Day 48 of 111. Yellow Sea nearing Xingang, China We will dock at the port city of Xingang this evening. I think that this is the port closest to Beijing. It was very cold in Korea and the weather forecast is for equally cold or colder weather for the next few days. The temperature is…

Day 46 of 111. Seoul, South Korea We visited a traditional marketplace in Seoul (Insa-dong Street) where I was interested in the shops that sold brushes. Some of them were tiny and some were huge. We also bought warm hats for our next stop, China.

Day 46 of 111. Seoul, South Korea The Gyeongbokgung Palace was beautiful to visit. Our guide helped us understand the organization of the buildings. I really enjoyed the colors and patterns and details everywhere. The feng shui of the palace has mountains in the background from which comes strength. The water in the moat helps…

Day 45 of 111. Incheon, South Korea One of the dangers is that there are thousands and thousands of land mines planted along the DMZ, a 4 km swath of land stretching the border of North and South Korea. The tiny trianglular signs warn of this danger. However, there were some foods to watch out…

Day 45 of 111. Incheon, South Korea The two strongest impressions of South Korea were the large number of condominiums indicative of the very high population density and the amount of barbed wire and observation posts along the coasts, the river, and the DMZ. It was obvious from our observations and from the information of…

Day 45 of 111. Port of Incheon, South Korea Early morning entry into Incheon, Korea, involved passage through a lock with very little room to spare. At each port, a pilot from the locality comes on board. Looking up into the navigation window I could see our captain and I think the other fellow was…

Day 44 of 111. The Yellow Sea nearing Incheon, South Korea In watercolor class we tried our hand at stylized bamboo painting. On our tours I took pictures of bamboo to get some ideas about how the leaves should look. It turns out that there are over 300 species of bamboo so almost anything can…

Day 43 of 111. Nagasaki, Japan Nagasaki, Japan. We toured Ground Zero where the second atomic bomb was dropped. It was a somber visit with the message that Nagasaki must be the last place on earth where an atomic bomb is ever dropped. The black obelisk marks the exact spot of ground zero. There were…

Day 42 of 111. Kagoshima, Japan We visited Kagoshima and the Sakurajima Volcano. We took a ferry over to the island volcano and could see puffs of smoke rising from the peaks. The island is also the home of the huge white radish! Cool stuff. Sengan-en Garden was built as the second residence of the…

Day 40 of 111. Osaka, Japan At dinner, we decided to leave the ship one more time and ride the giant Ferris wheel. Our table mate, Bernice, really wanted to go, so we ended up going along with the idea. It turned out to be a smooth and pleasurable ride and we got a good…