Welcome to Barcelona

November 3, 2024

Over our 40 years of traveling we have never had a piece of luggage not arrive at our destination until yesterday.  We arrived in Barcelona with no problems until luggage claim where one of our pieces was not there.  We reported our missing luggage to lost luggage and were told through the magic of the internet that said piece of luggage was still in Frankfurt.  It is Sunday evening as we compose this blog post and we still have not received our lost bag. Fortunately our cruise does not leave until Wednesday so there is time for it to arrive. 

A quick aside.  As Lynda naps, Tim is composing the blog in our hotel's bar enjoying a gin and tonic and a wonderful Spanish tradition.  Instead of nuts being served as an accompaniment to the drink, there is a small dish of olives.  Excellent, unless you don't enjoy fresh Spanish olives.

We booked a 3 day  pre-cruise tour of Barcelona which starts tomorrow.  We came a day early on purpose.  Today was Antoni Gaudi day.  Gaudi was a late 19th century Spanish architect and designer.  He designed both Park Guell and Sagrada Familia which we visited today.  We started our visit at Park Guell (pronounce Park Well) and then continued on to Sagrada Familia (pronounce Sagrada Familia),  both designed by Gaudi.  We were in Barcelona seven years ago and visited Park Guell but did not do it justice. Today we discussed this faux paux and could not come up with a reason for it occurring.  The park is located on a high hill over looking Barcelona.  Our primary destination in the park was a large open area that featured stunning views of Barcelona, including the Sagrada Familia. The main feature of this open area, aside from its view of Barcelona, is  a large semi-circular concrete bench enbeded with beautiful, colorfully contemporary, mosaics. Check out Tim's Facebook page for pictures. As we were walking about the park we heard and saw many wild parakeets in the palm trees.  Tim commented that thep poor birds probably never learned to talk.  We also walked past several artists displaying their work.  One caught our eyes.  A small depiction of the towers of the Sagrada Familia. You will see it on the wall in the lower level of our house providing us a beautiful memory of our time in Barcelona.

Leaving Park Guell, we took a taxi to the Sagrada Familia.  Before leaving home we had reserved tickets at specific times for both venues.  We arrived at the Sagrada Familia well ahead of our reserved time and were lucky to find an outdoor table at a small bar/restaurant directly in front of this magnificent Catheral.  We visited the Cathedral seven years ago, but because our tour tomorrow only does a drive-by visit, we wanted to go inside again.  As we sat at our table having lunch we noticed many changes from our previous visit.  Seven years ago there were very few restaurants  in the immediate area.  Now there are many that, unfortunately,  include McDonalds, Five Guys, and KFC.  Building the Sagrada Familia began in 1886 and is still not complete.  Our time sitting having lunch  enabled us to spend time observing all that had been done to the exterior since out last visit. We both remarked that seven years ago we had not taken enough time to immerse ourselves into the intricacies of the exterior of the building. The next surprise was when we entered the Cathedral.  Seven years ago we also needed a timed ticket to enter but we just went through a gate where our ticket was checked and we went into the building.  Today we went through a very involved security procedure that would put airport security to shapme.  Besides the usual removing every thing from our pockets, we were also required to remove watches.  We have visited many of the major Cathedrals of Europe.  From a classical point of view, our favorite cathedral exterior is Notre Dame in Paris.  Our favorite classical interior is St. Peters Basilica in Vatican City. But because we love contemporary art,  the Sagrada Familia is our favorite inside and out. We spent an hour inside the Cathedral just sitting and absorbing the stunning beauty of this immense edifice.  Again, check Tim's Facebook page for pictures.

Today was a wonderful start to this great adventure we are pursuing. Tomorrow we begin our pre-cruise tour.

The End of an Exceptional Cruise

July 26, 2024

This trip would have been an overwhelming success just because we were with our children, Jilayne and Jeffrey, and thier spouses, Rob and Heather. The fact that we all were entralled with the whole week in Iceland made it exceptional. Unfortunately, we all fly home tomorrow and reality will set in on Sunday.

