Again with the SHM?

The SHM showed up again.  He seems to be visiting my home much to frequently. I wondered if my hooman knows of his intrusions.  At least he was fast and cleaned my bathroom.  Perhaps my hooman has hired him to clean.

It has been almost a week without my hooman.  My fur is shedding everywhere.  I need to be brushed and yet she does not answer my calls.  I have her trained so well now to answer when I call her.  It took a long time, but now she knows when I want to play, when my food needs to be refilled and when I want my fur brushed.  I am so sad.  I need her touch.  At least her bed still smells like her.  I lay there daily in hopes she will return soon.

Strange Hooman male arrived again

The beeping from the past few days has been driving me crazy.  It is high on the ceiling coming from the white object.  There was something wrong with the power too.  My water usually trickles down enticingly in my fountain bowl.  Tonight, for a while, everything went silent.  Even the high pitch whine of my hooman's toys went silent.  All lights went out.

When all my hooman's toys came back to life and my water fountain worked again, the SHM showed up.  Since he usually comes during daylight, this surprised me.  I followed our safety protocol and ran.  He grunted a lot and moved things around.  When he was done, that noisy chirping was gone.  At least he is good for something!

Time for my nightly pounce and wrestle with mother.

Day four of missing hooman

My hooman is still missing.  She has been gone before this long so I'm not worried yet.  The strange hooman male (SHM) showed up again.  He cleaned my bathroom again as well as messed with water and food.  Mother watched the hooman exclaimed excitedly outside our window. 

After SHM left, we both crept to the big window and looked down.  How odd.  There is a large brown creature with a yellow protruding mouth and no fur.  It has no legs or paws that I can see.  It is covered in the material I love to chase on my stick.  My hooman calls it feathers.  This creature has many.  I wondered what it would do if I pounced on it.  It moved when Mother tried to get out again.  She smacked against the window and the creature extended something odd from it's body and two little yellow/orange stick like legs moved it away from white oval objects.  I saw seven of those oval objects.  I wonder if they would have been good to bat around like my little ball. 

I hope my hooman comes home soon.  I need to my fur brushed.

It's the strange hooman again

My hooman is missing.  Have you seen her?  Today, the strange male hooman who comes over randomly finally cleaned my bathroom.  I ran when I smelled him.  I found the perfect hiding place.  I heard him mess with both my food and water.  Will investigate once he leaves.  Heard a beep and will seek it out later.

Strange male hooman is gone.  Food and water still looks okay.  I smell no poison.  My mother confirmed.  Day two of missing hoomans.  Hope they return soon.

Seattle Wine Touring 2011

We signed up for the wine tour again.  It was good and we purchased more wine to bring home.  We went to most of the same wineries and a few new ones.  Chateau St. Michelle was good as before.  The other places had some good wine and this time, we just purchased by the glass what we wanted.  That was more fun and to our speed.

In Pioneer Square, here's some pictures of fun stuff and our two most expensive stores.

Seattle 2011 Tour completed

We decided to go to Seattle again because we weren't able to fully see everything we wanted last year.  This was a quick trip as I'm still Gold status on Delta.  We put the trip together quickly.  We were lucky with good weather.  We walked all over and were able to see the sites we weren't able to last time.  Here are some of the places was went to ~ Sculpture park, downtown, Pike's Market, Chinatown and Pioneer Square.  We also really wanted to give Brian a chance to be fitted at the Utilikilt store.  We went a couple of times and purchased two more kilts.  It was great.  Next door was a great store where I purchased my first corset.  Awesome!

Antigua 2011 Daily routine

I've found that for vacations, I tend to wake up at the crack of dawn.  I'd be up at 7 AM.  It's odd.  Then I realized w/o TV or internet, I'd be in bed early and sleeping at around 9 PM.  This vacation was no exception.  I enjoyed every morning a fresh breakfast at 7 AM and headed off to the lovely beach.  The beach was awesome, especially with our floaties to relax on.

Around noon, I'd head off to lunch and avoid the hot hot sun.  Afternoon, I'd happily by the private pool by our room and enjoy my books.  I read over 40 books which is was awesome.  This vacation was relaxing and fun.  I was able to connect with Brian again, just the two of us.  I love our vacations together.

Christmas 2010 with the family

This year, we went to Naples, Florida.  Brian and I had been hoping it would be really warm in Florida since it is in the South.  Well, we were wrong.  They had a freak freezing below average Christmas.  The windows were all frosted with NO ice scraper.  The airboat ride was so cold.  This is the fourth vacation in a row that we have had unseasonably cold weather.

