The Benefit of Arriving First: Alaska

"Alaska is what happens when Willy Wonka and the witch from Hansel and Gretel elope, buy a place together upstate, renounce their sweet teeth, and turn into health fanatics." - Sloane Crosley

Pretty much every adult I met in Alaska came from somewhere else.  “I came for a visit, and here I am 20 years later….”  Now, I can understand that about Hawaii, but Alaska?

Truth be told, Alaska is a beautiful place. The glaciers we sailed around were stunning.  The snow-capped mountains were breathtaking.  The places where the sea meets the land, and where the valley meets the mountain, are sights to behold. The towns have a rugged charm (except for the ever-growing numbers of jewelry shops that have migrated from the Caribbean). 

Other than Dutch Harbor and Kodiak (discussed in my previous entry), the towns we visited see their populations explode during the day when the cruise ship season—lasting mid-May to late September—is on. At night, the ships sail and the towns go back to what they really are.

But to live there full time has to take a certain kind of person.  The winters are long and dark, and fishing, hunting, and oil are the main industries (other than tourism, during the season).  Conditions are harsh.  In Skagway, once the north winds blow in during winter, it can be nearly impossible to leave your house for a couple of weeks. But the payoff is fabulous—the aurora borealis is at its most spectacular at the end of one of these wind storms.

Isolation can be a problem.  Many towns are accessible only by boat or plane. Supplies can be scarce. Skagway has one grocery store, stocked from a barge that arrives from Seattle once a week, on Tuesdays.  By the time it gets there, perishables are already aging.  Lines form immediately, and by Thursday all perishables are gone.

Ours was the first cruise ship of the season, and in fact a couple of weeks ahead of when the next ship will arrive.  This made for a warm welcome in each port, and having the tourism area of the towns pretty much to ourselves. Many shops were not yet really open—they just put in a little stock to make us feel welcome.  And everyone seemed to go out of their way to welcome us. They made no bones about it—they won’t be feeling this warmly toward the cruise ship passengers later in the season.  But our ship was small compared to most they see, so our numbers manageable, and it had been a long (albeit less harsh than usual) winter.

My main activity in Skagway (other than to just stroll around town) was to take a trolley tour, driven and narrated by a woman who is among the “came to visit 20 years ago and stayed” contingent. Her stories were colorful, and she was filled with local trivia.  Skagway owes its existence to the Yukon gold rush, as it was the jumping-off point  for the prospectors to walk the Yukon trail.  Industries formed around serving them—most notably bars and hotels, most of which also were bordellos.  Among the fun facts we heard was that here was where Donald Trump’s grandfather started the family business—he opened and ran a hotel/bordello in Skagway.

We also visited Seward, a town reachable only by boat or plane.  It was a rainy day, but we ventured forth and were rewarded with multiple sightings of bald eagles, as well as a fabulous sea life center which did double duty as both an aquarium for visitors to see and a center for research on the sea life of the region. It is funded by Exxon, as part of the settlement for the Exxon Valdez oil spill some years ago.

The other two Alaska towns on our itinerary were Juneau and Ketchikan. Unfortunately, I did not get out at either because I had a bad cold, and the chilly and rainy conditions in both made venturing forth inadvisable. (Fortunately, the day in Skagway had been lovely, and the cold had not yet set in.)

But before Skagway were two spectacular days of sightseeing from the ship.  First, we sailed along Hubbard Glacier.  The day was cold but sunny, so much of it was spent on the deck, bundled up but happily taking in the beauty of the glacier and the thunderous sound of the glacier’s calving (pieces falling off).  Since we knew that the cruise would soon be coming to an end, it also was a time to mix and mingle with friends on the deck as we prepare to part company.  

The next day was a trip into Glacier Bay, where we sailed past one glacier after another. Alas, the weather was not so great this time.  Cold and rain kept us indoors in the observation lounge much of the time, wandering out only occasionally to get a better look or a photo.  We were fortunate to have two park rangers join the ship and give us an explanation of what we were seeing, answer questions, and help us spot wildlife in the water and on shore.  One ranger in particular was a notably compelling speaker, and her love for the area showed in every word she spoke.

