Cruise around Japan

May 2, 2025

This April, we took a tour with Smithsonian Journeys and the cruise company Ponant around Japan, we visited multiple ports in the inland sea, the Sea of Japan, and across to South Korea. We flew to Osaka via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific, an excellent airline, we arrived a day early and stayed at the airport hotel at Kansai Airport. We met the tour and boarded the ship at Kobe harbor which was about an hour bus ride from Osaka.

After boarding and unpacking in our very nice cabin with a generous sized balcony, we had dinner on board ( all of the food on the cruise was excellent ). The ship sailed for our next port Takamatsu and we attempted to sleep the confused sleep of the jet lagged.

After waking up multiple times I finally got dressed and found the lounge where they serve coffee and small pastry at 6:30 AM. One of the best things about tours that are cruises is that like magic you wake up in a completely new place every morning.

We had two excursions that day to Ritsurin Gardens and Shikokumura Museum. The garden was an enormous strolling garden along a river and multiple ponds. There were multiple tea houses, bridges, and other traditional buildings in the park. Many of the trees had been carefully maintained following the aesthetics of Bonsai but in full size trees. The landscape was very carefully designed to reveal views as you walked along the various pathways.

Shikokumura Museum was a collection of Japanese traditional buildings collected and moved to the site. The age of the houses spanned from the 1600’s to the 1920’s. Many of them were furnished with period interiors.

After returning to the ship, having lunch and a nap and some drinks and dinner, we again attempted to sleep and the ship departed for our next destination Hiroshima. Our cabin was great, the bed was very comfortable and we had plenty of storage space to unpack and put our big bags under the bed. The shower and bathroom were good sized for a cruise ship. We were on the third deck which was pretty much at the center of the ship so the amount of motion at this level was minimal. There were noises from the ship but most of them were various kinds of droning or continuous sounds so it wasn’t hard to fall asleep to them.

We woke up at Hiroshima harbor which was very pretty. This trip really reminded us how mountainous Japan is, apparently only 30% of the land is flat. Every harbor we went to was ringed with mountains. After breakfast we got off the boat and took a bus to the Hiroshima Museum and memorial. The museum was very crowded so I don’t have any pictures but it was very well done and filled with devastating personal stories of the impact of the atomic bombing. The memorial park is beautiful, and it is incredible that the city has been rebuilt and is one of the nicest cities in Japan.

We returned to the ship and had lunch while the ship moved to anchor off of Miyajima Island where there is a huge Shinto Shrine that is built directly on the beach. We took tenders aka the life boats across to the town dock, the transit was very smooth and comfortable. The island is a very important sanctuary which was very important in Japanese history. There is also a Buddhist Temple at the same site. The town that surrounds both of them was also very cool looking. As with a lot of other sacred sites in Japan there were deer wandering all over the place, they are protected as “messengers of the Gods.” This makes them quite bold and they will steal things from tourists if they aren’t paying attention.

After taking the tender back to the ship, there was a special briefing in the ship’s theater. The captain explained that there was going to be a pretty strong storm coming that evening and into the next day. We had been scheduled ( if you notice on the map) to go to Hagi the next day. This was canceled due to the weather because they would have had to use the tenders again and in six meter plus seas the tenders wouldn’t be safe and or comfortable and also because they are also the life boats the ship couldn’t be without them in those conditions.

So, we had a day at sea and caught up with our sleep. There was a bit of motion but on the third deck where we were at the center of the ship the movement was much better than higher up. The Smithsonian experts that were traveling with us caught up on giving lectures on various topics of Japanese history and culture as well.

The next day we arrived at Sakaiminato which is on the west coast of Honshu Island on the Sea of Japan. We went on an excursion to Matsue Castle which was built during the Edo Period, notably a period of peace in Japan which lasted for about two hundred and fifty years. This castle never had to be defended and was surprisingly well preserved. We started with a river boat tour through the moat around the castle, we had to lay down in the boat so that they could lower the roof as we went under several of the low bridges. Our boatman was a local retired gentleman who sang us traditional songs at various junctures.

We then went up and visited the Castle which in reality was more of a fortress and less of a castle because it wasn’t a residence, but mainly a defensive military installation. The beams and joinery were very impressive and the architecture of the fortress on the landscape was lovely.

