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Our goto way of checking out a Metropolitan city is to do the hop on and hop off bus.. Easy to get an overview of the city… And the double decker bus here has a glass top instead of open top..

New Zealands called themselves Kiwis… I thought they are talking about the fruit (for those in the know, yes, that is how ignorant I am)…. Turns out it is a flightless bird native to NZ… Lol

Auckland is very multi cultural with huge Asian community, so all over town there are sushi shops and Chinese restaurants with mandarin store signs… For a few moments we thought we were in San Francisco

So we picked a Indonesian restaurant for lunch and ordered Mee goreng, satay and gado gado…. My Singaporean friend knew what they are…

Thank you Auckland for giving us such a beautiful day and weather ! Warm sun, light breeze… We heard southern California is suffering from torrential rain and storm right now… Take care every one back home 😘

Can’t wait to explore Auckland….

The ship is super rocky today….very challenging to dance zumba on deck and also very challenging to perform ukelele on stage….. Yes it’s our turn to show everyone what we have been learning on sea days…… Hula dancers and ukelele players get together and put on a performance…. Super fun and builds up a lot of comradity 🙌🙌🙌, we were told if we don’t quite know what we are doing, just smile and fake strumming 😆

After learning some of the Hawaiian songs, one of them is very familiar to us since we were little, but in mandarin… I did not know 珍重再見was a Hawaiian song written by a Hawaiian princess who later became queen…. Love the Hawaiian, Polynesian culture, so relaxing and calming…. like the sea breeze, like the wave

Speaking of Princess, The Princess ship we are on is Island Princess….. An older ship of Princess but most importantly, one of the two smaller ships that are small enough and more suitable to cross the Panama canal. (crossing on 4/29)

Heres today’s sunset…… completely different from yesterday’s… “And I think to myself, What a wonderful world…”

Calm sea today…. At one point the sea water outside seemed like lake water…. Glassy, rounded edge and soft…they called it doldrums… The “doldrums” is a popular nautical term that refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters.

Our bulletin board wall has grown into this…

Front row seat to another spectacular sunset

Arriving in Suva Fiji today…… Bula is Hello in Fiji and it also means life!

Taro, coconut and breadfruit are major produce here in Fiji

We took a motorized long boat for 35 mins up navua river to visit a beautiful water fall

And then experienced the kava ceremony performed by the villagers

And then taste the lunch the villagers cooked for us….. Its yummy

Lovely village that offers us all these wonderful experiences and activities

Many fijians waves at you whenever our bus went by…. Fijians are super friendly people and we love the sulus (mens kilt like garment)….

……. Sea days could be very relaxing….but too many of it could be a challenge if you start repeating yourself in activities without being aware and then felt bored by it

The exciting thing today is we earned $250 onboard credit by attending a princess cruise tips and tricks session… One of the tips mentioned that if you owned carnival stocks（parent company of Princess) and showed proof, you can get onboard credit of $250…..we knew about this in 2022, bought 110 shares and took advantage of this promotion for two cruises since then and thought the offer expired last summer… Apparently it did not…and still going on…. Woohoo!! … That 110 shares of carnival stocks not only double in price but also earned us a total of $750 onboard credits….. Thank you CCL 🤩

5th sea day of 6th….not as hot and humid as the last couple of days as we are sailing away from the equator… But still feels lazy…. Time for happy hour at one of the lounges…. Whiskey sour is only $10, ipa beer is only $7.50…and a wise quote from Hemingway at the front of menu just cracks me up….. Cheers Papa 🥂

Heres another fun door decor that we enjoyed

Poolside Zumba on sea days kept me sane…

I guess we should do some reporting on the meals that we are having…. There are many choices, varieties and styles…. Buffet, formal sit down, room service, your own balcony… Etc.. all these are free unless you want to go for specialty dinning …. Basically eating on a ship is an exercise of your power at self restrain…..we tried to avoid meat (unless they look really yummy 🤔) and go for seafood and vegetables… There’s always green juice during breakfast and lunch at the buffet, plenty of vegetable dishes, salads and fruits… Much more healthier choices than at home…. Lol… Here are some pics…deciding what to eat and how to eat is a challenge….. Luckily we bought some instant noodles in Honolulu and get to have a taste of home 😜

After all that speculation and chatter, they finally make an announcement of a major route change in lieu of the escalating situation at the Suez canal and middle east…we are no longer going to Asia or Middle East, but we are going to South Africa, western Africa, and loop back to western Europe and the Mediterranean via Strait of Gibraltar …. We are quite ok with this route change and applaud Princess for still keeping the Mediterranean part of the cruise which we care most! Here are the details of the changes from 2/16 till 4/15…others remain the same

So we keep turning our clock back one hour during the voyage and on the 4th time of backing, we backed into the future and lost 1/29/24…. But, we gain two certificates… Hooray!!! People who crossed the equator are called shellbacks… And people who crossed the equator and the international date line are called golden shellbacks…. We can now tell people we are golden shellbacks, woohoo 😄🙌🙌。Thank you Captain Cataldi and crews of Princess cruise 🙏🙏🙏