Yes. Busy day. All very fuzzy to remember now because I just had a monster nap.
Good breakfast in the dining room. Wanted to see if they’d let me have my favourite breakfast, which isn’t exactly on the menu, and my request was accommodated: 2 HB eggs, fruit, and bacon. Yum.
I felt motion sick for the next couple of hours after breakfast. Likely motion sick and not hungover because I felt better when the boat stopped rocking along when we entered the river into Astoria.
Lunch?
Off the boat as soon as the announcement came that the boat was docked.
Then back to the ship quick! For mannie/peddie appointments.
Then hotdogs for first supper.
Then naps. I slept well and DID NOT want to get up again. But I did because
Now we’re at the piano bar again before dinner. It’s 60’s cover time. I know some of the words and Mum knows most of the words. Runaway by Del Shannon and Leaving on a Jet Plane by John Denver, for example.
That’s the end of the update because we’re still signing along. In the near future will be supper #2 in the dining room.
P.S. While I was falling asleep I decided to spell “mannie/peddie” like that. Seems like a good time to be making decisions.
Mum and I inadvertently chose the same colour polish.
Our plan was to get on the boat as early as we possibly could, and that is what we did. We were on board in time for lunch in the dining room. Although, by the time we got there all the 2-people seats were occupied so we had to share, but that was bearable. On the first day of a cruise, everyone shares experiences of cruises past, and these stores contain tidbits of information of fancy rooms and odd itineraries.
Our room is not fancy. On my previous cruises we had a balcony (veranda in cruise-speak), but only because of good deals (Cruise 1 was a repositioning cruise) and post-COViD perks (Alaska 2022). This time is bare-bones fare: no perks and a windowless room. I’ve heard these rooms in the centre of the ship are better for motion-sickness, and I will report back on how that goes. I remember, however, when I was motion-sick on my first cruise, it was soothing to lie on my bed and gaze out the balcony window at the horizonless Pacific Ocean.
The library on board has improved since last year. Now there is an actually collection instead of six or eight random books propped up on shelves. There are many copies of many books nicely organized. There are, also, reading chairs next to windows. Oh! There’s also a new art room, again with a nice view, but also nice big tables. I will have the opportunity to learn orgami and creative calligraphy. There’s something with doodles AND adult colouring tomorrow, but Mum has reminded me we have to get of the ship and look at Astoria, too, so my participation might be limited.
The rest of the day in bullet points:
We sang along to Sweet Caroline at the 4pm leaving party when the boat is supposed to leave.
The boat actually took off around 5ish while we were at a raffle draw for gift certificates to the spa (we didn’t win).
Supper was good and I’m all set to have surprize non-dairy desserts for the duration of the trip. THE BEST DESSERTS ARE SURPRIZE NON-DAIRY DESSERTS.
Mother and I both enjoy the Billboard-branded music bar, which is a piano bar, with 2 (two!) pianos.
Now we’re off to arrive in Astoria tomorrow sometime. So in the meantime: nowhere.
In what is completely unprecedented behaviour for me, I didn’t finish packing for this trip until the night before I was leaving. That was Thursday night. Did I have a big pile of stuff already set aside? Yes. Had I already acquired all the extra stuff I needed to purchase? Yes. Am I taking my big suitcase so all I needed to do was stuff everything inside? Also yes.
Packing 1 – Sorting into pilesPacking 2 – all packed!
This is not how I usually pack, which is considered and careful and done the weekend before a trip, if not earlier. My excuse for the timing this time is that I didn’t get around to it until Thursday. My excuse for not being as particular with what I’m taking with me is that a) I’m using my big suitcase so I can just take everything; and I’m using that because b) I’m on a cruise so don’t have to carry all my possessions around with me from city city.
Today is Saturday, so a day has been missed but I’m leaving for Vancouver via Duncan –> Departure Bay with my Mum so I spent Friday getting myself to Duncan, napping, and eating roast beef dinner.