It all started in Dominican Republic.  The first day was too hot for me and I asked for just a few days of cool weather for me to adjust.  The weather dropped 20 degrees, the humidity disappeard and it rained for 5 days.  Then in Galapagos, I was afraid of overheating in my thick wetsuit so I hoped it wouldn't be too hot.  The water was unseasonably cool in the mid 60s and lower.  There wasn't a single sunny day to heat our black wetsuits.  In Seattle I thought, I want to go snow showing in the mountains.  I didn't expect us to have a freak blizzard accumulating inches in snow that stopped traffic for over 5 hours.  So... this last trip this year, I thought, what could go wrong?  It can't be that cold in Florida.  WRONG!  I'm starting to think I bring a chill with me everywhere I go.

Moon Palace Casino Day Sixteen - Going home!

Well, we are heading home.  We woke up early to eat breakfast at 7 AM at the Marina Grill.  Chicken wings for breakfast.  Mmmmm.  We spent about 2 hours at the pool this morning.  It was hot with no breeze.  By 9:30 we came back up to the room, washed off and finished packing our last items.  We are ready to head home.

Magazine count

1 PM (September 2008)

Moon Palace Casino Day Fourteen and Fifteen - Last 2 days!

Saturday and Sunday went by in a blur.  We returned to the Marina Grill for breakfast.  Eh.  We did use our rafts again for the lazy pool and the regular pool.  We saw several people eying them with envy.  We also met an older couple, Linda and Jack Rubin from Vegas.  They are black banded VIP members.  Their experience at the resort was a series of very unfortunate events.  Just goes to show, the hotel is very inconsistent.  I felt badly for them.

I went to the spa two last times.  I was sad.  :(  If it was still free, on Monday, I'd squeeze one last one in. :) But alas, it now costs money.  We spent the last two days in the sun as much as we could.  We spent roughly 6 hours each day in the sun.  Every morning one of us woke up to see if we could catch the green flash.  No luck.  The clouds caused it not to occur.  Boo.

Dinner 
Dinner on Saturday night was at the Lucca for Spanish.  There was no tapas.  The food was decent.  The white fish in green sauce was my favourite.  I also ate several of the stone crab claws.  Angel the waiter from the breakfast somehow found guava juice for me.  Brian tried the lamb which was dry.  I agreed.  He also went for the white wine - some kind of chardonnay.  It was dry and ugh so nasty.

Dinner on Sunday was back at Spaggo.  NO salad bar!  It is because there were not enough people at the resort.  I was not happy.  I ordered too many appetizers and couldn't finish my main meal.  Brian ate two dinners - lasagna and rib eye.  Ugh.  I had caramel ice cream from the ice cream shoppe for dessert.  We also had some decent champagne for dinner.

Drink count
Saturday
Brian

• 3 Presidente with lime
• glass of white wine

Dorothy

• 1 red wanda

Magazine count
1 PM (June 2009)

Sunday
Brian

• 4 Presidente with lime
• Several glasses of champagne

Dorothy

• 1 caipirina
• 1 fuzzy navel
• several glasses of champagne

Magazine count
2 PM (March 2009, December 2009)

Moon Palace Casino Day Thirteen - two more full days

Breakfast at Lucca
The day started well at Lucca with all the juices.  I had guava, watermelon and mango.  The guava was a bit thinned out by water.  Watermelon was oh so sweet.  Mango was so thick it needed to be chewed.  The food sucked.  But that's okay.  Liquid diet is tasty.

I decided to start off the day at the spa.  It was crowded in the morning.  I was surprised.  Today is number 10 for spa.  So now I have spent the equivalent of $580 for the spa.  Except, that it has been free for me.  I'm going one more time on Saturday.  Sunday, I have a massage due to a $75 gift certificate from another vacationer, Bella.  She was so nice!  So the massage will only cost me $44.  I get to use the hydrotherapy for free again.  Too bad I can't apply it to Monday.  Sunday is the last day that the hydrotherapy is for free.  Brian says that it is my fault.  They saw that I went there 11 days and cost them too much money. So no more free hydrotherapy spa.  It probably didn't help that I told every woman I met that it was free. :)

We spent the entire day outside as much as we could.  It was mucho caliente today.  We spent a bit of the morning by the beach.  I frolicked in the waves.  Or better known as pushed around by the waves.  We spent the day pool hopping.  We ended up going to four different pools after the beach.  The main pool by our room was a bit warmer today.  It is amazing how 2 days of sun will warm a pool that was around 66 degrees to now about 82 degrees.  The water was too warm for me to swim in.  After 200 M, I was sweating.  I did turn darker today.  I think I burned a little too.  I can get several shades darker but I don't know if that will happen.  We lost too many days of sunshine when it rained 4 days consecutively.  Brian says I'm also starting to peel.  Yuck.

