Cruiser Formerly Known As Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on Odyssey of the Seas Sailing to A Minus B Plus C Plus H Islands

[harryfat1]

18 hours ago, perfect match said:

I don’t even want to think about the reaction of our HOA if we had that artwork, or for that matter ANY artwork on our house! 😱 Wouldn’t matter what the artwork looked like or who painted it. 

Yeah, I guess if you could do it to your house, it would be an easy direction for friends visiting the first time or any delivery people: My house is the yellow house with a dancer mural.  Can’t miss it…

[harryfat1]

18 hours ago, Coralc said:

It probably cuts down on graffiti. They are gorgeous murals. HOA's are unlikely. And @harryfat1 is a fan of big butts. (on ships) <snicker>. He probably enjoys the statues. ☺️

 

The murals on the homes and buildings in Curacao are beautiful. There is a graphic artist down the hill from us, that has muraled the front of his house. I will have to take a photo.

Oh, yeah, it wouldn’t be a cheapo dad trip report without my favorite rap song.  I already have a perfect picture to go with the song later in the report.

[harryfat1]

12 hours ago, icemanoneaatl said:

Good morning- and fantastic trip report.  The A, B, C islands native language is Papiamento and “Bon Bini” means “welcome”.  So, in the sign “bon bini to our beautiful village” is a welcome message.  We only learned the little phrases after being lucky enough to visit some times.  Our favorite, “Masha Danki” or thank you very much- btw, spell check and auto correct fought me vigorously in this reply as it doesn’t like Papiamento….lol

Hi,

 

Thanks for the compliment.

 

Yeah, RaeRae explained the native language as part of the overview of the island.  I’m sure he told us the meaning of Bon Bini but my old man's fuzzy memory faded away in the humidity of the day.

 

Feel free to chime in on the rest of the walking tour as after almost 2 months since the cruise, sometimes I have to stare at a picture for 5 seconds and ask, "What was I doing to want to take this picture?"

 

[harryfat1]

As promised, I am uploading some pictures from today’s family lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant in Daly City (a neighboring city to San Francisco).  It was from my wife’s side of the family of a total of 40+ people in 4 large round tables.

 

The lunch was a mixture of traditional Chinese lunch with dim sum.  For those unaware, dim sum is a Cantonese-style lunch where you pick and choose various types of small items, similar to selecting sushi from Japanese restaurants except these are all cooked.

 

These types of restaurants are mostly seen in the big cities in the US only.  You won’t find these in the smaller towns where they served more of the Americanized lunches as a good dim sum chef/setup is not easy to do on a small scale.

 

The restaurant seats probably close to 200 people and I would say 90+ percent are Chinese speakers.  Some of the food will be weird if you have never eaten them before as this is about as authentic Chinese food as you are going to get without flying to Asia for it.

 

[harryfat1]

OK, long wait outside the place at noon as everyone else is trying to get a table

 

 

Inside the restaurant

 

 

 

Our table - 1 of 4.  The "lazy susan" in the middle turns as Chinse eats family style,  All the food is in the middle and you turn the thing in the middle to get your food.

 

In a Chinese family, you NEVER EVER lift the plate of food from the middle to serve yourself and pass it to the person next to you as Americans do - Uncle Bob, can you pass the chicken?  And Uncle Bob takes the plate of chicken and hands it to you.  If any Chinese kids do that at home, their hands would be smacked by their parents so hard they wouldn't dare to do it again.

 

Do not lift food in the middle unless it's almost done and you are the last one to get it before the waiters take it away.   Instead, turn the thing in the middle until the food is in front of you.

 

Oh, yeah, no forks.  Chopsticks only. 

 

[harryfat1]

This is the dim sum menu.  You select whatever dish you want from it by putting a number next to each picture and they will bring your order to you.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

As we were amongst the early arrivers, I had extra time to take pictures of the regular menu:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a fish soup story related to the Princess cruise that I will talk about tomorrow

 

 

 

 

Edited February 11 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

Enough talking, food picture time

 

Eggplant:

 

 

Buns with pork inside

 

 

Dumplings

 

 

The table is starting to look like this as more and more food arriving

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

I know you are thinking, dude, this is very ordinary.  What's so weird about this?

 

How about a whole bowl of chicken feet?

 

 

Beef tripe (cow stomach)

 

 

Baby Octopus and seaweed

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

A huge plate of squabs (baby pigeons less than a couple of months old)

 

 

Crab with Chinese noodles in the middle to share

 

 

Here's the squab close-up on my plate.  Yeah, it's going to be very messy eating this.  You can't be polite in Chinese meals.  Gotta get your hands dirty.

 

 

Got some noodles and Dungeness crab which is the West Coast specialty

 

[harryfat1]

How about some pig's blood cubes?

 

 

Too weird?  How about just basic stir-fried pea sprouts with garlic?

 

 

You can't go wrong with the basic dumplings here:

 

 

 

The food just keeps coming:

 

Vegetarian rice flour noodles

 

 

 

Each steamer has food inside and you can see how much food is here and more are still coming even as the food is stacked 4 high 

 

 

 

 

[Mama2CruiseBaby]

Wow, born in Toronto but now living in a smallish city in the Midwest, I really miss good dim sum. This looks so good, thanks for sharing!

[perfect match]

Harry, that food looks amazing! Though I might draw the line at the chicken feet and pig’s blood cubes! I am not at all an adventurous eater. That must have been a delicious dinner and I can see that nobody went home hungry! Thank you for sharing your New Year with us.
 

Since I couldn’t paint a beautiful mural on my house, I did pick a color that nobody else in our immediate corner of the community has on their house. Amid the multitude of gray and beige houses, ours is now a beautiful light blue with a teal front door. We just tell visitors that we’re the blue house. There’s never a problem finding us now. No mural, but I do have some colorful tropical fish and sea turtle magnets on the garage door. I’d love to have them painted all over the house but I don’t want to go looking for a fight.

