Today we finished our 75-day Grand Asia cruise on the Regent Explorer. Notwithstanding our bags being almost two weeks late, Allyn having the medical scare of her life, Destination Services being incompetent and rude, food being inconsistent and many shows dreadful, we had a great time. So many passengers love this line and other high-end […]

  It’s always fun visiting caves, and Ryugado was no disappointment. It’s about 4KM long with maybe 25% open to the public. On the way there we passed many rice fields. The cherry blossom trees were in full bloom. Not unlike other caves we have visited, there were plenty of stalactites (from top down) and […]

The 82-day Battle of Okinawa took place in April – June, 1945. It was the largest amphibious assault in the WWII Pacific Theater. Many Okinawans were conscripted into the Japanese Army and other locals were killed by coerced suicide and terrible conditions. From here the Allied forces had a close airbase and anchorage where they […]

Touring Nagasaki is all about the 1945 Atomic Bomb. The Peace Park has moving sculptures from all over the world. Its entire focus is peace. The 33-foot Nagasaki Peace Statue is quite a welcome. These are just a smattering of other moving pieces. The Atomic Bomb Museum covers the facts of the destruction. I couldn’t […]

With a 3.4 million population, Busan is the second largest city in South Korea. However it is the world’s 6th largest cargo port.   The entire waterway seems occupied by container terminals. The Jagalchi Fish (and seafood) Market is the town highlight in my opinion. It seems to go on forever. They have informal stalls […]

Today’s interesting tour took us to two separate and distinct places in Nagoya. The Atsuta Shrine is the second most important Shinto shrine in Japan. It dates to the first century.   It is over 2000 years old, is a whopping 2.2 million square feet and attracts over 9 million visitors annually. This young couple […]

With only a day in Tokyo, we chose to forget this shrine and that garden. We visited the real deal. Everybody knows that Tokyo is big. With just under 40MM inhabitants it is VERY crowded, yet immaculate. It has one of the world’s lowest crime rates. On our short stay we found virtually everybody extremely […]

Our ship has been in Kobe for the last couple of days. Many people visited Kyoto, Japan’s cultural capital or Osaka, Japan’s second largest city. Since Allyn is still recovering from surgery, we decided to stay close and take it easy. I took the shuttle in to check things out in the morning. Like everything […]

Allyn Shulman is today’s blogger. After some recent harrowing experiences that lasted for about 6 weeks, and after much consideration, I have decided to share some extremely personal events that have had a huge impact on my life.   As many of you know, I am on a world cruise currently sailing through Asia.  I […]

We have had five stops in Indonesia. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country with 23 million adherents, representing 86.7% of the population. Komodo Island, one of over 17,000 Indonesia Islands is famous for the Komodo dragon. The world’s largest reptile is worth a peak, but being here twice before convinced me to stay onboard. […]