Our East Asian Adventure

On October 22nd we will fly to Tokyo via London. After 21 hours in the air and a 3 hour layover in London, we are scheduled to arrive in Tokyo at 7:00 a.m. on October 24th.

We will be spending 3 days in Tokyo and 2 days in Kyoto before boarding the Oceania Regatta cruise ship. The pre-cruise part of our trip was organized by Jorgi, our neighbour and friend (thank you Jorgi!). Jorgi’s planning package includes maps, a brief write-up on each of our 6 “guides” and a day-by-day draft itinerary – it is amazing! Jorgi’s guides are friends (or friends of friends) who Jorgi met through Camp Tawingo and/or through his time as President of the International Camping Fellowship – so needless to say these are outgoing, energetic guides. Jorgi has also connected us on Messenger through an Elf Travels in Japan group so we are already chatting – wow what a group! It will be a very busy time, but such a great way to start our trip. More to come on the pre-cruise part of our trip in subsequent posts.

On October 29th we will board the Oceania Regatta, for a 16 day cruise. We like the small size of the Regatta, with only 670 passengers. Our itinerary is shown below. Most of our excursions/tours on port days are with a small group (4 or 6 people including us) organized through private tour companies. We organized some excursions, and some were organized by other passengers and we just “hopped on” their tours.

DAY	PORT	ARRIVE	DEPART
Oct 29 Tue	Tokyo (Yokohama), Japan	Embark 1 PM	7 PM
Oct 30 Wed	Shimizu, Japan	7 AM	4 PM
Oct 31 Thu	Kobe, Japan	11 AM
Nov 1 Fri	Kobe, Japan		7 PM
Nov 2 Sat	Hiroshima, Japan	8 AM	6 PM
Nov 3 Sun	Miyazaki (Aburatsu), Cancelled due to cyclone in area Japan	9 AM	6 PM
Nov 4 Mon	Cruising the East China Sea
Nov 5 Tue	Taipei (Keelung), Kaohsiung Taiwan – change due to cyclone	Morning
Nov 6 Wed	Taipei (Keelung), Kaohsiung Taiwan – change due to cyclone		7 PM
Nov 7 Thu	Cruising the South China Sea
Nov 8 Fri	Hong Kong, China	7 AM	6 PM
Nov 9 Sat	Cruising the South China Sea
Nov 10 Sun	Nha Trang, Vietnam  Cancelled	10 AM	5 PM
Nov 11 Mon	Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam	Morning
Nov 12 Tue	Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam		1 PM
Nov 13 Wed	Cruising the South China Sea
Nov 14 Thu	Singapore, Singapore	Disembark 8 AM

After the cruise we will spend 4 days in Singapore before flying home on November 17th/18th. Our flight on the 17th is not until 11:15 p.m. so we will have a full day in Singapore which will be nice. It also means we will be tired so we hope to sleep on the 14 hour first leg of our trip home.

Although I plan to update my blog throughout our trip, it will depend on our internet connections and our available time.

Thanks for following us on our East Asian Adventure.