Back Story
Mum and I went on a road trip to Campbell River during the first week of July. While there, we found ourselves on an ocean-front patio with sangrias. As we sat, sipping and chatting, and enjoying the light breeze on an otherwise hot evening, a cruise ship was passing. We got to recollecting when we had been on the same route on our way to Alaska almost exactly a year before.
My original plan for travel this year was going to be a month in Thailand. I booked a tour last Black Friday for this November. However as 2023 progressed, I found myself less and less interested in going. Partly this was to do with the price and duration of the flights to get there – it seemed that direct Canada to Thailand flights weren’t starting up yet (or direct-ish) and those on offer were annoyingly long and way more than I wanted to pay. More than that, though, is that I wasn’t getting excited to plan the trip, never mind pack and go. So I was already thinking about changing my destination.
While drinking in Campbell River, Mum reminded me that she was ready to do another cruise anytime, and going anywhere. Just let her know and she’ll be packed. I thought that would be nice, as we had just been remembering what a nice time we had going to Alaska. I was like Hay! I need somewhere to go this year since I’m cancelling Thailand: where else can we cruise from Vancouver? Mum suggested going down the coast: Seattle, Sam Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego. She’s been before, but she’s been to Alaska a few times, too. That sounded good to me: ending up somewhere warm; and I started a mental list of people who have been to Sam Diego to ask what to do there.
This was all hypothesizing over sangria, of course. But when I got home I started searching for fall cruises. My first search was to look at Vancouver to California cruises. Those looked nice and ran around 7 days.
My second search was to see where else we might travel that both started and ended in Vancouver. This was the itinerary for our Alaska trip and we liked that. The one of these I liked best runs Vancouver to Vancouver via Hawaii and is 17 days. Seventeen days sounded a lot better than 7 days. That includes 10 days at sea (there and back) and 5 days around Hawaii. I emailed the link to Mum ” How about this or is it too long?” and managed to twist her rubber arm. And that’s what we’re starting off on today.
Note: the itinerary originally included a day in Lahaina, but now we have two days in Honolulu instead.
Note 2: the very original itinerary also included a stop Victoria instead of Astoria, but that changed before we even booked. That would have been hilarious.
I write today as it’s an anniversary of sorts. Most importantly, my birthday. Today I wonder when it is appropriate to start saying “I’m to old for this.” I turn 44 tomorrow so am I eligible? I feel I could give the phrase some comedic justice. However I need to know if I am actually too old for things or if it would just be ironic (due to my not acctually being to old for a thing.)
One of upstairs neighbours sings and accompanies herself on a keyboard of some sort. I can sort of hear her in a muffled way through the ceiling if I don’t have a TV show or podcast on. She practices in the evenings, and sometimes on the weekends in the afternoon. She prettily sings pretty songs that I can’t quite recognize. I can tell it’s not a recording because sometimes you can just tell that. Notes and things. It’s been going on for many months (or a year?), and I recently paid attention enough to notice that she’s improving. Better notes! Go Upstairs Singer!
Last week I was so tired. But not in a way that was disruptive? I would get home after work and dance (“my day”) and just be super tired in a way that was more than usual. Last Thursday I got home late with my Subway and got tired of chewing part way through the second half. Other days getting home late I would get upset and frustrated because I was hungry but too tired to think of anything, nevermind make it. (Thus the Subway on Thursday.) I was ready for a holiday, which was good timing because that’s what I’m doing this week. I’m on holiday – not traveling anywhere, just eliminating work from my schedule for a couple of weeks.
Dreaming of travel, mind you. And planning for travel, eventually. I’m travelling to Vancouver this weekend, which I’m going to count because it’s the biggest trip I’ve taken in 2 years (if you don’t count the fact that I packed a suitcase when I went to Duncan for Christmas). It’s been almost 2 years and one month since I was last in Van. And 2 years and 4 months since I was on a plane going anywhere. Countdown. Or countup? What’s the opposite of countdown where you calculate how long it’s been since you did a thing?