Thursday we were in Djupivogur,  the only bad weather day we had on the trip. It rained, at times hard, during our entire excursion.  The good news is that we were on a bus the whole time except for two stops for photo opps.  The first was along the fjord, again with breathtaking scenry.  This time it was enhanced with the low hanging clouds.  The second stop was in the "valley of the waterfalls".  The waterfall we stopped at was the most impressive of the many we saw.  This is another opportunity to suggest that you visit Tim's Facebook page for lots of pictures.  We had a particularly good tour guide on this tour. He was both informative and humorous. Previous tour guides  had pointed out fish farms in the fjords, but our guide on Thursday was only one to explain that the farms were owned by Norwegian companies and these farms were creating an enviromental problem.  Fish farms are cages in the fjords where mostly cod and salmon are raised. The problem is that some of the fish escape the cages and infect the wild fish with  a desease called skin lice. We asked why the government didn't do something about this. He said tour guides were not to speak badly of the government or even talk about Icelandic politics, but he was able to vaguely suggest  that the government was not trying hard enough to solve this problem. He also told us that all the myths and lullabies in Iceland ended with someone dying. He read us the lyrics of a particularly popular lullaby and then sang it in Icelandic. The words were very sad and, in fact, had the baby dying at the end. It was  beautiful when sung in Icelandic. There is actually a very good reason why the lullabies are like this.  In the 17th century when these lullabies were created most everyone lived in turf houses with poor heat and little food. It was a very hard life and many parents thought their babies would be better off in the after life.

Friday turned out to be the best day weatherwise; temperatures in the upper 50's with abundant sun.  We are in Heimaey in the Westland(?) Islands.  Tim and Lynda did not signup for an excursion today.  The children are on an ATV excursion. There was an excursion Tim wanted to sign up for, an e-scooter trip to see a Puffin colony. Tim was outvoted 5 to 1 from taking the excursion. He did go into the village and enquire about a taxi taking him out to the Puffin colony.  It was reasonably priced but the driver would not wait for Tim to take some pictures and bring him back to the boat.  He would drop Tim off and return later. Tim wasn't wild about the thought of standing among the Puffins waiting for the taxi and watching our ship sail off toward Reykjavik. 

Usually our blog is full of many references to the fine meals we have had during our travels. A quick word about the food onboard the Viking Mars. The food was excellent in all three of the restaurants on board.  The only disappointment was Manfredi's, the Italian specialty restaurant.  While the food was very good, the service was no where near the quality of service in the other restaurants.

Thanks to  those of you who have read our blog and to all of you that responded on Facebook to our pictures as they were posted.  We look forward to having you join us vicariously on our next adventure.

Two Quaint Icelandic Villages

 Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Tuesday morning we docked in Akureyri, the second largest city in Iceland. Like yesterday, when we opened our cabin's drapes we looked out on  spectacular scenery. Most of the mountains are covered in green vegetation and if you look carefully at times we can see blue artic lupines in bloom. One of our guides told us that erosion is a major problem in the mountains so the government had small planes fly close to the bottoms of the mountains, literally throwing large quantities of artic lupine seed out of the plane. Where the lupines have taken hold they help control the erosion as well as look good.  We can also see many small streams flowing down the mountains created by the melting snow that is also in view. 

The first of our two stops on our excursion in Akureyri was to a botanical garden. We were a bit unsure of how nice the garden could be in such a northern climate, but it turns out the gulf stream flows along the west coast of Ireland moderating the climate. The garden was beautiful with abundant  flowers in bloom.  Many of the flowers we recognized such as foxgloves and dahlias. The foxgloves were particular impressive with several varieties we've not seen before.  We saw several other flowers we really  liked and noted their names so we can research them at home as to whether they will grow in our flower zone.

Once back on the bus we went up the mountain to a large ski resort that contained 17 different ski runs. The sole purpose of this stop was for us to get out of the bus and admire the scenry  from the top of the mountain as opposed to the bottom. It was every bit as spectacular from the top as it is from the bottom.

Akureyri is only 62 miles from the artic circle.  During dinner as we were sailing towards our next port of call, we were informed that we had actually crossed over into the artic circle. We will receive official certificates as proof of this accomplishment.

It is Wednesday as I (Tim) sit on our veranda writing this blog posting.  It is taking some time to write because I can't stop looking up the mountains along the fjord. As much as we love the setting of our house with the beautiful flower beds we've created and the woods and meadow surrounding us, it will look pretty boring compared to this.  We are docked in Seydisfjordur, a tiny village of 700 people. Despite its diminutive size it has several claims to fame.  Many, many years ago it was one of the three finalists for the honor of becoming the capitol of Iceland. In the 1800's a very wealth entrepreneur built a dam across the river in the village that allowed Seydisfjordur to become the first village in Iceland with electricity.  The same gentleman also paid for the first telephone cable that was laid between Europe and Iceland. Unfortunately, most of the excursions offered were too physically demanding  for us, so we opted for the walk around the village with a tour guide that ended with a very professional concert by a male and female vocalist. He did not tell us much more then what we have already related to you in the blog  (!!!) Just thought of an interesting fact that is applicable to all the small towns in which we've have been .  Most of the houses in these towns were built in Norway, dismantled and shipped to Iceland and rebuilt here.  This is because there are very few trees in Iceland.

