Tuesday, October 5th

At Ocho Rios, we met up with our local tour guide Phil Lafayette of Exquisite Tours

[Gotta get the pics from others before this post will really come to life. Only so much words can do, pictures explain everything]

We went for a tour of the local area, getting a lesson on local flora and fauna, as well as the Jamaican language and seeing the good and bad areas. It was a little saddening to see the state in which they lived. Some areas could only be described as derelict. Yet some of these dilapidated huts housed entire families of 5. Unheard of in prosperous North America. Made sense why so many flock to dream the American Dream.

During the drive we stopped at a local performer who showed us fire tricks, and spun a fire wheel on the heads of each one of us, one at a time. We drove through beautiful Fern Gully, which was like driving in a canyon and looking up to see thousands and thousands of ferns, growing all around you. Gorgeous.

We also saw a lot of local art. Let's just say any pics of the sculptures would not be suitable for a PG-13 audience. It was awkward, to say the least, for 6 chinese kids to see it and go, WOAH, that's a...!! Hmm... ok, walk on, don't make a seen... eww, gross...

Our tour brought us to river tubing down the White River. If you have visions of a gentle flowing stream, you are WRONG!! First the water was FREEZING, we should have caught pics of each one of us as our butts touched water, oh the SCREAM!! The water was pretty fast moving, to the point where sometimes it felt like there were rapids! We had a guide, Rambo, who was very kind, kept us together as a group, and took pics for us. Also saved us from smashing into the sides of the river where tree roots and rocks protruded. The water wasn't white; greyish green is prolly a better description. And it was quite shallow, Rambo was tall enough that he pretty much could walk down the river, if it wasn't for the strong current.

As if we weren't wet enough, our next stop was the famous Dunns Falls. We walked all the way down to the bottom of the falls, when it started thundering. The bottom of the falls is the beach and Caribbean Sea, so from our point of view, we could see all the dark grey clouds start to roll in. Eventually we decided to start the climb, since it was only spitting.

Of course, as soon as we start, it begins to pour. It was pouring so hard, we had a difficult time seeing, cause of all the water running into our eyes! Luckily no one's contacts fell out. We were wet anyway, from the river tubing, playing in the ocean, and starting the climb, so it didn't really matter. The only thing was that it was pretty cold. Human bodies are great, we eventually adapted to the cold, and kept climbing.

This climb is not for the faint of heart. It's a LONG way up, the rocks are slippery, with sharp edges here and there, as well as sudden dips and bumps. All while tons of water are gushing down at you. There were guides all over the place, so we tagged along one of their lines. But it was tough to keep up! We kept getting left behind cause we'd stop to take pics, and cause we were slow =)

GKY noted that climbing Dunns Falls is an excellent team building exercise, because you really do need to support one another to get up the falls. Plus, who woudln't want to go to Jamaica for a CCF committee retreat/TCE team building activity? =D

[pic of us at Dunns Falls - to be approved]

After the draining physical activity, we went for lunch, which concluded our tour. GKY and ILC went back to the boat, while the rest of us wandered the shopping area for a bit, before heading back to the boat. This time we could walk right up to the boat, cause the water was deep enough for it to park right next to the dock.

Back on the boat, we all did various things. SW and I went to the line dancing class, it was SO MUCH FUN!!! =) I'm sure we looked stupid, but at least we all looked stupid together. Of course I had the same prob that I have in aerobics class -- lack of coordination. Oh well!

Dinner had a Caribbean theme, which meant we were supposed to dress in Caribbean clothes as well. My parents had gone shopping in the afternoon... Look what my dad bought!!!!

