drron29

It is a walk to the terminal. But the terminal is a fair way out of Incheon city. SS had a shuttle to the Hyundai mall in the CBD.

Scientists are now warning that the Bird flu may well evolve to infect humans. bird flu in humans usually has a high mortality. They suspect that there is mammal to mammal transmission though not proven. But at one Elephant seal colony on Argentina's Atlantic coast 17,400 pups died last season. Too many to be all infected by birds. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/bird-flu-strain-raises-alarm-virus-kills-south-american-wildlife-2024-03-13/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily-Briefing&utm_term=031324&user_email=42c279be87db2e6b362e5c5af53114ca6a8bab3e0d36948cf7872b29529df7e9

Christmas Eve and we got the Fine dining restaurant to ourselves for breakfast. Our table. After breakfast I decided it was time to buy our train tickets from Osaka to Kanazawa and then back to Tokyo. I went online where there were no tickets left for the trains we wanted. Had I made another travel mistake? So immediately I went to Osaka station and the ticket office. Another half hour wait in a queue but i got an agent who spoke very good English and instead of a ticket for each train I got a ticket from Osaka to Tokyo and can stopover any where between. Plus reserved tickets for the 2 trains I really wanted. He explained that only a few tickets are sold online and most are sold at ticket offices around Japan. Stress relieved. I walked out of the ticket office, turned left and there was Daimaru so of course I went in. Seemed a bit more upmarket than the other 2. So once again a food hall. Unusual ideas of Christmas fare. Fried chicken is considered a classic Christmas meal thanks to a campaign by KFC. Here is Daimaru's Christmas chicken offerings. That night our son went out at about 8.30 to the nearest KFC. He was the last person allowed in that didn't have an order. The kids left this for me. The reason? It was awful. A little more on Daimaru. I have never seen tomatoes boxed as beautifully. Their Champagne display Not many gins.

We got to have a zodiac cruise at Gough Island,rescued a fellow from the South African weather station who showed his gratitude by bringing along a box of lobsters. Chef Pia had the crew fishing off the stern and caught enough gold band snapper for 2 meals.' However that evening we ran into a force 12 Atlantic gale. Didn't even get to see Tristan Da Cunha. But I still claim to have had my foot on the territory of Tristan Da Cunha. At Gough island we had an over enthusiastic zodiac driver who put the zodiac on to the rocks. I was seated at the front and had to put my left leg over the side and push us off the rock. I hope you have fair weather and enjoy the next few days.

I got a survey from a company that sells cruises last night. They asked the same set of questions of each cruise line. I did not answer in the affirmative to the Trustworthy and good reputation questions re Silversea. I did tick that they could use my answers so hopefully SS finds out.

One of our local gin distillerys has the World Icons of gin award for the best craft gin distillery. and yes I do have their products -a Koala, kangaroo and Quokka varieties. https://www.sunshinecoastnews.com.au/2024/03/05/organic-distillery-named-best-in-the-world/ Another of our very good gin distilleries, Sunshine and Sons, on the Coast this time won the world's best craft vodka award.

Using Japan transit planner it takes 23 minutes from Shin Osaka station (the shinkansen stop in Osaka ) to the exit of Kyoto station. But takes 27 minutes from the closest local station to Shin Osaka. And the local station is 5-10 minutes walk from the ship so not much difference. Quicker to take a taxi from the ship to Shin Osaka station but estimated it takes 22 minutes and costs 12000 - 16000 yen ($US80 - $US105 ). Ride services are all local taxis so very little saving in cost and basically no quicker. Why don't you price your private tour from Osaka Port? The extra cost from there to Kyoto and back is probably less than using the taxi to Shin Osaka station.

Traffic can be really heavy between Osaka and Kyoto. It would be at least an hour's drive to Central kyoto and if it is the same as our next cruise the Kyoto on your own excursion leaves at 8.45am. So i doubt you should book a private tour before 10am and probably should arrive back at the pick up point by 3.30pm as the bus would have to leave by 3.45 pm to be back by 4.45pm which is 8 hours after it leaves.Most shuttles drop off and pick up at Kyoto station Such a s those from Osaka airports.

And form now the birds will be flying north.

If I was on the Nova at the moment I would be torn between staying in my cabin or going outside with a big sign saying never again RCL and SS. Maybe something a little ruder. And I would insist if we were arriving in Fort Lauderdale at 1100 i would stay in my cabin at least until 1230.

