Results tagged “Talks” from East Asia 2017

Woke up at 5:35. Blerf. Gave up and got up around 6:15. Looked out the balcony to no less than twelve ships in sight.

I had a bread roll that I'd picked up last night, and was all set to go photograph some more of the ship when I realised I couldn't find Stu's random camera. I knew we'd had it at dinner, but couldn't find it in the room. I was wondering if we'd put it down while picking up food last night and left it behind. I asked about it at the Pursor's office, but no sign of it. So I was pretty depressed about it. But then just like that, I found it - where it was supposed to be, just shoved a lot further back so I couldn't see it. Poor Stu - I'd woken him twice when he'd just wanted to have a sleep-in.

I'm sure we had breakfast at some point.

Spent a bit of time on a jigsaw, then went to see Pamela Chen Moore's talk on demystifying oriental cooking. She did two very simple dishes - egg, tomato and spring onion with rice; and garlic, beans and mushrooms. Will have to try them when we get home.

Spent pretty much the entire afternoon doing the jigsaw (started last night, did all but some of the water during the day).

And we did have lunch - at nearly 15:00. Whoops. But they did have pork at the carvery. And for some reason all the offcut bits had been cast aside, so I grabbed a whole heap of them - cause they're the best bits!! And I asked for crackling and got some yayyyyy :)

I ran into Pamela at one point while watching the rehearsals for the night's show, and chatted about a few things. She was a bit disappointed that she couldn't visit her parents for a few hours due to Taipei being cancelled.

Got back to the room and we watched the talk from earlier in the day by a historical consultant.

Pub trivia - only got 6/20 this time :( The winner only got something like eight.

Stu and me in the Golden Lion Pub

Stu in the Golden Lion Pub

Dinner was the last formal night - Roaring 20s. I didn't really have anything appropriate to wear, so fudged it a bit. Plenty of people had some wonderful outfits. And quite a few probably should have stopped wearing their outfits a good twenty or thirty years ago.....

Kay and Norman were back, the South African ladies were gone, and Bruce and Maria were there as well. But still no David and Licia.

Stu had mackeral, guinea fowl and ice cream. I had consomme madrilene which was nice but too salty for me, Pamela Chen Moore's salmon for mains (I think I preferred Stu's guinea fowl), and lemon meringue pie which was very nice.

Parade of Chefs in the Britannia Restaurant

Parade of Chefs in the Britannia Restaurant. I think this guy was the head chef

After dinner we *finally* made it to the late night show - Broadway Rocks, which was really good. And went into the Queens Room to get some photos of the ball. Pretty much everyone dancing had obviously had ballroom dancing training. We would have looked a bit dumb if we'd had a go. And also finally got into G32. Turns out G32 is the job number of the ship at the shipyard, so all the bits of the ship had G32 scrawled all over it during construction. Apparently the QE2 had a bar named after the ship's job number as well, so they followed tradition. Just took a few photos then left.

Broadway Rocks show in the Royal Theatre

Broadway Rocks show in the Royal Theatre

Broadway Rocks show in the Royal Theatre

Broadway Rocks show in the Royal Theatre

Broadway Rocks show in the Royal Theatre

Broadway Rocks show in the Royal Theatre

Roaring Twenties Ball in the Queens Room

G32 Bar

G32 Bar

But it meant a very late night - in bed after midnight :(

Woke up at 6:35 with a coughing fit. But given that we'd put our clocks back an hour overnight, it was actually 5:35. Hurrah. I put my watch back, but again they haven't changed the mobile tower, so the phone and all the cameras are still on Korean time.

Sunrise over the Yellow Sea

I got up and got ready, figuring the ship would be pretty quiet. Wandered around all over the place, but at 7:40 there was already a group in the Queens Room! Still have to find a free time to photograph it.

Flowers in the Grand Lobby, deck 2

Starboard side games corridor and Maritime Quest boards

Commemorative Queen Mary 2 bell on deck 3

Model of the Queen Mary 2 outside the Queens Room

Model of the Queen Mary 2 outside the Queens Room

Model of the Queen Mary 2 outside the Queens Room

Went and got some breakfast, but then ate it back in the room.

