August 22, 2025

Tokyo at Night!

Tokyo reminds me a lot of New York City minus the grit, graffiti, trash, homeless, honking horns, sirens and crime.  It is amazing how clean the streets are everywhere!  Our hotel is in a lively Times Square kinda neighborhood. There are huge billboards everywhere you look. We went to a Samari dinner show and on the walk there we caught our first sightings of Godzilla !

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The Samurai Theater itself  was a calidescope of all things sparkly and glitter! WOW! The show was lively, loud music, strobe lights and neon and tons of moving parts. The dancers and musicians portray a ton of classic Japanese images, samurai warriors, geshi, dragons and lots of colorful images. We had seats right along the stage and ate a dinner of sushi and udon, while we watched the performance. Afterwards we strolled more of the neighborhood  and got to see the Cat in a Box billboard.

We squeezed in one more FUN excursion, in this long first day in Tokyo. We met up with ship friends (L to R )Theresa, her son Riley, his visiting friend Gavin, Me & Bosco and Alan to drive STREET KARTS around the City. This was a BLAST and a great way to see the city and sights all lite up at night! Plus we got to get in costumes! They supplied a variety of onesie outfits!

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A GREAT FIRST DAY IN A FUN TOWN!!! Really LOVING Japan !!!

PORT DEARAU, FIJI - Naidiri Village

By Patricia Patrick • December 4, 2025
Today we went to see the coastal Naidiri Village that has recently won the Top Prize in global restoration, for their ocean reef project. The reef restoration was borne out of necessity to solve their dwindling food/ main protein source for the village, of fish. It was started by 2 of the villages rugby players and today is run by the local teenagers (mostly boys) in the village. It was great seeing how empowered and proud they were of their amazing efforts.

LAUTOKA, FIJI

By Patricia Patrick • December 1, 2025
The port agent offered several trips to areas around Lautoka . We chose the trip to Serenity Island Resort which included van and boat transfers and lunch. It was a really nice day enjoying the sun, reef, pool, turtles and amenities!

RIVER TUBING DOWN THE NAVUA, SUVA, FIJI

By Patricia Patrick • December 1, 2025
I organized a group tour for a fun day experience. We had a great day despite the rain that decided to join in. We started with a 45 minute van ride out through the city, into the countryside. Then we got in long boats and went up river to a waterfall, some swam or cheered on the guides to cliff dive. Then back in the boats to visit Sabata Village where 50 family members live as a community existing totally off the land, along the river. Next was a quick boat ride to our BBQ lunch spot. After lunch we got to tube down the river, through light rapids, for just about an hour. We ganged our tubes together with the guide - we had a chain of 14 in my group and the guides totally blew us away singing hymns for a good chunk of the journey. It was truly moving in that place with the rain drizzling and all of us linked together. Loved it!