Location: Keelung, Taiwan
Weather: 24C, cloudy
Let me just say wow, compared to the last time I posted life on the ship has gotten a lot more faster-paced. Starting from our third cruise leaving from Taiwan where we started having international passengers from other Asian countries, my job got a whole lot busier, and it became very apparent that I was struggling to cover what is normally two positions on the other ships. Things couldn't have been worse timing as I also caught a cold around then that kept getting worse and at one point lost my voice completely when I was suppose to host a party the next day. Suffice to say stress levels were quite high then. I like being busy but working 10-12 hours daily (on one occasion 11.5 hours without a break) was a whole different level I wasn't used to. Luckily we have these what I call "breather" cruises in between where the international passenger proportion is lower compared to the charter passengers that I can use to catch up. This next cruise starting today is going to be 7 days (the longest I've ever had so far!) and I'm expecting to be hammered again but at least I am mentally prepared this time.
Let's go back to the end of China season where on the last call at Hakata I finally checked off the largest reclining Buddha at Nanzoin temple.
We said goodbye to China with a most fun crew day repositioning cruise with no passengers where I participated in a team scavenger hunt. We poured our blood, sweat and tears out to try to win but alas the winning gods were not on our side. Can you guess the name of our team?
In other big news we've started going to some new ports and amongst them tender ports in the Okinawa islands which means the cruiseship cannot dock on shore because there's no space so we have to take another small tender boat to shuttle back and forth. The whole process of getting off and on the ship takes longer than ports where we can just walk off but it's not at as bad as we all initially imagined. The Okinawa islands are like the Hawaii of Japan, and I can't wait to explore more of especially Miyakojima and Ishigaki which had some stunning beaches from what I can see.
Now that we finally have our own shore excursions, I also applied to be a tour escort on the last cruise and got to check out Shurijo castle and Kokaisai street in Okinawa. It's always nice to get a chance to relive the tour guide side of my life. While searching for food in the small window of free time we had, I met some very nice Malaysian passengers who insisted on paying for dinner and we all got to try this Okinawa specialty algae called sea grapes for the first time.
Let's not forget Hiroshima from the cruises at the beginning of May. Like Nagasaki there is a Peace Park memoralizing the atomic bomb legacy and I was lucky enough to go on a day when they had many cool sculptures on display representing peace.
Beppu, famous for hotsprings in all of Japan, is another of my favorite new ports because it has a bunch of interesting "hot spring hells", and I can't wait to go back on this cruise.
Here are some biking snaps from Okinawa and Abarutsu, where at the latter I biked over 80 unplanned kilometers trying to make it back in time because the Japanese train staff refused to let me take the bike on the small train for the way back. The small sand island called Aoshima very far away from the port that had nothing but a shrine and these rock formations in the water called Devil's washboards was completely worth the journey though.
On top of everything that is new and exciting the best part about Taiwan season is that every turnaround day in Keelung I have the chance to reunite with so many familiar faces. Can't wait to catch up with more of you in June and July!