That evening we departed across the Sea of Japan headed for Busan, South Korea. We woke up and had breakfast outside on the front deck with a great view of the very space age modern city of Busan in the background.

Our excursion that day was to Gyeongju, The Capitol of Ancient Silla this included visiting ancient royal tombs, the incredible Gyeongju National Museum which we could have spent a week at, and the Bulguksa Temple, one of the most important and oldest Buddhist temples in South Korea.

The temple complex was incredible, beautiful grounds, colorful buildings, many temples and statues. The entire place was decorated for Buddha’s Birthday celebration.

We had lunch out at a local Korean restaurant.

It was a wonderful day, and I would like to return to South Korea someday and spend more time visiting more of the country.

During dinner that evening the ship set out to Moji, Japan on the other side of the Sea of Japan. The ship had two dining options, a formal restaurant on deck two and a buffet restaurant on deck six. The buffet restaurant also had outdoor seating which was great when the weather was good. The formal restaurant on deck two was good when there was a lot of ship motion because it had less motion than deck six and the waiters brought the food so you weren’t trying to carry food and manage your “sea legs.” The ship also had 24 hour free room service which we used a couple of times.

Our excursion in the morning was to Akiyoshido Cave which is a huge limestone cave in an area that is dominated by limestone karst. It was a beautiful cave with huge chambers, lots of water features, and colorful minerals. Unlike lava tubes, the path was smooth and it was a pretty easy walk without requiring any special equipment.

The next day we arrived in Uno, Japan where our excursion was to the Kurashiki Bikan Historical Area and the Ohashi Family House, a two hundred year old merchant’s home.

The historical area had many historic buildings and shops that sold indigo dyed clothing which is a local product.

Finally the ship returned to Kobe, Japan and we disembarked in the morning. Due to the schedule of flights we stayed over one more night at the hotel at Kansai Airport before flying to Hong Kong and then on back to Boston.

It was a good trip and a great way to see more of Japan while traveling very comfortably. As always when we visit Japan I learned a lot more about their complex and unique history and culture.

Reykjavik Iceland and Helsinki Finland Trip ( December 2024 )

January 28, 2025

In the past we’ve done trips to someplace warm in December like Barbados for example. Which is always lovely, you should go. This year perhaps caused by global warming and a prior year with very little winter we decided to visit winter by going to a couple of Nordic countries and also countries we have always had on our list.

I worked for Nokia ( a company founded in Finland ) for a few years but never got to visit the mother-ship in Espoo, Finland (just outside Helsinki). I’ve worked with a lot of folks from Finland and really enjoyed the experience and I have to say that Nokia was one of the kindest and most thoughtful companies I ever worked for. I think a lot of that comes from the culture of Finland.

Iceland Air has a great deal where you can book a flight via Reykjavik to someplace else like Helsinki, Finland and take a long layover ( up to seven days I think ) in Iceland for no extra charge and then continue on your journey after enjoying Iceland. They also have very good service and very reasonable airfares. So, we booked a three day layover in Reykjavik and then three more days in Helsinki.

We visited modern art museums, the museum of Icelandic Punk Music ( in a former public restroom), the national museum, tried to see the northern lights ( at an abandoned NATO base ), and toured a huge lava tube. Along the way we had a lot of great food and really excellent cocktails ( there are a couple of local Gin producers who are using local botanical elements to make truly excellent gin ). We got a Reykjavik City Pass which got us into most of the museums and free passage on the trains and busses which were excellent.

Since it was the holiday season there were lights everywhere and we got to learn about the Yule Cat which is an enormous supernatural cat that finds people who haven’t gotten new clothes or haven’t finished their weaving and punishes them. I love the whole concept.

It was cold and dark most of the day, the sunrise was at 10:00 AM, sunset was at 3:00 PM… it wasn’t much of a sun either, it just skimmed the tops of the mountains on the horizon before disappearing again. When it was clear the mountains were beautiful and we saw a volcano erupting just outside Reykjavik. There was frequent light snow, they don’t even report it on the weather report because it would be like reporting that there will be air today.