My creative way of getting a family portrait of us in our loud Caribbean wear:

GKY was getting to know the waiter and assistant waiter well, esp since she kept telling Yaman (assistant waiter from Turkey) to smile more!! Adrian and Yaman were both smiling here =)

Because the next day was a sea day, meaning we can stay up later than normal without a need to rush to get off the boat, there was a midnight buffet on the pool deck. But before the buffet, there was an opportunity to play the steel drums with the band. Of course, I volunteered! I've always wanted to learn to play the steel drums. I get up there (there are 10 of us at a time), and realise that the drums we play have the notes written on them (ie F#, etc). Me and my neighbor also realise that my C and his C don't sound the same! To make it even worse, they get us to play, but they don't tell us what notes to hit! You can imagine how bad it sounded. Luckily the real band that we were playing with had their mics turned on, so I doubt we ruined their song. Regardless, the muscian (and guitar student) in me watched the guitarist in the band to figure out what chords he was playing. I think I got the right notes a third of the time.


The pool party/buffet was a lot of fun, got to watch the waiters dance and do juggling tricks, also got to dance the line dances me and SW were taught in class that afternoon, all to the rhythm of the steel drum calypso band.

We weren't tired, so headed down to The Dungeon again. Normal situation, I'm the purse/drinks/everything watcher, sitting comfortably on a couch with a good view of the dance floor. ILC spots one of the dancers from the cruise's show, and says to me, if I get him to ask you to dance, will you? Playing along with her silly game, I say, sure! But then she goes and ACTUALLY asks him!!! I groan inwardly, and start laughing out loud as I see the cruise dancer walk towards me. Having a huge grin on his face, he plops down beside me, and introduces himself.

Eric asks me why I'm not dancing, I do my normal schpeal, to which he responds by trying to get me onto the dance floor. I engage him in a lengthy conversation about his background, where he's from, how long he's been a professional dancer, does he enjoy working on the boat etc, and I eventually get around to asking his age. 22. Insane, SO YOUNG!!

Anyhow, while Eric and I are conversing, this other guy Ian walks over introduces himself, and the asks the same questions re: why I'm not dancing etc. Ian is a cruise guest, but he met Eric and others from the cast the night before. Apparently Eric is down at The Dungeon every night, which makes sense cause though the boat is big, there aren't that many places for 20-year olds to hang out at night.

Did I mention that Ian had sat down right beside me as well, on the other side? So here I am, stuck between two guys that I don't know, who are both trying to get me onto the dance floor. Where are my friends, you may wonder? Laughing at me from the dance floor, and *still* trying to get me to dance. Finally I give in, and get out there for one dance. I have no idea what it was, and yes, it did feel pretty unnatural. But, it was starting to get a little awkward sitting between two very nice but very unfamiliar guys. After dancing, Eric and I were chatting, and he mentioned that on Wed they would be doing a musical again. So I told him I'd sit at the front to watch him =)

We left soon after that, it was pretty late, and we were pretty exhausted from the day in Ocho Rios.

Monday, October 4th

I forgot to mention that Sunday night was the first formal night. We took pics, and I think we looked rather snazzy! =)

My parents looked pretty sharp too! With the cheesy Titantic grand staircase as the backdrop...

Monday was Labadee, which is promoted as Royal Caribbean's "private island". Reality is that Labadee is a peninusla at the northwest end of war-torn Haiti. Somewhere deep in the forest, out of sight of all the cruise passengers, there is likely a 20 foot chain-linked fence, complete with barb wires and electrocution devices, ensuring the area remains private, and that any locals in the area are authorized.

Why would I think so? Because when we were leaving the beach to walk back to the boat, a truck drove towards the beach, full of people. Imagine a normal cube van, except that the "cube" part is made of all metal, and it has holes all over it, so that you can see into it, and so that the people all crammed inside can breathe. And on the back of the cube, where the door is, there is a gigantic lock to keep the people in. These locals (we presume) were trucked onto the "private island" to clean up after us. I didn't have the guts to take a picture of the truck, nor the people.

As much as this was a wonderful vacation in the sun, Labadee woudln't be the last time that we witnessed poverty and developing world standards during the cruise.