We will be back in a couple of days for the conclusion of our trip.

Welcome to Iceland

Monday, July 22, 2024

We discovered very quickly that it never gets dark at night this time of year in Iceland. So we have added another unanswerable questions to the list that includes "What is the meaning of Life?"  What is the exact time that dusk becomes dawn?

Five years ago  we took our children, Jil and Jeff, and their spouses, Rob and Heather on a cruise in the Caribbean to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary.  Grandchildren were not included and our children were thrilled. They enjoyed so much that at the end of the cruise they asked if we could do it again for our 55th aniversary.  Last fall we told them our 55th was coming up so we needed to plan the next cruise and where we were going to go. They surprised us by quickly responding "Iceland".  So here we are.

We were scheduled to fy out of Detroit last Friday evening. Of course we woke up Friday morning to find the airline industry in chaos. When it was time to leave for the airport United Airlines still had our flight listed as leaving on time.  By the time we arrived at Detroit Metro our Chicago flight was now delayed 2 hours which was not a problem because our flight to Reykjavik was also delayed.  The only problem we faced was Tim and Lynda being re-introduced to the joys of flying in coach. Our last cruise in March had business class airfare included.  We finally boarded our ship about noon on Saturday.  We were lucky. We were told there were about 150 passengers who's flights had been canceled.  After lunch we spent the rest of the day unpacking, napping and exploring the ship.

We had an afternoon excursions scheduled, so Lynda, Tim, Jil and Rob, took the cruise schuttle bus into Reykjavik  to explore the old town section.  It was the only opportunity to see any of Reykjavik.  Sunday morning Jeff and Heather wanted to sleep in and enjoy their first morning without teenagers in the house. Our first stop was the beautiful and somewhat contemporary appearing Lutheran Cathedral. The outside facade was everything we expected and the interior was a very simple, but impressive design as one expects in a country with Scandinavian roots.  In front of the cathedral was a statue of Lief Ericksson that was given to Iceland by the United States in celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Iceland parliment.  From the cathedral we were walking toward the main pedestrian shopping street of Reykjavik. Unfortunately Lynda became ill so Tim and Lynda found a taxi and returned to the ship.  Jil and Rob reported many interesting shops including a photographic art gallery where they bought a couple of impressive prints for their home.

Besides volcanos, Iceland is famous for the many geothermal hot springs that occur all over the country.   We were told that geothermal springs provide 90 percent of the energy for Iceland.  Our excursion on Sunday was to Sky Lagoon where a large pool built out of the lava stone is filled with water from one of these springs.  The pool is only 4 feet deep and has a long infinty wall right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.  The temperature is a toasty 100 degrees.  Convienently there is also a walk up (doggy paddled up?) bar.  The Lagoon also has a program called "The Ritual"  which we all took.  It starts with a plunge into a pool of cold water, followed by sitting in a sauna. We sat in the sauna for about 10 minutes and then went into a room called the "cold water mist" room. From there you picked up a bowl containg salt and essential oils and rubbed it all over your body, except your face and then went immediately into a steam room to melt the salt off of you and open your pores.  The last stop was the cold plunge again but I don't think any of us did. We spent some more time in the pool before we returned to the ship. We all felt very refreshed but also felt in need of a nap.

Sunday evening our ship left Reykjavik  and Monday morning we woke up  anchored in a fjord off of Isafjordur. Don't ask us to pronounce it.  It turns out that Isafjordur is a fishing village and is the worlds largest producer of medical grade fish skin. Fish skin has been found to significantly shorten the healing time after surgeries. We also visited Bolungarvik where we visited the Museum  of the fishing industry.  It basically was a group of old buildings and an old boat that was used for fishing in the time before the cumbustion engine. A young man did give an interesting and humorous brief lecture about what fishing was like back in the day. The other stop was at a small but beautiful waterfall cascading down a mountain.  Our guide had a plastic pitcher that he dipped into the stream and offered us a drink of the water.  It was cold, clear and delicious. Probably the highlight of todays excursion was the fantastic scenery we saw.

