to complete for the Philippines Immigration people later today and the other bits and pieces which had accumulated on the table.

Breakfast time in our favourite spot.  The ship was still quiet as many decided to take the opportunity to have a lie in.

The pool deck was empty apart from a couple of die hard sun bathers.

We went to the library to collect today’s quiz sheet.

Then we went into Horizons Lounge to take a few photos of the new decor.

Some people didn’t have the chance for a lie in – on a ship like this there is always someone painting something somewhere and today was no exception.

By now, our housekeeper Derlen had completed her work and we returned to our suite, where we had things to do this morning.

I had a journal awaiting a catchup and my hero had some songs to learn.

But at 11 o’clock I had a note in my diary: a martini demonstration to go and watch.

Polina, the bartender, offered expert advice on mixing and serving martinis, though half way through the demonstration, I was called away to complete the health check.  One by one, everyone on the ship had to present themselves in the theatre and have their temperature checked as they completed the yellow forms.  Actually, all that happened is that the Filipino Health officials had a heat scanning camera which was focused on the door to the theatre, so there was no need to stop walking – just put the form into someone’s hand and all was done.  So, I was able to return to the Martini demonstration just in time for the tasting!

11 o’clock in the morning isn’t the best time to be drinking martinis and for some reason, Polina didn’t seem to understand “very small”, “a teaspoonful, just to taste£ or “enough”.  I didn’t try “just an elegant sufficiency”!   The chocolate martini was very good and the margarita martini fresh and rather too drinkable.  I imagine it would be far too easy to down a few of those, but would rather not think of the headache later!

Lunchtime then, and a table for two in the same location as we’d enjoyed breakfast.  We are utterly spoiled here by the most delightful staff who seem to be able to know exactly what we’d like before we know it ourselves.  It is a very special ship indeed and we love it.

Looking up, it seemed as though someone had been writing in the sky.

By now, the heat of the day, most had escaped into the shade for it was really hot out there.

We too came indoors until tea time, when there was a few (!) cupcakes on offer with tea and scones and clotted cream for those who were still hungry.

We were there for Trivia, of course, though today wasn’t our day and we didn’t match our previous performance.  Never mind, the tea was good and we had a fun time with our friends.

After a quick shower and change, we grabbed a glass each and, still wearing slippers, we went out into the corridor for the block party.  This is a great idea – the bell is rung to signal it’s time to open the suite door and head out, to where butlers and housekeepers are there with wine, canapes and friendly smiles.  Having introduced one another to the neighbours and anyone else standing there, the Captain and other senior officers come through the ship at breakneck speed shaking hands with every one.  The chatter went on for an hour or so by which time we were all feeling ready for dinner.  As always, we met some really charming people and plan to get together for lunch or dinner soon.

After an aperitif (another one   ) we headed for dinner in the restaurant, choosing to sit with our favourite team of waiters with whom we know we will have some fun.

The playful mood continues when Jane is asked what she’d like for dessert.  Her wish is fulfilled when a plate arrives, beautifully presented with a giggle by Maurice.  These gentlemen are so delightful and really do go the extra mile.

We are so full by the time the petits fours arrive that only one is eaten.  I’m not saying by whom!

Just in time for the show, then, and a nightcap in the theatre.

Another great performance all round, which we all enjoy, but we have an early start tomorrow and rather than sit chatting any longer, we call it a day and head upstairs to bed.

Chocolates, a newspaper, tomorrow’s Passages newsheet and some tickets for later in our cruise have been carefully placed on our bed by Derlen when she came in to close the curtains and turn the bed down.

It’s been a lovely day with just the right mix of peace and quiet, light hearted chatter and interesting conversation and of course, first class food and drink.  What’s even better is that tomorrow morning, we’ll wake up in a new city and will be able to get out there and explore it.

I think there will be a few excited people around here tomorrow, as many of the crew are Filipino and will be seeing their families for the first time in several months, too.

For now, then, goodnight from somewhere in the Luzon Strait!

A glimpse of Kaohsiung

There was a buzz at breakfast this morning.  Sitting at the stern of the ship at a table with friends in my favourite outdoor location, several of them had seen the same submarine as my hero and I had seen from our balcony earlier.

Ooooh.

Actually, there were lots of ships around – I counted 45 not including our own as we set sail this evening) because Kaohsiung is the home of the Republic of China’s Naval service (that’s the ROC not the PRC, ok?)

