Leaving Saturday for Los Angeles. Sunday morning non stop to Tokyo. I’ll update when I get there and have some amazing things planned.

Heading to LA in a few minutes. Tokyo tomorrow.

Sitting in Polaris lounge waiting for flight to board. \240Flight time is 11 hrs and 45 minutes.

Today I’m doing a walking tour of Tokyo to get my bearings. Home is 14 hours behind Tokyo so you may see my postings on a day ahead of where you are.

Ok first try at Japanese cold tea. All I can say is I threw it away. \240I am really liking the heated toilet seats. Looking into one when I get home. 🤣

Also found out I got upgrade on ship. DV1 to PV1. For 26 day cruise it will be nice.

Heading out on tour shortly so watch for pictures.

Ok I realized yesterday was not a walking tour. It was a running tour. We did 9,000+ steps in 2 hours and that included lunch.

Today is a private tour to Hakone. \240I should be able to control the pace. \240Still can’t get on Japan time so hopefully it won’t affect me too much.

Legend has it that if you eat smoked eggs for 7 days, you will add 7 years to your life. I don’t even like regular eggs. I wasn’t about to try these.

I did find an interesting thing for my quilt friends. In Hakone there is a Quilt Museum call Kathymom Quilt Museum. Did not have time to stop.

This morning was interesting. I had to return my wifi router before noon via post office. The hotel circled where it was and I thought streets had vehicles and traffic lights. Apparently I was wrong. An alley here is considered a street and if you turned down an alley, there was this small building that said Post Office. Hopefully my wifi router gets to where it needs to go.

I’m heading to Yokohama to catch the cruise ship then no worries for 26 days. \240I can’t imagine the people flying in just for cruise. Jet lag kicked my butt for 2 days. \240I’m also glad to be leaving the only English tv station in hotel which is CNN.

Apparently I have found out I’m allergic to either Cherry Laurel trees or something in the air.

Omg Jon, you would have had a hard time with the ride to the port. It had me questioning my life choices a few times. Let’s just say I’m glad to be on solid ground.

There are more Orientals on this cruise than I’ve ever seen. I guess because this cruise started in Hong Kong and then to Japan. The Captain was saying that there is a lady that has been on since Hong Kong that is 102. He said that she is a doctor and goes dancing every night in Torshavan.

Today I’m doing Panoramic Tokyo tour. I will get to visit places that Tuesday I could not do due to jet lag.

Today is a day at sea. I ordered room service and going to relax today. We are headed to Sapporo, Japan. Should arrive tomorrow evening.

Today is Easter. The room stewards bright chocolate Easter Bunnies to each stateroom. We should arrive Sapporo around 4 this afternoon. Today is first day I actually feel like getting out and doing things. Going to a couple of lectures and watching for whales from Explorers Lounge. Apparently yesterday, one of the guides on board saw a humpback from the fron of the ship.

It’s rainy and foggy so probably won’t be able to see much today.

Today we are in Sapporo, Japan. This will be our last day in Japan before 7 days crossing the sea to Alaska. This includes crossing the International Date Line. Weather today is cloudy temperature around 49 but feels like 39.

At the Sapporo Olympic museum, you can try ski jumping, bobsledding and cross country skiing on simulators.

Today is the first of 7 days at sea. I’m going to be doing laundry shortly. The seas are a bit rough so I’m holding out hope to sea whales. They saw Orca off the bow of the ship outside of Yokohama.

They are having bridge classes and crafting classes as well as lectures all day long.

We are 30 nautical miles from Russiabut too cloudy to see anything.

IYKYK

Day 2 of 8 sea days. Today going to lecture on whale watching from ship in Bering Sea. \240We should be seeing whales and dolphins from the ship in the next couple of days.

We are getting quite a bit of rocking and rolling.

Day 3 at sea. I’m not bored at all. Relaxing, reading and imbibing. Perfect way to spend time. Hopefully will see some whales today or tomorrow.

We have been setting our clocks ahead 1 hour every night since leaving Sapporo. When I arrived in Tokyo, we were 14 hours ahead of home. Today we are 18 hours ahead and tomorrow we cross the International Dateline so they are saying we will repeat the 26th of April twice.

We have had pretty rough seas as we are in the North Pacific Ocean. We have 10-15 foot seas. I enjoyed the sleep but there are a lot of people having issues today.

Another day at sea. Every day we set clock ahead an hour. Can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow. Have not been bored at all. Have been relaxing and doing absolutely nothing.

