We arrived Kushiro at 08:00am on cooler, partly cloudy morning with temperature around 11C and reaching 14C later in the afternoon. Kushiro is a city in Kushiro subprefecture on the island of Hokkaido. Located along the coast of the North Pacific Ocean , it serves as the subprefecture’s capital and it is the most populated…
Arrived Aomori at 07:00am on a windy but sunny morning with temperature around 14C. Continued partly cloudy all day with temperature reaching a high of 24C. Aomori City is the capital of Aomori Prefecture in the Tohoku region at the northern end of Honshu Island. The city has an estimated population of 270,000. This is…
Arrived at Hakodate around 7:00am on a clear, sunny morning with temperature around 14C. It continued fine all day although windy and up to 20C in the afternoon. Hakodate is a city and port and the capital of Oshima Subprefecture on the northern island of Hokkaido. The city has an estimated population of 250,000 and…
Arrived Miyako at 08:00 on a clear but windy day with the temperature around 12C. It continued mostly sunny and windy all day rising to 14C in the afternoon. Miyako is located in central Iwate Prefecture, bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the east, with the main urban area fronting on Miyako bay. It has…
Arrived at 08:00am on a windy overcast morning. And temperature around 16C. Hitachinaka Kaihia Koen in the Ibaraki prefecture developed primarily as a company town for Hitachi group factories, and Hitachi remains the primary employer. Secondary industries include commercial fishing, agriculture and seasonal tourism. Hitachinaka was formed when Nakaminato and and Kasuta merged in 1994….
An overcast but dry morning in Yokohama. Temperature up around 24C today. Yokohama is the 2nd largest city in Japan with a population of 3.7 million. It is the largest port city and high tech industrial hub in the Greater Tokyo Area and the Kantō region. The city proper is headquarters to companies such as…
A fine, sunny morning in Tokyo although windy with temperatures reaching about 27c this afternoon. 9:30am checked out of the Metropolitan Edmont hotel after our 3 day stay. Walked the 10 minutes to the Suidobashi overground station near the Dome, towing all of our luggage. Bought our tickets (620 yen each) for the trip to…
Awoke this morning to heavy rain as forecast, so did not go out early. Eventually braved the weather and headed out around 10:30am for a shopping expedition to Ginza. A short walk took us to Iidabashi station where we caught our metro train on the Tozai line. 4 stops later we got off at Nihombashi…
Day 2 in Tokyo on Thursday April 30th. A cloudy, dry day with temperatures reaching 17C in the afternoon. Out by 9:30am and walked to Iidabashi station Then down to the Oedo Line subway. Took the train for 10 minutes out to Ueno. A short walk and arrived at Ueno Park. Completed in 1873 this…
Departed Vancouver for Tokyo around 4:45pm on Tuesday April 28th 2026. Flying on ANA (All Nippon Airways) Boeing 787-9. An uneventful flight saw us arrive at Haneda Airport, terminal 3 just before 7pm on Wednesday April 29th. Immigration was quick with no waiting as we had done our pre-clearance online. Luggage was retrieved quickly and…
From Ottoman “cat sitters” to modern-day street guardians, Istanbul’s bond with its cats runs centuries deep.More than 15 million people compete for space in Turkey’s largest city, which straddles Europe and Asia on either side of the Bosphorus, much like a house cat perched half on the sofa, half on the coffee table. That’s the…
Arrived Oranjestad the capital of Aruba around 6:30am. A “constituent island country” within the Kingdom of Netherlands. It is only 18 miles north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguana. Population is around 108,000. A volcanic island mostly covered by dry shrubs and cactus. Mostly sunny today with temperatures around 32C. Met around 8:30am on the…
Arrived Kralendijk the capital of Bonaire around 6:30am. This is a “Special Municipality” of the Netherlands and part of the Leeward Islands, about 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela. Population of about 26,500. A relatively flat island with brush and low trees. The island is fringed with coral reefs which make it a popular…
Arrived Willemstad the capital of Curacao around 2:30pm. This is an island country within the Netherlands in the southern Caribbean about 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela. A small relatively flat island with a population of around 180,000. A dry climate with little rain which is reflected in the terrain, with low brush and…
Arrived Georgetown the capital of Grenada at 7am. It is made up of 3 islands, Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique with a population around 115,000. They are part of the Windward Islands group. Grenada is known as the “Island of Spices” due to it´s growing and export of nutmeg & mace. It gained independence from…
Arrived Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados around 7am. The eastern most island in the Caribbean on the Atlantic ocean. It was under British rule until gaining independence on Nov 30th 1966. This is a predominately limestone island with lush rolling hills. 282,000 inhabitants makes it one of the most densely populated countries in the world….
