My next destination is Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon). Judy and I had been south of there, in the Maldive Islands, and north of there in Central and North India, but somehow never got around to visiting. Sri Lanka is a smallish island country, about 150 miles x 270 miles, with a population of…

Judy and I had missed out on the Philippines, perhaps because it was not on the main United Airlines routes. So now I will go spend about 3 weeks here, visiting just two areas: Manila and a world-class snorkeling and diving area to the south near Cebu, Dumaguete and Siquijor Island. Manila is reputed to…

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I’ve arrived in the most southerly islands of Japan now, Okinawa, about 400 miles south of Kagoshima. Okinawa had a rather peaceful local populous that had somehow avoided the civil war years that Japan had endured. That ended when Japan invaded in the 1600s and easily conquered the islands. It bears some similarity to Hawai’i,…

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] On the last day of my Japan Rail Pass, I traveled from Kyoto to my most southerly stop on the main islands of Japan, the city of Kagoshima on Kyūshū Island. Though it is over 900 km., it was a smooth, fast 4 hours by train. It is noticably warmer down here, a high…

Japan is not a small country! It is as long from end to end as from the Canadian border north of Seattle, WA to the Mexican border, about 1800 km. In just 5 weeks for Hokkaidō, Honshū and Kyūshū Islands, I will only get to see bits of it. A start. My beginning to explore…