27th February 2011 – At Sea

27th February 2011 – At Sea

After yesterday's long very warm day, today has been cold and foggy and we have both been wearing our jumpers during the day. The forecast for Beijing keeps mentioning snow but we have another few days yet so we will just have to wait and see.

We are sailing the East China Sea which is part of the Pacific Ocean and covers an area of 750,000 square miles. The only thing we have done is to go to a lecture given by Dr. Edward Bernard Glick on 'Why the special relationship between the USA & Israel?' It was very good.

Another laundrette story: on another cruise a lady had left a dress hung up to finish drying in the laundrette when she came back it had gone, only to be seen a day or two later on a another woman who when approached simply said 'Prove It'!! Could you prove whether someone was wearing your dress or not?

Because we had an early start the next day we went to bed reasonably early.

Peoples' eating habits and manners have made us stare. One elderly couple at breakfast ordered between them 6 glasses of different fruit juices and some hot water. They then diluted the juices with the water before drinking them, followed by drinking the hot water. This was followed by cereals and a full cooked breakfast. Another morning one gentleman ordered his cereal with 3 prunes on top – not 2, not 4 – it had to be 3. Again a different gentleman ordered a cereal with 5 prunes; when it came the number was wrong so he sent the whole lot back. This morning a lady on our table ordered all bran. The cereals are brought in 2 parts, the cereal in a bowl and the milk in a glass which the waiter pours over the cereal for you(!) anyway, just as he was about to do this she stopped him and said that there was too much all bran in the dish and he was to take it out; which he,of course, did. All this happened without a please or a thank you and, sadly, we have noticed that it tends to be mainly the Americans who order people around. I wish I'd had the courage to ask the lady why she was incapable of removing the all bran herself, or simply just leave what she didn't want.