Kagoshima
That Pompei moment. That’s no backdrop. It’s real, spewing out hot ash.
On the ferry to the volcano.
Well worth the visit to the volcano just to experience close up the giant ash cloud spewing up.
Volcano again.
Escape to Sengan-en garden, designed by a Samurai Lord. Now this is more up my street. Quite impressive but alas no Zen garden. Have a coffee and tea in the cafe along with some stoggy rice cake on a stick and some other fried rice cake with black bits in it. Browsing the store is a bit like Costco. Loads of free samples.
Meet up with our new found friends from LA for drinks and the show. We thought it was a full blown Cirque du Solei. Turns out it’s Duo de Solei, a couple of acrobats. Very agile and impressive. She’s certainly fit, can bend like a pretzel, and is just wearing a provocative costume to help keep the men awake. Any minute now there could be a costume failure. Not quite what we were expecting though.
Our first Japanese garden. First of many I hope. Sad!
Hotel wifi is 90MB, sort of place you’d have to prize me out of.
Interesting but all our female tour, irrespective of age, seem obsessed with good looking males. Every one of them has weaved some saga on handsome males, into their spiel.
Today’s Japanese trivia – the colour red drives away evil spirits.
Very aware you’re in a minority, but the Japanese all seem very helpful and don’t resent you. Amazed how many speak English.
A lot of Japanese women seem to shuffle along flat footed. Then you have the pretty youngsters dressed in trendy clothes yet wearing high black Doc Martin style clod hoppers – bizarre.
Haven’t seen any perambulating bin liners with slits in them roving around like Daleks. But you do get the white surgical masks – “what pretty eyes”. The black surgical masks can be a bit more intimidating..
Job creation in Japan beats the USA. For example a car park with hardly any cars yet 7 directing non existent traffic. Lollipop men everywhere waving you to safety with their red light sabres.
Green New Deal Aims to ‘Fully Get Rid of Farting Cows and Airplanes’ — Eventually
More garden.
An old Arabian proverb says: “If the camel gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.”
Europeans are waking up to the new reality. They no longer live in Europe. They live in Eurabia where Muslims are getting the upper hand:
I know it’s a first World problem but why in the name of the FSM have we been inflicted with this need to constantly accept cookie policies every time we go to a web page? Does anyone ever stop and read the inane T&C’s?
Fukuoka
Remember him? Seems he emigrated to Japan. Probably was politically incorrect and offended a bunch of snowflakes.
Yeah, no tours booked today in Fukuoka, so no squeaky pigeon English; no being serenaded by a failed Karaoke entrant; no mention of Samurai or Shoguns; no temples; no shrines.
Lazy morning doing blogs and battling with the internet. My Internet been restored to full LTE capacity. Amazing a few days ago I couldn’t get my iCloud photos to synch and today, because I don’t want to risk busting my so-called UNLIMITED data limit, I just can’t stop the photo’s from synching.
No we’re not in Australia.
Really pleasant 4 hours just strolling around, enjoying the lovely sunshine and good company. Had a great time. Amazed how relatively easy it all was and how many spoke English. We really should have done more of our own thing, but we’ve got that to look forward to in Tokyo and Kyoto.
He looks friendly.
Cafe for after dinner espresso and then early to bed. So tired I didn’t even manage to finish my Brandy.
How romantic!
They get everywhere.
Brexit: Why Britain Left the European Union
Busan – South Korea
South Korea.
Up and out at the crack of sparrows on a tour to the Orukdo Skywalk. A tad disappointing. Not that long, not that high, so not that scary, and not that spectacular. Some picturesque little islands though.
Supposedly a Sky Walk – not very terrifying or impressive.
Buddhism just another one of those wacky religion, but seems relatively harmless. Has some really good common sense beliefs:
Don’t be stupid – well that rules out any politicians
Don’t be angry – does that still apply when dealing with computers or web sites?
Don’t be greedy – again excludes politicians
No Wi-Fi today. How will I survive. Well at least on the coach we’re not serenaded by the tour guide, instead we have our ears battered by the repetitive chants of Buddhist monks.
Another Buddhist temple. At least this ones in Korea.
Back on board ship for lunch. Then around mid afternoon we go to the only Republicans in LA suite for wine and champagne. Sweets are very light and roomy. Now Wendy thinks that is how we should always travel – another great way to fritters away the kids inheritance.
Cheerful folk.
We were going to go to the show for a snooze but ended up retiring early after a couple of excellent brandies.
A grave yard.
“We want our priorities funded and one of the biggest priorities during the campaign was border security, keeping Americans safe, and part of that was a border wall,” he said.
“We still don’t understand why the Democrats are so wholeheartedly against it. They voted for it in 2006. Then-Sen. Obama voted for it. Sen. Schumer voted for it. Sen. Clinton voted for it. So we don’t understand why Democrats are now playing politics just because Donald Trump is in office.”
Sea Day
Islands in Busan.
Navigation deck tour.
Well we’ve not seen any news from the Times or the Wall Street Journal for days now. It’s a bit like being on the dark side of the moon, but I’m certainly not fretting over the news blackout. It’s quite refreshing, although I miss the Internet for fact finding etc.
They don’t let you steer.
End up going on a free Bridge tour courtesy of Phil as they have two free tours but Kim is not interested. Very interesting. That desperate we even end up going to a Trivia quiz.
In the evening we go with Phil and Kim to the Tuscany restaurant, one of the speciality, empty my wallet restaurants. Have to say the meal was excellent, Parmiani, lobster and superb steak. I’d certainly do that again
Then for entertainment we all do a His and Hers quiz. The men win.
Just remember The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it’s twice as big as it needs to be.