Due to technical issues beyond our understanding we are not posting pictures on the blog.  Go to Tim's Facebook page for pictures.

Tokyo

March 17-20, 2024

As we compose this posting it is Tuesday afternoon.  We have been in Tokyo since Sunday morning.  Tokyo is a city of over 14 million people, its metropolitan area numbers 37 million.  It is huge in area.  Any excursion we take is a minimum 30 minute bus ride. Some longer depending on traffic. We have been pleasantly surprised at the the number of green areas we have seen. Large parks, large athletic fields big enough for 3 or 4 soccer pitches, and gardens.  We have also visited a Shinto Temple that is in the middle of a small forest, but still technically in Tokyo.  Tokyo is also an amazingly clean city.  Even in somewhat run down areas of town that we have bused through there is no filth.  After a series of terrorist bombings where the bombs where hidden in trash cans, the city removed virtually  every trash can.  The people of Tokyo have taken it upon themselves to take any trash they produce home with them.  Tokyo is also remarkably quiet considering how congested it can be. We have not heard one horn honked the whole time we have been here.  We have also not heard many sirens.  The nicest thing of all is that the people are friendly and considerate, even helpful at times. What a concept.

Sunday morning our ship arrived in Tokyo and we took a cruise excursion to a garden that was built by one of the Emporers who came into power after the Shogun dynasty, also know as the Edo period of Japanese history.  This was not a particularly large garden but was typical of Japanese gardens in that it had large water features throughout. Unfortunately, we are too early in the Spring to see much color in the gardens. This garden like the others we've visited is a walled garden. What may be of minor interest to some of you is that outside the walls of the garden is a domed baseball stadium that is home to the Tokyo Giants, the New York Yankees of Japanese baseball.  From this garden we were bused to the Tokyo Tower.  This edifice was modeled after the Eiffel Tower in Paris and stands over 1000 meters tall. It provides amazing views of Tokyo and on a clear day one can see Mt. Fuji.  Unfortunately, Sunday was a very warm day so there was a considerable haze in the sky meaning we will leave Japan without seeing Mt Fuji.

Early Monday morning we sadly disembarked the Seven Seas Explorer.  As we have mentioned we are doing a three day extension in Tokyo so that once we had left the ship and cleared customs, we were on a full day excursion.  Our first stop was another garden, this one created by one of the Shoguns of the Edo period. The same family of Shoguns ran Japan's feudal system for well over 270 years, well into the 19th century.  This garden was much like the one yesterday. It featured impressive water features and few plants in bloom. There was a large field of Canola flowers in bloom. This plant is used to make canola oil. After leaving this garden we drove to the site of a large Buddist Temple built by the the great, great, great, great grandfather of the present emporer of Japan.  The emporer who built this temple was the first emperor to begin to open Japan to western ideas. He was the first emporer to not wear his hair in a top knot and began to wear western clothing. On the walk back to the temple we passed a spot along the path where on one side of the road there were long, open shelves holding a large number of containers of sake wine.  Each year all of the sake producers in Japan donate a container of sake to the temple.  Across the road was an equal number of long shelves with barrels of fine french wine donated each year. The emperor obviously was anxious to sample western beverages. This is one of Tokyo's largest and most popular temples.  On the first, second, and third days of January, a national holiday for the country, almost 3 million Japanese buddists flock to the temple to prayer for a good luck filled new year. One unique feature to this temple is an area very much like a carport in that United States that one can bring their car to have it blessed for good health in the coming year. Evidently the Japanese don't trust their car warranties. 

Next on the schedule was a typical Japanese business luncheon. The only food on the lucheon menu we recognized was shasimi, rice, soup and tempura shrimp and vegetables. We were both pretty adventurous in trying the different dishes.  Some we liked and some we did not. The people from our tour at the next table thought it to be one of the worst meals they have ever eaten. They obviously don't understand the point of traveling. After lunch we stopped at a market that the Emperor in the late 1800's had built to attract foreign businesses. It worked so well the market ended up closing and now is maintained as a historic landmark. By this point in the day we were a weary group of travelers anxious to check into our hotel.  We are staying at the Tokyo Hilton which is very nice. We had the rest of the afternoon and evening to ourselves. 