And I learned a new term:   “bergie bits.”  They’re the little pieces of glacier that break off and float away, forming miniature icebergs in the bay.

I had cruised to Alaska twice before, and knew it to be a great trip.  This one stood out because of how early in the season it was, so that we got to see the area in a very different way. It was still winter, and the tourism machine was not really grinding it out yet, so there was a charm there that was not quite as evident on previous visits.  So we couldn’t go on a native canoe on this outing, or do some of the other activities that I’d enjoyed before.  

It was wonderful in a whole other way, and I’m glad I had the chance to do it.

Next up:  Journey’s end.

The Middle of Nowhere, Cold Climate Division: Remote Alaskan Islands

“The name Alaska is probably an abbreviation of Unalaska, derived from the original Aleut word agunalaksh, which means "the shores where the sea breaks its back." The war between water and land is never-ending." - Corey Ford

Coming into Alaska before “the season” begins, we started with two locales only rarely visited by cruise ships:  Dutch Harbor, on the island of Unalaska (the largest island in the Aleutians), and Kodiak, home of the namesake bear.

Both were cold and wet.  Rain wet, not snow wet. There was plenty of snow on the mountain tops, but not in the towns.  Indeed, we were told that Kodiak had only four inches of snow this winter.

Dutch Harbor is best known as home of the TV reality show, The Deadliest Catch.  As it was not crabbing season, the crab pots were piled all over town, and the fishing boats were distracted by other fish.

The day in Dutch Harbor was cold and wet, but we braved both to board the shuttle bus (actually, a school bus pressed into service for this purpose, as our visit was on a Saturday) and go into “downtown”: a Safeway, a bar, a hotel, a Ship Store, and the Museum of the Aleutians. The latter was an interesting narrative of the history of this area, including the bombing and invasion by Japan during WWII.

The next stop was Kodiak, a slightly larger town.  Again, our bus was a school bus, but its hours were limited because it was a school day and it was needed in the morning and the afternoon for its usual purpose.  The driver/guide was actually the regular school bus driver, but was a wonderful guide/comedian.  “The kindergarten teacher asked the student to name the four seasons, and so he did:  salmon, herring, halibut, and crab.” 

The rain was fierce, as was the wind, resulting in a large number of upturned umbrellas (“oh, I see your umbrella has been Kodiaked”).  This was nothing unusual. Kodiak gets rain an average of 340 days a year.  The other days often have snow.

 I can’t say I saw anything memorable in Kodiak, other than that bus.  Or at least I can’t remember anything.

Except for the full moon that escorted our ship into these islands—at one point accompanied by a small showing of the aurora borealis.  See if you can spot the northern lights in the photo.

Next up:  more Alaska.

Groundhog Day: Re-crossing the International Date Line

“Didn’t we do this yesterday?”—Bill Murray’s character in the movie “Groundhog Day”

Back in February, I posted about having lost a day by crossing the international date line.  Well, sooner or later we were going to get that day back.  We did, on April 21.

April 21, 2016 is a day that happened twice in my life.  It was a Tuesday. Twice.  It was a day at sea.  Twice.  It was a day that a young woman on the ship turned 21.  Twice.  That was quite a party.

It also was a day in which we went from being 17 hours ahead of the U.S. east coast to 6 hours behind it.  Though I’m not sure which April 21 was the one on which that happened.  Which pretty much sums up that day.  Whichever day it was.

Next up: the remote corners of Alaska.

The View from the Window: Russia

“I can see Russia from my house.”- Tina Fey, satirizing Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live

 

Sailing up the coast of Russia brought some of the most spectacular scenery in memory.  Snow-capped volcanoes fronted by black ink water, which in turn was peppered with bits of ice.  Ooh, look at that one—doesn’t it resemble a polar bear floating on its back?

This was our view most of the sunny day on which we were sailing toward Petropavlovsk, the second largest remote city in the world, sitting on the far eastern coast of Russia—just to the east of Siberia. Not accessible by road, this seaport town is best known as the site of a secret Soviet submarine base during the cold war.

