Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Sun princess Cruise March 2010 Cherry Blossom
Sunday 20th March.
After a long, uneventful flight to Singapore, we wandered around the airport. We didn’t do any shopping as it seems there are no bargains to be obtained and we were bu##’’’**d after 8 or so hours of flying and airline food. We met a couple who had come from the cruise and were headed back to the US who informed us that we would not be going to Japan and that there were flue and gastric diseases on board. Not a good start to our adventure.
The flight to Hong Kong seemed to go fairly quickly with more horrible airline food but the wine and the Singapore sling was pretty good. We spent quite a while getting through immigration and customs when we landed. Then it took forever to find our luggage which had been booked through to Hong Kong from Australia. We were getting a bit worried until we learned that our luggage had been put aside near the carousel. Then it took a while to find out where our transfere station for our journey to our hotel was located. They looked like they hadn’t heard of us but fortunately we had our documentation with us for the trip. We had an upgrade in the Hotel with a view of the harbour through the buildings. Jorgen saw our ship come in. The upgrade was not quite what we expected. It was clean Spartan and very small but everything one needed for an overnight stay. After our free excellent breakfast we wandered around the foreshore, got our bearings and found the ship. We did a small purchase (NOT) or a Digital SLR camera and some attachments. Then back to our hotel to check out and get a taxi back to the ship to embark. After a nice lunch we headed for our cabin to finish unpacking and to put our head down for a couple of hours before dressing for dinner. There’s a few nice people at our table but the two nights we have been on board we’ve had a few changes of people our designated table. We watched a good local show in the theatre
It’s now Tuesday 22nd and after inquiring about one of the tours that looked interesting we realized that there were far too many steps involved for me. We decided last night that we might take a ferry and go up the mountain on the cable car but alas it’s all smoggy so it’s not worth doing that. Instead we went back to the camera shop and made additional purchased a filters etc. I’m going to have to do a photography course when I get home to learn how to us it all. We’ve also been informed officially that there will be no ports of call in Japan. We found a back street after weaving our way upstairs and downstairs, underground and above ground with wall to wall designer items. We couldn’t find a computer program shop with what we were looking for, nor could we find anywhere that had any talcum powder that Jorgen wanted. There were plenty of creams and lotions but they apparently don’t use powder at all. We sailed away to a light show which was rather poor according to some passengers that have seen it at it’s best.
Wednesday 23rd March – After a pretty good nights sleep we awoke to gale force winds and high seas – and we love it. It’s a sea day today and tomorrow before we are scheduled to arrive in Shanghai at 8.00 am on Friday 25th.