1/6/26

When I got back to the hotel last night From my outing with my kids, I went out on the balcony to see what I could see and get some fresh air.  I saw one of our favorite restaurants about 2 blocks away, Din Tai Fung.  So, I made a reservation for 11: 00 AM for us to have a light lunch, it’s a Taiwanese restaurant.

The food was delicious as usual.  Great treat for us. They make the best Xiao long bio.

They have windows into the kitchen so you can watch how they are made.

Kim went to the original restaurant when we were in Taiwan, 2 years ago.  She says the US ones are better.  

Well, now about the GALA.  We have attended a few Galas in the past with Seabourn and although elegant, they lacked great food and entertainment.  So , we were not really excited about attending the affair.  However, dinner at Spago, a Wolfgsang Puck restaurant, was the best, I had slow roasted boneless beef short ribs, yes if you are paying attention you probably noticed that I had pork ribs for lunch, pictured, Kim had some wonderful grilled white fish. For desert, we had what is probably the best cheese cake ever.   One thing I always appreciate about Seabourn is if they have to bus us anywhere, they hire luxury buses that can hold over 40 passengers, but limit each bus to 20 passengers.  We’re not sardines, but they serve us caviar.  So, getting to and from is a nice experience.

After dinner they wouldn’t tell us any details of what was happening.  They took us the the Fox compound and to the sound stage.  It was a large room, but with all the musicians and about a hundred of us, there wasn’t a lot of room to roam.  

Then Wow, I’ll call it an experience that cannot be given a monetary value.   Priceless would not even do it justice.  An event that money could not possibly buy, okay, you got me again, I’m sure we paid for it in the price of the cruise.

This sound stage was built in the 1920’s and is where every song that every movie or show ever made by FOX is recorded.   It’s also where people like Julie Andrew’s sang her songs in “the sound of music”.  The orchestra is made up of not only great musicians, but also many famous and notorious musicians. The base player for example is Eric Clayton’s base player.  Elvis even recorded in this studio for his movies.  They proceeded to play theme song after theme song.  With many stories in between.  Many famous singers were there to perform for us too, like Henry Mancini’s daughter, for one. 

At one point the speaker said that they were the ones who were getting the best entertainment out of the night. He said in all their years of producing music, they had never played a song in it’s entirety until tonight.  Their job was to a part of a part of a song for 10 to 20 seconds then sit and wait, read a book or something while the director and the sound team made changes.  They were given the changes and played the same stanza again then back to their book reading.   This went on all day.  When the director was satisfied with that segment of the song they moved on to the next few seconds and repeated the process.  Some days later they were told they were done with that song, but never played or heard it in it’s entirety until the movie came out.  

So, last night was;

1. The first time they got to play the entire song.

2. The very first and probably the last time they had ever performed for an audience in the sound stage ever.  Talk about special.  Some of the theme songs we were treated to were; Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws, Sound of Music, The King and I, the Pink Panther, just to name a few.  

We are the only 100 or so people who will ever have that experience.   How about that for a great start?

One hour left until we board the ship.  

More later