I found a new drink I like.  Red Wanda with rum instead of vodka.  Although, after the first drink I felt it so I had to stop.  I'm a light weight.  I did go by the hammock pool to get bread for the ducks and fishes.  Anna saw me and said Hola!  I gave her a dirty look and didn't respond.  Then I saw Ramon and said, "Hola Ramon! Buenos Dias!  Como esta?"  I hope that got the point to her that I was pissed at her.  She treated Brian poorly and I have no problems treating her like shit.  No one messes with my hubby.

Dinner was at Prime Grill again.  They clapped for us.  Brian tried to avoid it.  He only ended up getting the clap from 9 guys.  Giggle.  I ended up ordering the lamb chops again.  This is the 3rd time.  Each time they say there are only going to be 4 pieces.  The first and second time I received 5 pieces.  This time, I received 6.  What the hell?  Are they trying to fatten me up?  And these chops aren't small either.  I only ate 3.  Brian made me promise not to offer for them to take home the left overs.  I feel bad throwing out good food.  And there are no kitties here to feed the food to!  I thought it might be fun to take the food and throw it out the window of the van on the way to the airport where there are stray and very hungry looking dogs.  I feel bad for hungry strays.  I don't give a damn about the humans, just the animals.  Brian vetoed that idea.  Sigh.

Brian's filet mignon was very tasty.  He said it melted in his mouth.  He offered me a piece but I've finally learned that I don't like steak.  So why bother?  The only steak I eat is prime rib which I was told isn't really a steak.

I ended the evening learning about a complete SNAFU at work.  I ended up doing a bit of work because that's the way I am.  Sent out a few emails and hopefully when I return to work on Tuesday, things will have settled.

Drink count
Brian

• 1 Caipirina
• 1 Red Wanda
• 4 Presidentes

Dorothy

• 1 Red Wanda
• 1 Fuzzy Navel

Magazine count
1 PMI (Oct 2008)

Moon Palace Casino Day Twelve - Thursday!

Breakfast
Returned to Lucca for my guava juice.  We specifically asked to be serviced by Angel.  Instead we got Speedy Gonzales. Brian says his name is Hugo.  Whatever, the guy didn't have a name tag and felt that his job was to teach us Spanish.  He was so annoying I wanted to slap him upside the head.  I'm not a morning person and he didn't help.  I just wanted to shove a ball gag in his mouth so that he would STOP TALKING!  It took forever for me to explain I wanted to speak with Angel to get my Guava juice.  He thought Angel was a juice.  I had to restrain myself from just shoving him away from me and going to search for Angel.  Finally I ignored the guy on speed and went to get my food.  When I saw the Guava, I grabbed a plate full and was about to take it to the juice bar.  Angel found me and quickly took the plate from me.  He explained that he already put the guava juice order in for me.  Thank God for Angel.

Brian ended up leaving 2 dollars as a tip for Hugo.  I just wanted Hugo to go away.

Swimming
I tried to go to the 50 M pool again.  It was clean on the side that was dirty.  The far end which was clean had big bugs.  I couldn't take it.  I left.  We went to one of the main pools by our room which was pretty wide.  It looked closed to 50 M.  Based upon the times for my lap, I think it was 50 M.  I completed SKIP w/o a warm up.  The first 400 Swim was horrible.  I thought, I guess I won't be swimming long today.  Finally I made it through the first 400.  Everything after that was better.  The 400 kick was very good.  I enjoyed it.  IM was a pain.  The fly was too much for me.  I gave up after 25 M and switched to a fly drill.  The pull was definitely hard.  I switched to pull drills instead of just plain pulling.  I cooled down 200M.  I had hoped to make it to 1.5 miles.  Didn't happen.  Maybe Saturday or Sunday.  I'm going to take a day off and maybe go to the beach tomorrow.

Spa
Spa steam room was closed again.  I did an abbreviated spa with just the sauna, ice room and clay.  I went naked in the clay again.  hheheh.  Rebel me.

