Seeing this clip today reminds me how much it sucks that Carl Sagan isn’t with us anymore. The world needs a few more Carl’s.
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Avatar is the movie you will be seeing shortly. It’s a must. But before you go, make sure you know what it is and what it is not or you may walk away dissapointed.
This movie is a children’s/teen’s movie. And it is a great one at that. Every 8 year old boy is going to love the cool air ships and military weaponry. Every girl will swoon over the simple love story at the heart of this movie. Both will adore the creatures, powerful and beautiful, vicious and tame, each with personality. Teens (and adults) will instantly notice the sexuality of the charachters. On this note in particular, while the necklaces of the female indiginous humanoids are obviously designed to cover the essential bits (barely), the director and his army of animators do not forget the laws of physics like so many do and in fact the keen eyes of male adolecents (and dirty old men) will appreciate the effects of gravity and inertia on the necklaces from time to time. The result is the most realistic animation I have ever seen.
In fact, the critters and creatures are toy marketing gold! It is without a doubt the Star Wars of the new millennium. Ground breaking visuals, simple but effective storyline and a watershed moment for movie making with endless marketing potential for everything from action figures to pyjamas.
The world Pandora is so complete and awe inspiring that if you look closely you can see the future with a couple awards, a dozen books, a hundred toys and games, a thousand inspired future artists and film
makers, a million children begging for the merchandise and a billion or so in box office receipts.
If you expect an complex, engaging story aimed at the thirty something crowd, you will be disappointed. If you look at this from the perspective as it was intended, a children’s fairytale, you will walk away wholly satisfied and impressed at the spectacle of this movie.
Our photo albumn has been updated with our trip photos. Click on the Photos link at the top of the page.
During our Caribbean cruise, the youth program had a bit of a competition. What we had to do was draw something that we wanted the glass blowers (G and Chris) to make for us kids. Everyone who wanted to draw something for the glass blowers got a page that had a part for the drawing and lines for your name, age and inspiration. Earlier in the week, in Grand Cayman, I had bought a dragonfly necklace as my souvenir. The dragonfly had a tail that was flexible, it was not just in a straight line it could move from side to side. That necklace was pretty much my inspiration. What I drew for my drawing or as I liked to call it my doodle, my drawing was of a candy dish with a dragonfly’s body on the cup part of my dish and around the stem is the dragonfly’s tail. On the top of the cup I have a dark blue lip wrap. What a lip wrap is, is a line that goes all around the top of the cup. The color of the candy dish is yellow and the color of the dragonfly’s top wings were dark blue like the lip wrap, the other set of wings were light blue and the body was purple. When I finished drawing it I had to practically run up to hand in my doodle. The youth program counselors told me that they were headed straight up to the area were they make each glass sculpture, bowl, dish, vase, cups and some other stuff I can’t remember in other words their studio on the ship. I thought that they meant that G and Chris were going to announce whose drawing they were going to make so I called Alpha and my mom saying that we had to go straight to the hot glass studio, realizing that they meant that the counselors were only going to drop off all the drawings. Not realizing that until G and Chris said that they would announce who won the contest at 3:00. I felt pretty silly after that. We returned at 2:00 when their show began and watched them make one of their pieces but it broke because it got to cold. After we had to wait for the kids in the youth program to arrive. When they did G asked if Jayne was in the audience. I was so surprised that it took me a second to realize whose name he had called, when I realized that he had called my name I felt so happy, as G turned my drawing into a candy dish.
As we’ve been to Honduras before, we decided not to book a tour but just see what the day brought. We started out by catching a cab to the West End. They do the cabs a bit differently, you can’t just catch a cab at the pier to take you where you want to go. It is a $20 per person charge, but then that cabbie stays with you for the day and takes you where ever you want to go, when ever you want to go there.
It was about a 20 minute drive to the west end, and very scenic as usual. The homes are pretty typical for the carribbean, not too much to them in a lot of cases. Lots of lush greenery to look at as well.
The West End is a neat little area, lots of different shops along one side of the street, and bars and restaurants dotting the other side, along with dive shops and other types of expeditions you can take. The road was very rough and pot holed, no pavement here. There were a few cars on the road, but I can’t imagine how rough the ride must have been.