Stepping out onto the balcony as we approached the port we saw pleasant suburbs where people were enjoying the early morning air as much as we were ourselves.

But these pleasant suburbs soon gave way to the port proper, where cranes and containers rule.

And where ships lie at anchor for who knows how long whilst we manoeuvre past them and make our way to the Kaohsiung Cruise Terminal.

With a little help, of course.

We headed through a quiet ship to the theatre to collect tickets for today’s tour.  Where was everyone?

Passing quickly through the immigration halls, I snapped this picture quickly, having no idea who any of those three people are.  But isn’t that a lovely smile?

From our tour bus, we caught a little look into life in Kaohsiung.

But pulled up shortly afterwards at a kind of lakeside park where the concrete, artificially created landmark overshadowed the real, genuine Kaohsiung.

The dried up “lake” (reservoir) was neither attractive nor interesting, and yet that was where our hosts wanted to take us, to show us “places of interest” when actually, several of us would have far rather been in some grotty street or other that had real life in it.

Which is probably why we loved to see the men playing cards.  Simple, real, genuine.  We exchanged greetings – we said Ne Hau to them, they said Hi to us!

We loved the water lilies too – I think they are water lilies and not lotus blossoms, anyway?

In the meantime, the heat was building and some were getting tetchy.

Now, our guide was not of the most professional we’ve come across, but he was doing his best and he could speak way better English that I could speak Chinese, that’s for sure.

Had I been working, doing an observation, I might have commented on his command and control,  maybe referring to the pace he set and failed to maintain.

But I was doing none of that, I was merely getting irritated by the others in the group who began to dissent; to pay scant attention to his advice and instruction and to start to rebel and question him.

A visit to a temple (real) redressed some of the issues although this particular place was soulless and lacking in any atmosphere.

I contented myself with taking photos of the joss papers and other offerings, bundled up for sale.

We were all relieved when the call to move on came, though some muttered when we walked back the way we’d come.  Nevertheless, different men playing different games…come on!

 

Back to the concrete monstrosities, then and a few more “fairy tales” about them.

Except that, whilst some were mooching around a concrete dragon or something, others had spotted a real temple, with so much more of interest there.

More colour, pattern and detail – guess who couldn’t wait to get a closer look?

It was actually the next stop on our schedule and a few of us were champing at the bit, dying to get over to that side of the road and get a closer look.

When we did, we were richly rewarded.

The more so inside, where colour and pattern had been used with abandon

A couple of us threw the segment shaped stones and had the results interpreted.  I should beware a family member who smiles openly but who secretly has a knife inside waiting for me.

This all took time of course.

But it was surely more interesting than mooching around a concrete dragon?

Eventually we left the temple and made our way back to the bus when the first signs of mutiny crept in. 

Yes, it was hot.  No, the areas we were driving through were not the most photogenic nor were they of special interest.  Yes, some were starting to get hungry.  But hey, we were in a new city, we had a guide who was doing his best in spite of “noises off” and we knew the programme before we signed up for it.

So when we arrived at the fish market, we dug our heels in and overrode those who wanted to return straight to the ship.   After all, why did we come here?

The goods on sale were the same on every stall – mostly dried fish, some of which looked surprisingly like liquorice allsorts.

Dried sharks fin, salt salmon – it was all there and having naiively accepted the offer of a free sample of what looked like preserved ginger,  I’m ashamed to say I didn’t swallow it when I discovered it was actually fish cartilage which came from shellfish, holding flesh to shell, so to speak.  Chewy?  Yes!  Could I be bothered?  No!

We returned to our bus and noticed a ticket attached to the wiper blade.  Was it  a parking ticket?

Well, yes, it was.  It showed how much we’d paid and for how long we could stay in that particular place.  We hadn’t broken the law…

As we sat waiting for the stragglers to arrive, we noticed the strange phenomenon with the sun I mentioned in my last post.  Tomorrow, we are at sea and I think there are more than a few cranky old folks who could use a rest.

Just sayin’  

The Halo

Whilst out in Kaohsiung today, a couple of the Taiwanese guides were spooked by the meteorological phenomeon in the sky at lunchtime.

I managed only the bottom half of the rainbow which formed a complete circle around the sun, and of the second, larger one where the colours were more separate.

On our return to the ship, we all googled for a more detailed explanation than the “ice crystals” our guide had given us.  Here it is.

More from Kaohsiung later.