Afternoon 
It was a nice and quiet afternoon.  I prepared for my client internal transition to service meeting, only to have someone else cancel it.  I was ANGRY.  I called up several people.  Poor Janell.  She said she knew I was going to be angry when I showed up to the meeting only to find it canceled.  I then called Jorge to ask what was missing. We had a decent call.  He reviewed the document with me and indicated that there wasn't anything Implementation was missing.  A couple of outstanding items, I gave him the correct name to speak with so that he could close it.  He did say that the post payroll meeting 2 went well and that the client seemed to be fine with payroll.  He let me know that even Judit was ready!  She is rarely ever prepared or ready and she actually attended the meeting with me.  ARGH!! I'm so pissed.  I let him know that I was still angry and that I'd be calling Joseph and Chris right after this.  I better not be losing my T2S formal meeting with the client.

I left a message with Joseph.  He probably heard the call and thought, oh crap.  Then I sent him an email follow up from my personal email address. Basically it was another angry rant of how unhappy I was that my meeting was cancelled without my knowledge.  I called Chris next.  He was traveling and trying to keep me calm as I was close to yelling on the phone.  Brian tried to help by giving me glass after glass of champagne.  Chris said he didn't think anything would slip and that he'd contact Kathleen.  I would have called her if I could have dialed to Canadian numbers.  Unfortunately, I could only do US numbers.  ARGH!!!!!  Still angry about it.  Chris told me to forget about it, go drink and enjoy the rest of my vacation.

Thank God I took a nap before my meeting otherwise I'd have really been grumpy.  Brian walked around the resort for an hour as I slept.

Dinner
We went to Marina Grill for dinner because Brian wanted to try it.  It was actually quite good.  The service by David was excellent.  The food came out quick. We had about 4 servers surrounding us constantly.  We never had to ask for more water or anything.  As soon as one dish was finished, they cleared it and brought the next dish out.  It was so smooth.  I give the restaurant a 4 star.  Brian ordered an "authentic" Dominican meal - Chicken, rice and beans.  Poor me.  Brian wondered how to say authentic in Spanish.  We had been kidding around that we just need to add an O and we'd be speaking Spanish.  This came about when he looked up furious only to see that it was furioso.  So I said authentic is authentico.  (It's actually auténtico).  Brian asked David and he said, "autentico" is authentic in Spanish.  We laughed.

Brian had been wanting Cabra all vacation long.  He asked for it and they said they don't serve it because they don't really have that animal on this island.  I then remembered that when we rode over to the resort from the airport, I saw no cabra along the road.  In Curacao, there were many cabra along the road.  mmm, tasty.  Anyway, Brian said he did see a lot of dogs along the road.  I thought, we aren't in Korea.

Drink Count
Brian

• 1 rum punch
• 1 Presidente
• 1 Caipirina
• 3 glasses of champagne

Dorothy

• 1 caipirina
• 2 glasses of champagne

Magazine count
1 HR (Sept 2008)

Moon Palace Casino Day Eleven

Breakfast at Lucca
There were many people here so the service was a bit slow.  The food selection was not as plentiful as the Marina Grill.  The good part was freshly made waffles, pancakes or french toast.  I asked for guava juice.  They told me to return tomorrow.  Brian went to the sweet shop and found the chocolate covered doughnuts.  Mmm he asked for dos donas de chocolate.


Swimming again
I tried to swim at the 50 m pool.  I did 400 M and gave up.  The pool was so dirty at one end, filled with large bugs and foliage.  I was too creeped out.  I shudder now as I think about it.  Another guy was swimming there and he basically gave up too.  We went to the hammock bar so that I could swim in the nice clean 25 yard pool.  I completed another 1200 yrd and finished a 200 yrd cool down.  I figured that was close enough to be 1 mile.
I didn't tan at all.  I ended up swinging on the hammock.  I loved the swinging and I swung back and forth very hard.  I tried to read my magazines too.  About 30 minutes into the hammock swinging, I felt nauseous.  I realized that I was getting motion sickness from trying to read while swinging back and forth.  I gave up swinging when my stomach basically said, "WTF!  Stop swinging you crazy B!&$#."  No matter how much I enjoyed the swinging, I couldn't prevent myself from heaving.  So I had to stop.  :(  Brian shook his head.  He says I'm like a little kid, making myself sick unnecessarily.

While we were at the Hammock pool, Brian caught a dragonfly and promptly maimed the right wing, very badly.  He said, oops and let it go.  The poor dragonfly slowly limped away and a black bird swooped down and ATE IT!  Brian, is an accessory to the killing.  I was not happy.  Brian says he didn't maim it.  He was only "holding" it by the wing.  Right, so why was the wing totally bent?  He broke it.  Brian says, "Like I tell you, if you don't struggle, it won't hurt as much." Sigh.

