Far-East 2024

Noon Report: We awoke this morning as we were pulling into the harbor at Keelung (the port for Taipei) INTO TOWNWe boarded our bus and began our 45 minute ride into Taipei.As we have seen in other Asian countries, the bus was extensively decorated. But the air conditioning worked so we were happy.Immediately on leaving […]

Noon Report: Today was a sea day – the first of 3 on this cruise.We started in the normal fashion – earning those calories.Back at the cabin we got cleaned up and grabbed a quick breakfast before heading down to the Theatre for the first of today’s lectures: There wasn’t a lot new in this

Noon Report: Over breakfast we watched student groups taking tours of the bridge of the MV Xue Long docked across the wharf from us (see the post from Monday). After breakfast we took advantage of a quiet morning up in the Explorer’s Lounge to do a bit of reading, blogging, and chatting with Mike and

Noon Report: Nothing much happening this morning, except… Bags were due outside our door by 8:30 so we were up at 7:30 to get the day started. We were packed and bags out with 5 minutes to spare so we celebrated by going to breakfast. Of course everyone on the Viking pre-cruise extension (there were

Couple of things: First, Jet Lag is much less of an issue traveling east to west. Second, travel fatigue is still an issue. We arrived last night shortly after 9:30 and headed straight for bed. We didn’t get up until 7:00 this morning. But now we feel, not fine, but not rummy like we would

It started like any other normal day (if by normal you mean the alarm woke us up at 3:55) and we spent the next 35 minutes getting dressed, performing final ‘ready the house for absence,’ and throwing the final few items into baggage. The Uber guy was early, and so were we so we got

So we’re into the process – working with lists: We’re trying to remember that getting out the door is an adventure in itself – but we keep thinking of things…