We wandered up and down the street for a little while, picked up a couple souvenirs and then headed back to the cab to head to the beach, about a 10 minute ride. The cabbie took us to a condo resort that had a beach club attached, so for $15 per person we got lounge chairs on the beach, all the salt water we could handle and got to use the pool and facilities as well.
The snorkelling there was absolutely amazing. Just a short distance from the shore there were numerous reefs that were just teeming with fish. The three of us weren’t able to go out together as Jayne has outgrown her snorkel gear so she was using mine, but Alpha and Jayne went out for a while and then I went out afterwards. There have been very few places I’ve gone snorkelling where I’ve seen as many fish that close to the shore as I saw there. I was also talking to one of the guys working on the beach, and he said that there weren’t as many fish out as there is normally, because there were cruise ships in town so there were lots more people in the water than normal. This is one place where we might have to come back and spend a week just lazing around on the beach and snorkelling.
We spent a couple hours on the beach and then it was time to head back to the ship to make sure we were on board in lots of time.
At 4pm Jayne and I had pedicures booked, and she’s never had one before so she was quite excited about it. We got to sit together and have them done, so I was able to get a few pictures as well. Alpha watched the sail away while we were doing that.
This was our second formal night as well, and also the night of the big Cirque de Soleil style show they put on. We’ve been to two Cirque shows in Vegas, so had something to compare to and were slightly skeptical that this show would even come close to measuring up, but we were very pleasantly surprised by how good the show was. They had some acrobats hanging overhead doing tricks as the audience came in, as they do at the Cirque shows. The show itself was very good, and made even more so by the fact that it was the regular singers and dancers who were putting on the show, some of whom obviously specialize in acrobatics, and that they were doing everything on a moving ship, and the ship was moving a fair bit that night.
Three acts in particular stood out for us, one was a couple that did some amazing balancing tricks (at one point the girl was upside down balancing on the guy’s head and neck with her own) without ever seeming to lose their footing, another was a female contortionist that looked inhuman at times, the way she was pretzeling her body, and the third a juggler who used a rope and an hour glass shaped object (Alpha was really impressed with him.) Overall, it was definitely the best show of the trip.
Yesterday we were in Cozumel, and it was our 9th anniversary. Since we’ve been to Cozumel several times before, we decided to just enjoy the empty ship instead of going onto the island. Jayne wanted to get a souvenir from every port, so we went ashore for a little while and browsed the shops that were right at the pier and she got her souvenir, and then we headed back onto the ship and straight to the pool. This was the first time we’ve done this, and it was quite nice having our pick of deck chairs and almost no one else in the pool.
Later in the afternoon we had room service bring some sandwiches to our room, and we packed them and the bottle of champagne that was in our room when we boarded into our picnic basket (yes I brought it all the way here from Calgary) and headed up to the lawn to have a picnic. It was quite fun, and Alpha said he noticed at least one person snap a picture of us enjoying our little picnic on ship. People were playing bacci around us, so we had lots to look at. The ship we’ll be on next summer was actually docked right beside us, so we got to have a look at it from our ship which was kind of neat.
After our picnic Jayne headed off to have dinner with the kids, and Alpha and I got ready for dinner. We had dinner reservations in the French restaurant for our anniversary, and I have never been so stuffed in my life as I was when we rolled out of there. In addition to the four courses we actually chose off the menu, they brought us an additional “amuse bouche” to start, a selection of cheese and fruit before dessert and an extra little plate of dessert treats with our dessert.
After dinner we hooked back up with Jayne and went to the show. This time it was a magician / comedian who was pretty good, but more comedy than magic I found. Still pretty entertaining.
Thursday (today) is our last sea day, we have a massage booked at 3 and then sadly it is time to pack.
So right now I’m enjoying our sea day sitting in the sun by the pool as we sail towards Honduras where we will arrive tomorrow. Weather is about 30 degrees and a light breeze as we sail is making this just perfect. If I get too hot, a dip in the pool is just steps away. The bar is a few more steps, but they have waiters making rounds so I think I’ll order a squishy next time I see one.
