Day 9--26-DEC--Indonesia

As were not to dock until about 3PM, we had a lot of time in the morning and afternoon.  And actually, in the late afternoon.  We went to Mass at 8, breakfast buffet, then Trivia at 9:30.  Then we went to another presentation by the movie guy (he teaches film studies at some university).  It was pretty interesting, as he talked about camera angles, shots, and cuts for the movie Year of Living Dangerously, which was “homework” before the talk, being shown on the cruise ship movie channel. 

Poor "Oscar" is not having a good day!

On the way to lunch, we heard over the PA “Oscar Port Side!” three times.  Then, almost as an afterthought, “This is drill.”  Well, we walked out on the left (port) side, and saw some crew members readying to lower the life boat, and there in the distance was a floating “body”.  Oscar (as we named him) was face down and overboard.  We watched them finally retrieve poor Oscar, and unceremoniously drag him into their boat.  It was kind of funny.

No hurry.  Oscar has been face down about 5 minutes.  He's a goner!!

Theresa likes Pina Coladas made with Amaretto!  It seems. :-)

Then we had some time, so we headed to the back of the boat, and grabbed a couple of drinks on the way to go Dialogue.  We stopped at the pool bar, where we seemed to have become known.  See, there is a list of things we can get “complimentary”, so we adopted it as a “to-do” list.  I am working my way down the list of 19 “premium” beers alphabetically.  Theresa is working through the list of 18 liqueurs, and assorted spirits.  However, she doesn’t just say “Make me a drink with xxxx”, she finds something on line that uses xxxx and asks for that.  Twice it has been something the guy in the pool bar never heard of, and had to send someone to another bar for an ingredient!  A couple of times he offered to make her something special (which we think is code for “let me pick from what I have!”).  It is rare that anyone in the bar would know us as we are usually cheap and booze is pricey.  But, a drink package changes all that!  She has now decided she likes pina colada made with Amaretto (instead of rum) and Goldschlager (of course…it has gold flakes!).

Our "Welcome Committee".

Statue to the Chinese Admiral
credited with building the
temple here in 1400.

After dinner, the ship had arranged an excursion for anyone interested (complimentary).  So, we disembarked at Semarang (City), in Central Java (State or District), on Java (Island), in Indonesia (country, obviously).  They arranged over 20 busses to take the nearly 600 of us going to the site of an ancient Chinese temple.  There was a local production for us that had some dancers, then music made with angklung, an instrument made from bamboo.  It has two bamboo tubes that can be rattled back and forth against a third.  They played a song or two, and then passed individual notes from the angklung out (one note for everybody). Editor’s Note: Bill got “2” (I presume a “D”), I got i, a high “C”. Imagine if you will, taking a bunch of 2^nd graders to a concert, then passing out harmonicas.  Yup.  60-70 year old men and women rattling this thing in every way they could to make noise DURING a show.  Children!! 

Indonesian Dancing.

The temple.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One "note" of an Angklung.

When everyone had one, the woman leading the event showed us how to hold it, and how to play it (i.e. shake it).  You might think people would have gotten that, but you’d be wrong.  Anyway, there were 8 different ones that made up an octave, and each of ours were labeled with a number from 1-7 and i.  Yes, “i”.  They had hand signs for each, so she conducted us by showing the hand sign, and all one had to do is rattle their angklung note when she gave the sign for the number of yours.  Simple.  I think most people enjoyed it, and it was a good way to involve us.  And then we could keep the angklung note.  (No idea how we get this thing home…we haven’t figured out yet!)

Back to the ship for night.  There was a snack buffet up top, which was a good excuse to get a small bite and Theresa tried the Goldschlager, and I helped myself to a glass of wine before bed! Editor’s Note: Tomorrow is a 6:45am start to Borobudur and Prambanan – we expect cool things tomorrow, so should you!