Today is the last day of cruising for 2/3 of those on board. Tomorrow we dock in Hong Kong which makes that sort of your bog standard turnover day. It will also be an extremely short turnover – as we can’t get off till 0900 and have to be back on ship by 1600.
Meanwhile – it is Veteran’s Day. From what several of us can tell, there are no American staff members in the current crew. Nevertheless, today’s short ceremony at 11:11 was American orientated. I met several other veteran’s in the crowd, a couple from the Viet Nam era. There was a short ?annoucement? about the history of Remembrance Day, the raising of both the ship’s flag and the US flag after the minute of silence.
I thought back to the ceremony I experienced in Australia in 2013 while doing the circumnavigation on the Radiance. (the link to that post is here). Not only did it have meaning but it much more truly reflected the many countries and peoples that were affected by WWI. We have long since buried all of those served then; it is still so important not to forget.
I thought of you. There was a lovely, quiet moment in the memorial park which surrounds the library. What was really good was to see almost all the students there (studying for end of year exams) come out and just quietly stand there for the moment of silence before going back in. We had places marred with protests about the current major conflict but not here and I am grateful for that.