JAPAN | Monday, 19 Aug 2019 | Views [349]
I HAVE TO WONDER HOW WE MISSED HIDA TAKAYAMA last time. It is arguably one of the top destinations in Japan, even if there isn’t a festival going on. Takayama sits on the shoulders of the Japanese Alps and at 550 meters elevation, ... Read more >
JAPAN | Monday, 19 Aug 2019 | Photo Gallery
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JAPAN | Sunday, 18 Aug 2019 | Views [390]
FRIDAY AND SATURDAY SEEMED LIKE GOOD days for walking in the Imperial Palace Gardens and Shinjuku Gyoen, two wonderful havens in sweltering Tokyo. The Imperial Palace Gardens are the site of the former Edo Castle’s main defense circle and ... Read more >
JAPAN | Friday, 16 Aug 2019 | Views [458]
YOU CAN GET ANYWHERE IN TOKYO ON THE METRO for only a couple hundred yen. It’s certainly faster and it may be cooler than walking but you miss so much on the train. Take today, for instance. We decided to walk in the opposite ... Read more >
JAPAN | Thursday, 15 Aug 2019 | Photo Gallery
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JAPAN | Thursday, 15 Aug 2019 | Views [353]
AFTER 32 DAYS ABOARD, HALF OF THEM AT SEA — plus the 3 weeks aboard in April —Maasdam felt almost like home, not that we would know what that "home" is. Still, we gladly hopped on the train from Yokohama to Tokyo’s Ueno Station ... Read more >
JAPAN | Tuesday, 13 Aug 2019 | Views [364]
THE CAPTAIN INFORMED US THAT OUR VISIT to Hakadote would be an abbreviated one; 9AM until 3PM instead of the scheduled 10PM departure. It looked like Krosa would hit Tokyo early on the 14 th and he wanted the Maasdam tied up and battened ... Read more >
JAPAN | Sunday, 11 Aug 2019 | Views [324]
WE HAVE LEFT BOTH RUSSIA AND FRANCISCO BEHIND but it seems we are heading into another, much stronger typhoon, Krosa by name. As we cruise towards our ports on the island of Hokkaido, the captain’s reports of 12 meter seas and 100+ km winds ... Read more >
RUSSIAN FEDERATION | Saturday, 10 Aug 2019 | Views [300]
FRANCISCO, THE TYPHOON THAT HAS BEEN CHASING us all week through the Sea of Japan, seems to be gaining on us. As if that’s not enough North Korea, just 200 miles away, recently launched a missile into the Sea and I have to wonder what the ... Read more >
JAPAN | Tuesday, 6 Aug 2019 | Views [328]
SOMETHING ABOUT THE SHORE EXCURSIONS IN KANAZAWA seemed familiar. So we checked back in our journals and, yes, we had been here five years earlier. In 2014 I wrote in the first “vagabonds:”
... Read more >
JAPAN | Sunday, 4 Aug 2019 | Views [292]
KOCHI MAY HAVE THE WORST PORT YET. To make up for its industrial impersonality and isolation, the town provides free shuttle buses for the 12 kilometer trip into town. It is still another mile walk from the shuttle stop through the ... Read more >
JAPAN | Saturday, 3 Aug 2019 | Views [293]
THE PORT AT TAKAMATSU WAS A PLEASANT EXCEPTION. The ferry dock is adjacent to the cruise terminal and the harbor has a park-like feel, with the Takamatsu Castle as a centerpiece. Japan is currently experiencing a heat-wave — like everyplace ... Read more >
JAPAN | Friday, 2 Aug 2019 | Views [197]
CRUISE TRAVEL HAS ONE BIG PROBLEM — PORTS. While some ports-of-call are purpose designed for cruise lines, others are commercial seaports where cruise ships are tolerated. Maasdam, being one of the smaller cruise ships, can dock at ... Read more >
JAPAN | Tuesday, 30 Jul 2019 | Photo Gallery
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JAPAN | Monday, 29 Jul 2019 | Views [235]
FOR NEARLY 36 HOURS WE SLITHERED THROUGH FOG, accompanied every two minutes — as required by maritime law — by a blast on the Maasdam’s horn. Gloomy though it was, Connie completed her daily 6-miles trudge on deck. She ... Read more >
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