Friday, September 27, 2013

Welcome to my virtual cruise to the Far East! Day 5

Good morning you all.  Hope you all are sleeping well....what with the rocking ship and the salt air, you should be sleeping like a baby!  Also, remember that the alcohol is not free and will appear on your bill at the end of the cruise!  lol!

Took the car to have it washed and to have a donut...the car got washed and all of my favorite donuts were gone....shouldn't be too long before the pumpkin ones are in!  Speaking of pumpkin....we bought 21 cans yesterday to make future muffins!

Went to see Rosine today and she seems to be doing okay!

Solved the problem with my phone....but still did not take any pictures today.  Took a nap and sewed for about an hour!

Going to the dining room now and having a nice sit down dinner....Vicki is ready to go but says that tomorrow night we will have room service!  lol!


Welcome to the msAmsterdam and my virtual cruise, The Grand Pacific and Far East Voyage!
Photos from Jeff Farschman's blog,,,,  http://amazingvoyages2.blogspot.com
Photos and narritive from  Leslie's  Travel blog....http://lesliesh.wordpress.com

Grand Pacific and Far East Voyage, MS Amsterdam

On September 20th, I boarded the MS Amsterdam in Vancouver for the start of a 75 day voyage through islands in the Pacific and major cities in Asia.  The itinerary is shown in this map.
Grand Asia Map
Our sail away took us past Stanley Park with the Vancouver skyline in the background.
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Only half the passengers boarded in Vancouver and we headed to San Pedro California to pick up the remainder.  We total some 900 passengers. San Pedro is the location of the major port for Los Angeles.  It is a quiet town appearing to have been built up primarily in the 1950s and 1960s.  One of my dinner companions and I decided to take a walk along the harbour which has some development for tourists.  We arrived at what seemed to be the end of the harbour where we found a commercial fish market. A local woman asked us if she could help us, and hearing we were tourists, offered to drive us around for an hour or so.  Her name is Setsuko Matsumoto (photo) and she owns a B&B called the Cabrillo Beach House ( www.CabrilloBeachHouse.com). She is also a professional chef  and does private dinner parties and teaches cooking.  We couldn’t believe our luck, when she took us first to her house so that she could drop off some fresh fish before taking us out for a tour. Her house is an older house built by an old sea captain and one of the guest rooms is still furnished as he originally built it.  It looks out to the ocean.  Our tour took in some of the major tourist sights of the area including Cabrillo Beach (photo), the old Fort MacArthur area and fortifications and the Point Fermin Lighthouse (photo).  We then headed down the peninsula and stopped at the Wayfarers Chapel (photo) designed by the son of Frank Lloyd Wright. It is very popular for weddings, and as one was about to start, we could not go inside.  Continuing down the peninsula, we stopped at a sushi restaurant where my friend and I treated Setsuko to lunch.  Our return journey brought a couple of stops at scenic locations (photo) and she got us back to the ship mid afternoon.  We would not have seen any of the beauty of the area if we had not met Setsuko. She is a very friendly person and she made it a very memorable day.  For those interested in any of her cooking services or her B&B she can be reached at setsumatsu@gmail.com.
Our next stop on September 28th is Hilo, Hawaii.
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ANOTHER SEA DAY!
This ship is really going fast!
It is beautiful out here!
Yes!  Those are legs!
Jeff, you are already so brown....great tan!
Another wonderful day at sea….   The weather turned out to be great.  The morning started out as quite overcast but the sun soon came out and made for a hot sunny day.  We turned the clocks back for the 3rd time tonight so I am 6 hours behind Eastern time back home…  Tough not to get up early.  This evening was, as usual, a wonderful dinner with my friends.  Cruise is going very well.  The major event of the day for me was the fixing of the internet connections near my cabin.  The Communications Officer, Lex, was very tenacious in attacking the connectivity issues and found and fixed the problem this afternoon…. We all are very thankful for his, and the rest of the team’s efforts….



Tomorrow the port of call will be Hilo Hawaii

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!
                        S'















































































































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