We flew to Helsinki and arrived around mid-day so we had time to get situated in our hotel and to go to the Christmas Market at Senate Square. It was a very traditional European Christmas Market with stalls selling all kinds of holiday items as well as mulled wine, meat pies, etc… It was a Saturday so it was pretty crowded as we made our way around.

The next day we went to see an exhibit about Gothic influences on modern art, it was fantastic. Then we visited the Design Museum which had an excellent exhibit about mending, preservation and reuse as art. As in Iceland the food was excellent and the cocktails were also locally inspired and very good.

On our final day we took a ferry to the Fortress of Suomenlinna which was built to guard the entrance to the harbor. It was an interesting site that was a multi part museum as well as a community where a lot of folks lived year round. Other parts of the fortress had been converted into civic auditoriums and other civic buildings. It was a nice ferry ride and it was fun to walk around the fortress and learn more about Finland’s history.

All in all it was a great winter getaway, our own winter arrived a few weeks later but it was nice to experience it in countries that really know how to celebrate it.

San Francisco trip to Bay Area Maker Faire ( October 2024 )

January 28, 2025

My birthday present to myself in 2024 was a trip out to San Francisco to visit the Bay Area Maker Faire because I’m a huge fan of makers of all kinds and I’d heard of this faire from multiple sources for years. I also wanted to visit the Computer History Museum because even though I practically commuted to Mountain View, CA while I was working I never got time to see it there. When I was very young I went to the Boston, MA incarnation before it moved to the west coast.

I stopped in at the Computer History Museum first, it was a lot of fun seeing so many of the computers that were important in my career, Apple II, TRS-80 Model I, IBM PC, Compaq DeskPro, Cray supercomputers, ( they didn’t seem to have any of the Honeywell DPS-8 family of GCOS machines ), and even an Amiga. It was a lot more extensive than what I remembered from my childhood.

I have to say that Software history wasn’t very well done and was very biased towards gaming and towards Silicon Valley companies ( essentially whoever was paying for it ).

Bay Area Maker Faire is held at an amazing venue across the bay from San Francisco at Mare Island which is a former naval base. There are huge buildings along the water and big cranes and railway tracks. Most of the maker exhibits were in former coal bunkers where they used to store coal for the battleships. Every form of making was represented there, from costumes to programming, from wood working to metal sculpture. It was great to walk around and just see the imagination and self expression and inventiveness of each of the exhibitors. They even had a dark area for stuff that would light up, so cool.

I was there early on both days that I went and that was a good plan because everything got a lot more crowded than I was comfortable with by just after lunch. One issue I had as an older/heavier human was that there wasn’t much seating in the shade, as in none… I ended up finding a shadow of a building and a raised bulkhead door to sit on. I know it is a west coast right to always be warm and in the sun, but honestly I just burn up and get too hot in that situation.

I also got to have my birthday dinner with a couple of lovely friends that I hadn’t seen in a number of years. It was great to catch up with them and have a wonderful meal at my favorite steak house in the country Harris’ Restaurant. I’ve been going to Harris’ for decades and I just love the vintage interior, classic food, classic drinks, great wine list, amazing steaks ( from their own herd, aged by them ). They’re looking a little threadbare at the moment but still excellent. I think the pandemic may have done them some damage.

That’s the trip report finally, I really enjoyed it!

Travel: Greece

June 6, 2023

For the last three years my beautiful and talented wife and I have been trying to go on a tour of Greece that included Crete and all of the great Minoan history there. We finally managed to go in May this year. We went on a tour with Smithsonian Journeys aka Odysseys Unlimited called Classical Greece. We’ve been on many other tours with these folks and as usual the whole experience was top notch. So, lets go day by day…

Day 1,2: Travel to Athens

We flew out of Boston to Munich on Lufthansa ( a partner of United where I have most of my miles ) overnight arriving early in the morning. We fortunately have lounge access so our five hour layover due to a connecting flight change wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We got into Athens a little late but on the good side our luggage made it and it was returned very promptly. We took a cab to the hotel the Athens Capital Center Hotel.

We checked in and in an effort to stay awake for a few more hours we went up to the rooftop bar and had a cocktail.

