Celebrity Solstice - day 10 - Apia, Samoa - part 2

The post for Apia was getting too big, so I decided to split it into two posts!

A view of the Celebrity Solstice from town

Clock tower

Info I found on the web (https://centreforsamoanstudies.ws/ACH/QuickTour/English/clocktower/description.html): 

The Apia Town Clock was built and gifted to the Samoan people in the 1920s by Ta’isi Olaf Nelson. It was erected as a memorial for his son, who had died in the 1918 influenza epidemic that claimed the lives of nearly 9000 Samoans. Since World War 1, the Town Clock has also served as a monument to the Samoan-born soldiers who fought in WW1. Every year on ANZAC Day, April 25th, a dawn parade and vigil is held at the Apia Town Clock in remembrance of the brave Samoans who joined the Australian and New Zealand forces and celebrates those who continue to dedicate their lives to protecting the freedoms we enjoy today. 

We missed ANZAC day by a week...

Our "forward scouts" had also mentioned that they saw a number of local people going to another church down from the cathedral, and that they were all dressed up in white dressy clothes. We decided to try to find that church, and heard beautiful singing coming from a church about a block away...

We went in and sat in the back, enjoying the beautiful singing -- if you want to listen, here is a link of a short video I took: https://youtu.be/225vI3wgWU8

Note that we do not think that this was a church service going on; it looked more like choir practice. There were a few adults talking quietly on the back rows of the right side of the church, and children playing while the adults were singing.

The location where the shuttle bus had let us off was near this apartment building.

Zooming in, you may be able to see that it appears that the building is not air conditioned, but that each unit has to provide their own window unit or mini-split (it is very humid and hot about 85F and 85% humidity).

Since there were no shops open in town, there were a number of vendors who had set up stalls at the port near our ship and we checked out what they had to sell!

 

Some of the busses that were used as shuttles had imaginative decorations on them...

It appeared that maybe each driver/owner did his own decoration! Note also that the entry door is on the left side of the vehicle.

Back on ship, we took some pictures -- the downtown area where we had gone...

Looking out toward the west

Looking across the port container yard, we saw this small island. Since Carl said that his imagination of retirement life would be to have a hammock strung up between two palm trees (and he hasn't gotten that yet!), we have named it "Hammock Island". We weren't able to go there to initiate the hammock hanging, but we know the island is there whenever we're ready to use it! (I'm including the Google maps location so we'll be able to find it: https://www.google.com/maps/place/13%C2%B049'23.7%22S+171%C2%B045'17.5%22W/@-13.82325,-171.757436,855m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d-13.82325!4d-171.7548611!5m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQxNi4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D)  ;-)

Looking out in front of our ship

One of the things we see a lot of in the ports we are visiting are containers. Something that we have not noticed before, but that we see at all of these island ports are refrigerated containers -- probably powered by propane. We certainly see refrigerated trucks in the US (and we hate being parked next to them in an overnight stay at a Walmart!), but we don't remember seeing refrigerated containers.

"Hammock Island" as we were leaving Samoa

Our evening entertainment was to be Patrick Roberts -- known as "Prince of the Violin". He has been touring with "Sting". We had each heard of Sting, but don't know his music -- he is evidently a British musician so his music is more known in Europe (though I am sure that some of our blog readers know Sting and his music).

Just because we were noticing things in the Theatre before the show started -- a picture of the artwork on the ceiling.

Patrick Roberts performing -- he did most (all?) of his performance with video to enhance the music.

Another busy day!