Today is Halloween.   Exactly a year ago,  we boarded the Diamond Princess in the Port of Yokohama.  I remember it so well because I had an opportunity to wear my Halloween pants I had recently purchased at Savers for $3.  I was planning to bring it on this cruise to wear tonight.  However, I couldn't find it. Exactly two years ago, or on 31October2022, my posting was titled  HALLOWEEN 2022 .  To quote from that article: As you must know by now, today is Halloween, a tradition supposedly originated with the ancient Celtic   festival of Samhain   2000 years or so years ago, when bonfires were lit and people wore costumes.   This celebration first came to the U.S.in the 1840's when Irish immigrants escaped their potato famine.  Coincidentally, there is an Irish practice where going door-to-door to collect soul cakes and offerings for dead relatives was traditional.  Failure to supply a treat could result in some practic...

  I've noticed that reading of my blog peaks during my travels.  We earlier this year had an around the world journey I called   OMGA for Our Memorable Global Adventure .   So today, an alert as to when you can return for three future trips. In a little more than a month, we leave for Europe to catch a European River Christmas Cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest.  Most people just take a long flight east to Europe.  Ours will be a cruise from Seattle, through the Panama Canal, to Southampton, England. Then in the Spring of 2025, we fly to Osaka for the World Expo. During the Winter of 2025, we are contemplating the following extravaganza, I call Our Monumental Epic Global Adventure, OMEGA. We would like to catch the Queen Mary 2's around the world trip.  We might need to leave the ship in Los Angeles.  It's possible that we won't be able to disembark in Honolulu.  However, we can fly back to Hawaii.  So three truly monumental trips, t...

A coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China in December 2019.   We were on the Diamond Princess  in the Orient that month .  Came back to Hawaii.   However this same ship on 20January2020 boarded an 80-year old passenger from Hong Kong with a respiratory ailment, and started the international spread.   The Diamond Princess on 3February2020 returned to Yokohama, but had to anchor at sea, for a strange new disease seemed to be spreading. Unknowingly,  we flew from Honolulu to Bangkok, Thailand on 11February2020 . That day the World Health Organization announced the official name for this virus would be COVID-19, CO for corona, VI for virus, D for diseases and 19, the year (2019) it was first discovered. Ultimately, with 2,666 passengers and a crew of 1,045, 712 became infected, with 14 deaths.  Interestingly enough, 20% of the people on the ship were infected, and of those, 2% died.  So far, in the world, there have been 704,753,890 ...