Yesterday we were in Costa Rica and I think that was the best port of call so far on this trip. Certainly it was the most memorable. We started the day in a bit of a rush to get to our early morning excursion departure and had to scrimp on breakfast as room service never made it in time. We boarded our bus and off we went. There must be a high crime rate in Puerto Limon because everything had bars on it. Windows, Doors, Patios, everything. After about 15 minutes of driving down the road we turned off onto the dirt road from hell. A 12km trip from that point to our destination took about 3 hours including the 2 hours we spent waiting for a second bus as ours had slid off the road while tring to climb one of the steep muddy hills.
It was quite a scene while we were stuck. The road was barely wide enough for the bus so when we got stuck the bus was at an angle and all other traffic was stuck too. This traffic included 3 more tour busses, and after a while an ambulance. A lady up the road was in labour and ended up having to walk down the muddy road to the ambulance. Aside from that the locals seemed to understand the road conditions because the only other traffic were a few motorcycles and cows who got past without issue.
As we got into the more rural area the bars on the windows started to dissapear, and the goats and chickens started to increase. All the homes were simple and poor as is common in the Caribbean, but each had electricity and clean water to their houses. And the guide was telling us that they all get health care, even to the extent that if some of the more rural residents can call in an emergency and they send an air ambulance to collect them, no charge. So there are some good things. Everyone seemed nice and the country was just an amazing experience.
Never have I seen a “Jungle” quite like they have there. It was thick with life, everywhere. Every tree and space was covered with vines and more trees, flowers, it was awesome. We went to a rainforest exploration center and learned all sorts of things, did a walk, a canopy tram ride and saw so much life it was nuts. I spotted a poisonous frog on a leaf right next to the path we were walking on. We were constantly being checked out by dragon flys, creepy flying things, grasshoppers, etc… Giant spiders were all over, leaf cutter ants zigged and zagged across our paths. The guide pointed out some symbiotic ant-tree relationships that were taking place. It was very educational and so beautiful. There is simply no way you’d ever want to camp in the forest though!!
I have my squishy. :-)
Nancy and Jayne have left to go learn how to Rumba. I think I’m gonna just hang out here a bit longer. The sun is getting quite warm though, I may have to take a plunge soon.
Um, what else to write about?? Oh, yeah. The casino slot machines here love me. I’ve gone in to the casino every day since the cruise started and so far, I have left with more money than I went in with. Gotta love Wheel of Fortune!
What else??
I can’t think of anything else right now. I’ll post again after Honduras.
Colon, Panama
Today we were in Panama, and had a really full day. The bus picked us up at the pier, and we had about an hour (maybe a bit longer) drive to the spot where we jumped on tour boats for the first part of our day, an ecological tour. We had two tour guides who chatted for the whole trip, filling us in on the area, some plant and animal life, a bit about the economy and way of life, etc.
Part of the trip was through fairly thick jungle areas, so while one tour guide was talking, the other would be watching the trees for any wildlife to point out. They stopped the bus a couple times to let us jump out and take pictures, once for a sloth (which unfortunately none of the three of us were even able to spot) and once for a monkey.
Once we got to the tour boat area we had to put on slightly sour smelling life jackets, and got settled in the boats for our eco-tour. I had an older lady sitting next to me who had just bought her camera the day yesterday, and she didn’t even know how to turn it on, so I had to show her how to operate her camera so she could get some pictures. Our camera somehow got jammed and quit working, so we only got a few pictures at the beginning of the trip and none for the rest of the day. (I ran out and bought a new camera after dinner, so we have one for tomorrow, good thing they sell them on the ship.)
We didn’t see a ton of wildlife on the tour, but we did see a few iguanas, and one rather brave little monkey who came right onto the boat to grab a banana from the tour guide.
The boats took us to the next part of our tour, the Emberra Indian village (not sure I spelled that correctly). Getting there was rather interesting, as we came to one part of the lake with large wood pieces (looked like 8×8 posts) strung across joined by chains. We were sitting there wondering how the boat was going to get through as there was no way around, when they started taking the boats right over top of the wood. They had to gun the motor a little, and then make sure they got the motor raised up out of the way quickly enough so it didn’t get caught.
When we got to the Indian village, some of the village people were waiting on the dock for us, with music playing. They took us to a large hut with benches on one side, and tables with their handicrafts laid out on the other side. They started off by having one of the women talk about their dress, their crafts, etc. which the guide interpreted. The Indians have their own native dialect, and the younger generations learn Spanish in school as well. It was also apparent that some of them knew a little English at least.