The scenery had not ended when we found ourselves in the middle of a bay, surrounded by the city.  On one end, we could see gray cinder block buildings looking very much like the remnants of the soviet era that they are.  Some people had tried to enliven them by painting them bright colors, but they wound up looking like shipping containers.  Other parts of the city contained livelier architecture, and seemed inviting to the visitor.

But, alas, it was not to be.  Although we’d been in Russia two days earlier (more on that below), the local Immigration authorities insisted on doing a full passport check here as well.  As this was a tender port—there was nowhere to dock—and as the only way we’d be allowed ashore without visas was on a structured tour, several hundred of us gathered in the show lounge, waiting for word to proceed ashore on our tours.

And waited.  And waited.  Every so often, a crew member would announce, “no word yet.”  “We’re still waiting on Immigration.” (Story of my life.)

Eventually, the announcements started to change.  The seas were becoming choppy, and there was question as to whether the tenders would be safe.  Apparently, the port, which is controlled by the Russian navy, had placed the landing pontoons in an exposed area that would make getting off the tenders fairly treacherous. And, since moving them would involve the approval of the naval headquarters in Moscow, that would be that. So, after a struggle with the bureaucracy, the captain announced that we would not be getting off at Petropavlovsk after all.

For me, that meant that my views of Russia would be only from the window. 

Some from the ship, however, had indeed visited Russia two days prior, when the ship had called at Korsakov, at the southern tip of Sakhalin Island and not far from the northernmost tip of Japan.

I’d planned to get off in Korsakov. But as we approached the island and heard that (1) the temperatures were in the 20s; (2) a foot of snow had fallen the day before; (3) snow was falling now; and (4) we would have to go ashore by tender (for the uninitiated, this is where the lifeboats are taken down, pulled up next to the ship, and you step—or leap, depending on conditions—onto it from the ship, and then the reverse on return), I reviewed what there was to see and do in Korsakov.

The ship’s excursion people had already been working on managing expectations for this port, and so had not given much to be enthusiastic about.  As best as I could tell, you could go to a viewing platform where about all you could see would be our ship, then go see a statue of Lenin, then go to a market area where you could buy cheap souvenirs.  So, on balance, I skipped this port.  Beth went, and her description was “it wasn’t horrible.”  Oh well.

So, in sum, I missed all but the view of Russia from my on-board house.  Better luck next time.

Next up:  Groundhog Day.

The Rise of the Machines: Japan

“Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods.” – Japanese proverb

Vending machines have taken over the country.

Really.  Truly. 

Our first stop in Japan was in Fukuoka.  In front of every apartment building, inside every parking lot, on every street corner, there were planted at least two if not more vending machines. Some sold hot beverages, some sold cold beverages, some sold rice balls, some sold cigarettes, some even sold toys or electronics.  There was one selling something that defied definition (but Hello Kitty was definitely involved).

Well, I thought, this must be a Fukuoka thing.  But the same thing held in our next stop, Shimizu.  So maybe this is a southern Japan thing?

Wrong.  We next visited Tokyo.  They were everywhere there too.  I had been to Tokyo ten years ago.  I do not recall seeing a single vending machine then. They were planted and have grown since then.

We moved on to Aomori. Yep, vending machines all over the place.  And, finally, Otaru.  More vending machines.

And lest you think these are in place of convenience stores, think again.  One could barely move three blocks in any of these cities without encountering a 7-11 or Lawson convenience mart.

And, oh yes, all of these cities in Japan were alternately lovely, vital, busy, and/or charming.  And the people gracious and welcoming. The tea and sashimi yummy.  The cherry blossoms were either already spent in the south and central parts of the country, or only just starting to bud in the north.  But fortunately we’d seen them at their peak in Korea.

And, sadly, on our last day in Japan—in the northernmost part of the country--we heard about the massive earthquake in the southern part.  My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. 

Nighttime sail from Tokyo

Next up:  Russia.  Maybe.

A Very Pleasant Surprise: South Korea

“Where there are no tigers, a wild cat is very self-important.” – Korean Proverb

I tried to do advance research on each place we are visiting.  However, I ran out of time, and so never did much reading on South Korea. So, I’d have to figure it out as we went along. All three stops turned out to be delightful surprises.