Tuesday morning's  excursion started at the Japanese National History Museum.  Between the late start of the tour and the heavy traffic we ended up with only about 45 minutes to visit this museum.  All we saw were the highlights of the history of art in Japan and several rooms dedicated to the history of Samuari warriors.  From there we went to a very large and one of the first Shinto Shrines built in Tokyo. The large welcoming arches were very impressive. Because of the large crowds visiting on Tuesday we only got a quick glimpse of the shrine itself.  Just enough of a glimpse to be impressed with its beauty.  The best part of this shrine was the people watching. This week marked the end of the school year for Japanese students and they were out in full force at the shrine. Many of the young teenage girls were parading about in groups, all dressed in lovely kimonos. Our guide said this was a bit of a right of passage for young girls as it was, for many of them, their first time out in public in a kimono. This shrine also featured a large area of shops selling high end souvenirs. Again, between the large crowds and the delayed start of the day we did not have the time we would have liked to browse through these stalls. From here it was back to the hotel where we had the rest of the day to ourselves.  After a much needed rest from yesterday's long day and today's tour we set out on our own to a nearby area called "the scramble".  Technically it is called the "Shibuya Scramble Crossing".  There are 5 or 6 streets that all enter the large plaza in front of the Shibuya train station. What happens is all the pedestrians stand at the crosswalks around the plaza while the traffic miraculously negotiates its way through with all streets having a green light. When all the traffic lights turn red then all of the pedestrians flood across the plaza at the same time.  It is an amazing sight to see. Tim has posted a  minute long video of this "scramble" on his Facebook page.  Check it out.  Words cannot describe what a sight this is.  The vibe in the area was incredible so we just hung out a bit, found a place for dinner, and took a taxi back to the hotel.

Wednesday was also a bad day for the tour folks.  The first order of business was to drive out to the harbor area where we would see where Tokyo had reclaimed the land from the sea to make more room for business offices and apartment high-rises.  Today was also a national holiday in Japan celebrating the spring equinox. Because of the holiday there was very little traffic so we made our way out to the harbor area rather easily. The plan was to stop at the Fuji Television office building which has an observation deck on it's 24th floor that would give us a great view of the Tokyo skyline from this point of view.  What no one planned on was a large display of dinasaurs being held for young kids in the TV office building. Our guide had to completely rearrange the logistics for our entering the building and getting to the 24th floor.  We ended up spending an hour and half more at this stop then expected  with most of the time spent standing around. Fortunately, it was fun watching all the kids dressed up like dinasaurs.  We also were able to see a copy of our Statue of Liberty standing on the edge of the harbour.  Our tour guide claimed this was actually a replica of the original Statue of Liberty that France build and used as a model for the Statue of Liberty they gave us. France gave this one to Japan in honor of Japan hosting its first Olympic Games in 1964. We left the harbor area and quickly made our way to the Ginza. The Ginza is a famous shopping area in Tokyo that consists of only high end stores. Fashion stores know they have "made it" when they open a store on the Ginza.  Because of the holiday, about 4 or 5 blocks of the main street of the Ginza were closed to traffic so we could stroll down the center of the street taking in all of the high fashion.  After a nice lunch we braved the Tokyo Metro back to our hotel.

This is the last day of our trip to Japan and we have had a wonderful time.  Tomorrow morning we fly non-stop from Tokyo to Chicago and then a quick trip to Detroit.  We hate to rub it in but we are again flying business class, the only way to survive a 15 hour flight.  Thanks again to all of you who have followed along either on the blog or Facebook.  We have enjoyed your comments. And don't forget to check today's Facebook post with lots of Tokyo pictures.  We will be back again in July when we take Jil, Rob, Jeff and Heather on a 7 day cruise around Iceland to celebrate our 55th wedding anniversary.

Kagoshima

March 15, 2024

Our ship docked in Kagoshima sometime around 8:00 this morning.  As is Tim's want, when he awoke around 8:30 he immediately went out on the balcony to check the weather and the view.  It was a beautiful cloudless morning this morning except for a cloud just above a mountain top to the right of our view. Later at breakfast Tim confirmed with crew members that the cloud at the mountain top was definitely steam from a volcano. Tim posted a picture of the volcano on his Facebook page.

