Welcome champagned on Formal Night. Then dinner at Sabbatini's. Frescobaldi wine from Tuscany was featured.  But we instead had Bertani Amarone from the Valpolicella region of Verona, Italy. With white wine and gin martini. Appetizers. My  grand soup. A misti assortment. A couple of shrimp dishes, My dinner of mushroom risotto and ossobuco. Panna Cotta dessert. On to karaoke. Final stop at Skywalker's Night Club Only 3126 steps on Day 2 of cruise. We arrived in the Port of Osaka the morning of Day 3.  We are berthed almost alongside the largest aquarium in the World, Kaiyukan.  I've been to Osaka at least 50 times.  Here is  my posting of almost exactly two years ago , which described this city, and showed a photo of whale sharks in this aquarium.  They are today called Kai and Yu Went early for lunch, so breakfast was still being served.  A concoction of rice, miso soup. hash, sunny side egg and natto. to start, with a Bloody Mary. Second c...

Osaka, which means large hill, has a population of 2.7 million ( was up to 3.1 million in 1965 ) and is the largest component of the Keihanshin ( or Greater Osaka ) Metropolitan Area, the second largest in Japan, and tenth biggest urban area in the world, with 19 million inhabitants.   From the early beginning of the country, Osaka was traditionally considered to be Japan's economic hub, having a major port in the 7th and 8th centuries, and continuing to flourish during the Edo Period (1603-1867), becoming the center for Japanese culture, with Kyoto and Nara in this region.  Our two final stops on this Japan trip are to these two cities. Kyoto was the capital of Japan for more than a millennium, from 794 through 1868. All changed that year when the capital was moved to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo. Osaka was hit hard by U.S. bombing during World War II, particularly just before the end. Reconstruction stimulated population growth. Osaka hosted the World Expo in 1970, and ...

To start, a tidbit from  OZY Sunday Magazine : If the problem is the U.S. border with Mexico, is the solution an alligator-filled moat? In 2019, former President Donald Trump   reportedly asked aides   to explore that idea. In a response worthy of Jonathan Swift, defense strategist and author Peter W. Singer worked out the costs of replacing border fences with a moat filled with alligators and snakes. Spoiler alert: It’s   surprisingly doable , costing $2.5 billion to acquire the reptiles and $1.8 billion a year to maintain them as a “border force.” The Rio Grande is 1255 miles of the 1954-mile long U.S.-Mexico border.  If Donald Trump had succeeded in totally building a wall at a projected cost of $20 million/mile, the cost would eventually have been $39 billion.  He was planning, though, to only construct 576 miles at a cost of $11 billion, using the Rio Grande as part of his barrier, and some previous walls to suffice.  Gobal warming has made it eas...