Day 2 of Our Alaska Cruise - A Full Day of Sailing in the Inside Passage to Alaska

I was surprised that J. was up at 8 am when I was up. Usually, he sleeps in on holidays, so this was a pleasant surprise. Without the internet keeping young people up, they have enough sleep and could get up early!

We had a quick breakfast at the Lido Deck and went for our stretch exercise class. The class was held at the fitness centre and it was full of people with their exercise mats spreading out on the floor already by the time we got there.

J. went to do his own fitness routine while we participated with an instructor telling us what to. It was a good 30 minutes stretching exercise session preparing us for our excursion tomorrow.

After exercises, we went for a hearty breakfast in the dining area. Since the cruise ship was sailing along the inside passage of the glaciers,  The scenery outside was spectacular with high mountains along the way.

It was nice enjoying delicious food and chatting with J while enjoying the beautiful scenery. However, I wish, J’s topic for conversation can be more diverse. I could not believe that J. has an intense interest on politics and the subjects of politics and the media's biases do come up a lot.

We went to a presentation on dog races in Alaska and learned a lot about the culture and customs of this vast state.

There were many activities to enjoy on the cruise ship. We also went for a violin performance at the Lincoln Centre stage on Deck 3.









 It was standing room only and we did stand throughout the entire 30-40 minute performance.

Classical music performances on the Lincoln Centre Stage

Tonight was the first gala evening on the cruise ship when everyone dressed a little formal than usual.  Since we were all dressed up, we went for a family portrait.  The photographer was very good helping us to post and captured the true moments of our interaction.

We watched a great song and
dance show at the main stage before dinner.

A colourful song and dance evening show on the cruise ship's main stage

The show was colourful with beautiful costumes and familiar tunes of the 1960’s and 70’s.  

We enjoyed the show very much!

Rack of Lamb served in the fine dining room

After the evening show, it was around 8pm and  we proceeded  to the dining room for some fine dining experience.

I had marinated duck breast

The selection of food offered in the dining room was much more sophisticated.


We were served some delicious dishes. My hubby ordered leg of lamb while I ordered duck breast and J had steak and shrimps.

J. loved his Steak and shrimps dish

I was glad that J. also enjoyed this fine dining experience.

The B.B. King Blues Club - my husband's favourite entertainment on board

My husband loves blue music and there was a B.B. Kings All Star Band playing at the Blues club on board. Enjoying the music tremendously, we got on our feet and danced to our hearts’ content. 

Enjoying my tea on the Lido Deck after an exercise class

God, thank you for this wonderful opportunity spending time with J. I pray that your holy spirit will come upon us, especially E. and  J. so that they can be filled with love, joy and hope.

Thank you for this great holiday when our family can spend some quality time and have fun together!


R.T.
On a cruise to Alaska
USA

First Day of Our Alaska Cruise Trip on the Westerdam from Vancouver

Cruise to Alaska – Day 1

I got up in the morning trying to finish everything I need to do while I still had wifi access before embarking on the next leg of our travel.

J. was asking about which plane we would be flying and where we would be staying in Alaska. Then he got upset about the flight itinerary and for staying in Alaska for too long. He was upset with us for not consulting with him about the trip plan. Yes, we could have done better.

After E. and I went for a walk, we checked out and went for breakfast at this local mom & pop diner. It was good except J. was still upset. I was disappointed that E. left as soon as he was done breakfast. I wished he could stay longer. I noticed that every time I planned to share God’s word with my sons when we meet, there was always some arguments broke out and I ended up not able to do it.

I was determined to share a bible message with our grown children before we parted our way this time.

After breakfast, we took a cab to the cruise terminal, met E. in front of the Vancouver Convention Centre.

My husband and I gave E. and J. each a red pocket, then I shared the story of how the 10 lepers were healed but only 1 came back to thank Jesus. I shared with them how thankful I was that both our children took  time and flew to celebrate my birthday with me. I got so emotional that I cried a little.

