Tuesday-Day Eleven Busan South Korea A huge harbour complex greeted us prior to breakfast this morning, the third largest port in the world. Mountains on all sides, a mixture of commercial and high density housing crowded between very new port facilities. Docking at 8am today we were informed previously that if you weren't taking a tour you would need a taxi into Busan which would cost around 7200Won. We were pleasantly surprised to find shuttle buses. Armed with a map, and a plan to see the UN Memorial cemetery we joined the throng of people waiting for shuttles, tours and taxis and quickly decided to give this a miss and go to the Maritime Museum which was within the terminal area. But on our way there we saw a shuttle bus with the door ... read more

Sunday- Day Nine at Sea on route to Nagasaki We had been warned that we were traveling into a storm building into a typhoon and by midnight you could feel a distinct rocking or as the captain put it "Motion in the Ocean" We awoke to nasty grey skies, dirty looking seas and whitecaps, and for me a distinct queasy feeling. No tai chi was having enough trouble walking upright with the swaying never mind balancing. Our cabin attendant Hitesh was looking a lovely shade of yellow, he's Indian, and was feeling very sick and sorry for himself. This is his first trip on this boat, I'm not sure if he has worked on any others. Breakfast soon fixed me although the scrambled eggs took a little bit of encouragement to stay down. But ... read more

Friday- Day Seven sailing from Muroran to Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean. Today we came within 50kms of the Fukishima nuclear plant, sailing down to Tokyo. We last took water on board in Muroran yesterday with an assurance of not taking on any water until we reach Tokyo. At 4pm we were advised of being the closest we would get with the assurance of the radiation risk being less than that of an XRay. So another sea day today when there are many choices of ship board activities and another formal night. Again a night for suiting up, and minimum standard of cocktail dresses in the dining room, fine dining, and tonight in the dancing venue was the 9 piece orchestra that plays for the shows each night. Trivial pursuit this morning was a ... read more

Tuesday- Day Four Toyama prefecture and Takaoka- north west coast of Honshu. Upon arrival in Japanese port all passengers regardless of whether they are disembarking need to go through a face to face immigration procedure. This involves being digitally fingerprinted; thermal imaging for heat, and a photo, so 3000+ passengers requires some logistics in accomplishing this smoothly. It was so amusing to see people who just would not line up try various strategies to not queue; bullying of staff, cutting in line, trying to join the tour lines, pushing in, distraction, lying, you name it, it was tried. This only happens once, so our other 3 Japanese stops are basically get on and off. Really the whole process from line up to getting on the wharf was less than 45 minutes, and Takaoka had ... read more

Sunday-Day Two of Cruise sailing on the Yellow Sea and into The Korean Strait. Royal Caribbean line run many ships and Voyager of the Sea is one of the biggest. We have 1165 crew on board from many countries. Most of the staff seem to be Chinese, Indian or Pilipino, but as the clientele come from all over the globe so too do the staff. Our room attendant's name is Hitesh and he's from Bombay. His job is to wait on us hand and foot, keep our rooms clean, basically our own personal butler albeit shared with 9 other rooms. This is the closest I will get to feeling like royalty. At tea last night Jun Jiang was our waitress, an English master’s graduate from the north of China. She had spent 6 months ... read more