Then went down to do a jigsaw for a while.

Doing a jigsaw of York Minster on the Queen Mary 2

At 9:00 I went round the corner to pick up a planetarium show ticket. And found a queue all the way around to the other games corridor. But didn't stress too much as there weren't 450 people there. The queue moved pretty slowly though, and when there was about ten people in front of me the dude's like "that's it, all gone". And I'm going WTF ??? Damned greedy people taking huge batches of tickets. I heard someone saying they used to have a two ticket per person limit. They totally need to do that again. So now I have to queue yet again outside the planetarium later to try and get a seat from someone who's too lazy to turn up to the show. Hate people. HATE.

Got the sweetie some breakfast, then headed back to the room to catch up on blogging etc.

At 12:15 we went to Dr Ingrid Vissor's second talk - Slippery When Wet - mostly about her rescue work trying to save stranded whales.

When it finished we considered seeing if we could wait around and get into the 13:30 planetarium show, but we were bit over people so went and got some lunch (more people though.. urghh). I didn't eat a whole lot, so when we were done it was nearly 13:30, so went back after everyone had gone in. We were lucky enough to be able to get in. Pretty crappy seats down the front, but hey, we didn't have to queue.

Plaque commemorating Queen Mary 2's first visit to Sydney (I was there!)

The Yellow Sea

Came back to the room to continue sorting photos.

At 16:00 we tried to watch The Last Samurai on the ship tv, because it was advertised as starting at 16:00. But it actually started at 15:00 so that was a bust.

So I went down to work on a jigsaw. And ended up finishing it. Whoops.

At 18:40 we went up to the Carinthia Lounge for a pre dinner drink, and at 19:00 went into Kings Court "Smokehouse" for dinner. Kings Court (aft end) does different themed nights as an "alternative" dining with a $17.95USD cover charge. We chose to go on the smokehouse night - American bbq. Stu had Maryland crab cake for starter, blackened salmon (nice) and a beef dish (a bit dry) (you got to choose two dishes for mains), and vanilla cheesecake. I had buffalo chicken wings (quite nice), coconut crusted shrimp (pretty good), bbq ribs (fall off the bone goodness - the way ribs should be done!) and salted caramel and popcorn pudding (ok, but I was quite full and wasn't even really wanting dessert so gave a lot of it to Stu). Quite a decent meal, and we could say we did it.

We finished a bit late for pub trivia, and had been thinking about seeing the early show, but Stu didn't feel very well (possibly something he ate at lunch), so we just had an early night.

Slept in til 06:48 hurrah.

Sunrise over the Korea Strait

I'd gotten a bread roll from King's Court last night, so had that as an early breakfast to keep me going.

After a couple of tries to find a washing machine free I got our washing started. But when I came back near the end to put it in a drier, a little old guy came in from another laundry with a bag of wet washing and put it in the drier I was just about to use. And I'm like DUDE, I was literally about to use that. Buttplug. He didn't care. So I'm standing there feeling completely screwed over with nowhere to do my drying. But someone took their drying out a bit early, and the washing machine beneath it still had a way to go, so I put my drying in there. And then I came back with a book to sit in the corridor outside the laundry so *my* drying wouldn't get stolen. So much drama, so much rage. HATE.

I've been drinking the water out of the taps with no issues (they desalinate most of their water, but also get supplies of fresh water when in port). But this morning the water *stank* of chlorine. urgh.

Did some catching up with the blogging, and then it was about 11:15. I hadn't eaten anything else, and Stu hadn't eaten at all. So we were about to go to the buffet when I said we should go have lunch in Britannia, because we hadn't done that on accounting of always having breakfast so late. So we did that. We got put on a table with a couple from the UK (who owned a summer home in Spain or Portugal) and a couple from Darwin (the dude had grown up in Rhodesia and gotten out before it got really bad there). I was feeling sick and anti social though, so it was a bit of an odd lunch. And Stu's random camera, which I thought I'd charged the battery for, was completely flat. So I must have gotten mixed up and only charged the other battery. Stu had mackeral, a fisherman's pie and rice pudding. I had cream of parsnip soup which was quite nice, some lasagna which was also nice but didn't have any salad so I was feeling like I should have some fibre, so had some tinned fruit.

