One Evening in Otaru, Japan

This clock has a weather signal underneath, which would be clever if it weren't situated underneath a transparent tunnel roof.

Fitness Instructor Chris and I find an alley full of undersized restaurants.


Tiny Korean restaurant with eight seats.

Patrons.

A whole fish and some type of kimchee soup that I would happily eat again.

This guy was crazy. Seven of the eight pictures I have of him are blurry because he wouldn't stop gesticulating.


At the end of the night, we found a bar where the dried squid was free, so we stayed. It was very important to the bartender that we be fans of Eric Clapton's later recordings.

Guess what's on the TV over to the left? One of Eric Clapton's concerts in the '90's.

The walk home.

Template Change

I've changed the color theme because the dark blue helps the pictures to stand out.

Sled Dog Tour (Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia)

Outside the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia, there is a sled dog–raising facility where Siberian and Alaskan huskies are bred, raised, and trained.

That's an active volcano in the background. And the modified ex-military vehicle in the fore was our means of arrival.

Click to enlarge.

This is one of the breeders. She's a beefy, hardcore, no-nonsense Russian who braves meters and meters of snow each winter. That's why they raise these dogs, actually—there comes a point each winter when cars can no longer be used in the area, and sleds are the only means of transportation.



While the dogs were being rigged up for their daily practice run, we went on a short nature walk through the forest.


Rigged up and ready to go.


Extremely fast practice run.




We were treated to a local show given by native koryaks. They sang and danced and drummed, as you can see in the picture, but I wish the pictures could also convey the chirping and high-pitched chanting—almost shrieking, really. Very strange. I think their intention was to imitate birds.

Whalebone Alley (Yttigran Island, Russia)

This place has been uninhabited for a while, but the tribe that used to live here arranged whale bones on the beach, presumably for religious reasons.

Arrival by Zodiac.



Pelvises, I think

Each of the bones below is about seven feet tall.

Wrangel Island

The World visited Wrangel Island as the first foreign-flagged ship to do so in Russian history. It was a spectacular opportunity to see polar bears and walruses in the wild. Very few people have visited this island period; it's high in the Arctic Circle and is only reachable during the warmest months of the year.

The first photo is a pair of islands that we passed between when approaching Wrangel. One of them (the far one) is owned by the United States, and the near one by Russia.

View of The World from my Zodiac skiff as we approached the island for sightseeing.



Click the picture to enlarge. Scroll left to see the polar bear and right to see the other Zodiac boat full of onlookers.



My friend Juan, of the Canary Islands

Preparing to approach a group of walruses

Note the polar bear swimming to the right.




Heading back to the ship