The village we visited had 31 members, and a young woman (30 years old) was the chief. They elect their chief by having the contenders stand on opposide sides, and the villagers stand behind which ever person they want to vote for. Whoever has the most people standing behind them is the new chief.
The people are quite small, both male and female adults were no more than about 5′ tall. The men wore loincloths, and the women wore little wrap-around skirts and halter tops. Alpha read on Cruise Critic that the women sometimes are topless, so we’re thinking perhaps the cruise lines sometimes ask them to cover up a little more so as to not shock us conservative North Americans. (personally, with the heat and the humidity, I think it makes a lot more sense to dress the way they do)
After the talks, they demonstrated a few dances for us, and then most of the villagers picked partners from the tour group and we got to dance with them as well which was fun. My partner was a little boy about 7 or 8 years old. Once the dancing was done we had some time to browse the handicrafts and buy souvenirs and then headed back to the boats.
The children escorted us back the boats by holding our hands which was quite cute.
After our boat trip back to the dock we got back on the bus and drove to the Gutan Locks, the largest set of locks on the Panama Canal. We were in luck as there was a ship coming through the lock just as we arrived, so we got to see it being lowered down to the next level. I’ve seen smaller locks in operation before, but never anything on this scale (it was a huge freighter going through) or as close as we were. It was also quite amusing to see the crew on the freighter standing out on deck with their cameras, taking pictures of us as they went past.
We spent a half hour or so at the locks, and then it was back onto the bus for the ride back to the ship. Our evening was pretty low key, Jayne and I ended up napping again and then we just had dinner at the buffet and came back to the room to try and get caught up on some of the sleep we’ve been missing. Jayne and Alpha are sawing logs as I type this, and hopefully I will be soon as well.
Tomorrow we have another full day in Costa Rica.
Cartegena, Columbia
My main impression of Columbia is that it’s really stinkin’ hot.
Cartegena has an old city which is behind a wall and a new city which is your typical high rise buildings, although many of them are either under construction or semi-abandoned. We took a walking tour of the old city, which has a lot of history, always the part I like best.
We got off the ship just before 9am, got our requisite photo, with a sailor this time, were told we needed to get on bus #29 and got to the bus just in time to see it pull away, even though we were about 20 minutes. After a few minutes of mild panic we figured out there was another bus for our tour, so all was good. Our tour guide’s name was Javier.
The old city is built in the colonial style, so lots of pastel yellow and pink buildings. We saw a couple old churches as well, and went inside one of them. It wasn’t a typical church like we’ve seen before, the inside was kind of a salmon – peach color with a blue ceiling, lots of arches and a lot of gravestones on the floor.
It is school holidays for the children right now, so there were some children around. The government in Columbia puts schools in all the areas but attendance is not mandatory, so it is up to the parents to send their children. If they don’t bother, the children don’t get an education.
Cartegena was a center for slave trade back in the day, and the tour took us to the tour where the buying and selling took place. It was a bit of an eerie feeling for me to know that I was standing in the spot where people were once bought and sold like animals. We also saw the Inquisition Palace (I believe that’s what the guide called it) where the Roman Catholic church handed out their punishments for not believing in the Catholic religion; in many cases the punishment was death.
At the end of the tour we were taken to The Dungeons, which was once a jail, but is now a shopping area, we picked up a few souvenirs there. The unemployment rate is fairly high in Cartegena, and there is no government assistance, so there are a lot of people peddling their wares in the streets, and they can be quite aggressive. During the tour, our tour guide asked us not to stop to look at what they were selling, because once you stop to talk to them, they don’t let you leave and he wanted to make sure we stuck to our schedule and no one got separated from the group.
Our last stop on the tour was at a large fort (which took 100 years to build) and we had some time to wander and take pictures then get back on the bus. I had been wanting to get a pair of flip flops, and Alpha noticed that one of the women outside was selling flip flops. I went to have a look and find out how much they were, and she said $7 which seemed pretty reasonable, so I tried to tell her I had to get back on the bus to get some money and then I would be back. She apparently thought I was walking away, so she said “ok $5.” So I got my flip flops for $5 without even trying to bargain!