We had an excursion scheduled this morning but when we reviewed the tour yesterday it carried a warning of gruesome pictures of war atrocities.  Deciding that we had seen enough gruesome pictures in Hiroshima and Nagasaki we canceled our tickets on the excursion. Instead we left the ship about 11:00 and took a schuttle bus into the city center of Kagoshima. We enjoyed a walk about going into several different stores.  Tim made a brief stop  in a large golf shop. He saw a new driver he has been thinking about purchasing which was listed at 94,000 yen. That is the correct number of zero's.  Upon leaving the shop he had Lynda convert the price to dollars: $699.00, which is $100.00 more then in the States.  Tim is going home driverless.   We must have spent ast least 30 minutes wandering through a grocery store marveling at how different it was from an American grocery store.  There were many items in the produce section that we did not recognize, and we were very impressed with how good the produce we did recognize looked.  We were taken back at how little beef there was in the meat department and how much fresh fish was on offer.  As we passed through the shelves in the rest of the store we found very few American products on display. Coke products are very where in Japan and Korea but not much of anything else. We went into a Women's shop that featured intimate wear.  The bra and panty sets were very different and very beautiful compared to what we see at home.  Lynda thought the bra's were a bit expensive but the panties pretty cheap.  Tim suggested that as little material as there was in the panties they should be cheap.  We had planned to find a Japanese restaurant for lunch to enjoy real traditional Japanese food.  Unfortunately, the ones we thought looked interesting had no english menus and no one spoke English or had no English menus, no one spoke English but there were pictures of the dishes available. We decided to return to the ship for lunch. Despite this disappointment we still enjoyed our leisurely walk  around the city center.

We are nearing the end of our cruise.  Tomorrow we spend the day "at sea", arriving in Tokyo Sunday morning.  We have booked an excursion for Sunday and then Monday we leave the ship.  However, the adventure continues as we have also booked a three day extension in Tokyo so the Facebook pictures and blog postings will continue.  We return home next Thursday.  We will visit with you again in a couple of days from Tokyo.

Korea and Nagasaki

 March 13, 2024

We are in Busan, Korea.  Another country added to our list of countries visited. That makes 87. There were three stops on our excursion today.  The first was at a small theater where we were going to have a "cultural experience".  This "cultural experience" consisted of three  different performances of Korean folk dances and a drum duet.  All three of the dances were rather slow and descriptive although neither of us could figure out what they described. The music for all three all sounded the same.  Korea folk songs are generally writing using a penatonic scale which has only 5 notes which means it is rather limited in its variety.  The drummers used small drums with a drum head on each end, with the drum laying on its side so both heads could  be hit at the same time.  Each drummer used two sticks of different sizes. This resulted in them hitting one stick on one head and the other stick on the other head.  Again this was rather limiting so there was little variety in what they played and they quite often were playing the same thing at the same time.  Unfortunately, the whole "experience" became rather boring.  The second stop on our excursion was a duty free shop.  The shop featured a lot of cosmetics and ginseng.  Lynda bought a t-shirt for herself. The last stop was a fish market advertised as the biggest fish market in Korea. Lynda stayed on the bus for this stop.  Tim can confirm that is was "a damn big market." The building is 7 stories tall and we were led to believe that all 7 stories were part of the market with the caveat that the 2nd floor was mostly restaurants.  We visited only the first floor.  It had well over 100 individual stalls, each stall being about the size of the average bathroom. The interesting thing is that each stall was selling pretty much the same fish, practically  all of it alive.  In the past when we have gone into spice markets we have  commented that we wish you could smell how wonderful they smelled.  Not this fish market. Still,  at the end of the day Tim can brag that he has been in the largest fish market in Korea. Tim is sure you are all envious.

March 14, 2024

We are back in Japan but, unfortunately, in Nagasaki.  That means visiting the site of the 2nd atomic bomb dropped on Japan.  This was very similar to the visit in Hiroshima.  There was a very well done museum that described the Manhattan Project, had samples of clothing that was shredded by the shear power of the bombs blast, showed pieces of metal that had been twisted out of shape by the heat created, and pictures of survivors  showing the damage to their bodies by the heat and radiation. Unlike in Hiroshama, the Nagasaki museum had a life size replica of the bomb that was dropped.  There was also video of the bomb being loaded into the B-29.  The ground zero site and seperate Peace Garden were also equally well done. The Peace Garden in Nagasaki featured more statuary then the garden in Hiroshama.  Nagasaki has 6 sister cities and each sent a sculpture for the Peace Garden as did 7 individual countries  included the United States.  We are both glad that we visited these sites and have no desire to visit them again.  We also both agreed that all world leaders involved in nuclear arms treaty negotiations should be required to visit both of these museums to see the results of the use of these horrific weapons.

Here's hoping that the rest of our experiences in Japan will be much happier.