Fun at the Ports of Call

As some people pointed out, I dissed Ketchikan in the previous post by calling the activities there "forgettable". My bad, I was actually referring to the town itself. Hahaha. (Take that, Ketchikan!). And to Juneau. And Skagway. Basically just a bunch of jewelry shops catering to high-end cruise passengers and "3 for $10 T-shirt" stores catering to their cheap cousins. Fortunately, I didn't succumb to shopping temptation (although the salmon candy came close), since I had already splurged on the $5 "Celebrity" T-shirt at the shop onboard.

One of the more interesting shore excursions we took was the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan. Billed as one of the "Top 10 Things to See in Alaska", it involves two teams of lumberjacks competing in an array of events including sawing (pictured), wood chopping, axe throwing, pole climbing, and log rolling. You know, their usual weekend leisure activities :-) Each section of the sparse crowd was assigned a team to root for, and some half-soused members of our tribe livened up the festivities with their enthusiastic hurling of invectives at the opposing team. In the end, our team emerged victorious in that day's competition. I suspect the next day's outcome would be reversed, but perhaps I'm being overly cynical. Entertaining stuff, nonetheless.

Another shore excursion worth mentioning was the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau. Located only 12 miles from downtown Juneau, its a very popular and accessible place to visit among cruise ship passengers. We opted to go there by bus, and I did some light walking along one of the trails for some good photos. From what I hear the Helicopter Glacier Trek is a once-in-a-lifetime experience worth shelling out for. The helicopter lands right on the glacier and you get to explore the glacier's surface with the help of expert guides. All this for an eye-popping $399. Hmmm...how many Blue Moons and Alaskan Ambers is that?! In the end, sanity prevailed, and you know where my money went :-)