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| One year ago today, we visited Kruger National Park to see this elephant family crossing the road with a few babies protected by the parade. For more photos, please click here. |
As we’ve decided on future cruises, we’ve decided that three cruises in and around Japan make sense. The prices are good for these highly coveted ports of call, and after spending 28 days living in the country plus three cruises, we feel we’ll have scoured Japan as well as possible.
Subsequently, we’ll be in the area of Southeast Asia from February 27, 2022, until May 6, 2022, for a total of 68 nights. We love that we will have time to explore Japan and gain a more expansive perspective of the country and its culture.
Tomorrow, we’ll share the details of the third and final cruise in and around Japan. At this point, we don’t have plans as to where we’ll go when the cruises end other than to visit family in the US, (as mentioned in yesterday’s post) when the third cruise ends in Vancouver, British Columbia.
As for yesterday’s events, we headed to Mary and Eugene’s house at around 3:15 pm to find no less than 20 local residents in attendance. As the day progressed, more and more people arrived.
The decibel level was ear-splitting but festive and fun. Eugene appreciated the attendance be so many of their friends. Word got out through the neighborhood and by evening’s end, there was well over 25 well-wishers.
“Any cause for a party” is the motto around here and we jumped right into it shortly after arriving in Apache Junction over a month ago. I’ve been carefully monitoring my wine intake, and after a few glasses, I switch to sparkling water which takes me into the late evening.
After most of the guests departed, we wandered across the street to Margie’s house to play more Buck Euchre. It was Tom and me, Kevin and Margie who lasted well after midnight playing the fun game.
We didn’t get to sleep until after 1:30 am but managed to get in a total of six hours leaving us both feeling okay. Today, the festivities begin again around 3:00 pm, when we dine at Colleen and Gene’s for steak and shrimp.
I never got around to making the butterflied garlic butter broiled shrimp last night and decided to save it for today’s big meal for the eight of us. I have no doubt, at some point, we’ll play cards again today rotating players so those of us interested are able to have a turn.
Most of the group of us have been up past 1:30 am for the past four nights. I bowed out a few nights, knowing I needed to get some sleep. But the rest are a little raggedy from staying up so many late nights in a row.
At our place, we continue to work on setting up items and sorting and organizing supplies we’ve received in the past few weeks. This morning Tom installed a glass screen protector onto my phone.
When we recently purchased the two Google world phones, Tom had installed a similar screen protector on his phone. But, since I’d bought a phone case that closes, I didn’t think I’d need one. As time has gone on and yet to scratch the screen, I decided it would be best to add the extra protection.
As mentioned above, here is the information on the above-mentioned second cruise in Japan. Our costs are slightly different based on our cabin selections, but we’ll post those costs after we sail on each of the cruises:
| 14 nights departing April 10, 2022, on Celebrity’s Celebrity Solstice |
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| Date | Port | Arrive | Depart |
| Sunday, April 10 | Tokyo (Yokohama), Japan | 6:00 pm | |
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| Monday, April 11 | Shimizu, Japan | 7:00 am | 5:00 pm |
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| Tuesday, April 12 | At Sea | ||
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| Wednesday, April 13 | Kobe, Japan | 7:00 am | 9:00 pm |
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| Thursday, April 14 | Kochi, Japan | 8:00 am | 6:00 pm |
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| Friday, April 15 | Hiroshima, Japan | 9:00 am | 6:00 pm |
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| Saturday, April 16 | At Sea | ||
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| Sunday, April 17 | Nagasaki, Japan | 7:00 am | 5:00 pm |
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| Monday, April 18 | Busan, South Korea | 7:00 am | 5:00 pm |
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| Tuesday, April 19 | At Sea | ||
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| Wednesday, April 20 | Hakodate, Japan | 8:00 am | 7:00 pm |
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| Thursday, April 21 | Aomori, Japan | 7:00 am | 6:00 pm |
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| Friday, April 22 | At Sea | ||
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| Saturday, April 23 | Tokyo (Yokohama), Japan | 8:30am | |
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| Sunday, April 24 | Tokyo (Yokohama), Japan | Disembark | |
That’s it for today, folks! Gee…we are only 11 days from departure, looking forward to the next leg of our journey.
Have a fantastic weekend!
Photo from one year ago today, January 18, 2019:
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| The baby elephant is at play with family members. For more photos from Kruger, please click here. |