Saw 2 whales from the Explorers Lounge but unfortunately didn’t have my phone. Maybe tomorrow.

We will have the 26th for 2 days as we cross the International date line. Today is the 26th and tomorrow will be the 26th also.

Today is really April 26, again as we have crossed the International Date Line. I’ve never had a day last 48 hours but some have felt that way. We went from a 19 hour time difference with Houston to now we are 4 hours behind. \240We are in the Bering Sea today.

Going to be whale watching today.

Today really is April 27. We had April 26 for 48 hours as we crossed the International Date Line.

We can see the Aleutian Islands from the ship. No luck seeing whales yet today. \240They are saying the water is too cold for the plankton which is what the whales feed on.

I’m going to spend the day whale watching. There were 7 or 8 during dinner last night. Hopefully I can get some pictures today.

We should be arriving in Kodiak, Alaska around 6:30 am tomorrow morning.

Today we are in Kodiak, Alaska. \240They do not have tourist buses in Kodiak so we get to take school buses when they aren’t being used for school. \240It’s 41 right now, going to high of 47 with rain. Yippee.

Downtown Kodiak is about 2 blocks square. They have a mall with a bakery and another coffee shop, an ACE Hardware, a police station, 4 museums and 7 bars and/or liquor stores. \240Apparently Kodiak has a crime problem because there were signs all around “downtown” about stopping Kodiak crime.

Today we are tendering off the coast of Homer, Alaska. It is cold and rainy and awaiting an announcement as to whether the tenders will be operating today.

A lot of the shops on the Homer Split were not open. \240Not sure if that was due to time of day or time of season. The museum was a small house so didn’t even go in.

The largest salmon caught in Alaska was 97.5 pounds

Today we are in Seward, Alaska. Since I’ve been here before, I’m heading to sea life center.

Amazing little aquarium. They do not have any whales but sea lions, seals, puffins and other sea life.

Today we are in Valdez, Alaska. Valdez has less than 4,000 inhabitants. There are 3 museums here which I had seen before so spent today as a work day. \240The sun has come out. Yes!!

Today we are sailing to Hubbard Glacier. We should be there around 2 this afternoon. The Hubbard Glacier is 400 feet tall and 7 miles long.

It is snowing at Hubbard Glacier and we have now gone into white out conditions.

Today we are in Glacier State Park. The rangers will board at 9 am and narrative to begin at 10 and last until 3. \240

Today we are in Sitka. It is raining and 43 degrees so since I’ve been here before, I decided to stay on board and relax. \240We have the 4,000 passenger Norwegian Bliss docked next to our 980 Viking Venus. \240Everyone coming back is saying how cold and miserable it is outside so unless it stops raining, I am settled in Explorers Lounge for the day.

We did see sea lions everywhere last night and will post some pictures shortly.

Whale watching tour tomorrow.

Today is Icy Strait Point, Alaska. I am going whale watching this morning. The weather is sunny, finally. Cold but sunny. \240The weather was beautiful for my whale watching excursion and about 30 minutes after I got back to ship, it started pouring.

Last night as we were leaving the dock, 2 seals started playing in the water. Jumping around and swimming. I tried to video but was unsuccessful.

Had an amazing whale watching excursion.

Today I am in Skagway, Alaska. Getting ready to board the train to the Yukon. \240It is snowing.

Docked next to us is the Norwegian Encore with passenger capacity of 3,998.

Needed to add more pictures

Today is Juneau, Alaska. A fun fact about Juneau and all but 3 other cities in Alaska, is that you cannot drive out of them. The only way to get to Juneau is by water or air. Everyone in Alaska is either born in Juneau, Fairbanks or Anchorage. In the last months of pregnancy mothers go to live in one of these cities to give birth because there are no hospitals anywhere else. Most villages and towns have clinics but no hospitals.

5 cruise ships in Juneau today. We leave at 1 so I’m staying on board. Norwegian, Celebrity, Holland America, Princess are all here.

Ketchikan, Alaska is our last stop before heading home. Ketchikan is the 5th rainiest place in the world, getting over 300 inches of rain per year. Population of Ketchikan is little over 10,000.

We were just informed that we will be skipping Ketchikan as we have an engine problem. We have to be in Vancouver by 1 am Sunday.

Dinner at Manfredi’s tonight to cap off a great trip.

Today is last day and we are expecting a lot of whale activity.

Headed home today. Catching tender to shore at 6:30 am.

I have arrived which means trip is finished.

Thank you for following.