October 11, 2024
Bilbao, Spain well worth the wait for me!
I have wanted to see Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in person, ever since I read about it years ago! It did not disappoint and I can totally see why it put Bilbao on the tourist map. The whole river's edge neighborhood benefited from it's installation. The Zubizuri or "white bridge" in Basque, by Santiago Calatrava was erected in 1997, the same time the Guggenheim was under constructed.
Below is a look around town. A fabulous start to this amazing adventure. Absolute Perfection for our first visited port! Amazing sites, yummy food, lots of fun and laughs & plenty of new friends to share it all with, Excelente!
So excited to get out and explore this huge city. Our Port is attached to a huge shopping mall - so it is a bit of a hike before we even get outside. When we do the heat hits us like a brick wall! There are typhoons, in the area and according to a local, when the storms come in, they first bring a wave of fog, heat and humidity to Hong Kong .
On Saturday August 29, 2026 we achieved another historic milestone on this circumnavigation of the World , we cruised into Hong Kong Harbor. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. The land encompassed by Hong Kong is confusing. It includes part of the southern coast of mainland China, just below Shenzhen, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories . Looking at a map helps, but the rules changed so many times! I asked my buddy Chat several times, to tell me if what I was looking at was the Hong Kong that the British had owned for years. The answer was never straight forward!
Ha Long Bay in Vietnam is one of those bucket list places I have had in my sights for years. It's the iconic picture in my mind's eye, whenever I think of Vietnam . We had made plans to go with 8 others on a brand new, swanky Red Dragon Junk boat for a harbor cruise and overnight stay, but sadly the weather did not cooperate the whole 4 days we were in port. No ships were permitted to sail, per the local government. Many of us were bummed! This is typhoon session and there was a lot of rain and high winds our first couple of days - we were hoping it would blow out the last day and we could at least do a day trip but no luck!