WELCOME TO FARNSNIENTE

Tell me I’ll be drinking rum on the cruise ship and I’ll say “tell me something I don’t know”. Tell me it’ll be at 6 am and now you have my

Up at six and again at seven. Or was it five and then six? We’re not sure. The clocks got turned back last night and we’re at sea (for the

We wake to beautiful blue sky, 69 degrees, and the promise of sunshine throughout the day. We’re still in Kagoshima which is where we’ll be

The calendar says it’s the 22nd of April. That date sounds familiar because on the 22nd of February I had my last haircut, just before we le

We are in Kochi, Japan today. As is their wont, the captain and navigator somehow work it out so we’re gliding noisily into the dock just as

At 6:30am we awaken and we’re motoring slowly into the bay of Osaka. Outside it’s 64° which feels good and the water is glassy, very smooth,

When we wake this morning we’re at sea, as we should be. It’s a day at sea. No port today. We’re motoring from Tokyo down to Osaka. We’ll be

It’s easy to tell the difference between a day on a tour and a typical day on our own. When on a tour there’s usually a lot planned and you’

Today in Nagano the Metropolitan Hotel has a very full, very good buffet breakfast. Asian soups, dishes, smoked fish, and even a big bottle

We’ve just had one day (two nights) in Tokyo but it’s already time to head out, at least for a short while. In our quest for peak sakura (ch

We wake up to our first full day in Japan and in Tokyo and sure enough it’s raining. It’s our only full day in Tokyo, so we’re a bit sad. We

Last night, which was our last night in Seoul, we spent at an enormous hotel with two big towers of rooms. So it’s only fitting that there’s

For the first time in a long while we’re on our own. It’s a free day in Seoul and our last full day in Korea. We need to switch our hotel fr

When it rains it pours! Well, thankfully it’s not raining, but our dance card for the day is very full. If all goes according to plan, we’ll

We’re (mostly) all accounted for at 8am in the lobby. I have my brand new teeshirt that I’d bought from the Cambodian dancers (just to suppo

We stop for a coffee, the first for most of the group today as it isn’t an option at breakfast at the monastery. I reach for my wallet and r

In the morning we luxuriate in our nice hotel rooms for a bit longer, packing, showering, flushing the toilet by merely sitting on it. We ge

We each emerge from our Hanok (traditional Korean house) into the bright sunshine and blue sky. The air is cool and crisp. It’s 38º now, but

My brain has trouble dealing with the seeming paradox of being two time zones closer to the “west coast” (e.g. San Francisco, and such) and

In theory today should be easy. We’re just trying to get from our Hanoi hotel to our Seoul hotel. There, at 6, we’re to meet the rest of the