Now that I've painted a frightful sight, let me show you the beauty of the land. I actually got up for the sunrise, and wandered out to the helicopter landing pad at the front of the boat. From there, I watch as Labadee appeared closer and closer, like a gian mountain looming in front of my eyes. Was a pretty cool sight, esp with all the fog/mist (shots are on film, forgot to use digital until later).

I turned around and got a nice shot of the navigation bridge. For the rest of the cruise I tried to figure out how to get up there, but to no avail. Oh well...


The sunrise was beautiful, this is one of the few shots I have in digital... I burnt about 2 rolls that morning alone!! The powerful Caribbean sun peering over the gentle slops of Labadee.

Because Labadee is owned and operated by Royal Caribbean, all the food and beverages served on the island are brought by the cruise ship. The people serving us on the beach are the same as the servers on the boat. I walked around to the side of the boat to watch them unloading everything to bring ashore:

I counted 81 huge bags of ice being passed down the line and stacked on the pallet at the end

The amusing thing about this shot is realising that the thing they are standing infront of is a conveyor belt, and then noticing the two guys in the middle who stand there and watch as the boxes are pushed from one end to the other. I stayed until they were done, those guys spent at least 10 mins watching the boxes move, shaking their head from side to side as the followed the path of the boxes with their eyes. Very amusing! [notice the mound of bags of ice now stockpiled at the end of of the conveyor belt]

We wandered to the beach that was furthest from the tender, but still on the side that faced the boat. [FYI: "tender" means that you have to take a little boat from the cruise boat to the dock, cause the water is too shallow for the cruise boat to drive up and park next to the dock]

The beautiful view from the beach:



We spent the day playing in the water (will need to see the pics from the waterproof camera), on the rocks, and in the sun on the beach chairs. Quite the enjoyable vegging kind of day.


No, we're not in Japan. GKY and her kimono appears together with the shriek of "I don't want to tan!!!!"

Mid-afternoon, we were all tired, and ready to go back to the boat. We started to pack, but wanted to take a group pic first. Nearby to where we were lounging was the bar hut, so we asked one of the guests waiting for drink to take a pic for us.

To backtrack, on Sunday night, we had gone to the boat's club, called The Dungeon. Like always, I am the purse/drink/everything watcher, and prefer enjoying the club scene from a comfy couch with a good view. Everyone else dances up a storm, ILC in particular.

The patrons of the club vary in age demographics, normally in sync with the type of music being played. But, there are always those who love to dance, and will stay regardless. ILC's "friend" was one of those. You would have thought that at his age, he would have left the club already, or at least gotten off the dance floor. But no. He proceeded to invite her to dance with him, which she politely, though promtly and forcefully, declined. We left pretty soon after that, and found it quite amusing.

So back to the guy at the bar hut taking a group pic for us. He takes one look at ILC and says, Hey you're the girl who punked off the old man at the club last night! HAHAHAHAHAH!!! Granted, we're kinda hard to miss. There weren't that many groups of young asians on the boat, most were in the generation of my parents (hence the Chinese Bus Tour incident from Sat), and we were definately the only asians in the club at night.

[group pic taken by the bar hut guy, to be posted upon approval - we're in beachwear]

On the way back to the boat, we stopped at the artisan's market, set up by authorized locals. Quite colourful.

The best part of being chinese is that you can walk past all the very aggressive vendors without once making eye contact, and they will just assume that you don't speak English, and not that you're rude.

Back on the boat, we (except for IW and AC) went to the salsa dancing lesson. It was pretty fun, when we weren't tripping over each other! =)

My parents took this pic, cause my mom liked the fishies =)


At dinner, we had our first night of challenges. Our waiter Adrian from Romania gave us (or rather SW) two forks and a toothpick, and told us to balance the forks on the toothpick. Impossible? Look:


Adrian balanced the two forks on a toothpick that is resting on another toothpick in a saltshaker ontop of an overturned wine glass. And we thought he was just going to serve us food!

Went to the evening show, which was a musical. More on the singers and dancers later. We zonked out pretty early that night, cause the next day was Ocho Rios, and we had to get up and off the boat EARLY!!!