[h20skibum]

3 hours ago, Mama2CruiseBaby said:

Wow, born in Toronto but now living in a smallish city in the Midwest, I really miss good dim sum. This looks so good, thanks for sharing!

When my son and daughter-in-law lived in upstate New York, we traveled to Toronto more than once for some good dim sum.  I believe Toronto’s Asian population rivals that of SF.

 

Harry, that food looks great.   I think I have tried most of those dishes.  My daughter-in-law is always saying “Dad, try this!”, and I am always open to trying new things.  I think her and I are the only ones who will eat the ‘super spicy’ dishes.

 

I spied Peking duck on one of your menus.  A favorite of mine. 

[harryfat1]

16 hours ago, Mama2CruiseBaby said:

Wow, born in Toronto but now living in a smallish city in the Midwest, I really miss good dim sum. This looks so good, thanks for sharing!

Yeah, you only get good dim sum (or any dim sum) in areas with a large Asian population.  Small towns will have Chinese restaurants where you have the basic lunch and dinner menus but not dim sums.

[harryfat1]

15 hours ago, perfect match said:

Harry, that food looks amazing! Though I might draw the line at the chicken feet and pig’s blood cubes! I am not at all an adventurous eater. That must have been a delicious dinner and I can see that nobody went home hungry! Thank you for sharing your New Year with us.
 

Since I couldn’t paint a beautiful mural on my house, I did pick a color that nobody else in our immediate corner of the community has on their house. Amid the multitude of gray and beige houses, ours is now a beautiful light blue with a teal front door. We just tell visitors that we’re the blue house. There’s never a problem finding us now. No mural, but I do have some colorful tropical fish and sea turtle magnets on the garage door. I’d love to have them painted all over the house but I don’t want to go looking for a fight.

If you have any type of murals on your house, you will stand out. 

 

People might be driving by your place from all over on weekends just to check it out. Similar to houses with massive amounts of Holiday decorations will attract visitors from all over.

[harryfat1]

13 hours ago, h20skibum said:

When my son and daughter-in-law lived in upstate New York, we traveled to Toronto more than once for some good dim sum.  I believe Toronto’s Asian population rivals that of SF.

 

Harry, that food looks great.   I think I have tried most of those dishes.  My daughter-in-law is always saying “Dad, try this!”, and I am always open to trying new things.  I think her and I are the only ones who will eat the ‘super spicy’ dishes.

 

I spied Peking duck on one of your menus.  A favorite of mine. 

Yeah, these are the more authentic Asian restaurants in the SF area but not in Chinatown itself as that's for tourists.  Locals eat in the neighborhoods away from Chinatown.

 

I'm not a foodie but many of my wife's relatives are and they ordered many of the dishes as each table has a few dishes that are the same but everyone in the table can add to the basic set.

 

Since I've been in the US for many more years than my wife's relatives, I'm much more Americanized.  I think I was the only person on all the tables who requested ice water as that's not a regular thing they will serve in a Chinese restaurant.

 

I drank tea as well as water but I want my iced water with my meals.  Most old-school Chinese won't drink ice water.

 

There's a Peking duck on the menu. Always a popular dish.

 

[Mama2CruiseBaby]

17 hours ago, h20skibum said:

When my son and daughter-in-law lived in upstate New York, we traveled to Toronto more than once for some good dim sum.  I believe Toronto’s Asian population rivals that of SF.

 

Harry, that food looks great.   I think I have tried most of those dishes.  My daughter-in-law is always saying “Dad, try this!”, and I am always open to trying new things.  I think her and I are the only ones who will eat the ‘super spicy’ dishes.

 

I spied Peking duck on one of your menus.  A favorite of mine. 

Yep, there was a large influx of Hong Kong Chinese during the 90’s into Toronto before the island was handed over to the mainland. Subsequently, there’s some terrific Cantonese food in the city. Since then, lots of southeast and south Asians have also immigrated. It’s a great diverse city full of delicious food. 

[harryfat1]

OK. Our local football team lost the Superbowl in Overtime so not feeling the happiest but we will try for a few picture uploads regardless.

 

++++++++++++++

 

Last part of the dim sum meal from yesterday before we get back to the Curacao walking tour

 

(Weird corrupted photo file)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Back to the walking tour - after our 20-minute rest break from the heat, we walked outside back to the main waterfront area to cross the bridge.

 

This is a pedestrian-only bridge and the interesting thing about it is that if any ship/boat needs to cross the channel, the bridge can "break off" and has a motor to swing it 90 degrees to let the boats cross.

 

I have seen YouTube videos where people just stood at the bridge while it swings.  You are not forced to leave the bridge so it's almost like a boat ride.

 

I was looking forward to the ride but the bridge never opened that day when we were there.  Maybe it's just after Christmas and there wasn't much marine traffic that day so it was disappointing.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Looking back at the square from the entrance of the Queen Emma bridge

 

 

 

HAL has the best spot as it's just down the street from the bridge

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

So if you look at the map. we started from the left side where I showed the beginning of the walking tour.  All the murals were from the purple section and now we crossed the bridge to get to the "punda" side of the city.  The red arrow is right after we crossed the bridge.

 

Google Maps says there's Punda Live Heart by the red arrow area.  We have a story about that after the tour

 

 

 

RaeRae working hard explaining to everyone about the Punda district

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

Honey, what's the name of the island we are on?  Oh, yeah...

 

[harryfat1]

RaeRae took us to an art store but they won't allow cameras inside so I refused to go in if they won't let me take pictures.  I will just stand outside and take pictures of the area

 

 

 

 

 

Narrow 1-lane street