Day 3: The Acropolis, The Parthenon, Acropolis Museum, and the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture

Our first real day on the tour we are in Athens, breakfast at the hotel was excellent and after a lot of coffee we headed out to go to the Acropolis. We took the bus part of the way up and then walked up through the gates. We were here fourteen years ago but the site, located on top of the hill overlooking Athens is always amazing to look at. They’re in the middle of a major restoration of the Parthenon which is the huge temple at the center of the site. We were early enough that it wasn’t very crowded and we could move around easily. Our guide Lena was excellent, very informative, very organized, and very strategic about where she brought the group and when.

After getting a chance to walk around the Acropolis we went back down the way we came up and walked to the new Acropolis Museum. We were very excited to see this museum as we just missed it’s opening when we visited fourteen years ago. This museum is really beautiful and thoughtfully presented especially the upper floor which is a full scale representation of the marble carvings that used to adorn the Parthanon including detailed replicas of the stolen carvings that are held at the British Museum. Hopefully someday the British Museum will change it’s position and return the carvings in their collection to Greece and they can be displayed here where they belong.

After getting some lunch at the museum cafe we returned to the bus and went to see the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture. This museum is a private collection of a great number of cultural artifacts from Greece. The presentation is a bit old fashioned but the collection itself is very extensive and impressive.

We had a lovely group dinner, which like most of the lunches and dinners on the trip involved excellent Greek appetizers followed by an excellent main course and then some kind of sweet desert. It was definitely good that we were on our feet all day. Needless to say sleeping was not a problem.

Day 4: Delphi

We got on the bus early for the drive to Delphi which is on the slopes of Mount Parnassus a couple of hours drive out of Athens. This is one of the most important oracular sites in Greece. People would travel from all over the Greek world to bring offerings and petition to ask for a prophesy from the Oracle. On the hill as you walk up to the main temple there are treasuries, statues, small temples, all of them offerings from cities or very wealthy people. Many of the artifacts in the museum are offerings that were excavated on the site. At the bottom of the sacred way up the hill there were vendors selling things to use as offerings or even just as souvenirs.

It was raining lightly when we arrived, the mist gave the whole place a great atmosphere. The views as you climbed up to the temple are beautiful looking down the valley. It is one of the nicest ancient sites that I’ve visited for it’s location and landscape.

Again, due to the planning of our tour guide we were there before the hoards that usually crowd the site. We walked down from the site to the museum located on the road below. It was a really nice modern museum with some very striking artifacts from a number of periods of the temple’s use.

Day 5: Corinth / Peloponnese

In the morning we went to the National Archaeological Museum which was just stupendous. There are collections from all periods of ancient Greece along with excellent presentation and documentation. We almost had the museum to ourselves.

From there we took the bus to visit Ancient Corinth. This is where the apostle Paul addressed the Corinthians ( who decided not to prosecute him for blasphemy for his thoughts on the one God ). It was cool to stand below the platform in the agora where he would have given his speech. The city is very well preserved. It was an important port city back in ancient times.

From there we went to the town of Nafplio a nice coastal city on the Peloponnese to have dinner and spend the night.

Day 6: Epidaurus, Mycenae, and Nafplio

First thing in the morning we left on the bus to go to the ancient city of Mycenae which was a powerful local city that controlled the area around it. It was built by the first Greeks by language and writing who are called the Mycenaeans. Many of the stories of Homer relate to these people and their legendary adventures.

After visiting Mycenae we went to a nearby town of Epidaurus which was a special healing shrine. People would travel there and stay in the hospital and receive treatments for whatever was ailing them. Of course most of these treatments were mystical in nature so perhaps not directly effective. But perhaps leaving their day to day life to rest in the sanctuary helped a lot of folks recover on their own.

We had the afternoon off, which in general meant we had lunch and then had a nap.

Day 7: Hydra

This day was a day trip by boat to the island of Hydra off the coast of the Peloponnese. It was a nice island with a charming waterfront. It was a nice break from taking in lots of information about Greek history for several days. We just wandered around and then had lunch before returning on the boat.

Day 8: Heraklion, Crete

We drove back to the airport in Athens and took a short flight to Crete and basically just checked into the hotel and had dinner after a short walk through town.

