Copenhagen, Denmark --- July 15 – 18, 2011 We arrived in Copenhagen to be welcomed by a representative from Regent Seven Seas and a light drizzle. Since we could not get into our hotel room at that time we took off to begin our exploration of the city. One sight that is visible throughout the city is a tall church steeple with on outside spiralling staircase. Construction of the church began in the 1690’s and dragged out over a number of years thereafter. Half of the climb is within the bell tower with the upper half on the outside for a total of 398 steps up and the same number coming down. The calves on Mare’s legs were sore for the next 2 days. One oddity at the hotel 2 of the restaurants were closed because ... read more

Istanbul, Turkey ---- October 23, 2010 Istanbul means traffic, history, east meets west, peddlers and bargaining. The population of Istanbul is estimated to be 15 million or half of Canada’s population cramped into one sprawling city, hampered with ancient narrow one direction twisting streets. To put this into perspective you haven’t seen grid-lock until you have seen Istanbul. There are only 2 bridges over the Bosphorus separating the Asian side from the European side of Istanbul. Total credit has to be given to our bus drivers who navigated the narrow streets squeezing by seeming less than an inch from double parked cars. When we arrived our tour guide welcomed us to Istanbul and said that the drive to our hotel would take between 1 to 5 hours depending on traffic. He was only partially kidding. Our ... read more

Dubai, United Arab Emirates - October 18, 2010 Due to the cancelation of our visit to Nepal we flew from Chaing Mai, had a fuel stop in Bombay India and finally landed in Dubai. The total flight time was about 6 hours; fortunately we picked up 3 hours in time zones. Our first stop in Dubai was to take some pictures of the Sail Hotel then off to the Dubai Mall to take the elevator up the Tower 124 floors in 60 seconds. The Tower is the highest building in the world and can be seen from 90km away. Some of the pictures taken from the viewing gallery will give you some idea of the construction and different buildings in Dubai. If the buildings in Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo were eye-catching they are also at least ... read more

October 13, 2010 --- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia On this trip I should mention that we have been joined by a very special passenger Winifred a cute little bear who is travelling around the world with her grandmother Elizabeth. Winifred has her own passport and has adopted a baby bear from Japan to join her on this adventure. When one refers to this part of the world, you recognize Singapore but not often Kuala Lumpur. Singapore is located on a tiny corner of Malaysia. The capital of Malaysia is Kuala Lumpur. One of the first things that strike a visitor from most Western counties is the buildings and the construction everywhere. The biggest difference is that it almost appears that they must have a continual architectural contest to design and build different buildings. The tall box or ... read more

October 7, 2010 - Tokyo One hears about the ‘Bullet Train’, but one has to take it to really understand both how fast it goes (average speed is around 225 to 250 mph) and how smooth the ride is. It took about 2 hours from Kyoto to Tokyo a distance of about 500 km. The working population of Tokyo including people that commute from the suburbs is about 14 million, almost half of Canada’s population. We were met at the train station by our guides, our guide spent several years in Vancouver as a student so she had no problem relating to a bunch of Canadians. Our first stop was a large park which has a Shinto shrine. Perhaps I should investigate the Shinto religion more since on one side of the path as we entered ... read more