I had to keep my windows closed for a few weeks this spring.
The reason was because when I had them open, I sneezed all day; my eyes watered; and my nose was snuffy. Allergies. But if I kept my windows closed, I was fine! There were some warm days at home as a result of this, but I don’t mind the warm.
A consequence of this, the allergy-isolation, along with the not going anywhere due to the COVID thing still happening, I actually had a new experience when I was able to open the windows again.
Does anyone else notice when they visit a new city that it smells different? And that you can only smell it for a few minutes, or a while at least, before you get used to it, or just stop paying attention to the newness of it.
The smell of Vancouver. Or, rather, Tsawwassen when I just get off the ferry.
Beijing, late at night (can’t describe. Too new to me).
Cancun (steam)
Jerez (garbage)
Walking around Vegas at night when it’s cooled down, but it’s still hot.
I opened my window one evening and could smell Victoria.
Now, usually when I say I can smell Victoria it’s the very middle of summer, or after an overdue rain shower, and downtown smells like pee and Seagull poo, and pot. Gross things that are exacerbated by the weather. But that’s not what I’m talking about here.
I could smell the air, and an tinge of the sea, and freshness. Like what someone who has just walked off the seaplane at the harbour can smell, if they take the time to notice. Like I’d just come back from a really long trip.
When I started my COVID-19 Journal last March did I expect it to last until now? No!
Did I expect to take a couple months off from writing about my experiences of the COVID year? Also no, but I did.
A) I was writing other things.
B) I am an inconsistent journaller anyway.
C) How much can I write about writing about myself staying at home? Well. Lots. And I shall continue to do so.
It occurs to me as I review my past entries that I didn’t take the opportunity to write in October and November how it was a year since my trip to China – which ended up being my last overseas trip for a while. I did ponder this in late October: how it didn’t feel like it had been a year already, but how it also felt like way more than a year since I’d been there. When the pandemic started, it had only been a few months since I got back. In October the pandemic was still going on, but it couldn’t have been that long, could it? But it was.
About a year ago today I was amazed at my good timing, leaving Asia just 6 weeks or so before news of the new coronavirus started coming out. Maybe it wasn’t a year ago today. Maybe it was a bit longer before I realized. I don’t remember exactly. Maybe it was Christmas. I remember at some point I opened Google maps so I could show Dad how far exactly I was from Wuhan during my trip. I spent a day looking at the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang, and that’s about 350km away, which was the closest I got. (However, as someone on my tour pointed out later, Wuhan was on a possible alternate route if our original plan went astray, but that part of the tour went according to the itinerary.)
Three Gorges Dam Tourist Area Circa November 2019. I climbed up a high thing to take a photo of the view. I do not know what we’re looking at because I didn’t pay attention to our area guide. Bad Tourist.
This week I’ve been thinking about February, 2020 or “The Last Normal Month.” Just in regular life I would have been going to work. We had settled into a schedule where we could work from home one day per week. My day was Thursday. Then I had dance three times per week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
February is the last month in my calendar that has events that aren’t marked with a CANCELLED. I took to adding CANCELLED to things as they were called off in the spring as a sort of memento, but that was later, in March, April and May. In February, I saw a Kidd Pivot show in Victoria, and Dear Evan Hanson in Vancouver. I went to a Carlson’s School of Dance fundraiser for their Disney kids in Duncan. I think I saw a play at UVic, too, but I didn’t have it written down.
At the end of Feb I had a dentist appointment, which led to a consultation with the endodontist at t the beginning of March, which led to half a root canal being done the next day because I thought it would be good to get it over with. I remember the endodontist saying that he’d be away at a conference that weekend, but there was an emergency line I could call if I had any issues The conference he attended ended up being the first superspreader event in BC, leading to all dentist offices being shut down for a while. My root canal wasn’t completed until July.
I remember thinking at the start of February that I had a busy month coming up. Thank goodness that it was.