Spa
The spa steam room was broken, again.  I went through everything again and enjoyed my 1.5 hours there.  My appointment was at 1.5.  I don't like to call it a treatment because it reminds me of the Doll House.  (Did I fall asleep?)

Dinner
We returned to Spaggo.  I ordered what Bella at the spa recommended.  I tried the Penne and it was great.  The baked Grouper was delicious.  I loved it.  I give the fish a 4 star out of 5.  The salad bar was not as good tonight compared the first night.  Still I found enough to gorge myself on.

Counts
Zero on everything but the spa

Moon Palace Casino Day Ten

Tuesday!  We only have 7 days left. :(  Brian woke me up bright and early at 7 AM.  Although he insists that it was the sunlight which woke me up, not him.  He happily reported that he saw the green flash this morning.  He did not capture it on film.  Sigh.  Looks like the rest of the week is going to be a bust again.  Rainy all week.  Guess the Hydrotherapy spa is going to be packed.

I dragged myself out of bed so that we could eat at the Marina Grill before the rest of the Sheeple stampeded in.  To my surprise, there was a great fruit selection this morning.  I enjoyed my lox and fruit platter.  Guava, mango and passion fruit . . . mmmm.  I happily devoured it while Brian's plate of greasy food made him happy.

Beach Day!
We spent the morning at the beach.  The waves were not so strong but the undertow was a bit much.  Brian decided he didn't want to go out to the ocean due to his injured leg and the possibility of re-injury.  I went in and promptly lost the bottom to my bikini.  I had to quickly grab it before it completely ripped off my body.  Oops.  When I return, I'll have to wear  my swim suit and my swim shirt.  I'll be wearing my swim goggles too.  The water was so warm.  Loved it.  I spent some time building my sand castle and realized, it's more fun in concept than in reality.

After a few hours at the bench, we headed to the pool.  Due to the very sunny day, I elected to go into the pool and cool off.  The water was freezing still.  I no likey.  I exited the pool quickly.  Tomorrow, I'm determined to try and swim at the 50 M pool again.  We'll see if that really happens because the water will probably still be rather cold.  Sonia, Brian's favourite waitress, brought us drinks.  The first Caipirina was good.  The second one, I don't know what happened.  I fell ill.  It was terrible.  I couldn't even stand.  Brian had to help me up the 3 flights of stairs.  Who freaking asked for a high floor?!?  I made it to the bed and passed out.  I woke up 5 minutes after 1 PM and quickly went to dial into my conference call.  It was an All Hands GlobalView meeting.  After about 5 minutes of frustration with the toll free number, I was instructed that I could only dial US numbers for free.  Fortunately, I had a toll number to use and hopefully there was no charge.  I caught part of the big boss's message and listened to the rest.  Unfortunately, the Livemeeting link didn't work.  Boo.

The weather was still very good out after my line cut off.  I sat on our balcony and enjoyed the breeze.  I had a bit too much sun this morning.  I burned the back of my thighs.  I don't know what happen but I guess I was so relaxed I fell asleep in the chair on the balcony.  I was a bit late to my Hydrotherapy spa treatment today.  The spa was a bit of a wreak.  The steam room and the whirlpool were both broken.  I still enjoyed my time and met a nice lady from New York - Bella.  Loved her name.  She is a club member and gave me the load down on her benefits.  Pretty nifty but still not for me.

Dinner
We returned to Lucca for Oriental night.  OMG!  What the hell was I thinking not going here last week?  Why did I go to the Mexican place?  The roast duck was soooo good.  I ate 1/2 a duck by myself.  They had fresh salmon and tuna sashimi.  MMMMMMMMM  Since we went early at 6 PM, I was the first to pick the slices I wanted.  They also had stone crab claws too.  Those were okay.  Would have been better if there was garlic butter or cocktail sauce.  Brian loved the egg flan.  I ate the two decorative mango slices. This is my favourite restaurant and night at the resort.  I wish they had it more often.  I give the restaurant a 4.5 star out of 5.  The music was also excellent.  I enjoyed it and wished I had the play list.  The hostess said she'd try to find it out.  I'd really like a copy of it.