Day 9: Knossos

We went first to visit the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion, they have all of the finds from Knossos and other sites on Crete. Knossos was a Minoan city built in the Bronze Age and the Minoans were a pre-Greek civilization with probably a different language and their writing called Linear-A has not been deciphered. Their art and their architecture however are amazing and you can see it’s influence on later Mycenaean works. They were a sea faring culture that traded with the Egyptians and were recorded by them in paintings and writings. Knossos was excavated and reconstructed by the English Archaeologist Arthur Evans. We also visited the reconstructed site, it gave a great impression of what the architecture of the Minoans would have been like.

Day 10: Spinalonga

This day was another sight seeing trip to a small island off of Crete called Spinalonga which was a Venetian fortress later taken by the Turks and then made into a Leper colony. We wandered through the fortress and had a boat ride around it. Then we went back and had lunch in a small town near by provided by a women’s collective who do traditional cooking for weddings, festivals and other celebrations. They were very kind to us and the food was wonderful, several items I’d never had before.

Day 11: Santorini

We took a high speed ferry over to Santorini from Crete. I was impressed that our tour guide got us on the boat, wrangled all of our luggage and got us all back off with our bags on the other end. It was sort of an every person for themselves sort of scene.

Day 12: Santorini / Akrotiri

Santorini was a Minoan settlement as by all accounts a very rich island. In 1600 BCE the volcano in the center of the island exploded creating the caldera you see above. It also buried everything in the vicinity under a very thick blanket of volcanic ash. The city of Akrotiri was discovered by a shepherd when his goat went down a hole in the ash covering and he found evidence of buildings there. It was on the side of the island that was lightly covered with ash only 30 feet or so. Subsequent excavations have uncovered the city center and about ten percent of the town. It is preserved very well including casts of furniture and other household items that decayed inside their compacted ash enclosure.

Day 13, 14: Travel back to Athens and then to the US

We flew back from Santorini to Athens and had a night to have an excellent farewell dinner in the same roof top restaurant/bar we started in. The only excitement on the way home was a delay getting out of Athens to Munich made our connection very tight. But by some fairy magic there was nobody in passport control when we got there and we zipped through to our gate. We were a little winded but we made it.

We really enjoyed the trip, the museums, sites, hotels, restaurants, the countryside all lived up to our expectations.

Travel: Oslo, Norway

April 22, 2022

At the end of March me and my beautiful and talented wife visited Oslo, Norway. We have traveled to the region in the past going to Bergen in Norway, and to Stockholm in Sweden and Roskilde and Copenhagen in Denmark. We like this part of the world and it’s history and culture. The picture above is of the Oslo Opera House which is a beautiful building right on the fjord. You can walk up and down the ramp like roof of the Opera House and take in great views of the city and the fjord.

Our walks around the city took us to Akershus Fortress which overlooks the fjord as well…

Due to jet lag I was often up quite early in the morning so I would slip out for walks around the city. It is a very walkable city by the way…

One of the most striking buildings that I came across was the Oslo City Hall. At first I thought it was some kind of crazy church since it’s architecture doesn’t look anything like a city hall to me. Huge bell tower, statues, carvings, elaborate clocks… it is quite a building. Then you go inside and all of the spaces each have their own story and set of murals and specific design. Many of the rooms have huge windows that view the fjord just outside the building. One of the most open and engaging city halls that I’ve ever seen.

Of course there was museum going… but there were disappointments… some of the best museums were closed because they were being consolidated into the new national museum that wouldn’t open until June. We visited the History Museum which had some great exhibits about spinning and weaving as well as about the Vikings and the Sami people…

We went for a cruise around the fjord. It isn’t the most dramatic fjord we’ve ever seen but it was a great way to see the area from the water. There are some very picturesque island towns as well as lighthouses and dramatic headlands in the distance.

One of the most famous attractions in Oslo is The Vigeland Park which is a huge sculpture park all by the same artist Gustav Vigeland who also designed the park. It is an incredible tribute to humanity, in every form, emotion and condition. Every sculpture is it’s own compact story and there are hundreds of them. Some tiny and some monumental and everything in between. The gates and lights and other furnishings in the park are all part of the presentation.