Vancouver waterfront, Canada

I have been praying that J. and E. could reconnect and develop a better relationship, but this didn’t seem to happen. I do not understand what’s happening but I just keep on trusting God that He knows what He is doing.

E. saw us good bye and we even had time to play a trivia game set up close by the boarding gate. 

E. walked us all the way until we reached the US border security. That was nice of him. 

We checked in at 2:30pm and it didn’t take long before we were in our room – stateroom 6044 and we upgraded it to a room with a balcony!

After unpacking and going through the safety drill, we went for our first dinner on this cruise.

There was a good variety of nutritious food from which to choose. I was glad we could eat healthy on this trip. We chose rainbow trout, ribs and salad. It was delicious and healthy! We sat and ate at the Lido Market, a buffet area, and enjoyed the ocean view.

We went around and explored the Westerdam cruise ship. J. showed me how to take pictures from a good angle in the gallery area. That was fun!

Attending a presentation on our cruise ship on day 1 of our cruise

We tried to find out the programs offered this evening and went to a Ted talk style presentation about Alaska. 

The cruise director gave an informative presentation on the State of Alaska

We learned something about this huge state with about 730,000 inhabitants, same size as Seattle while J. explored the ship on his own.

The impression I got from the  Holland America cruise ship is that it’s a little older ship than the others, but it does pffer good educational workshops. It seems to attract a different crowd than the other bigger cruise ships.

Beautiful sunset view from our cruise ship heading to Alaska

For this evening’s entertainment, we watched the Walt Disney documentary, Bears, in the Main Stage theatre. It was an interesting show about how an Alaskan bear mother working hard to keep her two young  pups survived their first year. Very educational and entertaining!

Without free access to the internet on board, we all went to sleep by 12am. It was a nice break from all the  social media, a wonderful change!

We look forward a great cruise with our loved ones to Alaska!

R.T.

Onboard of a North bound Cruise Ship

 to Alaska, USA

072819

A Family Reunion Dinner in Vancouver on My Special Birthday

My special milestone birthday dinner

We started the day with a hearty breakfast at a local mom and pop diner run by a Chinese family.
The diner was within walking distance from our hotel.

It was a traditional Canadian hearty breakfast with eggs, bacon toast and home fries.

We had a good chat at breakfast, J. is always talking about politics and his favourite country.

We waited eagerly for E. to arrive at the hotel from his SF flight.

While waiting for him, we went back to our hotel room and worked on our Toronto family reunion e invitation. But it wasn't as easy as I thought. After my husband worked on it, we discovered that we needed to pay some 53 e coins before we could send it. What a disappointment it was!

After his S.F. flight, E. arrived at our hotel around 2pm. After resting a little while we walked to Canada Place as we needed to get to the restaurant for dinner at 6pm.

Since we didn't have a lot of time, we could not do Stanley Park as planned.

We hang around at the Vancouver waterfront for a little bit watching the cruise ship sailing off.

We had a drink and some sushi at the bar by the waterfront restaurant. I was glad to see that he and J. seemed to have a lot to share with one another.

We only stayed at the restaurant for about 40 minutes and walked to the restaurant for dinner.


My special birthday dinner was at the Jade Dynasty Restaurant on East Pender Street in downtown Vancouver. We had dinner the night before there and we liked it. So I reserved a table and pre selected the menu for this dinner.

It was a nice dinner with fresh seafood from the local market.  The part I liked the most about my birthday dinner was sharing with my family the parable of the master giving his servants different talents after dinner.  Jordan and Melody in particular listened attentively.

  Motoki came and joint us after his work.  However, I noticed that E. seemed to be out of the conversation, I felt bad that J. seemed to be monopolizing the conversation while E. didn’t seem to make much of an effort to be engaged in it as he looked bored and tired. But I was glad that at least I got E., J. and his cousin and Motoki together.

