Another Sea Day - d5 of cruise

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What a difference a day on land makes to a cruise. It just seemed more fun having a sea day today, and cruising seemed so much better now. Plus all the sea sickness was a thing of the past I was practically a sailor now! Ended up having so much fun, and unfortunately apart from one single bad photo on the iphone, no photos were taken today, I was actually out enjoying myself … who would have thunked it!

Now as to the actual way the day rolled, well that’s pretty much forgotten however I will just summarize some of the main fun bits of the day I think for this one …

Art Auction

Now I had heard that these events were actually the places to be if you wanted free Champagne, actually if you are into that type of thing, these definitely are the place to be. With the art displayed on in the little photo and art gallery, we found we would just wander around and pick out paintings we liked, so were actually curious as to how this auction at sea would actually work, and if in fact anyone would actually buy anything. They had a massive display up in Cleopatra’s Needle (one of the lounge/bars) for the auction at sea.

Now I have to state from the outset, the collection of art was actually pretty darn good. They had mostly limited edition prints I guess you call them, but they had bits of paint on them and everything, so they were kind of an interesting concept of a print/painting. It was fun trying to pick which were originals over the prints. In some cases it was hard, thankfully the 1/500 was a good give away on the front of most of the prints. The artists that I remember most that they were selling onboard included Thomas Kinkade (I’ve always loved his work, and seriously to retire in one of his log cabins by a stream has been my dream ever since I have seen his work!). Romero Britto had a few pieces up for grabs. I do love his style, but I guess at the end of the day, I wouldn’t want to hang any of the pieces they had on display.

Of the two artists that I was actually tempted to purchase, I guess the fact I’m a mother really shone through. Rob Kaz, was the first artist. His work was just so cute and those big eyes, just to die for! His work can be seen at www.robkazart.com. Its really fresh and almost cartoon Disney movie like … little wonder that Disney has now picked him up, or the other way around. The paintings he had on display I believe were from his “friends along the way” collection or something similar and all featured a little frog somewhere in the painting. The artist that I have been looking for since getting home as I definitely want to end up with one of the paintings is Fabio Napoleoni www.fabionapoleoni.com. You really need to check out his work. Also a very almost theatrical style of painting, emo almost, with a stitched puppet and a heart being the two main elements in all the paintings they displayed of his.

I couldn’t leave my husband in the room for fear he would go an purchase one of the little ceramic works by Salvador Dali – that being said, I loved his little Trojan horse painting. Dare I say, he really wanted to buy one, but at something like $500 a shot, I thought those ceramic tiles could probably just stay on the boat for the time being. Anyway, enough plugging of the artists …

The Auction process – I believe the concept of free flowing champagne was to get the buyers in a happy and relaxed mood that anything goes and their wallets get forgotten, and people just bid. The auction we went to, I was surprised that quite a few prints actually did sell. One couple ended up with up to six different artworks to look forward to. They must have been drinking bucket loads! The young man running the auction, had a very European accent, which added a touch of flair to the event. He also had the speed of tongue. He reminded us all that buying art at sea is fun, it’s a way to collect a momento of the tour (albeit an expensive one), you buy art because you love it, you buy it at sea because its cheaper without all the buyers premiums (or at least a reduced rate premium to pay) blah blah blah … Having ended up I think sitting in on the start of three different auctions I got used to what he would say. As a warm up they “auctioned” off some prints that cost $50 each as a way of telling people that art was cheap. Several of these were bought. They had quite a few copies of those, so if multiple people wanted one, they could each have their own. I guess that was the real different thing with this auction. You weren’t bidding against other people. It was a case of if you want it, I will let you know what the price is, and just decide and I’ll countdown then Sold, it’s yours … No competition or up bidding or anything. Was a touch odd, but I guess in that environment the changes multiple people would want the same print would be limited, and if they did, I’m sure they have a couple of spare at their office anyway. It was however a fun way to spend some time, and he was extremely informative, and you learnt about quite a few of the artists which was really interesting. I definitely recommend sitting in on at least one auction …

Roberta’s panic/Cochin visa requirements

One thing that I don’t think anyone had expected was that before being allowed entrance into Cochin, we were to all present in the main dining room by ticketed order the following morning, to have our passports assessed and then gain clearance to enter this port. Goa wasn’t anything like this. Having received our magical number of 16, other people in the group that would do the tour with Roberta’s little gaggle received numbers like 23, so it was going to be a very very long wait. When organizing shore excursions usually you will book the tour to commence half an hour after docking, to give yourselves time to get off the ship, and then book to fill up the set amount of time before having to return to the boat. That being said, if we needed to wait til 23, we were going to be in a lot of trouble. Roberta was so cute and in such a stressed out panic over it all. In the end she went and asked at the desk considering we had the pre-booked tour, if we could change the groups numbers to 1, so we wouldn’t be late for the tour. I’m not sure if she tipped the staff or something, but we all ended up with the coveted 1 tickets, so it should all work out fine for the morning. I did feel for her though, those types of things you just didn’t know to expect!

Mind Bending Theatre

Now we must have had a kind of quick early meal in the Windjammer tonight, because my husband attended the Headliner Show twice tonight. He went to both the 7pm and 9pm show. I sat through the 7pm show. The artist was Guy Bavli. He was actually quite funny, as due to him being an Israeli, and having served in the Israel Defense Forces, as he stated his first amazing trick was getting onboard the boat in Dubai. The Dubai entry requirements are actually quite strict, as I know a lot of the Canadians had some issues and had to purchase a visa, which just floored me (I thought EVERYONE loved Canadians). Being Australian, we didn’t have any issues at all. Having had a bit of fun reading into all the strict entry requirements I did love that first joke, so I guess I was satisfied and probably could have then left the room and happily lay in bed for the rest of the night, but alas the show continued. I should ask the husband as to what tricks he performed, as I’m sure after watching it twice he would remember. The tricks I remember were a couples trick where he would have a married couple on the stage and do this little thing where they were required to have their eyes closed and he would touch the male and just hover over the female but when asked both couples stated they had been touched the same amount of times. He claimed it was their connection that made it happen, so that she felt every touch her husband received. He performed this twice, and the last time pinching the man’s butt, which then caused much amusement as she then would claim he pinched hers as well. Apparently in the second show it might not have been as smoothly performed as my husband said he saw when the guy actually did pinch the ladies butt … that being said, it was all a lot of fun.

The other main trick I remember was getting a female onto the stage and asking about her first kiss. He would then guess the location of the kiss and the name of the man that kissed her. Initially however the first kiss was given a score out of ten. The mentalist correctly guessed each point. No idea at all how it was done, but was highly entertaining none the less. Obviously so entertaining that my partner did watch it twice, but he has always loved those magic shows, but unfortunately to date, still hasn’t worked out how to make me disappear :P

So that was a dot point version of the main events of the day … just can’t believe I didn’t take a single photo, even on my mobile. Will definitely have to make sure the next cruise in February (yes another one pre-booked) for myself and daughter, that I don’t make that same mistake again.

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Photos

3D fun the night before
ok, so stumbled later across these photos from the night before. Least its something isn't it?

The solo photo find taken on the day of the blog
Guess with how shockingly lighted it is, no wonder I stated no photos were taken!