Day 7 - Boarding the boat (Friday)

You'd think my I was 5 and in the morning my parents would be taking us to Disneyland. Last night I was tossing and turning awaiting the sunrise. Sure enough at daybreak our boat pulled in. The bummer part now that the cruise terminal is out at the old airport location is that you don't get to cruise down the main channel, past all the big buildings. Instead you approach from the east and leave the same way.

For anyone else taking a cruise out of Hong Kong and are departing from the new cruise terminal (Kai Tak Cruise Terminal) here's a little picture you may wish to keep on you to hand to your taxi driver. From downtown area it'll run you approximately 100HKD.

How can I summarize Hong Kong - it's interesting. The influence China is having on it (the government, the money many in from China have for the first time that they bring here, the mannerisms of the Chinese tourists) requires a Westerner to be flexible and adapt. Overall I like it though little things like getting past everyone throwing peace signs for every picture or for this infatuation to look and act like a prepubescent human at times make me pause. The whole prepubescent thing must be hard for any woman here that has curves as I saw some noticeably try to drastically suppress them.  Those little things aside this is a safe city at all hours of the day. HK wakes up late, slowly gets its first momentum around 9am then goes fast and faster well past 2am. It's a fast moving city, slightly slower than NYC. It's a conservative, moderate city in some ways. Should you wish to visit 3 or 4 days at the most would be needed to see and do most anything.

The weather has turned today. It's quite cool and very overcast. I'm thankful for having had a perfect week in town but it's time to go onto the next big adventure.

OMG this ship is tiny! Three decks of balconies (other ships had 10). One empty general pool, one adult area pool, gym that's maybe 300 sq ft. 

Pretty standard room
The four story atrium. Past ships I've been on have been 15+		Adult solarium

Onward I say. Boarding begins at 11:30, departure is 4:30. Of the 1800 people aboard, 1300 are from Australia. Of the 1800, 1500 are over the age of 70, 300 are over 80. This should be quite the interesting trip.

I had planned to be more productive this evening but the boat is rocking due to strong swells so I'm being rocked to sleep. Goodnight.