One of the things I hadn’t realized about Korea is how pervasive are the cherry trees.  I knew to expect them in Japan, but not here.  I’m used to the springtime cherry blossoms in DC, but they are all concentrated in a particular area of the city.  In the places in Korea we visited, they were everywhere—city and country—and we had the good fortune to be there when they were at their peak, and when other blooms, such as forsythia, tulips, and azaleas, were starting their springtime show.

First, we docked in Incheon, an industrial port city.  However, I ignored Incheon and took the 90-minute bus ride into South Korea’s capital, Seoul.  It’s a lovely, modern city with a pace that is brisk but not intense.  It just seemed like a very liveable city.

South Korea’s National Museum is a stunning edifice in Seoul, and maintains all manner of collections: natural history, human history, art, etc.  There was no way to see the whole thing in a day, so with the help of our guide, we spent a couple of hours viewing what have been designated as national treasures. In many ways, the building that housed them was one such treasure, but the Buddhas, ancient porcelain (I particularly loved the celadon), and historic artifacts were fascinating.

We then proceeded to the television tower, to go to the top for a view of the sprawling (and blooming) city. 

This was followed by a delicious lunch of Korean dishes.  I’d had the pleasure of living above a good Korean restaurant in DC, but got a different take on those familiar flavors here.  I was particularly taken with the kimchi here, particularly the radish kimchi, which had a more nuanced flavor that what I had known before.

Afterward, we took a walk through a neighborhood of older, traditional homes in the heart of Seoul.  These modest homes sell for around the equivalent of $700,000, even though the residents are plagued with sightseers—so much so that the homeowners hang out signs imploring visitors to be quiet.  The weather was perfect that day, so the streets were filled with other sightseers, both local and foreign.  The neighborhood also boasts a number of nice shops and restaurants, so appears to be a favorite haunt for many.

Our next stop in South Korea was Jeju Island, a resort island off the coast of Korea.  At first it was perplexing as to why it is such a popular resort, as is it seemed to be just another large-ish city and is prone to temperature extremes and just about every kind of natural disaster known to humankind.  Then we got out into the countryside and saw what beauty lies outside the city.  For densely populated countries like Korea and Japan, the rural aura must be a true retreat. Plus, it is the one location in South Korea where Chinese citizens can visit without a visa.  Finally, particularly as compared with some nearby countries, prices are relatively low.

On Jeju, we enjoyed a stroll through a traditional village.  Only about 600 people live here now, in the old-fashioned thatched huts and simple designs, and most of the residents are getting up in age.  But the huts now have the modern conveniences, though a cluster are preserved in their original form for tourism purposes.

Perhaps the most interesting in the original-form houses were the “toilets”  a seat made of rocks that opens into a small pen, where they used to keep pigs.  The idea was that the pigs ate the waste, thus creating a natural means of disposing of human waste.  But let’s not think about eating that pork.

We also visited a volcano park, and took a pleasant stroll around the crater’s rim (with the crater bearing an odd resemblance to Dorton Arena at UNC) and explored the area, with breathtaking views at every turn. 

Our next stop in Korea was Busan (also, for  reasons unknown, called Pusan).  This was the pleasantest surprise of all.  A city both modern and old-fashioned, it had so many diverse elements it is hard to enumerate them all.  Its fish market is mind-boggling in its size and offerings.  Stand after stand of seafood in tanks, and people negotiating for their fish.  Outside were more stands, some still selling fresh fish, others selling dried fish, and still others selling accompaniments.  

In Busan, you could shop to your heart’s content in the world’s largest department store, or in the many shops on or under the street—there was an extensive network of underground shopping.

Catch the hop-on-hop-off bus, and see the center city, the numerous parks, the beaches, and the daily life of a city with both skyscrapers and lovely flora.

We saw a lot of tourists here, but very few westerners, so were ourselves a bit of a curiosity to some.  But children, their parents, school girls, and young women taking selfies all seemed open, engaging and friendly.  South Korea was truly a great place to visit.  I only wish we’d had more time.

Next up:  Japan

What a Difference a Decade Makes: China

“No zuo no die. It means if you don’t do stupid things, they won’t come back and bite you in the ass. (but if you do, they most certainly will ).”  - A modern take on Confucius.

