Wednesday, April 15
Two sea days in a row - how relaxing!
First on our schedule today was an "Enrichment Talk" on Colonial Shanghai by our On Location Guide, David. The new guests that boarded in Hong Kong seem much more interested in this sort of thing than those travelling between Singapore and Hong Kong so we found it much harder to get a seat - what a pain! The talk was so interesting and we will definitely view the Bund area of Shanghai (the old colonial quarter) through more enlightened eyes tomorrow.
From that talk we made our way to the Culinary Arts Centre to watch Head Chef, Emmanuel, show us how to make various Chinese dumplings. We are getting excited about trying them in our new kitchen at home. He made it look so easy but we will probably have considerably more difficulty - even just with chopping all the ingredients so finely - thank goodness for Bamix!
It was then time for a relaxing cuppa before heading off to the Champagne Art Auction. We enjoyed our champers (the main reason for us to attend) and were surprised to see about ten artworks actually sell. We have attended these auctions on other ships and never seen a painting sell. The prices are exhorbitant and we have seen artwork bought on ships for sale on eBay for a fraction of the cost so really cannot understand why people buy on board (or at all, given some of the paintings!)
During the auction, announcements were made re us collecting our passports in readiness for face to passport checks by Chinese Immigration tomorrow morning before we are cleared to leave the ship. This entailed waiting in a long queue but HAL crew are well organized so the line moved pretty quickly. We are doing a private tour (ie. not a ship's excursion) overnight in the next port, Beijing. This has meant we had to fill in a lot more information for the Chinese authorities today but all now seems to be well.
After all this, we were ready for our lunch and enjoyed a light lunch poolside while listening to the ship's singers entertaining us. The weather is definitely getting cooler as we sail further north but the sun was out today and we are only travelling at 15 knots so the roof over the pool was open and it was lovely soaking up our Vitamin D.
We had planned to attend the Future Cruises presentation but all those newcomers got there first and there was no room in the theatre for us. Fortunately we have already booked two more cruises for next year from this one so we decided to go for a walk around the promenade deck instead - probably much healthier for us too! We have been amazed at the amount of shipping all around us ranging from huge super tankers to little fishing boats. It is good that the seas have been so calm because our ship cannot employ the stabilizers as they foul the local fishermen's nets. After five laps equalling about 3 kms we needed another cuppa and a sit down.
We went to dinner early tonight to ensure we got a seat, given the interest of our fellow passengers in other talks and shows today. The show featured a young Ukranian violinist who was fantastic, and we were very glad we saw her.
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