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🇰🇷 Incheon: Throwing Elbows for Korean Skincare
Beautiful sunset last night. And then the Incheon Bridge (the longest in Korea) put on a light show. Incheon observation: I have never seen as many densely clustered high-rise apartment buildings as there are here in Incheon/Seoul. The population density is unreal. South Korea is about the same size as Indiana, yet it has more…
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🇰🇷 Seoul, South Korea: Shopping and a Protest
We are in South Korea today. Well technically, we are docked in Incheon, which is about an hour and a half west of Seoul. So, we’re taking the herd bus to Seoul this am. It’s a drop and do your own thing bus, though. No tour. Huzzah. Because my main focus for today is shopping. …
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🛳️ A Day at Sea: Sportsing on the Lido Deck
Sometime around 2am, our ship went through the Strait of Kanmon, a narrow waterway separating Japan’s Honshu and Kyushu islands. And, courtesy of some lingering jet lag, I was awake for it. So, I got up and snapped a photo as we passed under the bridge. The iPhone 17 Pro Max handles low light remarkably…
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🇯🇵 The Beppu Hot Springs: Welcome to Hell
Steady rain today. ☔️ We’re with the herd this morning. The ship did a great job making sure everyone had an umbrella. A golf umbrella. So, the whole herd is armed with umbrellas, and no one has peripheral vision. It’s umbrella bumper cars. So far, I have been poked in the face, the ear, and my…
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🇯🇵 Kochi Castle: What Goes Up Must Come Down
Ken and I were exhausted last night. Can’t decide if it was jet lag or a Kobe beef coma. Probably some of both. We’re in Kochi, Japan today. Arrived into port this morning to a very colorful, musical flag-waving welcome. Ken: This song slaps! 🎶 Me: I can’t believe you just said slaps. Kochi Castle We…
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🇯🇵 Kobe: Sake & Beef, with a Side of Shinto
Today’s theme: Sake and beef with a side of Shinto. We spent the day in Kobe, which is famous for two things: beef and sake. Rather than join the ship’s excursion herd, we hired a guide so we could go at our own pace. Sake Brewery Museum We started our day at the Hakutsuru Sake Brewery…
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🇯🇵 Tokoname: Home of the Luckiest Cats in Japan
A quick note before I get started: Many of you have reached out about the major earthquake in northern Japan today. Our current location is in the south of Japan (see map), well away from the affected area. And one of the safest places to be during an earthquake and tsunami is at sea. So we are just fine. Thank you for checking…
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🇯🇵 Embarkation Day & What I Learned About Laundry in Japan
Embarkation day. Ken and I were both wide awake at 3am. Jet lag clearly isn’t done with us yet. And once we were awake, we were starving. Emergency granola bars to the rescue. At breakfast this morning, I tried aloe yogurt. Yes, aloe. It tasted exactly like a skincare product. Ken: “What did you think it was…
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🇯🇵 A Full Day in Tokyo: A Watch, a Knife, and a Tea Ceremony
Oh, it’s been a DAY. Buckle up! Slept for 10 glorious hours last night. Like some kind of teenager. Feeling much more human today. We only had one full day in Tokyo before boarding our ship, so I wanted to maximize our time. Tokyo is the largest city on earth – 37 million people in…
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🇯🇵 First (Jetlagged) Impressions of Tokyo
We just returned home from a 2-1/2 week trip to Asia – a Regent Seven Seas cruise that started from Tokyo, traveled around the southern half of Japan, then to Seoul, and Shanghai. We covered 2,942 nautical miles – about like going from New York to Los Angeles. Lots to unpack. I will share my travelogues…
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The Highlight Real: You’re Harshing Everyone’s Mellow
In today’s episode of The Highlight Real: Let’s talk about early flights. I’m not talking about early in the normal human sense, where you set an alarm for 6am and go about your day. I’m talking about the flights that leave so early you can’t decide whether to go to bed and get up at…
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📸 The Great Travel Camera Debate
Here is the situation I find myself in every single time we travel: I own a Nikon D800, a Leica Q3, a Sony RX-10, and an iPhone 17 Pro Max. That is, objectively, too many cameras. And yet somehow, packing for a trip always involves the same impossible calculus: which one(s) comes with me, and…