Sea Day

Today was a sea day as we sail towards Kanazawa, our port tomorrow. While Angie caught up on some work, I went to the gym. It was packed today with a full house for both the spin class and the stretch/yoga class. I was doing neither and spent my time on the elliptical and free weights. Afterwards we had a light breakfast at the buffet. Asian noodles with fried eggs for me!! Angie had an open faced salami sandwich. After breakfast we headed to the Crow's Nest on deck 10 and played a few games. They have a huge selection of board games. A few rounds of Connect Four were played. 

Angie had the edge by winning two out of three. I then found a dice game I had never heard of called Farkle. 

It is similar to Yahtzee except you have to bank points after each roll. And then you can decide to roll again. But if you Farkle - meaning you can't bank any of the dice into points - you lose all points for that round. The first player to 10,000 points is the winner. Angie won handily in the first game. I came close in the second, but Farkled too many times as I attempted to catch up.   

At 1PM I attended a Japanese beer tasting. It was four beers I had never tried so I added them to my Untappd. 

 They were technically malt beverages since they didn't have the amount of malted grains to qualify as beer. These had a higher amount of rice. My favorite was the Asahi Dark. It had a lightly roasted flavor with hints of chocolate and coffee. Not sure I would order any of them again but I am glad I tried them. After the tasting, I spent some more time at the Crow's Nest while Angie got ready for her spa appointment. Then at 3PM I went to afternoon tea in the main dining room. I sat at a shared table with a couple from Canada and another from the UK. You can always talk with anyone about travel!! Unlike other afternoon teas I have attended on other ships, they didn't let you pick your tea. They came with a metal pitcher and poured your pre-brewed tea. It was okay but would have been better if they let you brew your own. The snacks were very good. 

Especially the pistachio macarons and the chocolate cupcake with bruleed marshmallow. The egg salad sandwich was also pretty good, but nothing close to a Lawson's egg salad.    

Angie was still at her spa appointment so I spent more time at the Crow's Nest until it was time to head to the cabin and get ready for another "dressy" night. We headed to the Pinnacle Bar which was very busy. The Pinnacle Grill is the steak and seafood specialty restaurant onboard and they had a full compliment of covers. The bar was slammed!! But we did get our favorite seats right at the bar. It was then time for dinner. We both had the escargot which was some of the best we have had. 

I ordered the pineapple shrimp cocktail which was tasty. Very similar to the Shrimp Louis I had on the first dressy night but this time with - wait for it - pineapple chunks. Angie has the Pork Tataki. We thought this was going to be pork and onion on skewers similar to what we are the night before. Instead it was small slices of pork with a small salad. Tasty, but not what we expected. And we both ordered the beef tenderloin as our main.

 It was as described - tender. The carrots were al dente and seasoned perfectly. The potato crisp was a great addition for some texture. The asparagus spears were a complete failure. Probably the most expensive vegetable on the plate and they obliterated them. Completely tough and inedible. It's a shame since there were baby asparagus and just needed a few seconds to cook. No dessert tonight.  

After dinner we listened to the 3rd Avenue West jazz trio in Ocean Bar in Deck 3. They had some potential but needed to play more together as a collective band. They were each giving individual performances that didn't work for me. A jazz band needs to really work together more than any other type of band. Play the music organically. It was a little too staged, especially as I watched the guitar player stare at his iPad as he read the sheet music.  

After a few songs we headed back to the cabin. We have a ship excursion tomorrow where we will see a garden and then spend some time in an open air market. We'll hope for some good weather.