It occurs to me today that, if the world was operating as normal, I would be in France or Italy right now. I had a wee plan in my head at the beginning of the year to get to get to these places and look at the art from my art history books. That would have been three weeks starting this week – I had the time booked off from work. Instead, I moved my vacation days from this week so I could have time off in May. I still have two weeks off starting next week with no plans. No worry, no fuss. This is good too. Maybe I’ll start my holiday crafts. And by “start” I mean start doing holiday crafts at all, as I haven’t ever, really.
Some places I wanted to go:
Paris – the louvre mostly. Other galleries I can’t remember. Just to be in Paris for a bit.
Avignon/Arles – Van Gogh, and to be in southern France for a bit.
Nice – to break up the distance between France and Italy
Florence – the Renaissance
Rome – ancient Rome – day trip to Pompeii
London – I like London – some shows, some lunches from M&S. The usual.
That seems like enough over three weeks. London at the end because that’s sort of like going home – because I’ve been there several times now and it’s familiar, not because it’s actually home. Home is Canada where the trees are tall.
I usually have a trip to get excited for in fall, and that helps with the evenings getting darker. It’s fun to have the distraction of packing, and getting organized to go. This year I have other fun things to distract me:
Waiting for my flu shot! When will they be here? When can I go?
I need a new lightweight black jacket for spring and fall. My current incarnation was purchased during my first trip to Spain in 2012 and it shows. The fabric is fading. It’s still pretty, though. Maybe I’ll just Sharpie over the dull areas?
My mum gave me her silk blouse to mend a year ago. I should get to that.
Kimberly invited me to a Pampered Chef party a few weeks ago and I bought a popcorn maker. I’m going to have popcorn!
I need to buy popcorn!
The colours yellow, orange, red and green, all swirled together on the same leaf.
Candles
Sweaters, when it gets cooler.
At work today I learned about a massive hoodie-poncho-blankie thing with a pocket. I want one.
I’ve started scanning my paper archive onto my computer so that I might store it on a small external hard drive instead of in six boxes stacked in the corner. Admittedly this maybe become three boxes. Or four. I have much precious paper: schoolwork, writing, journals, travel ephemera. I just found the journals/scrapbooks (paper-based!) that I kept on trips to San Francisco (2005) and Toronto/Ottawa/St. John’s (2007) that I forgot about. I used to take a paper journal with me when I traveled, and also tape so that I could attach ticket stubs and museum maps to the pages while I wrote.
I have to clean up my flower pots on the balcony. There are some fresh buds appearing, so I should get rid of the dried up flowers to make room.
This is morphing into a list of things to do during my days off.
Feathers and brushes
Me! In what was then my new black jacket. Admiring the evening view of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, circa March, 2012.
I had some more things to discuss about travel last night, but I got sleepy.
I’ve been doing a bit of virtual travelling during the pandemic. Or it might also be called pre-planning for future trips. But in a bit of a round-about way. I was reading an old article at the Vanity Fair website about the (alleged) origin of AIDS in Africa. I have a subscription to Vanity Fair and they have their whole archive up – it’s really interesting reading old articles that are 100% based in their own time. I have to re-contextualize my brain to understand how people were thinking at the time of writing. If I read stories about female celebrities from the eighties and nineties they describe their looks and weight a way that’s pretty gross and like it’s out business to know. I notice it now, but I wouldn’t have then. Also I read an article about an actor (I can’t remember who) from 1992 or 1993 who was dating little-known actor Lisa Kudrow.
The AIDS article was from 1987, so there have been some developments in the treatment of AIDS both medically and in the media, and I certainly kept that in mind as I read. It was a bit of an adventure for the writer to visit some of the locations in remote Africa. That didn’t get me thinking about travelling there, however. First I realized that I don’t know African geography at all, and so had put the article aside to study Google maps for a bit to see where Uganda and Guinea-Bissau are located. That led me to their Wikipedia articles for a brief skim of their histories and economies. And then while I was at it, I had to find out what’s up with The Gambia.