Drink count
Brian

• 3 Presidente

Dorothy

• 2 Caipirina

Magazine count
1 HR (August 2009)

Moon Palace Casino Day Nine

Breakfast
Back to the Marina Grill.  I woke up really late this morning.  8:30 AM and I rolled out of bed.  Spent time responding to school emails before I headed out to meet up with Brian for breakfast.  Bad to go at 9 AM, slow service.  Since it was finally SUNNY, we quickly went to a pool that was pretty empty and we had not visited yet.

Pool
The pool was freezing cold.  I'd have to be swimming a 400 minimum to warm up.  If I stopped, I would have frozen my butt off.  I didn't go into the pool much, just read my magazines.  We spent a few hours sunning and then went off to the spa.  Brian decided to try the spa with me.  He skipped all the treatments and went directly to the hydrotherapy pool.  He played with all the jets and water spouts.  I sped through the spa and skipped the whirlpool because I knew Brian would be waiting.  Brian is correcting me.  He tried the shower jets and it sucked.  He didn't like the cold/hot spraying.  He also said he went into the whirlpool but it wasn't very hot so why bother.

Brian felt that the hydrotherapy pool was like sitting in a warm bath.  There were so many bubbles everywhere, that it hid any that a person made themselves.  :) Wait.  eww.

Dinner
We returned to the Prime Grill.  The food was still good and the service was good too.  Brian didn't bring any money with him for tip.  DOH!  I will remember to do it next time.  Tomorrow, it is to Lucca for Oriental night!  I hope they still have roast duck.  mmmm duck.

Drink count
Brian - 1 Caipirina
Dorothy - 1 Caipirina

Magazine count
3 PMI - Jan 2009, May 2009, July 2009.  I'm doing pretty well on magazines.  I should be on target to finish all the magazines I brought.  I will be starting my textbook soon!

Moon Palace Casino Day Eight

Breakfast Mistake

We decided to try a new place for breakfast . . . So on Sunday we tested out Caffetto.  It was a bust.  The service was by far the worst.  We couldn't order to save our life.  The waiter served just about everyone around us but us.  Finally, I asked one of the guys to get our waiter now.  Brian wanted to know if I was going East Coast on him.  I said yes and threw in a F bomb and a GD.  :)  This freaked out the wait staff and the manager scurried over.  Lucia . . . was the manager at Prime Grill 2 days prior.  I recognized her and asked her about it.  She was flustered and apologized.  I let her know that I just wanted to order, I didn't really care about anything else at this point.  To wait 20 minutes to order was not making me happy.

The food was not so good.  Tasteless. I give them 1 star.  Brian said anytime we have to wait on others to bring us food is dicey at this new resort.  I have to agree.  I think I scared them.  I was still polite with the thank you and please, just the tone was harsh and I explicitly explained what I wanted so that there were no misunderstandings.  (So that there is no misunderstandings, we will not accept clunkers . . . ) The power gave out twice while we were eating.  Good thing we brought a flashlight.  We were prepared.


Rest of the day
The entire day was raining, punctuated with downpour and 20 mph winds.  I slept the day away.  I woke up just for the spa at 4:30 which was totally packed.  I had never seen so many people there.  It was due to the rain. 

Dinner at Chinese side of Tao
Chef Ramsey would have been horrified.  I was horrified.  It took them 15 minutes to get a us a menu.  We gave up and I grabbed my own menu which immediately tipped off the waiters that I wasn't pleased.  There were so many things wrong I give this restaurant a 0 star.  I should have brought my camera to take pictures.  The Pad Thai was made with vermicelli noodles.  The Japanese Udon dish was made with spaghetti rice noodles.  The meat was inedible and bitter.  The miso soup was lukewarm and missing miso, tofu and chives.  I'm not sure what the hell it was.  The sashimi was cut in weird 1.5 inch squares.  The eel roll was missing eel.  The red spicy tuna salad was actually not bad.  I give it a 3.

The entire meal took us 1.5 hours.  1 hour of it was waiting for service.  We are going to try them again but next time, we are sitting at the sushi bar to watch them.

Drink count
Brian - 0
Dorothy - 1 Caipirina

Magazine count
1 PMI (April 2009)

Moon Palace Casino Day Six and Seven

Friday and Saturday whirled by in a flurry of rain, wind and ominous clouds. I also took two days off of the spa. Breakfast was the same old same old. Despite the rain, we caught a few rays while others were still sleeping. I was able to spend a longer time outside due to the cool weather and lack of sun. I still tanned due to the UV rays penetrating through the dark grey clouds.

Lunch was uninteresting as we scrounged for food at the pool grills. Drinks for both days were eh. We stuck to Caipirina. Dinner on Friday night was decent.

