Yesterday was a busy and somewhat eventful day in Kodiak. Today was a lazy and wet day in Seward, home of the Iditarod dog sled starting point. Last night we really slept. Kathy woke me up after 7. And when we saw it was raining we decided not to take our excursion.

This was the view from our room after we docked. If the sun had been out it would be pretty. But it wasn’t.

The town seems to capture its memories with lost of artwork on buildings. Considering how many dark grey days they have each year I can understand.

We did take the shuttle to town and went to Mass at a small local Catholic Church. That was the first Mass Kathy attended on the whole trip (3 months). Then we walked to the SeaLife Center. This was a facility built by Exxon after the oil spill disaster at Valdez. It is the one tourist place in town. All of the other excursion went into the hills or one the water in the bay. It wasn’t a good day for either of those things.

This was the sign just outside the SeaLife building.

Then as we walked back through the terminal building to our ship there was a small quilt display. This was the best.

We had a shuttle bus to get to town. That worked well for us because we found a Post Office substation open on a Saturday. We brought Priority Boxes back to the ship and packed them. Then we went back in a shipped 5 boxes mostly to us.

Kodiak is mostly a fishing village with a large Coast Guard Station. We drove by cannery after cannery on the relatively short drive from the dock to the town. Nothing in the town was more than perhaps a mile away. We did tour a wildlife museum and the Russian Orthodox Church after mailing the boxes.

As with most Alaskan towns on the coast there are many bald eagles. So I spent some time taking pictures. This was probably my best picture but not my best opportunity. While I was taking some other picture someone yelled at me to look up. I did but my camera was on full zoom. So I had no chance to take a shot. A bald eagle flew directly over my head no more than 10 feet above me. It almost scared me.

Later in the afternoon we went on a tour of the ship’s galley. I took a bunch of photos and had fun talking mostly about lamb with various chefs. But this photo stood out. Dessert for one of the restaurants. They estimate how many of everything based on past experience. Then anything that sits out more than 4 hours is thrown away. Thrown away on the ship means it is ground to basically mush and poured into the ocean for fish to eat.

Most of the sites in the town were visited after going to the Post Office. And I didn’t bring my camera on that portion of the trip because I was loaded down with heavy boxes. That is my excuse and I am sticking with it. Other friends on the trip took pictures and I will eventually steal some.

After 3 days at sea we finally docked in Alaska. But we had overcast skies with lots of rain. Many people braved the weather and went into the town of Dutch Harbor. There isn’t much in town so we were told. It was also only 40 degrees. So we decided to stay on board until the rain quit so we could walk only in the port area. We talked with some of the crew as they came back to the ship. They went to the Safeway Grocery store and bought potato chips. Funny what people crave. We have even asked for potato chips on board to no avail.

So the only photo worth adding to the blog is of an eagle. Of course his white feathers blend into the white sky. There were loads of eagles but mostly flying too high to photograph. Hopefully Kodiak will be a better port for us.

However, during our days at sea we did have a 93ers (those on the ship for 93 days from Auckland to Vancouver) special dinner at The restaurant with an officer. Each table had 8 passengers and the one officer. Kathy sat next to the Staff Engineer. So very quietly she asked if I could have a tour of the engine room. That is not allowed at all, but he would see what else he could do that would be of interest. At 10 the next morning I had a call to go to Guest Services for a special tour. I had no idea what Kathy and the engineer did. I got a private tour of the engine control room with all of the computers controlling basically everything. Much of the main control panel looked very familiar to the control screens I created at Safe Harbor Dam. We compared stories. It was great fun.

Today was the second Tuesday May 14 this cruise. That was only fair since we never had a February 21 this year.

Last evening as we were sailing away from Russia the Viking Vocalists put on a special show for the long term passengers (those on the ship for either 93 days like us or 78 days from Sydney Australia ending in Vancouver Canada). Of course the show was James Bond with From Russia with Love and many other Bond songs.

Then as we were about to cross the dateline the ship had to ask permission of the Golden Dragon to cross. He is the ruler of the 180th Meridian. Fortunately we were allowed to cross safely. We all shared a toast. But it was very confusing how to set clocks especially on the computer.

Later Mike, a new friend who is also a 93 dayer, sent Kathy an email. It had this photo. We eat most meals with Jan and Mike at “our table” in the World Café. So far I have had lamb 42 times on this ship. It is fairly well known around the ship especially by the Chef and his assistants at the Café.

Tomorrow we will arrive in Alaska. We are now starting the last leg of the trip and trying to organize the things we have bought along the way.

Ever heard of this place? I hadn’t. But now I have been there. I can’t believe people live here if they had the resources to move. But our tour guide was extremely good and proud of her city. She was completely fluent in English and she said also in Japanese. She was more fluent than any of our tour guides in Japan.

The most famous building in this city and the one in the best condition was the Russia Orthodox Cathedral. Gold everywhere inside and out.

And the painted ceiling was amazing.

But to me it was not my favorite Russian Orthodox Church in town. We went to an old wooden church named St. Nicholas. This church had this statue of St. Nicholas out front and a very special icon of St. Nicholas inside. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of the Russian Orthodox Church. He is also the same saint whose is buried in the St. Nicholas Catholic Basilica in Bari Italy where we were just last May. Tradition says all Russians should attempt to pilgrimage to Bari and pray at his shrine in Bari. I asked our guide and she confirmed this story and told us her mother is pushing her to take her there. If you haven’t heard the whole story of St. Nicholas just ask me some day. All I will say here is this is the same Saint Nicholas that we call Santa Claus. We bought a small copy of the icon.

The city is also famous for brown bears. Supposedly there are over 20,000 bears in the surrounding area. We did not see any. The guide told us that in the spring, like right now, they wake up and eat anything they can find like berries and ferns. Then for dessert they eat tourists! Whoops, not us thank goodness. But these bears don’t eat and are cute.

There is a memorial to the fallen from the local battle in the Crimea War of the 1850’s. The local battle was the only battle the Russians won in the entire war.

There was a great ski hill just out of town. Unfortunately it had just closed for the year. But look how much snow they still had. By the way it was cold today. The high temperature was about 40 degrees.

The city is mostly famous for hunting and fishing. And the most famous area in the Bering Straight just offshore is these three rocks. There picture is everywhere.

The next day at lunch the World Café (buffet) had a special dessert. A huge tiramisu. Yes Bob, Kathy and I hit it just for you.

Today is Tuesday May 14th. Tomorrow is Tuesday May 14th. Yes, your eyes are okay and I did type that. We cross the dateline tonight sometime. So we gain back the day we lost while flying to Auckland New Zealand in February. Soon we will be in Alaska but we are not ready to end this trip. Maybe in two weeks we will be.

We anchored just off the coast of Korsakov Russia. Then we took a tender (life boat) from ship to shore. This was a small remote town at the farthest eastern side of Russia just by Siberia. They need loads of help with construction. But we had fun.

Of course our excursion took us to Lenin Square. They haven’t pulled their statue down.

It was right in front of their Community Building.

Inside a local dance group put on a traditional Russian dance performance. The theater could seat most everyone in town I do believe. This was clearly one of their better buildings.

How is this for a modern “American” 7 eleven store front? And notice the sidewalks. They were mostly broken concrete with lots of mud.

My Russian is not good but I could read this sign. This is a Karaoke Bar. We did not go in.

Dinner was at the Italian Manfredi’s Restaurant. It was May 10th so we were celebrating our 44th anniversary. We had dinner with two other couples we have met on this cruise.

We used our new wine glasses that we just purchased in Otaru Japan.

Most of the crew knew it was our anniversary. So we had visits from many of our favorites. Dinner took quite some time with many interruptions.

When it was time for dessert the waiter brought out a special cake just for our table to share. And a bottle of champagne. Kathy was wearing one of her new tops from Japan. Sort of kimonoish. Even the next day several other crew members found us and gave their congratulations. We had a great time.

We left Japan and sailed toward Russia. Sometime around 3 AM we heard a terrible clatter coming from the veranda. At first I thought it was a neighbor outside moving furniture. Loudly! But Kathy got up to look out. There were birds everywhere. She said hundreds. The stories around the ship kept being embellished for days. The first story was the Russians trained these birds to attack to cause the ship to turn around. Later there were some birds out in the water swimming around. They were having a wake in memory of their falling comrades.

Anyhow we learned they were some sort of “shearwater” birds. When they hit the decks (and I mean many of the decks) they either died from the crash or were stuck because they can’t take off and fly except from the water. So one of our friends took photos in the morning. Notice the mess on the deck. Ours was just as bad.

Our last stop in Japan was at the port city nearest to Sapporo. We have become tired of riding on buses long distances for a short tour of some new city. And we found that Otaru is an easy city to walk around and is famous for glass. Right up my alley. So we didn’t take the tour we booked months ago and just walked.

