20251020 Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 16 – Sea Day

Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 16 – Sea Day - Rocking the Yellow Sea

We were rocking and rolling all night. It wasn't violent, like the first night, but we were moving side-to-side a lot. The sky was angry, and the sea was an odd yellow-green color.

In recognition of the sea conditions the last couple of days, all the elevators and stairwells had hanging bags stuffed full of motion sickness bags installed.

We are sailing in the Yellow Sea, making our way south to the East China Sea. They are all part of the  Pacific Ocean. I've never understood all these subdivisions in what is a single body of water.

We took advantage of the day and washed our clothes from the last 15 days. We will probably try to do another load right at the end of the cruise, so everything will be ready for Mongolia.

This morning's competition was Tuho, or Pitch-Pot. Competitors take turns throwing wooden arrows into a narrow vase, with points being awarded for each arrow that lands in the vase. 

As you can see from the arrows all over the floor, it wasn't easy.

We played three rounds from varying distances and heights. The officers had a commanding lead throughout until the guests made a surprise rally in round #3 and came away with the win. Once again, everyone had a lot of fun.

Trivia was next. Once again, we tied for the win and lost in the tie-breaker. Also, once again, we talked ourselves out of two correct answers that would have given us the win, outright. Dang it. The picture round showed us eight country outlines. We got seven, and had the eight, Iceland, but something about it didn't look right, so we changed it to Russia. Of course, it was Iceland. The other goofs are below

• What is the most spoken native language in the world?
• We thought Mandarin, Hindi, or Spanish, and reasoned that Spanish is spoken in so many places that it must be it. It was Mandarin.
• What does UNESCO stand for?
• United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization - six possible points, one for each main word - we had Social, so only scored five
• Who composed the Wedding March?
• We tossed around a lot of composers and settled on Mendelssohn until someone said, Vivaldi - we agreed and changed it - it was Mendelssohn

The tie-breaker question was hot tall, from the bottom of her feet to the top of her torch, is the Statue of Liberty. Closest without going over wins. We guessed 231 feet, they guessed 190. We both went over, so the closest won - it was 151 feet. Oh well, still a respectable showing.

Viking set up a nice Dim Sum lunch on the pool deck with lots of nice selections. After lunch, we attended a tile painting workshop. We were given a ceramic tile and a container of paint. The paint was a mixture of sugar, water, and acrylic paint. We had a plastic card and a small brush as tools. The assignment was to create a bamboo scene on the tile, following the style of a sample on each table. We were given instructions on how to use the tools to achieve the different effects needed. Overall, I think we pulled it off.

Arlona's tile is on the left, mine is on the right

Later in the afternoon, we met with Victor, the Travel Consultant, about a future trip. We went ahead and booked a circumnavigation of Australia starting in December 2026. We will have several repeat ports, but the western, southern, and southeastern portions of Australia will all be new to us.

We enjoyed pre-dinner drinks in the Explorers Bar and a nice garlic shrimp dinner in the World Cafe before returning to the room to watch today's port talk about Shanghai and tonight's performance by Arann, the person helping train the cruise director and her staff.

The unbelievably crappy ship internet seems to be getting worse. If this continues, I may have to pause publishing blogs until we reach Mongolia and have actual internet access in the hotel. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

We dock in Shanghai overnight. Tomorrow afternoon, we'll be taking a highlights tour and then attending an acrobatic show tomorrow night.