10/3/10 – Day 8 – The Lord’s Day

     Being Sunday, we began the day with a morning church service, lead by our ship’s Protestant chaplain.  It was nice a nice time of fellowship, worship and communion.  However, I do miss my church back home.  After the service, I went back to bed, as I was quite tired from our previous day ashore.  When I woke up, I looked out our balcony window and saw a beautiful rainbow.  This was a nice reminder of the Lord’s presence.  In the afternoon, I researched an discussed some of our plans for our upcoming ports with my folks and, of course, got in another family game of Scrabble (my mother won this time).  We have decided to do an overnight tour in Beijing, China that includes the city and the Great Wall. This should be a nice cultural immersion experience. We also booked a night tour in Shanghai, and decided to explore most of the other ports in China on our own, including a day at Disney Asia in Hong Kong. 

     This evening was our second formal night on the ship.  This meant getting dressed up in evening wear and having an extra classy dinner.  I had the “surf and turf” for dinner, which included lobster tail and filet mignon.  It was delicious.  Later in the evening was the Black and Silver Ball.  This was a time when many of the staff and officers got all dressed up and joined the guests for an evening of ballroom dancing.  It was quite a nice social gathering.