May 20th

Yes, you lose a day when you travel so far on an airplane. The time difference is 15 hours and with a 14 hour flight you always lose the day. So Friday, May 19 is lost. I will get it back, but not like the 300 times I flew across the ocean and it is immediately returned. Now I will get it back an hour or two at a time as we cross the ocean and gain timezones and datelines. In a methodical and slow process. This seems strange to me.

Today was a day to breathe, come to terms. I went shopping, actually I went to provision. My list included a step down convertor to power all my items; computer, shaver, phone, ipod, etc. The ship runs a 220AC and that would fry my dainty American electrics. I also needed an adaptor for the outlets, EU style two prong round. I picked up a camera cord for the camera my son loaned me so I can upload images to my computer, that is if I can figure out all those steps.

Then I went to the drug store. Cotton balls, peroxide, mouthwash, tooth brush…..ugh. Shaving cream and laundry powder made it feel almost like a normal drug store visit but I was still very concerned and thinking I was buying all this stuff only to take it home with me when I called it all off.

I decided to eat Yoshinoya. Easy to eat and no real biting. It was good. I also stopped at a Hong Kong bakery, which are very good and had some mango pudding and a cream coconut roll. I was feeling almost good. Not normal but almost good. I still took aspirin to take the edge off my mouth and make me less concerned about it.

I took the Star Ferry across the harbor and it opened my eyes to the fact I was actually in Hong Kong and should soak it in…… I strolled for a bit, bought a Starbucks and told myself it was all going to be OK.

I made initial contact with the agent in Yantian, the port I will sail from. Yantian is an hour and a half from Hong Kong and requires a train trip , a border crossing and a taxi ride to the harbor. The agent advised the vessel was delayed and would not depart until the 22nd, at 2300 local time. This was not in the plan. Now I had to stay an additional night. Money I had not budgeted or planned on. What else was going to go wrong? I wondered. I then felt like I should go home.

I slept well.

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s