Saturday & Sunday Pics

The "Chinese Bus Tour"

Getting on the boat... GKY the FOB, now in more ways than one =D

My mom in the huge life-jacket-turned-neck-brace

Funny how all the little reflectors look

Ice skating. The Montreal guy's name was Sasha something, can't remember...

Tattoo Pics

Here they are, in no particular order. Your choices are Chan, Law, Yam. Who do you think got which one?

Tattoo #1

Tattoo #2

Tattoo #3

Sunday, October 3rd

This was our first full day at sea. Because our first port of call is not that close to Miami, we actually have to sail for more than 24 hours to reach Labadee, Haiti. I did actually get up to catch the sunrise (and burnt a roll of film), and *intended* on jogging around the outdoor track, but it was INCREDIBLY windy... and I was dead tired =D Result: sleeping in til noon!

We went ice skating. It was pretty cool, while on a boat, in the middle of the ocean, in HOT weather, all six of us went skating. It was a tiny rink, but it was still fun. The weirdest part was skating in my tank top, cause it was hot! We also got to meet one of the ice dancers in the ice show. I can't remember his name, but he's from Montreal (go Canada!!), which ILC guessed, cause we recognized the French Canadian accent.

We also got internet in our (GKY and I) stateroom for $100 USD for the entire cruise. Needed it for GKY's work purposes... sigh...

Oh yeah, we got tattoos =D Well, me, GKY, and ILC did, the rest weren't interested. Can you guess who got which design? Will have to post the pics later, and have everyone guess!

As for the rest of the day: eatting, lying on the pool deck, and more eatting... at least when I wasn't feeling too ugh from the tippy boat. Our room is at the front of the boat, overlooking the helicopter landing pad, so we tend to feel a lot more tippy than ILC's room, and the guys room, which are both at the end of the boat. I'm fine on a plane, but this tippy boat thing isn't good on my head. Luckily, I haven't puked yet!

We also went dancing at night. ILC had an "incident". Will have to post about that with Monday's entry!

Saturday, October 2nd

8am flight = 6am at the airport. Normally, US customs is cleared at the originating country, not at the destination airport. However, for Jetsgo flights to Fort Lauderdale, we found out the hard way that customs is cleared in Florida, resulting in GKY and I walked all the way from one end of Terminal 3 to the other. But, it was a good thing. For some reason, the US customs line was ridiculously long anyway, so we got to "by-pass" and get to the gate with plenty of time to spare.

Now, if you had about an hour til your flight, and were running on 0 to 2 hours of sleep, what would you do? Well, a normal person may nap, or eat, depending on what was more pressing. However, if you're GKY, you crack out the laptop... to finish a file. Yes, she's nuts. Technically we were already on vacation, but to GKY, there's always still work to do... So in the middle of my half awake inhalation of breakfast, GKY starts rambling about subsequent payments testing while sipping her Timmy Ho's and madly documenting in AWS. Sigh. Vacation with the Yam begins.

I forgot to mention, I brought 4 bags: 1 camera backpack, 1 EY knapsack, 1 luggage case, and 1 audit bag. At checkin, my audit bag got selected for the complete swab and search procedure. Because of the unmentionables within, I was pretty glad it was a woman doing the search. As if that wasn't enough, during the security check, my EY knapsack was picked for the poke and prod treatment. On the flight home, I'm fully expecting the other two bags to get checked. BTW, it was interesting to note that this was the FIRST time that I've travelled with my dad's SLR without having the camera pulled aside for inspection!

On to more crazy stories. We eventually get on the plane, and the only thing that stopped GKY from continuing file work was the laptop battery problem. Plus she was dead tired, running on zero sleep. We both zonked out on the plane.

