A GRAND FALL ODYSSEY

Our 37-day odyssey to Bangkok, Dubai and Singapore, featuring a 21-day Regent Seven Seas cruise, reached a conclusion yesterday, with a final strenuous leg where we had to wake up at 2:30 in the morning in Singapore, catch an ANA flight to Narita, wait for 6 hours, then another ANA jet to Honolulu.  Actually, it wasn't all that bad, for the ANA lounge had shower facilities, I actually slept a few hours in a seat that reclined into a bed....and we came home to Honolulu in a pouring rain.

Woke up this morning healthy, less wealthy and wiser.  In early March we board Quantas to Sydney to catch the Seabourn Odyssey on a 53-day cruise to Honolulu.  In the meantime, I have a few pounds to lose.

So how was our trip?  First, I downloaded 1435 photos into my home computer.  And those are the ones I kept.  These photos help describe our adventure.  They are not necessarily in chronology, but more a rearrangement by activity.  Goodbye to Waikiki on Asiana.

Food and drinks were fine.  Saw five films, all recently released.

Stopped off in Incheon to change planes, and had only half an hour to do this.  Finally got to Bangkok and our hotel, the Sheraton Sukhamvit, after midnight.

Woke up feeling fine, but did not do much.  Later in the day, there was a nice arrangement of evening cocktails.  We then went next door to Rossini for an Italian meal.  Here, my truffles risotto being made in a large Parmesan bowl.

Spent a couple of days doing essentially nothing, and got picked up by Emirates to take us to the airport.  We chose to try First Class.

On boarding the flight to Dubai, the server of an introductory champagne poured what I recall was an expensive bottle, but apologized, saying the Dom Perignon would come with the initial caviar.

Very special plane, for it had two showers and full bar service.

We took two tours in Dubai.  One started at the largest mall in the world with the tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

You can read about how high we went.  Also at this mall was an aquarium with a fearsome fish.  Note the size of the lady relative to this prehistoric monster.

 In Dubai, the Jumeirah Tower hotel was next to the the Museum of the Future.

Finally we boarded the Regent Seven Seas Explorer, and was served champagne.  Note in the skyline the Burj Khalifa.

The Explorer is a floating palace.

There were caviar breakfasts, fancy lunches, special lunches and fancier dinners.  The first three meals shown below are lunches/breakfast, while we had escargot for dinner several times.

With beer and wine, my entire lunch this day was a kind of hot dog, with a slice of pepperoni.  I thought I was gaining weight.  Then I realized what I was doing, and began eating whatever I wanted, including rice, potato and breads.

The two individuals are new friends we met, Paige and Greg from Waimanalo.  He once worked at the University of Hawaii.  This hamburger I had on my lanai, which was not used much because the weather temperature throughout the trip was too hot.  Sette Mari was an Italian restaurant with no reservations, so it was harder to get in.  Chartreuse (French), Prime 7 (steakhouse) and Pacific Rim (Asian) required reservations, plus they all were now then open for lunch.  All of them were excellent, but after a while, one can get tired of extravagance.

I did a lot of deck walking.  Well, maybe I should have done a lot more.

Here are various street scenes from cities on the cruise.

I saw a lifetime worth of mosques, many of them were incredibly beautiful inside, plus several Hindu temples, all very colorful.

You can't stroll into mosques wearing shorts and a tee-shirt.  Women especially need to cover a lot of their body.  There are rentals at entrance.

Saw all kinds of animals.

There were pigeons everywhere.  I'm next to an oryx, the national animal of Jordan, Oman, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. 

In Singapore a must stop is the Garden by the Bay.

Also took a river cruise and ended the day at the Marina Bay Sands for a drink.

Went to the Singapore Botanical Gardens.

Moved from the Fairmont hotel to the Mariott at Tang Plaza, which is a wonderful hotel ideally located right at the center of those Christmas lights.

Finally moved to the Crowne Plaza located at Changi Airport.  I would highly recommend you also do this because you're learn how to use the Sky Train to get to your terminal.  The system also takes you to Jewel.

Had lunch just where those waters fell.

Next day, woke up at 2:30AM for our early morning flight.

Spent six hours in the ANA Lounge, then boarded an Airbus 380 to Honolulu.

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