Random thoughts from the sea
Day 41, Grand Asia 2018 Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, Singapore: Another port, another food adventure. This is the beauty of having visited many of these places before. I’m free from the obligation to take the “Best of” tour. Instead, I am looking for experiences. They seem to revolve around food.
Continue reading
Day 38, Grand Asia 2018 Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018, Nha Trang, Vietnam: If there was a day for me to wake up with a scratchy throat, this was it, I guess. I had booked an independent tour with some fellow passengers from our Cruise Critic roll call. But the forecast
Continue reading
Day 36, Grand Asia 2018 Monday, Nov. 5, 2018, Hong Kong: I keep thinking this cruise can’t get any better, and then it does. Our berth in Hong Kong is at Kai Tak, the site of the old Hong Kong airport turned into a cruise port on Kowloon. It’s not
Continue reading
Day 33, Grand Asia 2018 Friday, Nov. 2, Taipei, Taiwan: At some point while traveling to nearly a dozen ports in Japan and China, you realize that you’ve seen your fill of temples and shrines, just like many European tourists eventually tire of cathedrals and castles. That’s when a foodie
Continue reading
Day 32, Grand Asia 2018 Thursday, Nov. 1, Keelung, Taiwan: The farther we sailed southwest toward Taiwan, the heavier the clouds. Soon we had light rain. By noon, as we approached the harbor at Keelung on the northern side of the island, the waves became choppy. The small pilot boat
Continue reading
Day 31, Grand Asia 2018 Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, Naha, Okinawa, Japan: After a month of near-perfect weather, the tide is turning and affecting our itinerary. While I was in the city of Naha on Okinawa, Capt. Eversen announced that our stop tomorrow in Ishigaki, Japan, is canceled due to
Continue reading
Day 29, Grand Asia 2018 Monday, Oct. 29, 2018, Shanghai, China: The chirping drowned out almost everything. This was a side of Shanghai, with its skyscrapers and designer shops, that I hadn’t seen before. We had passed through a narrow door into a market behind the storefronts in the old
Continue reading
Day 28, Grand Asia 2018 Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018, Shanghai, China: There is no better eye candy from the ship than in Shanghai. I slept later than usual and missed the pre-dawn journey up the Haungpu River. My first sight of the city was the view from my balcony, and
Continue reading
Day 25, Grand Asia 2018 Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, Tianjin, China: After a day in Tianjin yesterday and a two-day trip to Beijing last year, my options for today were limited. The ship offered a 40-minute shuttle ride to a mall, but having heard the descriptions from those who went
Continue reading
Day 24, Grand Asia 2018 Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, Tianjin, China: New York City has about 8.6 million people, according to Wikipedia. Tianjin, China, has 15.6 million residents. And yet I had never heard of Tianjin before cruising to China. For cruisers, Tianjin is best known as the port for
Continue reading
Recent Comments