The City and the Swamp

Amidst of all the festival fun, we managed to plan ahead and booked a two hour New Orleans city bus and three hour swamp boat tour for today. We woke up early to jump on the bus. The company is called VIP City Tour and costed us $35 USD per person. Our driver and tour guide was a local New Orleans fellow named Henry. He spoke with a mellow southern drawl but he drove like a bat outta hell.
Henry explained interesting facts about New Orleans along the way. We drove through the garden, lakeview, and the "beverly hills" areas and neighbourhoods. There were no gated communities. The poor, rich and the wealthy all lived together.




Author Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire)'s house with a tree full of Mardi Gras beads in front it.




The areas that were affected by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 drew the biggest fascination. Most of the city is built below sea level and most on top of swamp land. When Katrina hit, the water spilled over the levees below and caused severe flooding.




Some of the houses were still abandoned with the mark TFW which stood for Total Flood Water in front of it. Some houses you can see the yellow water stain mark left behind.
We drove through the neighbourhood Brad Pitt donated and built. The houses looked very colourful and funky looking. They are also now designed to have an escape hatch on the roof. A lot of people died trapped in their attics during the disaster.
The other fascinating attraction about New Orleans is their cemeteries and their culture.




One tomb can contain hundreds of bodies like this one. The whole family will be buried in it. They don't cremate bodies either. The body is allowed one year and one day to decompose before the casket is removed and body/ bones are pushed to the back of the tomb with a pole to make room for the next deceased family member.








This particular cemetery we stopped at ironically had a luxury retirement home right next to it. In addition, it almost blends into a residential area. This would never happen in China. No one would ever dare or want to live anywhere near a cemetery.
The city tour ended just before noon and we were ready for our next tour. Our swamp boat tour with Louisiana Tour Company cost $52 USD per person including hotel pick up. There was an air boat option which was $72 per person. The air boat has the big fan on the back and is very loud and fast. I wasn't allowed on it since I was pregnant. We drove about 30 minutes outside of French Quarter to reach the boats and swamp. Our boat captain and guide again was a local guy with a few missing teeth, but had all of his fingers.








Although the boat captain told us 'this ain't Disneyland' and there was no guarantee, we came across a young alligator within the first 15 minutes of the tour. He was resting under the shade on land.
Our second alligator was an adult about 7 feet long swimming in the water. The captain started throwing marshmallows at it. Apparently, the gators really like them because they float and are white and sweet. The captain then leaned towards the water with the gator alongside of the boat and less than one foot away from his face. He tapped the gator's nose and petted the top of its head. When the gator opened its mouth, he would throw a marshmallow into it. The captain even put a marshmallow on top of its head which the gator swam around with for a while.




The captain then showed off his pet baby alligator. He said it was his back up plan in case we didn't see any in the wild. He said baby gators are very prone to predators before the age of 2.5. In the wild, out of a litter of 50 eggs only 15% will survive. He plans to release his after 2.5 year old.




Locals Cajuns do hunt alligators. It is tightly controlled and an allowance is given to each family with alligators on their property. Each hunted must be tagged and reported.




On our way back from the swamp tour, it started pouring rain. We thought it was a fitting way to end the trip and condition our mind to head back to the always rainy Vancouver.
Our last meal in New Orleans had to be good, not that it has disappointed me so far. I have loved everything I ate, maybe a little too much. I even picked up Cajun cooking spices to bring back. ACME Oyster Bar off of Bourbon Street is very popular and we had to wait in a line up for a table.




The wait was totally worth it. I ordered my third crawfish boil dinner. Two lbs of pure heaven! By far the best tasting crawfish boil so far. It was more expensive at $9.95 USD per lb than Montrel's ($7.95 per lbs) and the festival ($8 per 1.5lbs) but it was worth very penny. The crawfish was big and fat and tasted like they injected the spices right into the crawfish individually. I ordered 2 lbs with the thought of taking half of it back to the hotel for later. None made it back. I ate the 2 lbs in one sitting and even mulled over the idea of ordering another pound to go. Did I mention I really love crawfish boil!!




Tomorrow we fly back home. I really enjoyed our Southern trip. New Orleans is a city with a lot of flavor from its history and culture from its people. I would totally come back here for a second round.
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Location:New Orleans

From the Sea to French Quarter Festival

Our last day at sea was pretty uneventful. The thought of no more towel animals on our bed every night or the 24 hour ice cream machine and pizza parlor made us a little sad. Greg put in a few more hours of sun time to even out his tan while I just napped and ate a little more.


Mongolian grill!!


We also explored the areas we haven't even been to on the ship, like the mini golf course,


and the water slide,



We still didn't manage to locate the gym. To be honest, we didn't look that hard.

At dinner our servers sang their version of "leaving on a jet plane (ship)" to us. We exchanged information with our dinner mates Timothy and Renasha. They were a lot of fun.

Our cabin guy left a seal tonight. Greg thought it looked something else...


When we woke up the next morning, the ship had already docked in New Orleans. Since we didn't have a lot of stuff we opted not to put our luggage out last night to be checked straight through. Immigration was smooth and since we didn't have to wait for our luggage we were in the French Quarter ready for the festival before 11AM.

It was actually the last day of the French Quarter festival. How lucky were we! There was live music everywhere in the quarter, but mostly concentrated in the Old US Mint, Jackson Square and along the water front.











It was a hot day. The solution: strawberry snowball with condensed milk!


