Woke up at 6:30 when the breakfast came, feeling much better. I think it was just that my tummy rebelled against the champagne. I'll definitely avoid it from now on. I ate about 6 pieces of toast and cereal and prunes and about a pot of coffee and was ready to go. Nick, the Tai Chi instructor had a class at 8am so we went to that. It was excellent and we hope to get to the rest of his classes while we are on board.
Then we went to the movie theatre and had popcorn and watched "Practical Magic". It's a really nice movie theatre and Sean loves to go to the movies so that was quite a treat. Then a little lunch and after that we went to a very interesting lecture on "Challenges of the Post Cold War World" by a retired foreign service officer. He talked about all the changes that have and are taking place in various parts of the world, since 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down and the Tianammen Square incident. He pointed out areas of current unrest and the potential impacts of each. It was quite interesting and we are looking forward to his next lecture, which is "The Dragon Apparent: China, Emerging Power". I asked him what areas he thought would be most affected by Y2K and what he thought the short term ramifications of that would be for the world, but he was not familiar at all with Y2K or technology to speak of and just didn't know. I was sort of surprised by that, but so many otherwise knowledgable people just don't seem to understand computer technology or the Y2K implications. Too bad, I am really interested in hearing about that from someone who is familiar both with the potential Y2K problems and technology, and with the rest of the world.
After the lecture we went to the library and read up on some of the places we are going (they had a nice selection of Lonely Planet, Frommers and other guidebooks). We, of course, left ours at home which was a big mistake as we could have greatly used the maps in the books and the general info. Especially since we planned to do some of the cities on our own instead of with a tour. We marked some of the maps and info in the books and took them to the front desk to get a photocopy of them. While we were waiting for the copies, we went to the casino and played some quarter poker machines. I won and Sean lost. He also tried some 10 cent slots but no luck. We aren't big spenders. I won a pretty good amount though (for not spending much). Enough so we could play for the other times and eventually break even, which is our goal. We just like to have fun and get our money's worth. After we picked up the copies and returned the books, we got ready (it was informal night so we dressed up a bit) and went to dinner.
Dinner was good and they always have a vegetarian selection on the menu. They also have an excellent full separate vegetarian menu, but you have to order from it in advance for the next day and Sean didn't realize he needed to order the night before. He did order for tomorrow night and then realized we'd be in Shanghai and not at dinner. So we told the matre'd and he said he'd hold that order for the following night which will be great.
The we went dancing until the show started. We went to the show but left after about 20 minutes. It was a female jazz singer named "Smitty" who was really not very good. We didn't feel like wasting our time so we went back and danced some more. The band had a MUCH better singer. She was really good and almost did impersonations, she was so accurate in the way she sang the various songs. She should have been the show headliner. Then back to the casino where I won some and Sean lost some so we are still a little bit ahead. A little more dancing and then off to bed.
It's a busy day tomorrow as we head off on our own in Shanghai.