After dinner, we  took a taxi back to our hotel. We walked to the Granville Bridge and watched the firework there. It was beautiful! God arranged a firework on my birthday!

Then we went back to the hotel, with E. and J. and us all in the same room, the two brothers sharing a king size bed, I felt blessed and loved having the whole family together.

How I wish this night would never end! 

R.T.
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada

Whale Watching in Vancouver, British Columbia

Whale watching in Steveston, British Columbia

We have not seen J. for a couple of years and we decided to meet in Vancouver.

One of the activities he really wanted to do was whale watching. We did whale watching when we travelled o the east coast of North America but we never got a glimpse of any whale while on the tour.

With only a day in advance, we were lucky enough to book a tour for 3 people and this company guaranteed sighting of whales on the tour so we decided to try it again.

The tour company had a paid shuttle which picked us up at the Ramada Inn downtown which was close to where we were staying. We were picked up around 1 pm and were at the Steveston wharf at 1:15pm.

We had good weather that day. The sky was clear and the temperature was comfortable. 

The tour company even provided tour participants with free raincoats and other gear, very thoughtful indeed.

We board the small motor boat with about two dozen people on board. The captain was in charge of the boat while a young lady acted as our guide.

We chose a shady spot of the boat and enjoyed a pleasant boat ride around the waters of Vancouver.

The water was blue so was the sky. The breezes were gentle and cool.

It was a fantastic feeling! 

This was our first family outing for a little while; I and we were enjoying it.

Whenever there was a possibility of seeing a whale, everyone on board got excited and rushed to the side of the boat to get a good look of the marine mammal.

The water was busy filled with tour boats, small and medium size trying to get a close look of these marvelous creatures.

With modern technologies and better tracking devices, there were way more actions this time than we had even seen in previous outings. 

With communications from the other boats that saw whales close by, our captain was able to pilot the boat close to the locations where whales had been sighted by other vessels.

The most exciting moment for us was when a couple of whales swam close to the bow of our boat and did  some flipping.  Many of us were able to capture these rare moments and close encounters.

We had sightings of whales during a whale watching excursion in Vancouver, B.C. !

Along the way, we also saw some sea lions suntanning on an island close by.

It was an enjoyable and informative tour! A great family activity.

After the whale watching tour, we walked around Steveston and boarded the shuttle taking us back to downtown Vancouver. 

We took a stroll around downtown Vancouver and went for dinner in China town. It was a delicious meal after all that walking!

We walked back to our hotel after dinner and called it a day.

R.T.
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada

Visiting Vancouver and Meeting Our Loved Ones in Gastown

We were pretty excited as we would be meeting our loved ones and enjoying a great holiday with one of them. It made me happy just thinking about the next couple of weeks.

We left Toronto at 6am boarding a plane for Vancouver. It was an uneventful flight as everything went according to schedule.  The scenery while flying over the Rockies was spectacular!

We arrived at Vancouver Airport after  a three hour flight. We did not ask anyone to pick us up as it was easy taking the Sky Train to our downtown hotel.

We arrived at the hotel around 12pm and were able to check in and rested for a little while before we got connected with J. who was staying at a hostel on Granville Ave as well.

We met him at a Thai restaurant for lunch. J looked happy and he shared with us enthusiastically about his brand new ultra modern high resolution small camera that he bought recently.

We had a really good conversation at this fast food take our place.

We visited Gastown, Vancouver. We were there at a few  minutes before pm. I visited Gastown a few times but never was not there right at the hour for its hourly steam whistles.

We saw a few musicians busking at the street corners as well as a few interesting characters such as this big head character poking his huge head from behind trees and street lamps.

 My favourite was the musician singing Lenny Cohan's Alleluia while a huge lady figure dancing around on the street to this song.

We had dinner at a restaurant in the Vancouver Chinatown. The food was good and we had another nice conversation and caught up with what J has been doing.

By the time we walked back to our hotel,  I was exhausted from our activities and straight to bed!

R.T.
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada