Tasmania to Tokyo – Ho Chi Minh City – Day 46 can be found here.
Today’s Chronicles can be found here.
Despite yesterday’s early bedtime and our late rising, we’re all sluggish this morning. I expect we’ll need a few days to fully recover from our adventures in Siem Riep and Cát Tiên Park.
The morning vanishes into a blur of reading / writing / homework, plus a visit to Future Cruise Manager Joshua to book a placeholder cruise. We’ve heard rumours of a possible Northwest Passage cruise in 2028, so we’re trying to get all our ducks in a row – just in case we can pull that together.
Our latest towel animals suggest our future is so bright, we’ll need to wear shades:
We follow this up with our usual lunch routine, then it’s time for our SALT Lab class:
Today we’ll be making Banh Mi sandwiches!
This is one of the simpler dishes to make. Just fry up an egg and some pork:
Then slice up the veg, add mayo, and serve:
Though Chanelle’s presentation – with help from our daughter – definitely steals the show:
Today’s recipe:
Back upstairs for more homework. The kids have some catching up to do after our lengthy sojourn, but everyone is looking forward to a two-week pause in new assignments over their March break. (Though they’ll need to continue to work through the existing backlog, the pace should slacken slightly.)
Bingo time. Caroline gives out points for the first person to moo like a cow when they get three numbers away from winning at blackout bingo – and to be clear, Caroline requires a “full moo”. (She further clarifies that she does not mean a “full moon.”) A livestock-esque noise soon echoes throughout Dolce Vita, and Caroline further-further clarifies that sick sheep impressions do not count. (She jests – points are still awarded.)
Meanwhile, we manage to confirm that we will be able to extend our time in Hoi An tomorrow. Silversea is offering both a “Hoi An On Your Own” included excursion in addition to a “Hoi An Under the Stars” excursion – for an extra $50 per person, we can extend into the evening when the lanterns are lit. This price seems reasonable to us given that a hired car would have likely cost somewhere around US$150, and this way we remain under Silversea’s protective umbrella.
We then move on to trivia. We correctly identify the smallest state in the United States (Rhode Island) and the first toy to be advertised on television (Mr. Potato Head), but learn that Bolivia is the country with the most official languages and that cheese is the food item most frequently stolen from grocery stores. We do well enough to tie for first!
It’s the Venetian Society cocktail party tonight – where we learn that there are roughly 160 first timers and 320 Venetians aboard a ship with 515-ish guests. So that is a slightly higher proportion of newcomers this time around. I believe the top Venetian has somewhere around 1,300 nights – slightly higher than Kathleen, but not dramatically higher. We remain hopeful that we might one day be able to take the top Venetian crown for ourselves…
No crew awards tonight – so the Silver Moon Band sings us farewell
Dinner at Silver Note tonight – we order the same dishes as usual and we leave before the singer takes the stage. Early start tomorrow, and there’s still sleep to catch up on.