Having been to Shanghai and Beijing in October 2005, I was curious to see what had changed in the intervening decade. At that time, as we went through the older sections of the cities, I kept hearing that this would all be gone in a few years, to be replaced by the new and modern.

So was that true?  Yes, but not completely.  Many old homes and shops were gone, replaced by the shiny and high-end.  But, along the way, people did remember to preserve and honor the past, and so some traces of the old were still to be found.

Both cities’ skylines are replete with skyscrapers, each trying to be higher and fancier than the last.  The little shop houses, with one block devoted to, say, shops all selling the same buttons and the next block to selling the same threads and the next to the same fabrics, are largely gone, replaced by Versace, Gucci, and other expensive stores.  But clusters of the same kind of product could still be found.  I’ve never seen so many high-end wristwatch stores as in a particular two blocks of Beijing.

People on the street were dressed for business, comfort, or fashion, though the occasional Mao suit could still be found.  And the city parks still boasted people practicing tai chi in the morning, and groups playing mah jong on public squares in the afternoon.  However, it was largely elderly people in both activities. I’m told that young people are no longer interested in such things.

So what did I do in China?  In Shanghai, I rode the magnetic levitation train, which does not touch a track to run, and which reached a speed of 260 mph.  The visit also included visits to and among the high rises—of which there were many—and to some of the public parks.

In Beijing, we left the ship for three very full days, visiting the Great Wall (of course), the Summer Palace (which is largely rebuilds of a complex that was destroyed multiple times, but is now a lovely park where many locals go for a day’s outing), Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and one of the hutongs—the old neighborhoods that Beijing is being careful to preserve.

The Great Wall is, well, the Great Wall.  One of those things you spend your life hearing about.  I couldn’t climb as high as I did ten years ago, but it still was breathtaking.  But gazing up it, I could not help but thing of the tens of thousands of lives that were lost building it, only to find that it actually was never effective in preventing invasions.  A lesson to today’s wall advocates, perhaps?

The Summer Palace was where we saw the greatest crowds—it was a holiday weekend and the weather was perfect, so it seemed that all of Beijing had come out for a boat ride on the lake or just to tour the grounds.

The last time I’d been to Tiananmen Square, I had to leave rapidly as it was the National Holiday and the crowds were denser than anything I’d seen before or since.  It was the one time in my life I felt that I could be crushed alive by a crowd.  This time, the crowds were downright sparse, and I had the opportunity to walk around and drink in the atmosphere and history of the place.

Directly across from the square is the Hall of the People, where the Chinese legislature meets.  We had the privilege the night before of attending a banquet there, and were treated to a sampling of entertainments. It was quite a treat to dine where heads of state are entertained and where a major nation’s legislature convenes. 

The Forbidden City also was considerably less crowded than my last visit, and a great deal more of it had been restored.  Alas, the Starbucks that used to be there is gone—it was expelled before the 2008 Olympics.

I was thrilled to visit a hutong—one of the old neighborhoods that are being carefully preserved in Beijing—as I’d missed this on my last visit.  Our guide used to live in this hutong, and so was able to offer a unique perspective on it.  Every manner of vehicle, from expensive car to rickety bicycle, was parked along the alleyways, and the maze of street featured homes that were largely modest and comfortable, but some were sprawling complexes.

Municipal electricity had recently come to the hutongs, meaning that people can actually run a TV in one room and an oven in another.  And their coal fireplaces have been replaced by electric heat.  But none of the homes have toilets—everyone in the hutongs uses public toilets that can be found on many corners.  They are squat toilets (i.e., holes in the floor), which are prevalent throughout most of the Asian countries we’ve seen so far, and kept quite clean.

Some homes also function as restaurants: you can come to the house and be served a home-cooked meal.  We visited one such house, but because our group was too large, stuck just to tea.  Some of the residents engage in traditional arts, such as paper-cutting or bottle-painting (as in painting the insides of the bottles—no small feat).  The government has been supporting and to some extent subsidizing this since 2008.  Indeed many of the changes we heard about seem to date back to 2008.  Not coincidently, the year the summer Olympics were held here.

Our visit to Beijing was another major highlight of the trip.

Next up:  South Korea