We do have a wer d sense of humour in Autralia. This is a numberplate from the State of Western Australia which slipped through the regulators. Now look at it the Australian way - upside down.

Thanks so much @Port Power for that it does mean one less worry. I did finally finish the Indonesian Evisa on line today but it was hard. At first wouldn’t accept the upload of my passport. Turns out because of a tiny shadow on the picture I took. But then the original upload of your passport needed to be a Jpg image but the second time they as for it it needed to be a PDF image. Basically took me all afternoon. On our last cruise we transited Bali and the ship did the evisa’s for $US 30 where today online I paid $A52. So much easier to get the ship to do it and slightly cheaper.

i was wondering if I could ask you a quick question @Port Power. When you arrived in Japan did the ship arrange your visa. I have been doing all the paper work for our cruise from Bali this coming Friday. I went to do the Japan Evisa online but it only gives you the option of air arrival. So I emailed their department and they say that arriving by ship is a paper based visa and the crew would hand them out 2 or 3 days before arrival. So did that happen or was it just a case of waiting for the ship to be cleared? Nothing going right. W ent to get a new annual multi trip travel policy and it won't let me proceed past the putting of our ages in. It isn't a case of not insuring the elderly. We have gone through them for the last 3 years and they say they will ensure you until age 100. might have to do it by phone. At the moment just taking a break from the Indonesia evisa process. What a clunky system! Ps just finished this when an automatic update announced itsel. They normally do that at night.

And Barbara Muckermann as well is no longer CEO of SS but President. https://www.royalcaribbeangroup.com/bio/barbara-muckermann/ And by the way today she sent me an email with the warmest personal regards inviting us to cruise with her on the Nova voyage from Tokyo to Singapore in October this year for the Venetian Reunion cruise. Not interested.

Of course we then headed to the food hall of Hankyu. Making red bean buns. Fruit is always expensive in the Department stores though usually excellent quality. Would you may $A22 ( $US15 ) for 1 apple? The prices for some of the strawberries were really eye watering. The other thing I am always staggered by is the price for meat. The price for this meat is for 100Gm. So $A2700 9 $US1800 0 per KG ( 2.2 lbs ). Wonderful name on these bottles.

Then we went to the Hankyu Department store. this was way busier so they had an In door and an Exit door. both doors were policed. A huge craft and pottery floor. Mrsdrron took a fancy to this plate. But at ~ $1000 I became a grinch It is interesting the characters popular in Japan. they do have quite a few Snoopy shops. On the same floor they had their version of a Christmas market which was extremely popular.

And you get a very much better Singapore Sling at any other Raffles Bar than the Long Bar. Strictly Tourists only.

Breakfast in the restaurant at the Hilton was a complete zoo. i remembered why I fell out of love with them. fortunately they always opened 2 other restaurants for the overflow an once their fine dining restaurant as well and we scored a seat there. The other problem was the queue to get in. the quickest time to get to the head of the queue was 25 minutes. We thought we would have real problems being a party of 7 but that meant we were always seated in one of the overflow restaurants. After breakfast we went to a couple of department stores. There are 3 in Osaka station. First we went to the Hanshin department store. From the station you enter their food hall. We think these are very interesting places. Our first stop was at the alcohol section. An amazing array of Rose wines. Rojaan fell in love with this wine. I was interested in how a Dornfelder rose would taste as I really liked the White Rock Dornfelder from Tasmania. So we bought a bottle. I hoped it was worth it as we had to queue for 30 minutes to buy it. So don't let people think the Japanese are not into wine as most were buying champagne. I am happy to say it was a really nice wine. And very reasonable price Now just a bit about prices. We were getting nearly 100 yen for our $A. so you just put a decimal point in front of the last 2 numbers. To get the price in $US you take a third off the $A price. so that bottle was a little over $A17.50 so around $US12. Next were their versions of Christmas cakes. And there were lots of them. And who would think you could make sweet potato into a Christmas dish by itself. these are all sweet potato. We often buy lunch or dinner in a Department store food hall and take it back to our hotel. Attractively packaged. The place was very busy. this was about a third of the line at one cake counter.

The judge addressed the drunk. "You have been brought here for drinking." The drunk said, "Thank you very much, your Honour. Let's start." Everyone in the court started laughing. Banging the gavel, the judge said, "Order!" The drunk said, "Whiskey and soda for me."