I tried getting back to the article again, and the writer trekking through the jungle, and that’s when it occurred to me that people can visit Africa – not necessarily as journalists, but just as tourists. So I had to stop reading again to look up travel tours in Africa, and indeed one could go to Uganda, at least, along with several other neighboring countries. One would have to camp most of the time, and there’s hiking and nature, but one could definitely go – and at not too expensively, either (what with the camping). Further research on visa showed I could actually go to these countries as a Canadian. I didn’t look at airfare, but I’m guessing it’s pricy and consists of many hours of travel time.
I’ve done a similar thing lately after reading an article about Mozambique, where residents are working at adapting to weather and climate change. Again, I didn’t know where Mozambique was, and again I studied the map for a while before starting my travel plans.
This weekend I was reading about Belarus. I didn’t get the the travel plans part of my routine because while I was looking at eastern Europe I noticed that there’s a wee chunk of Russia stuck in between Poland and Lithuania. It’s called the Kaliningrad Oblast, and I didn’t know it existed until Saturday. If you want to travel there you need a Russian visa, no problem. But if you want to visit Russia proper on the same trip, be sure to get a double entry visa. You can travel there by train from the Lithuania in the east, but train lines no longer run into Poland. You can also get a ferry from St. Petersburg.
To conclude my very bad geography report, there are lots of places I still want to see in the world. It really helps knowing where they are located.
I’m feeling October. What is the feeling of October? This year it’s the evenings getting dark too soon, and cool nights. Usually in October, in the few years previous to this one, October was my travel month. Mexico in 2018, England with Susan in 2017. Last year I was already packing for China at this time even though the start of my trip was later in the month.
In 2019 I travelled a lot, so at the start of the pandemic I wasn’t too fussed with the prospect of staying at home. I’m feeling it now though: the longing for an airplane and foreign places. My plan for 2020 was for France and Italy – places I haven’t been yet! And then back to London, which I just love. I’m missing London! I’ll make due for now with following M&S on Instagram, I guess.
I’ve made a bit of a mistake. I’ve been spending my weekend going through my collections of detritus from trips past, and that has gotten me thinking about travel. I have piles of brochures and maps and misc paper from all my trips. I just got a new scanner, so some of these things and getting scanned and saved with my photos; most of if it is getting recycled after that. I’ve gotten good at not collecting so much stuff when I travel, but some things have memories.
A grocery receipt from Spain! I loved grocery shopping in Spain. I learned all the words for dairy products for reading the ingredients. I was shocked when I turned the cans of soup around and there wasn’t an English version of the label, like when we turn from the French side in Canada.
Slippers of the Day
I bought these slippers in Spain because the floors of our apartment were cold. This was me wearing them in said apartment (circa Feb, 2016). I was most pleased. They currently serve as my balcony slippers for when I water my plants.
It has taken me a while to finish up my travel journal for China. There are several reasons. First, by the time I got to Hong Kong, the last stop on my tour, I was tired and grumpy and didn’t want to write any more. Second, I forgot to finish: I reviewed my entries a few weeks after getting back and noticed I’d left things hanging. Some excuses: I was pretty jet-laggy when I got home, and then I was sick. It took me a while to feel back to normal, and then I was enmeshed in my regular routine. Unfortunately, my regular routine doesn’t include writing, apparently.
Anyway! Hong Kong.
Hong Kong: November 7-9, 2019.
There was a long day of travel heading to Hong Kong from Yangshuo. There were two trains involved, and once were were settled on those everything was fine, but there was a lot of waiting before and in between. The station where we transferred was huge (I don’t remember the city) and we had time to walk around and find a snack while our guide watched our bags. (He did that a lot for us. So nice to be able to wander without having to lug around my suitcase).
According to my ticket, we transferred trains in Shenzhenbei!
We found McDonalds and a few of us ordered Happy Meals by accident and got toys promoting the movie Frozen 2, but also got a wee cup of corn as the side dish.
The last train, thankfully, was only about half an hour. Then things got bewildering.
