This is primarily a 44-day cruise that will take us from Hong Kong to Vancouver, BC. Along the way we will visit Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan, and Alaska before going down the Inner Passage on our way to Vancouver.
This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After a rolly polly last 24 hours at sea, we pulled into Sendai, Japan, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture in Northern Honshu. We’re only here for a short time, so rather than spend time in what is more or less an industrial city, we…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After a sobering trip to Hiroshima, we were off to go to Kobe, Japan (yes, the Kobe with the wagyu beef). It’s actually quite a large city, but there was nothing in particular that we wanted to see there. So off we went to…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 We spent the day today in Hiroshima. While the obvious destination here is the Peace Memorial, there is actually much more to see here. We started the day visiting the island of Miyajima (Shrine Island), reportedly the home of the gods. Miyajima is a…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After arriving in the port city of Fukuoka, we went up into the mountains to the birthplace of Japanese porcelain — Arita. I wanted to come here for two reasons: (1) I’m a clay kinda guy and seeing how others perform their art and…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After visiting Busan, South Korea, the remaining Asian parts of our cruise will all be in three of the four islands of Japan. Today, we started by visiting Nagasaki, Japan on the island of Kyushu. Nagasaki is both the capital and largest city of…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 Today we stopped in Busan for the day. It’s been nearly 50 years since I’ve been here and I have to say, I could barely recognize the place. Like so many other Asian cities, there has been a massive growth spurt over the past…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 Today we stopped in Jeju Island, Korea which is located a little over 50 miles off the Korean Peninsula. It is very mountainous given its volcanic origins and, in fact, there are 360 volcanic domes over its 45 mile length (and 25 mile width)….
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 One our first day in Incheon, we decided to go visit the DMZ, or Demilitarized Zone. We’ve all heard about the DMZ, but may not know the history of it, how it is today, and what can you really see of North Korea. The…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After leaving Okinawa, we had three sea days to relax, attend a bunch of lectures, etc. on our transit to Tianjin, China, the jumping off point for our overnight tour of Beijing. Of course, Tianjin is nearly two hours away from Beijing, so we…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After the excitement from yesterday and our sad inability to explore one of the remote islands in Okinawa Prefecture, we were excited to arrive in Naha to do some exploring. Rather than take one of the ship-sponsored tours, we got a private guide, Hiromi,…
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