From Sakaiminato, we were to set sail for Hagi, but there were gale warnings and our ship’s captain did not feel it would be safe to proceed. We stayed in Sakaiminato overnight. The next morning, we had the option of visiting Tottori Flower Park in Sakaiminato. It was raining so we decided to stay back on the ship. These are pictures from the Flower Park that were taken by the ship’s photographer. That afternoon, we departed Sakaiminato for Beppu on…
While I was at the Adachi Museum, Mike’s excursion took him to the town of Matsue where he toured the Matsue Castle, also called the Black Castle because of its dark-colored exterior. There were many castles during feudal times with “tens of thousands” throughout Japan. But most of these were destroyed as a result of natural disasters and an official order for their dismantlement during the Meiji era (1868-1912). Prominent Matsue citizens stepped forward urging the Matsue Castle be protected…
Tauck’s Sakura Seas tour continued as we boarded the Le Soleal and we set sail for Japan. The first town we would visit was Sakaiminato, located on Japan’s main island of Honshu. Sakaiminato is a key port on the Sea of Japan coastline, connecting Japan with Korea, China, and Russia. The port supports fishing, cargo shipping, cruise ships and international trade. And of course it’s a great place to get fresh seafood! In Sakaiminato, we had our choice of excursions….
Our group boarded a KTX (Korea Train eXpress) bullet train that would take us to Busan. There is a picture of a KTX train above the title of this blog post (Credit: Shutterstock / sorao.211). Pictured below is the train station in Seoul where we would begin our journey. There is also a picture of the interior of our train car. The following is information posted on the internet about the train and the Busan route: “South Korea is a…
We would soon be leaving Seoul for Busan but first I want to share a few other places we visited and things we saw – some even from the windows of our bus. Pictured above the blog title is Namdaemun Market. It is a traditional market dating back to 1414 when it was a government-chartered market. The historical picture below was posted on the Namdaemun Market website. The gate in the picture is the Sungnyemun Gate, also known as the…
Our tour also took us to the War Memorial of Korea. It was an exceptional museum with lots of information about the Korean War which is where our group spent most of our time. But first I want to share a little about two other exhibits. The first is a South Korean patrol boat that became famous during the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong (2002). Two North Korean patrol boats crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the disputed maritime border in…
Our Sakura Seas South Korea and Japan Tour officially started and first took us to the Gyeongbokgung Palace located in Seoul. When I researched the Palace, I learned it was the site of significant Korean achievements, followed by the Japanese’s government systematic destruction of the Palace during its occupation of Korea, and finally Korea restoring the Palace to its original glory. Gyeongbokgung Palace was built in 1395 and served as the royal residence and government center for the Joseon Dynasty….
From Bern, we went to Jungfraujoch in the Swiss Alps. It was this opportunity that attracted us to this particular tour. This area has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001. We first took a bus to Lauterbrunnen where we would catch one of two trains to Jungfraujoch. These are some of the beautiful views we saw near the Lauterbrunnen train station. We were appreciative of these photo opportunities because we knew we would encounter a snowstorm at higher…
We began our Rhine, Swiss Alps and Amsterdam Tauck tour in Bern, Switzerland. We arrived a day early and stayed in a very nice room in the Bellevue Palace. These are views from our hotel room. The first picture below is the Albert Einstein Museum. It was within walking distance of our hotel and dealt mostly with Einstein’s life and to a lesser extent some of his inventions. The second picture is the Aare River. It flows through Bern and…
Our last shore excursion was in Giverny, a village in the region of Normandy. Claude Monet lived and worked here from 1883 until his death in 1926. He was a French painter and the founder of Impressionism painting. The term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting, “Impression, Sunrise.” Monet’s ambition to document the French countryside led him to paint the same scene many times so he could capture the changing light at different times of the day and…