After lunch I went up to have a look at the bridge viewing area, just behind the bridge on deck 12. While I was looking, the Chief Officer came out and had a sign in Cunard font that said no photos, and if it was placed between the two windows would I have read it. And I'm like, no, you really need the graphic of a camera with a red line through it. They do have one, but it's on the furthest window, so it'd be pretty easy to not even realise you can't take photos there. Then he very sweetly let me take a photo there!! I was so excited :)

Bridge of the Queen Mary 2

Read for a little while in the afternoon and did some more catching up on blogging. The GPS was being a bit bumheadful today and kept losing signal.

I also had a look at some of the "Maritime Quest" info boards.

At 17:00 we put on the talk that we missed in the morning on account of buttplugs being buttplugs in the laundry - What eats sharks for breakfast - by marine biologist Ingrid Vissor. That was very interesting.

Went to the pub around 19:30 for drinks, music and trivia. Only got 15/20 this time.

For dinner Stu had pate de Campagne, vegetable tartlet and bread and butter pudding. I had strawberry and champagne soup, pork loin and cheesecake.

My cold changed from being mostly a cough to being a stuffed up nose. Hurrah.

06:11 wakeup. They put the ships clocks forward an hour overnight, but not the internal mobile tower's time, so it was still on the old time. I changed my watch, but not the cameras.

Starboard side games corridor on the Queen Mary 2

Put some washing on just before 09:00, then went down to ConneXions to get tickets for the Planetarium show (got there right on nine and just walked up to the desk where a dude had just setup and got a ticket). Went and got some breakfast. Saved some space for eggs benedict but Stu took the last one of the batch - doh!

Went back to get the washing but I was a few minutes late (on account of being at breakfast). Someone had taken our washing out to put theirs in, but when I went through everything there was an unpaired sock. Great. So that meant we missed a talk on China because I had to wait around for *their* cycle to finish so I could retrieve the sock. But as he was taking stuff out there were *three* socks and a tshirt in with his load!! What a retard. One sock I could *maybe* understand but *three* ??? And a tshirt??? Buttplug.

At 11:00 we went and saw the third talk by Pamela Chen Moore - in the theatre for once heh.

Had a small plate of fries for lunch. As you do. Hrmm.

Dockwise Forte - semi-submersible heavy transport vessel

Went and worked on one of the jigsaws for a while before going to a Planetarium show - Cosmic Collisions, narrated by Robert Redford.

Then had some afternoon tea. Well Stu had afternoon tea, I had a late lunch of lamb (it was 15:00). My eating patterns are all over the place on this trip.

At 15:30 we went to the port talk on Hong Kong. Even though we'll be off the cruise it was interesting to see the sorts of tours they have and what sort of destinations they go to, versus what we've done ourselves.

Hong Kong port talk in the Illuminations Theatre

Afterwards spent a couple of hours with a jigsaw, finishing it a bit before 18:00.

Saw the sun for the second time this holiday, so got some photos of it setting.

Sunset over the Korea Strait from Queen Mary 2

Me at sunset on the Queen Mary 2 (one of only two sunsets seen aboard!)

Looking towards the five Queens Grill suites, and The Verandah restaurant on deck 8

Sunset over the Korea Strait from Queen Mary 2

In the evening we had the "meet the captain" welcome drinks party in the Queens Room all in our formal gear. I wore Chrissie's dress to this one. We didn't end up meeting the captain because half the ship was there and the line to meet him they reckoned was about half an hour long. So we didn't bother with that. Had a couple of glasses of bubbly though, but didn't end up talking to anyone else.

Reception with the Captain on Queen Mary 2

Me at the reception with the Captain on Queen Mary 2

Reception with the Captain on Queen Mary 2

For dinner Stu had chicken liver pate, lamb curry and ice cream. I had pumpkin soup which was very nice, a chicken dish which wasn't too bad, and a small creme brulee.

Pablo, our sommelier

Carmello, one of our waiters

Katerina from Riga, one of our waiters

Stu and Me at dinner