Tasmania to Tokyo – Osaka – Day 64 can be found here.
Today’s Chronicles can be found here.
They say bad events happen in threes.
The first came around 7 am this morning, when I woke and was unable to get back to sleep. I tossed, turned, and squandered our last proper sleep-in of the cruise.
A brief reprieve during the Silver Brunch. They set up a pancake stand, and I get a massive pancake covered with berries, nutella, whipped cream and caramel sauce.
It’s a breakfast unto itself:
We then set out about the last of our end-of-cruise administration, tipping our butler Jordan and stateroom attendant Wulan. We very much like Silversea’s ‘tips included’ policy, but are glad to include something extra for those who truly go above and beyond. Likewise, I tuck a bill into my wallet to pass along to Ola in Dolce Vita later on.
We’ll be arriving in Tokyo tomorrow, so my wife has reached out to mesm – our hotel – to see if they have any connecting or adjoining rooms available. She soon receives a response:
“If you would like to have connecting rooms, we can offer it with charge. Our connecting rooms are available only in Chapter 2 city view room (No high floor and balcony option) and are available for your stay at this moment. Please note that our connecting rooms are not connected inside. It is a pair of 2 rooms that are next to each other, and we will set a partition wall so that from the outside it’ll look like a one room.”
We each read it a few times, and neither of us are entirely sure how to interpret this. They’ll be setting a partition wall? It brings to mind an image of the Roadrunner painting a tunnel on the side of the mountain so that Wile E. Coyote can run into it. But it certainly beats our two rooms being separated by entire floors, so we agree to the modest upgrade cost.
Ola comes by to take drink orders so I go to show my gratitude – and realize that the bill tucked inside my wallet is no longer there. I must have dropped it at some point in the intervening hours.
I won’t name numbers, but suffice it to say that it was large enough to search for and to inquire after at Reception but not so large as to ruin my day. Just large enough to count as bad event number two. Ah, well – hope that bill cheered whoever found it.
It’s around this point that our son announces that his computer has stopped working – which potentially could be ruinous as we still have two weeks of travel ahead of us, and he will need to continue his school work. So my morning shifts gears from writing to troubleshooting as I deal with bad event the third.
While I am often irritated by AI’s disruption of creative endeavours, I nevertheless enlist ChatGPT to provide tech support.
His keyboard stops accepting input every few seconds. So if you wrote, “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” – a quick means of testing each letter – the computer might only display, “The quibrown fox mped over thazy dog.” It’s maddening to work on. At first it seems to be an issue with his graphics card, so I uninstall some of the unnecessary features.
But it’s not the graphics card, so I instead do a ‘clean boot’ with every possible software and service add-on disabled. That doesn’t work either. At this point, ChatGPT is insinuating that it might be a hardware problem – which would mean a month’s wait as we ship the computer back to Lenovo.
Then my wife suggests we check out his colour-changing keyboard. That also isn’t it! But I do spot that the num lock light is flicking on every few seconds, right around the time the key input stops working. So I reboot into the BIOS and reset it. And – that finally fixes it. (Apart from having to undo all the troubleshooting measures I already tried.)
Hopefully this is the final bad event of the cruise – but time shall tell.
We return for a second crack at the Silver Brunch – which is every bit as tasty as the first time around.
Then we have our final cooking class. We are making ramen today:
It’s a simple one, and yet not a dish I would have previously attempted to make myself. We heat the stock, and boil the noodles til they are al dente before moving them to the bowl. We then boil the chicken, mushroom, bok choi and the white part of the spring onion.
Soy is added to the broth at this stage. The green part of the spring onion, the julienned carrots and the seaweed are used as garnish, and the chilli oil is drizzled overtop at the very end.
And the final result:
And the recipe:
A huge thank you to SALT Lab leader Chanelle for her fantastic cooking classes. We will dearly miss them during future expedition cruises, but we hope to return one day.
We all head off to pack for a while, and then our daughter heads to the final art show. She made some beautiful pieces this leg:
I go up to Reception at one point to ask for a copy of our bill, and Laura inquires as to the highlight of our trip. In the moment, all I can think of is how Silversea made it so very easy to visit all of these incredible spots. No constant packing and repacking, minimal arguments over restaurants, and so many familiar, friendly faces at the end of every day.
(Later, I decide that Angkor Wat and Rottnest Island were probably the destinations I enjoyed visiting the most – but how do you pick favourites on a trip like this? The many and varied destinations is a huge part of what made it so incredible.)
No wins for us at bingo today, but it’s soon time for our final round of trivia. We correctly identify what UNICEF stands for (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) and the Italian tractor company that attempted car manufacturing in the 1960s (Lamborghini), but learn that George Washington would soak his wooden dentures in port wine. Our score is sufficient to tie for second place – a fine podium finish on our final day.
The kids go to cash out their prize points – my son had been looking at a notebook but they still haven’t restocked, so he settles for a points certificate instead. We are now closing in on 2,000 unredeemed prize points from our past cruises.
The prizes currently aboard the Moon for those curious:
Back to the verandah for one last sunset sling:
Then off to dinner at Atlantide. Tonight’s menu:
My wife and I start with the beef croquettes:
Then I try the beef Wellington:
And we both finish off with one last peanut bar.
The pianist – Finn – had very kindly looked into a Canadian bar song I had recommended. I swung by to see if he might play it tonight, but the guitarist Felipe hadn’t had the chance to learn it yet. That’s on me for only suggesting it a few nights before we leave.
No matter – I wouldn’t have wanted to have interrupted their incredible improvising:
But if you are on board the Moon and run into Finn, you might ask him to play “Home for a Rest” by Spirit of the West. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
It’s then time to head back to the room for one last drink, one last conversation, and some fond reminiscences.
It’s funny how clearly I can remember what it’s like to be home, and yet it seems like an eternity since we first landed in Sydney – ‘only’ two months earlier.
We’re ready to get off the ship – but we are going to miss this.
Ah, well.
Goodnight, Moon.