Spaggo

Italian food with its pasta never fails to cause my food allergies to go wild. I generally become ill and throw up. So I didn't order any pasta. (Oddly enough, CK at work always picks an Italian place when we go out. I think he's trying to send me to the hospital.) Spaggo has by far the BEST salad bar. I give it a 4 out of 5 stars. The dinner itself was not so good. I give it a 2 star. Chef Ramsey would have yelled at the chef for the lackluster Risotto. I ordered a veal stew. I received a huge leg joint.

Dinner Saturday night

We returned to Samba.  Brian over gorged himself on the salad bar.  By the time it was to eat meat, he was already full.  The beef wasn't as good tonight.  The chicken was still great.

Drink count
Brian

• 4 Caipirina on Friday
• 8 Caipirina on Saturday

Dorothy

• 4 Caipirina on Friday
• 2 Caipirina on Saturday

Magazine Count

• 2 PMI (August 2009 and September 2009) Friday
• 1 HR (June 2009) and 1 PMI (August 2008) Saturday

Moon Palace Casino Day Five

Breakfast bright and early
Still not sure why I'm awake so darn early in the morning during vacation. Seems like breakfast at the Marina Grill becomes less and less appealing, every morning. The good thing was that our waitress, Fanny, was great. Once again we received excellent service. I practiced a bit of my Spanish and Fanny misunderstood and thought I actually spoke Spanish. I quickly backpedaled with no hablo espagnol!!

Today was my rest day. No exercise. I spent about 3 hours in the hot sweltering sun by the pool. I think I burned today. I'm definitely pink and my skin is tender. Brian turned browner (is that a word?). I skipped lunch and went to the spa, just as the sky turned grey and the water started to pour out of the dark clouds. People scattered like ants away from the pool. Pussies.

Spa interlude
Today was the first day I met another person in the spa. Generally I have it all to myself with a couple of attendants watching over me. There were several of us there, but I only ended up conversing with Lynne from Newfoundland. She was surprised that an American even had a clue as to where it was located and that it was part of Canada. Yay me for representing the States positively. We went through the entire spa cycle leisurely. Her poor husband, Ted, ended up waiting a while at the Hydrotherapy pool.

Afternoon
To prevent myself from taking a nap, we went to another pool for the afternoon. Brian spied 2 little black ducklings that were so small and cute. I have to get pictures of them tomorrow. We will try to visit the other pools we haven't been to tomorrow. I will be working out tomorrow. I hope to swim more than 1/2 a mile. First we'll catch some rays while the sun is out.

Dinner
We ate at the Prime Grill tonight. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. The portion sizes were too large. A no-no from Chef Ramsey. The lamb was delicious. I don't know what type of sauce they used, it was tasty. Brian ordered the filet mignon. It was called Beef Shank or Beef Steak on the menu. He said his was delicious too. He liked the Texan Chili for soup. I enjoyed my Corn Cream. Ted and Lynne showed up at the restaurant so I was able to introduce them to Brian. The Canadians from British Columbia we met from the night before also showed up. We were thinking of heading to the Sun bar for more Caipirina. I was too tired. Brian ended up falling asleep before 8 PM. Sunbathing is just too exhausting for him.

Drink count
Brian
* 11 Caipirina

Dorothy
* 6 Caipirina

Magazine count
* 2 HR August 2008 and November 2008

Moon Palace Casino Day Four

Breakfast
The days just seem to fly by. We ate at the same Marina Grill for breakfast. We went a bit later today, closer to 8 AM. The food was eh, okay this morning. We received great service again. Our juice and coffee cups were constantly refilled. There was a little incident. While trying to get salt out, a black spider crawled on my pinkie. I didn't scream (it was a close call) but I did fling the salt shaker across the table and cringe. I shut my eyes tight while trying hard not to scream and my hand kept flinging as if the spider clung on to me. I had 3 guys come running up to me and going, "Are you okay? What happen? What is it?" I squealed, "spider!" Two of the guys tried to help me stay calm while the other one spied it on the floor and proceeded to stomp on it. Brian came back after the incident. I related my slight freaking out and he said he was amazed I didn't do a bloodcurdling scream. I too was surprised.

After breakfast, we tried the bicycles. Girls were given a prissy pink bike while guys could pick a white or black one. Next time, I'm getting a black one. After riding around a bit, we went to the 50 m pool. Brian laid out while I did laps. I warmed up with 400 m broken up in 50 m stints. I'm so out of shape. Took me between 1 minute to 1:10 to complete a 50 m. After warm up, I did 100 M, 200 M and 100 M. Those were surprisingly easier to finish. My speed increased too. My goal was to complete at least 1/2 a mile. By the end of this trip, I hope to be at 1.5 mile. I also did 200 M in kicking. Crap. That used to be my best. I still completed 50 M around 54 seconds, but I was winded. I cooled down with a bit of breast stroke.