Arrived at Castries on St Lucia around 10am. This is the capital of the Eastern Caribbean nation which alternated between French and British rule throughout the 1700s before finally settling as British. It achieved independence in Feb 1979. It is a tropical volcanic island with lush greenery and mountains. The weather was mostly sunny with…
Arrived off Gustavia at 7am. This is the capital of the small island of St Barthelemy in the French West Indies, also know as St Barth or St Barts. A small town of about 2,300 people first established in 1785. It’s now a Caribbean boating haven as evidenced by the number of boats docked and…
Arrived at Dockyard Bermuda in very windy conditions at 4pm on the 4th. Met for our tour of the Islands at 8:30am on Wednesday 5th. Eighteen of us boarded a small minibus with our guide Jevon who was very informative about life on the Island. We headed out from Dockyard along the narrow, winding road…
Arrived at New York JFK airport 9:30pm on Oct 31st. At the Kimberly Hotel E50th in Manhattan by 11pm. Next morning moved to the Lotte New York Palace Hotel on Madison Ave. Weather clear skies with temperature around 14C. In the afternoon walked the nearby streets and visited St Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, Times Square,…
Arrived in Fusina at 7am. This is now the closest cruise terminal for Venezia since they banned cruise ships. It is also a ferry terminal and about 18.5km from Venezia. A wet rainy morning with temperatures around 16C. Our tour today was just a boat ride into Venezia then free time to explore. We boarded…
Arrived in Koper around 7am and docked close to the town center. This is the largest coastal city in Slovenia on the Adriatic and only 13 miles from Trieste in Italy. Slovenia is a relatively new country which got independence in 1991 and has a population of 2 Million. The day started cloudy and dry…
Arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia around 7am. Dubrovnik is on the Dalmation coast in southern Croatia. A warm, sunny day with temperatures reaching 19C. Todays tour was north, out to the Neretva river delta. A small group of only 13 and our guide was Sanja, a local woman. Boarded our bus and headed along the coast…
Arrived at Kotor, Montenegro around 8am having negotiated the channel into the bay. A very mountainous region on a rainy morning. Kotor (Cattaro) is in the southern region of Montenegro (Crna Gora) on the Balkan peninsula. Montenegro is about 85% mountains with a population around 630,000. The capital is Podgorica which is in the interior….
Arrived at Igoumentisa around 10am and docked. This is a coastal city in Northwestern Greece near the Albanian border. It is a busy car ferry port with a population around 11,000. A mostly sunny day with temperatures up to 23C later. Our tour commenced at 10:15am with 24 of us and our guide was Nina….
Arrived early morning at the port of Gythion otherwise know as Gytheio or Gythio or Gythium. It is on the eastern shore of the Mani Peninsula in southern Greece. A small town with a population of 4500 that features neo-classical architecture. Had an early tour meeting at 6:45am to tender ashore on a rainy morning….
Arrived off the Greek Aegean Island of Santorini at 7am. This is part of the Cyclades group of islands. A partly sunny day with temperatures up to 22C by the afternoon. An 8.30am tour took us by tender to the shore where about 30 of us transferred to our 2 masted barque. A 20 minute…