Japan to Honalulu

Kobe

Unfortunately my cold got worse and turned into bronchitis so from Shanghai on I really didn't do much, Just stayed in my cabin, took medications and slept. One of the minuses of this trip is that any kind of illness goes through the ship like wildfire. Most people get sick, and then get well. I suppose, because I am old, my sicknesses always get worse and turn into something else - usually bronchitis.

I was supposed to meet my friend from the Icelandic horseback trip in 1992 ,who lives in Tokyo ,and spend the weekend with her there. She was going to come to Kobe and we were going to take the bullet train to Tokyo and then I was going to meet the ship in Yokahama. However, I decided that I had better cancel. She wrote back that she was also sick so maybe its just as well we didn't try it. Disappointung, but perhaps we cn do it on my next trip.

I did take a short SAS trip to Kyoto and saw some Temples and gardens which did not do anything positive for my health. These were very beautiful and needed to be seen with plenty of time to sit and absorb the scenery. It was a holiday though and crowds and crowds of people were everywhere. Busses were given parking times and spaces and people were marched through without being able to stop in order to make room for the people on the next bus. Japan is very overcrowded and I suppose they have done a very good job in handling this by strict organization so everything has a place and time and everyone does the same. I do not think it would be very pleasant though to have so little freedom to be spontaneous. Japam's infrastructure is superb and I love heated seats in public restrooms!

Japan to Honalulu

I still remained mostly confined to my rooml Did hear a few funnies: Someone asked "what is the elevation at sea level?" and "do these stairs go up or down?" Also our Almighty Dean changed the International dateline for us so that we would not have two Thanks giving dinners but had two days of Saturday, Nov. 27th. Is it surprising that none of us ever know the date and day.? We measure it by time between ports like "We haven't done this since Shanghai" etc.