Eastern Russia                                                           April 20, 2016 Just a few hours heading north in the Pacific Ocean and you go from relatively mild early Spring weather in Japan to sub-zero snow in Russia! We visited Korsakov on Monday, on the island of Sakhalin, about halfway between Japan and Russia in this area of the world. This […]

now this gal shows my level of athletic prowess! Rodin’s Burghers of Calais – one view (there are 57 castings of this sculpture in existence)    

Japan                                                              Friday, April 15, 2016 Our last stop in Korea was Busan (aka Pusan), on the southeast coast, and we enjoyed a long day seeing various sights, including some beautiful beaches. We visited a Buddhist temple perched high on a cliff (lots of steps to get to the top, but well worth the climb) overlooking […]

Seoul and Jeju Island, South Korea             Friday April 8, 2016   8pm We spent yesterday in Seoul and today in Jeju Island, South Korea. In each place, guides emphasized that Korea is different from China and from Japan. Koreans are descendants of Mongolians, not Chinese clans. Koreans appreciate things on a smaller scale than the way […]

Beijing, China                                                 Wednesday, April 6, 2016 The bottom line, if you don’t want to read further, is that this is just about the biggest place we have ever seen – more people, more land, more buildings, bigger buildings, more of everything than we ever could have imagined. We cannot even begin to explain the history […]

Shanghai, China                                Thursday, March 31, 2016 Greetings from Shanghai! We have spent the better part of two days exploring this City, which has a relatively short but exciting past, and a very exciting future ahead of it. This is our third stop in China – the first was Hong Kong, which is a special administrative […]