We spent the rest of the afternoon on the ship as there wasn’t really anything close enough to the ship to walk to, and after our morning of walking and sweating in the heat and humidity, the pool sounded pretty good to all of us.
We also took in another hot glass show, which we’ve really been enjoying, and got to see Jayne’s finished piece out on display. They also asked us to come back during the day so they can get a picture of the glass makers with Jayne and the piece she designed.
We have just finished our day in Cartegena (pronounced Cartehena). Holy freaking hot. 32 degrees at least and the sun is very high in the sky. What struck me most upon entering the harbour was the city, tons of tall condos, it reminded me a lot of Vancouver except, many of the 30 storey buildings looked half finished or abandoned. The guide later told me that they were under construction, but it sure looked different than any construction I have ever seen before. There were a lot of vendors trying to sell stuff to us as we walked around with our tour but they were far less agressive than what we’ve experienced in other ports.
There is a mix of money and poverty here, but for the most part it appeared to be a typical caribbean city only larger than we’re used to. It is about the same population as Calgary. It is the children’s “summer break” here, now out of school for two months so there were lots of kids around.
Did I mention how hot it was? Damn it’s hot.
It’s crazy too because the locals are all running around in jeans and shirts and appear to be as comfortable as we would on a 20 degree day. The tourists were easily spotted by their shorts, summer shirts and red, sweaty faces.
Nancy and Jayne are napping right now as I woke them up early today to watch us come into port which was very interesting. The local villages and hotels along the harbour on the way in were just funky to see, sort of like a rural fishing village vibe. This ship is one of the largest that comes here and is the first time this particular ship has been here so there were as many people watching us as we were them.
Jayne’s drawing that I told you about yesterday was the one they chose to make and it was just wicked. I’ll save the details for her to post.
It’s so hot. This is fry eggs on sidewalks hot.
We are docked in the shipping port and when we got here there were two container ships, but they are now gone. I wish there were here so I had something cool to watch as I sit on the balcony. All I see is the occasional truck or forklift drive by. In about a half our I’ll get to watch the late people running to make the ship before it leaves.. That’s always fun.
Then it’s off to Panama. We decided against taking the malaria medicine so we’ll have to do the bug spray thing.
It’s too hot to write. signing off for now.
We are now at N. 13 degrees 59.39 minutes by W 077 degrees 53.59 minutes. (middle of the Caribbean) enroute to Cartegena Columbia.
Our day in Grand Cayman yesterday was interesting. First, due to a glitch in the room service ordering thing, we were woken up by a phone call at 7:30 asking what time we wanted our breakfast delivered. We had requested 9:30. When it did arrive, we discovered that when you order 1 egg, it actually means 1 “order of eggs”, so our 3 eggs ended up being 6 eggs. In similar fashion we ended up with about 5 times as much food as we had intended, except that inexplicably our bread orders were missing. Live and learn.
We hustled out to catch our tender to shore around 10ish and just as they were removing the gang plank to get underway we realized we left our excursion tickets in the cabin so when we got to shore, Jayne and I alighted while Nancy returned to the ship to gather the tickets and return just a few minutes prior to our excursion time. Bottom line was that our intended shopping time vanished.
We did however make our “Discover Scuba” excursion on time and Jayne managed it like a pro! We saw all kinds of funky fish and had a great time. I did struggle with my ears as I often do when diving and have now decided that I will likely not dive anymore. It appears that Jayne may want to take the certification course so Nancy will be able to dive with Jayne in addition to our other certified diver friends who sometimes travel with us. I will resign myself to hang out and instead drink squishies by the pool or simply snorkle.
We enjoyed watching the glass blowing demonstration today. The kids programs have a segment called “you draw, we make” where the kids draw an object they would like the glass blowers to make. The glass blowers pick one design from all the entries and make it. The kid who’s drawing they choose gets to keep the finished product. Jayne drew an entry and we go back in a couple hours to see if they pick it. (will update on results).
Tomorrow in Cartegena we will be taking a walking tour of the old historic city. I hear it is very beautiful. The day after that we’re in Panama, and then Costa Rica the day after that. We will have lots of pictures I’m sure, but will not likely upload them until we return. Watch here for details every few days, and when we return, for all the photos.