Taipei, Taiwan

We awoke to a new scene out of the window this morning as we arrived in Taiwan, in the Republic of China.  That’s not the same as the People’s Republic of China, by the way.

The port of Keelung isn’t the prettiest of places and it was just as I’d remembered it from a couple of years ago.

Though the Captain smiled and said that, though he’d been here countless times previously, this was the first time the sun had shone.

Indeed, we remembered getting wet here before and had chosen how to spend our day with care, in the hope of avoiding going over old ground.

So, as we drove around Taipei this morning, there was a kind of familiarity as I recalled those little things I rather liked; such as the detail in the road signs – I mean, this graphic clearly shows a motorcyclist wearing a helmet, just as he ought to be.

The graphic of the pedestrian is similarly detailed too.

Anyway, though we’d chosen our tour itinerary carefully to avoid going to the same old places as possible, it was inevitable that there’d be an overlap.  Our first stop was at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, which was exactly the same  as last time.

Except that, last time the gateway was the highlight and the memorial hall was under wraps for renovation, whereas this time it was exactly vice versa.

Though the light made it almost impossible to capture the fresh blue and white of the Memorial Hall this morning.

The two performance venues were exactly as I’d remembered, lavishly decorated and a perfect pairing across a wide open centre space.

We climbed the stairs to the memorial hall – all 89 of them, each one representing a year of Chiang Kai Shek’s life.

Once inside, we joined a mass of other tourists, all here to see the same thing; The large bronze of the man himself sitting in an armchair looking suitably statesmanlike.

Even if he did have a rather benign expression on his face.

The honour guard was there attracting almost as much attention as the man himself.  We had just missed the changing of the guard, sadly, but our guide reassured us we’d see it later in the day.

Whilst in the hall, there were other things to see.

There appeared to be a kind of village show going on, with a series of flower arrangements lining the walls of the central atrium.  I know nothing about flower arranging but I think these would be considered a very high standard in the UK.

We bought a few small souvenirs and journal fodder whilst there before returning to our coach which was waiting for us through the other gateway.  At least we were able to record one set of white plaster and blue tile.  Such an attractive colour scheme.

Our next stop was the National Museum which was another place we’d been before.  On that occasion, the crowds had prevented us from seeing the treasures of he collection, but this time, our guide was determined and equipped with headsets so we could hear his commentary, we simply followed in his slipstream.

We had good advice from him to manage the large groups of mainland Chinese people here.  They had been taught to “swim” through a crowd, using their hands and elbows as required and Jun didn’t want any of us to be pushed aside and fall or stumble.  So, if we encountered a few swimming Chinese people, we should yield to them.  Let them through.  I know, it goes against the grain, doesn’t it?  But we followed his advice and thankfully, no one came a cropper!

No photos allowed in there but we got a great look at he Jade Cabbage and the ancient cauldron by following Jun closely.  After that we met in the gift shop, somewhere which always did have good tasteful objects on sale but where today, they seemed to have excelled themselves in sorting out a rich assortment of desirable gifts and the kind of small stationery items for which I have a weakness.  So, with a bag of washi tape, stickers and pretty notepads we met up again to go for some lunch at one of the Shin Yeh restaurants.

An assortment of Taiwanese dishes appeared and really, we did our best to  finish them all, but no way could we manage that.  Every time we cleared on or other on one of the plates it would be refilled.

After lunch we paid homage to Dr Sun Yat Sen.  We’d not been to his Memorial Hall previously, so were especially glad to be here.  By now it was getting pretty warm and our first aim was to find some shade.

The Hall itself is quite a landmark and Jun suggested we hurry along because at 2pm they’d be changing the guard.  Thankfully, it didn’t seem too busy, so we stepped on it a little and made our way to the entrance.

Ha!  that was because everyone – not quite the whole population of China but at times, it felt like the vast majority (!) were in there watching the changing of the guard.

Thankfully, we had a small advantage.  Being slightly taller than most of those in front, we could stand on tiptoe, raise our cameras just that wee bit higher and get those pictures.  No, we couldn’t outdo the selfie sticks but I was ok with this.

My wonderful zoom lens proved useful too.

Though the changing of the guard was interesting and something I’d not pass by, here there wasn’t quite the same show as we saw at the Martyr’s Shrine last time.

The little exhibition to one side of the hall proved interesting too though ten minutes was more than adequate to get the picture

From the terrace of the hall, we were able to get a great view of Taipei 101, now the fourth highest building in the world.  That was going to be our next stop.

