WEDNESDAY, MAR 3RD--CRUISING IN SOUTH CHINA SEA

The end of my day is the beginning of yours. This has been another smooth day of sailing with not a cloud in the sky over the South China Sea. This was first of basically 3 days at sea enroute to Shanghai, China. We are now about half way between the northern most part of the Philippines and Taiwan at 5pm. It has already started to cool off and in now 77F. This will probably be the last day of sitting out on balcony, as I am now writing this, until we get back to Hong Kong in a week. High temperature in Shanghai will be in upper 40’s with 60% chance of rain forecast for our approximately 48 hours there. Last night we dined with Allan & Carolyn, our Dallas friends, as I had once again ordered a special off-the-menu entrée of veal parmesan plus this time we had calamari as an appetizer. Jerry Vasi, the normal guitar entertainer up in the Observation Lounge, performed in the theatre. He is an incredible entertainer and we think he could be a headline entertainer aboard ships. I worked for almost 3 hours this morning editing and putting pictures I took yesterday in Manila on this blog site. At 11am we went to another one of Sandra’s lectures. This one was on ancient Chinese history. Not one of my favorites but tomorrow’s should be more interesting to me as it is on Chinese history from 1900 to date. I lost a couple of pounds the last few days so ate some lunch. Allan, Carolyn, Rebecca, & I then planned our strategy for Shanghai. With all the tours and Regent special events we have scheduled we are finding it hard to work in some shopping. So far I think we plan to hit the shore running when we dock in Shanghai at 6pm in a couple of days from right now. After that high level discussion I entered the golf putting tournament and won 1st place out of 14 entrants. I just got back from the gym where I did 40 minutes on the stationary bike. Tonight is a “formal optional” night as Regent now calls it. Most all world cruise and several "segmentalists”
(segment cruisers) as they are called, wear tuxedos for men and lots of beautiful dresses by women. We have been invited to dine again with Bjorn, the Chief Engineer. That is always a blast. He has also invited 2 other couples, one of which are in the over 1400 sqft Master Suite. It goes for over $400,000 for this world cruise. After dinner there will be another production show, “Listen To The Music”, by the ship’s singers and dancers that we will not miss. I’m hearing more and more complaints about the air conditioning system. The Centrum area is usually a little warm, the Horizon Lounge is always VERY cold (like a meat locker), the show room is usually too cold, the dining room has parts too cold and places that are warm. Last night in dining room was a rare night that I did not wear a sports coat for the evening. I had long sleeved shirt on and was very cold. I thought I was going to have to go back to the suite and get a jacket. We rarely go to the Horizon Lounge because it is just too cold there. Air conditioning is not a big problem for us as we know room temperatures and dress accordingly. A lot of people ARE bitching though. I mention this on blog as I know several Regent cruisers are following the world cruise blogs being written by me and several others. Time to get tux on!!