Aftermath of the snowball.


Live latin band + crawfish boil = awesomeness! By the way, the big box of crawfish was only 8 bucks. For 25 bucks you can get the family size which came in an aluminum pan that you normally oven roast a turkey in. Can't lie I was very tempted.


Sugar, sugar, sugar!!!!


At the end of the day and before night fall, we made our way to Congo Square and Louie Armstrong park located on the north edge of the quarter. The square was where slaves gathered and played music. It is the birth place of jazz. It was a very serene little square with a giant oak tree hovering over it.





The Louie Armstrong Park has a canal that snaked around it. There are little bridges and bronze sculptures all through out the park. A few people were on the green lawn enjoying the sun.





We were told the park and square were not safe after dark. It is really sad to me that people would commit crimes in a such historically significant part of the city and in a park that honors the guy who wrote the song "It's a Wonderful World". Oh, the irony.

It was time for dinner. At Old Coffee Pot restaurant Greg ordered the Fleur De Lis Chicken which was a dish featured on the Food Channel. It consisted of a chicken breast paired with crabmeat and Louisiana crawfish stuffing topped with Buerre Blanc with Andouille sweet potato hash and green bean casserole.



I ordered a Crawfish Étouffée which had Louisiana crawfish tails, Creole tomato, onion, bell pepper, and celery shimmered and seasoned with Cajun spices and thickened with a roux served with white rice. I could've licked the bowl clean.



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Location:Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans

Carnival Easter

Today was our big Carnival cruise day! We slept in and took our time checking out of the hotel. We decided to drop off the luggage at the Carnival terminal first. The taxi there was again a flat rate of $7 per person. The drop off was a bit chaotic. It took us awhile to figure out we needed to grab hold of the men in flower Hawaiian shirt to check in our bags.

We didn't want to check in and board to the ship already. Instead we headed back to Bourbon street for the Easter parade and lunch.

Easter parade starts at Canal and Bourbon street so we picked a restaurant with a good street view for lunch and people watching, Le Bayou. For appies, it was Boudin Balls. It was a lot of different things like pork, shrimp, cheese etc. rolled into a ball form and fried. It was pretty tasty. But what isn't when it is in a ball form and fried.



Since i can't have raw oyster, we had them cooked: Charcoal oyster ya-ya. They weren't as good as the raw ones.




For the main, we shared the Taste of New Orleans which consisted a sample of three cajun food signature dishes: Gumbo, Étouffée, and Jambalaya. Étouffée was my favourite.



The Easter parade started as soon as we finished our meal. We headed onto the street to watch it and maybe catch some beads.

I think New Orleans is single handedly keeping China alive. I can't believe how crazy people got over 50 cent plastic necklaces and trinkets.









We scrolled back to the terminal around 2PM to embark on our 7 day fun in the sun. As we boarded, we were given a card that served as our room key and on board credit card with our dining info. It was very handy, but also potentially very expensive.


Lobby of the Carnival Conquest.


Beautiful sunset.


Towel Easter bunny with chocolates.



First cruise dinner: sweet and sour shrimp with noodles.


Lava cake with vanilla ice cream. Yummy!


I have a feeling future posts are going to be full of food photos. Our tables mates were a couple of grandparents from Lafayette, two hour drive from New Orleans. They looked way too young to be grandparents.

After dinner, we finished off the night with going to the Welcome Aboard show at the main theatre. The opening song and dance was very cheesy and felt like they were shoving "fun" down my throat. They brought on a couple of comedians for a preview of their upcoming shows on the ship. They were pretty entertaining.

Tomorrow is going to be a good day to get some sun, catch up on some reading and of course, more eating.

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Location:New Orleans

The first taste of the Big Easy

We landed in New Orleans just before 2AM. The warm breeze really agreed with me, I was officially on vacation! There was an airport shuttle which was $20 per person ($38 round trip) but the taxi was a flat fee of $33 to downtown New Oleans, so we hopped into a cab playing cool jazz. The taxi driver listened to her iPhone the whole way. I wonder what she was listening to?

By the time we checked into our hotel, it was well pass 3AM. We kicked off our shoes and ran towards dreamland.

The morning came with tons of sunshine and sights of people gathering by the pool side. I was excited to get out. I must admit the biggest appeal of New Orleans was the food. We made a bee line for THE Bourbon street. I could smell the street from a couple of blocks down, a smell of garbage unfortunately. But you get use to it after awhile.




We picked Bourbon House as our first restaurant and oyster po-boy sandwich as my first meal in New Orleans. The fried oyster inside the French bread was very flavorful. Even the fries was seasoned with cajun spicies.


We spent the next few hours exploring the rest of the French Quarter and walking off the food.



Not sure what type of street art this was suppose to be...









The French Market was full of hand made craft, lemonade stands, home made ice cream, and... raw oyster bars. I was salivating watching fresh oysters being cut open and drizzled with lemon and Tabasco. Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy them since I'm almost 6 months pregnant.



We had to settled for cooked food for dinner at Montrel's by the river. We had crab cakes to start.



Although I couldn't eat raw oysters, I was able to eat this! All 3 lbs of it! I have been looking forward this since we booked the trip. Since it was also the season, the boiled crawfish doesn't get any better!!! I could've eaten another 3lbs, so finger licking good.



We decided to save the jazz bars for another night and pack it in early to make up the lack of sleep last night.


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Location:New Orleans