Two Days To Go/Feast Of The Radishes/Popcorn Popping Day
2004-12-23 @ 11:54 p.m.

For a company with such a big reputation (or so I've heard), Star Cruises was woefully incapable of ensuring the smooth embarkation of the Superstar Virgo. I stood around in a queue for an hour, tapping my right foot (just because I tend to place my weight on the left one), reading The Time Traveler's Wife, and generally thinking the cruise was a bad idea. We finally made it onto the ship around midnight, so we got supper. In theory, you can eat up to six meals a day on the Superstar Virgo. Breakfast, morning tea and lunch follow in rapid succession though, so don't kill yourself trying, assuming you ever find yourself on a cruise ship. Frankly, I don't recommend it, because there's very little to do that you can't do elsewhere. Except for the casino, which doesn't allow people under 18 in. I just walked in anyway. It's not like anyone tried to stop me...

The lamest thing I saw was Star Cruises' attempt at replicating Hollywood Squares, sans the famous personalities. I mean, seriously speaking, how exciting can you make tic-tac-toe? On the other hand, the most entertaining thing I saw was Sorpresa, which was something like a cross between the circus and a dance performance. I liked the music, which played like bond's next album. Incidentally, they closed the show with one of Maksim's songs. There was also a live opera singer from Belarus. The show is based on the theme of the five elements of Chinese geomancy, so they had one dancer for each element. They didn't do much though, mostly stood around clapping or waving their arms about. The acrobats from Henan were good, but nothing I haven't seen before. Then there was this midget from China, whom they claimed to be 22 and weigh a paltry 6 kg!