The arrangements in Fort Lauderdale was that we pick up our luggage and a Royal Caribbean International (RCI) representative would be waiting for us. We get our luggage and lo and behold, no one is there. There is another cruise line representative, but none for RCI. Well, maybe they are on the way. We sat down, and waited. And waited. And waited. GKY got on the phone to call their special hotline -- and waited and waited on hold.

Eventually, GKY figured out that we were not in the main part of the terminal, so we wandered over to the main area... and found the not-so-bright RCI representative, all by her lonesome. Of course, if she had the brains to walk 10 feet to the other side, she would have seen the 30 people with RCI cruise documents in hand. To say GKY was annoyed is an understatement. Picture her LOUDLY discussing how poor the service is, especially since RCI prides itself for their first class service. It was pretty funny to watch GKY get stemmed, too bad the RCI lady had no clue GKY was referring to her, even though GKY's outburst of frustration was very vocal, and lasted for a pretty long period of time.

As mentioned, there were about 30 other cruise guests who flew from TO on Jetsgo. What I failed to mention is that they were all asian. ALL 30+ were Chinese, loudly speaking in Cantonese, obviously confused and lost (since I can understand). By the time we finally got on the bus to transfer us to the Port of Miami, we had suffered a horrendous spectacle of trying to get 40 (the numbers increased) Chinese adults and elderly down the hall, outside, and to the neighboring terminal, without the requisite bright pink chinese tour guide flag. It was as if all of Toronto had flown on Jetsgo's cheap flight with us. And vacation is supposed to take you AWAY from home??

Boarding the bus was a typical display of Chinese manners. All 40 guests pushed and shoved and elbowed to get on the bus first. We were so "eager" that the RCI lady had to remind the group that the bus would wait for everyone to get on, so no one needed to worry about getting on first. It was funny, I haven't shoved elbows with Chinese people since shopping in HK; it was kinda nostalgic.

On the bus, it REALLY felt like a Chinese bus tour. Except for the one white family, and the lack of the flourescent pink flag. Luckily both GKY and I fell fast asleep, though not before inconspicuously taking some pics from the bus.

I failed to mention that when we were leaving the baggage check area at the Fort Lauderdale airport, GKY was stalled for about 10 minutes. No, she wasn't searched. The customs/security guy was chatting her up. No joke, he was being "friendly" (per the Yam). He was so friendly that his coworker seemed really interested in the conversation and wanted to be a part of it as well! So it was no surprise to me when it took us forever to check-in for the cruise at the Port of Miami. The friendly gentleman helping us couldn't help but comment on GKY's beauty, as reflected both in her and in her passport picture. It was quite amusing watching the whole escapade!

Got on the boat, found the rest of the group via walkie talkies. Roughly figured out where they were, and found our room without getting lost too much.

Prior to the boat departing Miami, we had a fire drill. In our rooms were HUGE life jackets, with built in lights, reflectors, and whistle. We had to find our mustering area, which is essentially the holding area prior to getting into the life boats. It was quite the sight, the entire boat wearing these gigantic bright orange things. It wasn't just a normal vest type, it had a thick neck brace too, presumably to keep our heads out of the water. My dad has pics of my mom in the life jacket, will have to post those later. We looked really silly!!

The rest of the day was spent eatting, unpacking, and eatting some more...

From the Boat!

Today is Tues Oct 5th, we left Ocho Rios, Jamaica just before dinner tonight, and we're heading to Cozumel, Mexico. Grand Caymen got cancelled from the itinerary, because of the aftermath of the hurricanes.

Yes, we have internet. More on that later. I'm in our (me and GKY) stateroom right now. It's 9:40pm EST, we're all meeting up again later tonight. GKY is napping.

I borrowed BL's digicam. Since GKY has a similar camera, I figured I'd just use her card reader. Unfortunately, I failed to realise his is an SD card. So, pics will have to wait. ILC has an SD reader on her laptop, but she's on the other end of the boat, on the other side. Will have to find time to download and transfer later. Yes, we have three laptops here.

Hurricanes

Week-long adventures begin. And you thought the hurricanes were bad...

=D