Day 15-16 (Feb 4-5)

Our ship arrived at Papeete yesterday night. Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, is located on the island of Tahiti, which is part of the Society Islands. We stayed overnight at Papeete for two nights. The port is a short distance from downtown Papeete. On the first day, we went on the Temple, Art, and Culture tour to learn a little more about the island. The first stop was the Tahiti Museum, which is under renovation for the most part. We thought the exhibit was well designed and that the artifacts were interesting. We also visited an ancient temple used by a royal family and then visited a private colonial home with a meticulous garden. The almost 100-year-old house was built by English writer Robert Keibel and is now owned and preserved by a Chinese Polynesia woman and her English husband. On the way back, we stopped by Vaipahi Garden. There is a walking trail marked with several displays of “the path of purification of souls” to paradise. It is one of the best water gardens we have ever visited. The lily pond with lotus was our favorite. Maraa Fern Grotto Caves was our final stop. The tour lasted more than five hours.

After lunch, we went out to walk around downtown, where we first bought a comb to replace the broken one. We visited the marketplace around the time it was being closed for the day so there were not many people there. We hope to visit it again tomorrow.

As we strolled in the downtown area, we walked into the government’s Assembly Building. It has a beautiful private garden and natural spring pool of Tahiti’s only Queen. We had a great time there with the whole garden for ourselves.

We had dinner at Prego. After ordering our food, we added another appetizer, Carpriocio of Angus Beef. The slices of beef were so tender that it melted in the mouth.

Our ship stayed at Papeete for another night. This is the end of the first segment of this world cruise. Total sailing distance is 4765 nautical miles and we stopped at four ports over the duration of 12 days.

Today, we don’t have any shore excursion. We had planned to go out walking around the city. However, the weather didn’t cooperate. It was raining on and off this morning. Once the rain stopped, we finally went out to visit the city marketplace again. This time there were a lot of people shopping there. Most stands were selling fruits and flowers. A few stands sold red snapper and tuna fish. There were quite a few fast food places inside the marketplace. The Chinese population in Tahiti is about 10% so the local food is Chinese fusion food. Chow mein is one of them. The other one is a sandwich with chow mein and chicken meat. We didn’t taste the food there.