On this sea day we attended several lectures on a variety of topics. The first was a lecture by Ambassador Krishna Rajan on the Rise of China and what it means to the world. His opinion was that it would not be possible to stop China from growing at this point but that the world would need to learn to keep them at bay. The second item of note in his opinion was the fear that China’s economy would stall and create an international crisis. China has been spending an incredible amount of money around the world creating a huge deficit.

Next, we attended a lecture by Ian about the Secrets of the Forbidden City. He spoke about things to see in the forbidden city and said that the government was in the process of building an underground museum at the site as well as restoring many more buildings in the complex. The construction is expected to be completed by 2021 at which time many more structures within the forbidden city will be accessible to tourists.

In the afternoon we attended a lecture by Captain Thomas G. Anderson about the Coastal Megacities of Southeast Asia. Most of these cities are located along the coast and over time more and more people are moving from farming to cities for work and a better way of life. This trend is expected to continue causing more and more megacities to be built.

Next, Ian had another lecture on Temple Etiquette and the Statues of Buddha.  He spoke about the many different poses you would find in the Buddha statues and what the meaning of the poses meant. He also spoke about how to dress, point and about not wearing shoes in temples as a means of respect.

In the late afternoon we were invited to a cocktail party hosted by Tom, the host of our travel agency that is onboard. They served drinks and appetizers for about an hour and we were able to meet a few more folks traveling with our group onboard.

For dinner we met up with Clydie, a woman who is traveling with our group and we met in L.A. the night before we boarded the ship. Along with her were two assistant cruise ship directors. Kass from Australia who runs the library and the book club and Amanda who is from Washington State and does many of the onboard exercise classes.

The evening’s entertainment was a second show by Jo Little the great vocalist and comedian. We thought that her show on this night was funnier and more entertaining and the audience appeared to be laughing more.