Jun gave us a little background information abut the tower, including the fact that the record breaking, super fast lift cables are replaced regularly.  Well yes, but what’s different is that the used cable is given to an artist to create something with it and one of them wound it into the shape of a baby.  I know… I’m only passing on information shared with us!!

There came the first hint of mutiny from the group.  Why were were stopping here when there wasn’t time to go up to the top?  (Long queues make it impossible for groups to do that)  Why couldn’t we go right back to the ship?  I sat quietly with my fingers crossed, for I really wanted to step inside and take a look.  Jun compromised and instead of an hour, we’d have 45 minutes here,ok?

So I ran.  Really in search of a particular place I had spotted in a magazine (for which I’ll add a link later, when the internet is more stable), I settled for a bookshop and a few minutes browsing before heading back downstairs to investigate what Jun had told us was currently Taiwan’s main export.

Taiwanese sheet face masks

I didn’t have time to investigate enough to make a purchase but I did snag a free sample!

As I left the building, I spotted what looked like a small protest and took a photo thinking I’d investigate later.

Walking past, I noticed the police moving in to ask a few questions.  I thought perhaps I’d better keep moving right along!

The drive back was a quiet one.  Jun answered any questions we had and as we sat in the warm afternoon sunshine, the comfortable seats got the better of most of us and there was just the sound of a peaceful nap time.

Taipei is a really interesting city and a great port of call.  There’s plenty to see were and if the sun is shining, then all the better!  I’m glad we made a second visit here and look forward to seeing another Taiwanese city tomorrow.

Busy doing nothing

You know how it is after a series of early starts?  Even though you know there’s no need to get up early, you still wake at some ungodly hour?  I was wide awake at 5.30 am and though I tried hard not to wake my hero, the tip-tapping of the laptop keyboard woke him half an hour or so later.

With nothing to do, nowhere to go and not much to see, it was going to be a quiet day.   Or so we thought.  We went and had breakfast, pottered about a little and noted there was a talk at 10.30 which we fancied hearing.  For some reason, we chose to take the lift (we normally walk down the stairs) and looked closely at the other couple – good grief, can it really be Mike and Sue who we met a couple of years ago?  Seeing them peering at us, we knew that we were correct.  How lovely to meet again, how strange to find them next door but one to us too(previously they were our next door neighbours on the ship).

We went on down to the theatre to listen to the lecture.  Of course, they knew Allan and Jane too – maybe we have a Trivia team here?!

The lecture was interesting but nothing new, and it was fun to sit with a Belgian couple for lunch and to speak German with them, though they really wanted to practise their English  Good conversation, much laughter and a little fun with Maurice, our waiter from last night, who remembered my penchant for ice cream

From time to time we spotted a fishing boat – really, that’s all the news from today!

This afternoon, there was another lecture but I’m ashamed to say I found it hard to stay awake.  Most of those around me didn’t!

Then it was time for Trivia.  We didn’t think we’d done too badly but slipped up on a couple.  We’d dithered over the maximum width for the baseline in a tennis court, wondering whether it was 3 or 4 inches and finally plumping for 3 when the correct answer turned out to be 4.  Rats!  Neither did we correctly guess the colour of the second “o” in Google..it was yellow when we guessed blue.  We’d never have guessed when Heinz tomato ketchup was first produced and we were wrong in thinking that Cuba was the closest foreign country to the USA without actually sharing a border (it was Russia), so we were rather surprised to find ourselves in a tie breaker with three other teams. 

Actually, none of us got the tie breaker (Steven Spielberg’s first Oscar winning film?) so we all got the points.  Hurrah!!

This evening, we dressed up and joined our friends for supper in Signatures, the French restaurant, where we came across another pair of old friends from previous travels.

The food here is reliably good, the service extraordinary.   So it was no surprise that we had a really great evening.

My lobster starter was delicious with just the right amount of star anise.

I really enjoyed the veal tenderloin with gnocchi and a few vegetables.

My hero chose his own favourite Tournedos Rossini.

And none of us had room for dessert.  No matter, because the little petits fours were sufficient!

We rounded the evening off with a nightcap and a few tunes from Broadway in the theatre and called it a day.  After all, we have a city to explore tomorrow.

It’s really lovely being on board Voyager; we are happy to come across old friends here and there and to share one or two memories with them.  Tomorrow we’ll wake up in Taiwan, so we’d better get some sleep!

Goodnight x