We went on an alternative culture and food walking tour around the hipster area which is called Grünerløkka. It was fun, probably the highlight for me was the waffle with “brown cheese” ( not cheese at all, more of a byproduct of cheese making ) and honey, jam and cream and the local hotdog ( hotdogs and frozen pizza are the two staple foods of Norway ) served in a potato pancake. It was nice to see some areas of the city that weren’t so sparkly, clean and modern.

A very famous resident of Oslo was Edvard Munch best know for his ubiquitous painting The Scream. We visited the new Munch museum, a beautiful building right on the fjord next to the Opera House. I have to say, having seen a comprehensive overview of his work and his life, I’m not a big Munch fan. I do like some of his monumental paintings and some of his portraits, self portraits, and etchings. But, overall I didn’t connect with him very much.

The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History is an outdoor living history museum ( in the summer .) We were able to wander around and look at the buildings from different periods of Norway’s history and from various areas of the country. It was a nice collection, it’d be fun to visit in the summer when it would be more like Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts with interpreters working and explaining what life was like in the various periods represented.

We took a day trip flying up to Trondheim which is the ancient capital of Norway and a university town. They have a beautiful 14th century Cathedral and an excellent museum of archaeology focusing on the viking period.

Back in Oslo, the National Museum of Architecture and Design is a small museum but it had an interesting show covering the interaction of designers in Norway and Scandinavia with designers in the United States. What was known as “Scandinavian Design” was somewhat a transatlantic conversation…

We also saw some Jazz at the club in our hotel, it was a mixed performance billed as “The Music of Ella Fitzgerald.” If you come with that title you need an amazing vocalist. The woman who performed sounded like she’d blown out her voice screaming at a football match. On the other hand, the band leader who played the clarinet was very good. And I’m a huge clarinet fan. He also had the good sense to intersperse her singing with long band solos… I think they knew what was what.

The bar at our hotel was probably the only “fancy” cocktail bar in Oslo and so when we went down for a drink we were always among the young and powerful people dressed to the nines and very much wanting to be “seen". To the credit of the staff they treated us old Americans very well and made great cocktails and even when I threw out requests like a Bijou they did well. I did get asked “Do you always come to a bar and order a drink such as the Bijou?” To which I answered “Yes”

The next major city in that direction that we need to visit sometime is Helsinki, Finland and I’d like to try to do a short trip up to Oulu in the north, maybe during the winter to get the full effect. I missed my chance when I worked for Nokia.

Travel: New Orleans / Mardi Gras

April 22, 2022

Back in February me and my beautiful and talented wife went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras family weekend and my wife rode on a float in one of the parades with the Krewe of King Arthur. She has done this once before, it was my first time going to Mardi Gras and my second time going to New Orleans.

I really enjoyed walking around the city and just enjoying the unique look and feel of New Orleans. We were mostly located in the Garden District which is residential with cool houses and parks.

Of course there’s the food and we had some great meals in different parts of the city. We had a great Cajun meal at Mulate’s and excellent sandwiches at Cochon Butcher and fried chicken at Picknic Provisions & Whiskey. And of course Beneigh’s at Cafe Du Monde…

We did some tourist stuff, walking around the French Quarter, fortunately it was pretty quiet being a week or so before the peak of Mardi Gras.

The parades were really an experience, we went to them on the nights before the one that the Krewe of King Arthur were riding in. The crowds got bigger and bigger as we got towards the big parades on Family Sunday. We had to get out early in the day to set up an area to sit on the median of St. Charles Avenue where the parades would go by. Fortunately our hotel, the Prytania Park Hotel was just around the corner, I highly recommend it if you’re thinking of attending parades. It is close enough that you can easily return to the room to use the bathroom or to get provisions or just to cool off.

I was impressed by how nice and friendly the crowd was, everyone respected our space and I saw lots of folks sharing and helping each other. I’m not a big crowd person but this crowd was very diverse and very laid back and happy. In between groups in the parade then kids would be out playing in the street and riding their bikes. It was a lot of fun, and because there are no open container laws in New Orleans you can sit and drink whatever you’ve brought and have snacks or a whole crab boil if you want. It was the best way to witness a parade that I’ve so far experienced.

Over all, I’d go back and visit New Orleans again and probably go to at least one day of parades as well. Next time I think I’d focus on finding some Jazz performances as well…