First off, we got off underground, so that is disorienting anyway. Then we had to go through border control, which was located right there at the station. That was just like passport checking and customs like at the airport (or any other land border crossing, just part of the underground station), and I’m good at that and I was the first of our group through. Then we walked underground a while longer, and the station turned out to be a transportation hub for the city’s subway as well. When we got outside again we were at the end of the street where our hotel was located.
I found that all baffling at the time, but now that I think about it, it was all pretty straightforward, and our guide was with us the whole time to help us through customs, and through the underground station. It was, however, a long day of travel, after almost three weeks of the tour. I was tired in lots of ways.
That night was the last official day of the tour, and TV group had a farewell dinner. It wasn’t much different from all the other dinners on the trip, because we mostly always all ate together. But, our group leader ate with us, which he didn’t usually do, and we had a bit of a debrief about the tour after we ate. There were positive reviews all around, and of course a few suggestions for improvement (mostly just wanting to spend more time in some of the locations… and to not use the guesthouse on Emei Shan where we’d ended up in our backup plan). We had many compliments for our group leader, and he gave us gifts of wooden bookmarks he designed himself. So beautiful.
Gift from my tour leader. That’s Confucius at the top, then one of his sayings: “Isn’t it a great pleasure having friends coming from afar.” The two wee symbols are my name in Chinese characters. The circle at the bottom is a character that is a blessing for happiness.
That was my last night sharing a room with my roommate. We didn’t talk about it at all, except to mention that I might leave my bag there in the morning if my room wasn’t ready. I was staying one night after the tour, she was staying 2 or 3 days longer than that.
There were a lot of us staying at least of the Friday to explore Hong Kong before flying out at various times on Saturday. Most everyone staying planned a day of seeing the major sites of the city. That seemed a little much for me, (being tired, grumpy, and fed up with touristing around in a group) and opted to wander alone not too far from the hotel. I found a Marks and Spencer foods, which had a very similar selection of quick foods as found in England, and that cheered me up. I also went through the Museum of Hong Kong until it was overrun with really loud school children. Holy cow! There were so many! I had to get out of there.
It was really warm in Hong Kong- around 25 or 26 degrees in the day, and just a little cooler at night. So nice. It made me dread getting home to whatever weather was going on there.
I rested in my hotel room for a lot of the afternoon, napping and packing.
I joined up with the group again in the evening. We were meant to go for dinner at some point. First we went to the nightly light show at the waterfront at 8pm. The buildings across the water were lit up and flashed along with music. It was about a 10 minute display.
While we were watching, or as we were waiting for the show to start, we started to hear chanting somewhere behind us. We got a little nervous because we were on alert for protests. The group had caught the tail end of a skirmish between protesters and police earlier in the day near a government building. They chanting continued a bit during the show, and we went to check it out when it was done.
We were on a walkway just above a park area, where there were protesters moving. They were dressed all in black, and some had masks on – many didn’t. We gathered information from member of the crowd observing with us: it was a memorial, and I found out the next day that is was one of several that took place around the city. A protester had died as the result of allegedly being chased off a parkade by police. Protesters/mourners were laying flowers and lighting candles at the base of a clock tower. They sang for a bit, and chanted.
A few of the older members of our group got nervous and headed back towards the hotel, three of us stayed to watch for a bit longer. We didn’t see any police, but it was a memorial, and also, it was a very touristy area. But there was a large block of protesting individuals standing at attention – like they might react harshly if anyone messed with them. We stayed only 10 or 15 minutes longer.
After that we still hadn’t had dinner so we walked and looked for a place, but nothing suited so we ended up at a McDonalds. McNuggets, fries, and a chat.
It felt weird that night sleeping in a room on my own!
My flights the next day we’re uneventful, and I spent most of my travel time just maintaining my sanity after having travelled so much. The only good part was the private transfer I booked to get me to the airport. It was a super fancy car and a driver who was right on time. I had time to hug my travel buddies goodbye and that was the actual end of my tour.
i'll try to be better. i promise 