On the way to coffee we overheard several old couples sitting together obviously getting to know each other. Man says, "I am an aviation illustrator" Woman says, "What the hell does that mean?" Man.... "It means I like airplanes!"
There is a daily news called the Patter where you can find anything and everything to do from early morning to late in the evening so you will never miss the action. We use the Patter exclusively to find out where NOT to go so we can avoid the crowds. So far we have been very successful! We found a quiet spot to read, work on the blog and Vince went through more pictures and video of Obon. He took over a thousand pictures and managed to narrow it down to 100.
An unexpected surprise awaited us at lunch today. At the entrance to the Lido we said hello to a woman crew member and saw her name tag read she is from Thailand! We said, " Sawadee Ka" and she lit up like a lantern on Loy Kratong! For the next few minutes she excitedly told about her brother that works as a policeman and lives in Chiang Mai as well as her mother and she owns land there and told us when she goes home she lives south of Hua Hin. She wrote down her and her brother's given names and their nicknames, Tor and Ton. We let her go back to work and promised her we would see her tomorrow when she offered to give us more information from her personal cell phone.
We were almost finished with lunch out by the pool when Tor came around the corner with another woman crew member and introduced us to Meow. Yes, the Thai's all have nicknames they are given when they are young children and use them their entire lives.
Meow proceeded to tell us she lives in Chiang Mai and owns a house she bought to rent and said she will show us pictures tomorrow. She continued to tell us the rent is $500 per month and to make sure to rent from someone we know because if not, the rent will be double. She also made sure to give us her Facebook address so we can keep in touch. I mentioned we need find wi-fi tomorrow in Juneau so she said as she pointed to the table we were sitting at, "Meet me here tomorrow at 1 o'clock SHARP and I will tell you where to find wi-fi!" Before she left she said, "Welcome to Thailand!"
I am having flashbacks of being in the grocery store in Japan with Lisa and Steve when I burst into tears because the person working there was so kind and genuine that I became overwhelmed.....Same here as Meow walked away.
Back to our cabin for a 3 hour nap and off to blog some more and have dinner in the Lido. It is formal night so the Lido is pretty empty because most are in the dining rooms. Vince had a hamburger and french fries and I had asparagus soup and zucchini.
After dinner we went to see a comedian/magician who appeared to be as old as Houdini with tricks up his sleeve for a child's party. It was nice that he geared his act to the kids on the ship because there are many polite little humans running around. We left about half way through so we could take a dip in the hot tubs in the covered area of the ship while it was quiet.
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