First some newsworthy items: New COVID-19 cases are shifting to the Orient.  Yesterday (new cases/million population): #1   South Korea  139,615 (2722) #2  Russia  106,920 (732) #3  Germany  95,396 (1136) #4  Vietnam  94,385  (955) #5  Turkey  64,275 (747) #6  Japan  63,703 (506) #7  USA  32,918 (99) California  5,231 (132) New York  1,999 (103) Idaho 2,526 (1403) Hawaii 142 (101) World  1,110,611 (141) Singapore  13,544 (2257) Bahrain  2577 (1431)...a small island country in the Persian Gulf Estonia  2278 (1752) Luxembourg  1274 (1990) French Polynesia (3986) Brunei  (9223)...a small country on Borneo in the South China Sea Gazing at those numbers, the USA has a new cases/million rate only 1% of Brunei.  Not only did we survive the pandemic, but if fully vaccinated and boosted, much safer than from the seasonal flu.  Further, this  Omicron subvariant BA.2  is more contagious, but only kills those who are unvaccinated. For a variety of reasons, March is one of my favorite months.  Sp

If you follow this blog site, you know that our global cruise on the Island Princess scheduled to depart Los Angeles in January on a 111-day global journey was cancelled by the company.  They were unable to confirm a sufficient number of port arrival sites, so just gave up.  We were disappointed.  We means my travel partner and I.  Our last three trips were exciting and monumental:   wine-tour of France , on the  Diamond Princess  just before the COVID-19 outbreak and  Thailand  when this country was #2 to China in total cases. But life goes on, and I got enterprising, for I still want to somehow experience the Dubai World Expo, which opened yesterday, and will be available until the end of March.  Thus, my challenge is to find my way there and back to Honolulu.  However, it seems a shame to just go there and return home. But using Kayak.com I checked anyway and was  astonished to find this itinerary, all on Star Alliance : Honolulu to San Francisco (5h 5m) to Frankfurt (10h 50m) to Du

 A few items of the day: While South Korea and Japan were far behind the U.S. in vaccinations at the beginning,  they have both now passed us in shots/person . Only 36% of parents support vaccinating their children.  It was 26% in July. Daniel Craig has been James Bond longer than anyone else.  His final appearance as 007 will be  No Time to Die ,  ( Rotten Tomatoes :82/ ), the 25th movie of the series, to be released next week. At 2 hours 43 minutes, the longest Bond film ever. Cary Joji Fukunaga is the first American director. Rami Malek ( of  Bohemian Rhapsody  fame ) is the villain Craig will reprise his role in the  sequel to  Knives Out . The next Bond?   Idris Elba ,  Lashana Lynch  ( black and female, who is in  NTtD ) and  Tom Hardy . I remember well my very first Bond flick, the 1963  Dr. No .  Can you believe that was almost 60 years ago?  The reviewers hated it.  I wondered why, because I thought it was fabulous. Much later came  Rotten Tomatoes , and their reviewers gave i