We were going to stay at the pool a bit longer under we realized how many spiders were there. We are talking spiders on every freaking chair lounge. And they were jumping ones. Freaked me out! We went to one of the pools by our room. Biking makes traveling so much quicker.

Lunch
The wind picked up and it was interesting eating lunch at the pool side grill. I ate junk food with nachos, hot dog and fries. Brian had a double cheeseburger. Around noon, Brian said he was done because he felt burn. I checked and realized I probably was too. Off to the Hydrotherapy Spa! The spa was empty again. I did my own thing and enjoyed myself.

I ended up taking a Siesta this afternoon. I passed out for 2 hours. I keep saying, sunbathing is exhausting. Belly Dancing was canceled again!

Dinner
Tao - quasi Japanese food. I think they were trying for Hibachi food. I give it a 2 star out of 5. The food was overcooked and bland. Thank goodness I ordered a side of salmon sashimi. The fried tempura banana was cold and soggy. Gross. I'd go back only to try the Chinese food. We'll see how it goes.


Drink count
Brian
* 2 Presidente
* 4 Caipirina

Dorothy
* 5 Caipirina

Magazine count
1 HR mag April 2009

Moon Palace Casino Day Two Continued

Day two is at a close. After my last post, I went to the Hydrotherapy Spa which is free at the value of $58 per visit. And apparently, I needed a reservation which I didn't know. Oops. I just waltzed right in and blinked my eyes in confusion.

This is the mother of all spas. IT IS HUGE. I started in the steam room infused with scent of eucalyptus. After 5 minutes (yes, I wore my stop watch), I couldn't take the heat. Even though the spa guide would come for me in 10 minutes, I went to the next station all by myself. Rule breaker!! I went into the shower where there were 3 levels of 6 jets. One hit my calf first, then my waist, then my chest. Finally, a flat showerhead waterfalled copious water on me. I am going to try and sneak my underwater camera to take photos.

The spa guide found me and took me to the sauna. It was great. I was all alone. Hot and peaceful. 1/2 way through, a new spa guide brought in a cool drink in a champagne flute. Next stop was the Brazilian mud room. I think that is what she said. All I understood was the mud. She gave me a coconut shell filled with light brown liquidity stuff. She motioned that I should apply all over my body, just not on my face. She then pointed to the curved seated area for me to relax in the "mud" steam room. After that, I was to shower in the stall within the steam room. (This is the second steam room of the day) She indicated that she'd be back for me in 10 minutes. Before I slathered some unknown liquid all over me, I sniffed it. It didn't have much scent. I shrugged and coated my body in the brown stuff. Then I thought about girls in bikinis wrestling in it. Snicker.

The next station was a 3 minute ice room. It feel like a frozen meat locker and there were ice shavings to rub all over the body and face. Kind of odd but pleasant. After that, I went to the jacuzzi room. I went into a foot jacuzzi and the water was so hot I think I scalded the bottoms of my feet. Yikes. So I went into the lukewarm tub instead.

Finally, I ended up in the hydrotherapy pool. It was relaxing. Up until then, there were only women. I thought this section was also all women. Good thing I didn't take off my bikini. I was about to when a few men walked by. Oops.

I went back to the hotel room to find Brian. They fixed our water YAY! We spent the afternoon by the cold beach and the pool right outside our building. Freezing my butt off, we scampered back into the hotel room and turned on our two person jacuzzi tub. After about 30 minutes, we dressed for dinner at Samba.

Samba

This was the Brazilian restaurant. The lamb was okay. The beef was the best. I also liked the chicken. Who knew chicken could be so flavourful? The salad bar was pretty slim. I have it all on video and will post later. Our waitress, Santa, she was great. We'll have to go back.

Drink count for the day - Brian - 6 lipsticks, 3 Presidente. Dorothy - 1 Bailey, 3 sips of a terrible lipstick, 1 passion fruit cocktail (I have no idea what was in it) and 2 sips of Jack and coke. Turns out, Jack taste bad. This is a good sign. It means I'm not stressed. Only when I'm stressed does Jack taste soooo goooddd. Brian says I need to drink more, my money's worth.

UPDATE:
1 PM magazine