Virgin Voyages Day 3. Tuesday December 21, 2021. Wow it’s just 4 days till Christmas. Woke up this morning for an early-ish breakfast. Ate a so-so omelet and funky round hash brown patty from The Galley on Deck 15. Brrr. It’s cold this morning. Had to get a cup of hot tea to warm my hands. Today is a shore day in Puerto Plata, a port town in the Dominican Republic. We are the FIRST Scarlet Lady cruise that gets to dock at the brand spanking new Taino Bay port. The other scheduled DR cruises were diverted elsewhere in the past few months because the port was behind schedule and unfinished. But first, it’s time for our private bungee…
Scarlet Lady Food Review
Dining on Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady is a different experience from your “regular” ocean-going ships. Each restaurant is included with your trip so there’s NO extra cost to dine anywhere. No. A few items on the menus do have an upcharge, such as lobster or wagyu beef, but that’s an exception. Typically, the most difficult part about dining on Scarlet Lady is deciding what to eat. There are six specially themed sit-down restaurants. We were on a 5-night cruise which meant that we had to leave one restaurant out. The way reservations work on Scarlet Lady is that you are allowed to make one reservation per restaurant. If you want to re-visit any of them you can show up and…
Scarlet Lady is a Diva
I just realized I haven’t blogged since I went to Iceland in November 2019. That’s pretty much what the pandemic has done to me. I logged on and saw that I had some half done drafts from a cross country RV trip to 4 states in Summer 2020 and then a half-draft for my trip to Toronto in September 2021. But none of that made it to the final stage. It is now December 19, 2021. I’m on Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady. I boarded this afternoon and it was already a full day of activities. I am going to pack everything in that I can so that if anyone asks me about this brand new ship I’ll be able to…
Disneyland MaxPass: Yes or No?
The first Star Wars movie (A New Hope) came out in 1976 when I was itty bitty. I don’t remember if I saw it in its original run or not. What I do clearly remember is watching The Empire Strikes Back on the big screen and my little brother was scared of the swamp scene with Yoda and had to leave the theater. I don’t remember if I got to watch it to the end. Return of the Jedi has always been my favorite of the original trilogy. Maybe because I was finally old enough for the entire movie to sink in and I wasn’t being asked to escort my brother outside. I will always remember the shock and thrill…
The Last Weeks
We are scheduled to say farewell to Japan on August 1st. During our very last weeks, I went to Tokyo for a weekend, we spent our last national holiday taking a day trip to a pottery town, we had good-bye dinners with friends, and we went to Okinawa for a long weekend. In between all of that we listed our things on Craigslist, the Sayonara Sale website, and “Mottainai” Facebook page, and got our friends to help us take unwanted items to the recycle center and resale shops. I went to Tokyo for my girls’ overnight trip from Saturday to Sunday, July 14-15. My friend Satoko was going to take the midnight bus home (leave Tokyo at midnight, arrive Osaka at…
The Last Month
Our last month in Japan we really packed it in. As soon as Osaka International School ended on Friday, June 29, Avalon went to our local public Japanese school for a couple of weeks. I was so proud of her for trying it out. Sometimes a public school will let international students join their classes if they are still in session. I’ve heard of several families in the US that send their kids to Japan for a month of public Japanese school before the local kids start their summer break. These are mostly Americans with a Japanese parent, but once we met some kids from Newport Coast that had no blood ties to Japan but still they wanted to enroll…
Suntory Yamazaki Distillery
I’m not a big whiskey fan. But maybe that’s because I haven’t had a lot of experience with it. But Japan is famous for its whiskey. According to its own propaganda, it is one of five major producers of fine whiskey in the world. The five are Scotland, Ireland, America, Canada and Japan. The Suntory Yamazaki Distillery is located in Shimamoto, in North Osaka, Japan. It’s just north of Takatsuki, only a few stops further on the JR line. Since they produce nice whiskey and I know nothing about it, I thought it would be fun to check it out. And anyway, John enjoys whiskey. I think his Irish/Polish grandmother used to give it to him when he was sick….
Avatar Mountain & Walking on Glass
Saturday, March 31. After our wonderful host from the guesthouse saved us by loaning me several hundred USD worth of Chinese Renminbi, we were able to enter Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. It’s a massive park with some pretty cool natural wonders. As far as natural landscape goes, China is an incredible place. So if you go there be sure to get out of the cities. Here is the underside of a beautiful natural bridge.We had a colorful map with little cartoon pictures all over it and details regarding every cable car, bus route, bathroom location and walking path. We hiked around, rode a cable car up to Yuanjiajie, walked to see Avatar Mountain, and generally just covered a lot of ground…
Glass Cube Guesthouse
Zhangjiajie. (The best part of our China adventure, in my opinion.) How do you pronounce this word? My main problem with trying to speak Chinese, or even listen to it, is that the word sounds nothing like the way my brain sees it. The pronunciation is so different from English. Zhang looks like it should rhyme with the word “bang.” But it doesn’t. It’s more like something that rhymes with the word “lung.” And the rest of it I can’t even phonetically spell because you can’t even assemble the roman letters in the correct way. The sounds don’t even translate to spelling! But after a lot of practice I can say this one word, Zhangjiajie, in Chinese. After cycling on…
Bicycling Xi’an City Wall
Our awesome guide Helen is with us all day today, Friday, March 30. It’s going to be a busy day! First we will ride bicycles around the entire perimeter of the Xi’an ancient city wall. Then we will go to the lively Muslim Quarter to marvel at all of the vendors with delicious smells and odd sights. After lunch Helen is taking us to see the famous army of Terracotta Warriors. At the end of the day we will be too tired to move another inch. At that point she’s going to drop us off at the airport for our next flight across China. Xi’an’s wall is the best preserved existing ancient city wall in China. It was ordered by…