Not that I can read Japanese, but this is the sign at the dock greeting our ship. I am certain it says Otaru. From our ship we had to walk perhaps a quarter mile then turn left. This was a shopping street more than a mile long. It had shops representing several different local glass companies, a glass museum and about a hundred or more restaurants. We had great fun.

This was one of the glass companies with its own museum. Impressive building. But this city is fairly far north. So it is cold for the first time on our cruise. There is snow visible on the hills around the city. And there are creeks running through the city with lots of melted snow. We wore our coats for the first time.

Notice the snow fences just behind the shops along this shopping street. When they get snow, they must really get snow. Glad that didn’t happen.

But we did shop. Kathy bought some earrings and a glass nail file. I had never heard of a glass nail file. Then we found two really pretty wine glasses. So we added to our collection. These are our anniversary gifts to each other since tomorrow is our anniversary.

As we walked around our city there were still some of the cherry trees in bloom. They were past their peak but still pretty. Sapporo is most famous for these trees so we thought we might miss seeing these trees once we cancelled our Sapporo excursion. Lucky for us we still saw a few.

As our ship sailed away from the port we went by the dock wall with the lighthouse. On to Russia.

Not much was happening after we left Tokyo until we reach our next port of Otaru, Japan. But it was memorable. Kathy and I decided to eat breakfast at The Restaurant and be served rather than our normal in the World Café which is a buffet line. And at The restaurant I can have a decadent breakfast with lamb chops.

Lamb, mushrooms, hash brown potatoes and a few small tomatoes. That was plenty for a lazy day breakfast. When Daryl, our server, delivered the plate to me he went “Baaa”. I wonder why?

But now I have to explain dinner. We walked into the front door of the World Café. There is always a greeter at the door. We know most of them and even more of them know us. So the greeter started out by telling me there were lamb chops being served at the Pool Grill tonight. Okay. Then I walked by the hot serving section where our now good friend Gilbert serves. He stopped me and said there are lamb chops at the Pool Grill. Yes, I know. Then just before reaching “our table”, Armando the server said there are lamb chops at the grill. And that was all just to me. As Kathy walked by the Chef, he told her the same thing. Soooooo. I had lamb chops for dinner with a salad.

The entire day wasn’t just spent eating lamb chops. Just most of it.

As we were eating dinner the sun went down and was quite pretty with the clouds and the mountains off at a distance.

After dinner we went to the theater and watched the Viking Vocalists perform the ABBA Songbook as it is called. We have watched these 4 perform many times now. They have a James Bond, The Beatles, ABBA and then a selection of just their favorites performed just in the atrium where they actually interact with the crowd. They all know us by name.

On Monday we took an excursion to the Shinto and Buddhist Shrine area called Kamakura.

In the morning we went through this Torii gate to the Shinto Shrine. basically all Shinto Shrines have Torii Gates, or so we have learned. By walking through the gate your mind is purified. Then they have a water sink where Shinto’s can purify their body.

This week is a special to get married. So this couple was entering to get married. We saw the ceremony while we were walking around. Notice the outfits and especially her headpiece. We were told this is to cover her horns!!!!

There was a garden as part of the shrine. This included several flowers like iris and peonies. Probably others that weren’t in bloom. I could include many other photos.

Then we went to lunch. I can promise I didn’t gain any weight. But I did try most everything. The spinach. carrot and a peapod were good. The salmon was good. But the lotus and tofu weren’t good. We did have a bowl of sticky rice that isn’t in the photo. I can’t even explain much of the stuff in the photo nor would I want it again. I did ask for a fork which is in the photo. So are the recommended chopsticks.

In the afternoon we went to the red lantern Buddhist Temple. This temple has the biggest Buddha in Japan. I really enjoyed the architecture and landscaping more than the Buddhas. But you have to see it anyway.

Again it was pretty crowded but not as bad as most days while in Japan. Of course the Japanese all have to go to work tomorrow.

Pretty much all of the shrines and temples have ponds. Many have fish especially what we call koi. The Japanese call these fish carp which they think are great fish. I knew that Koi were in the carp family. But I think of carp as the fish that live in muddy icky rivers. Koi are beautiful and live in clean ponds. Once upon a time while we lived in Pennsylvania we had a Koi pond in our back yard. I enjoyed feeding them most every night.