Oh the Places I'll Go

This was shaping up to be my winter of Asian adventures.  Scott and I were invited to the wedding of a Vietnamese friend just a few days before Christmas, so we planned a vacation to include time in the ancient imperial city of Hue where the wedding would take place.  Nearly a year before, a friend had talked me into joining her on a cruise from San Diego to Hong Kong that would include ports in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Vietnam; thirty-two days from mid-January to mid-February.  And then another friend suggested a China tour that sounded great, so I booked a third trip to Asia for mid-March. And then things started to go wrong.  In the words of Robert Burns, “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.”  First, Ruth notified me that she was cancelling the cruise.  Oh well.  I had paid my money and would lose a large portion of it if I also cancelled, so fine, I’d go alone.  Then, on a beautiful early November Saturday, I suggest...

This morning as I began another day cruising across the Pacific Ocean, the scene outside my stateroom window was much the same as the past several mornings.  The sun was covered by billowy layers of clouds, and the sea was gently undulating with an occasional white cap as a wave broke. As the day has gone along, the wind has picked up, and there are more white caps among the waves. The ship rocks gently, not so much that it makes me ill, but enough to keep me aware that we are on the ocean. The calm waters of the Pacific Ocean    There is a straight line where the sky and ocean meet.  It is easy to see why early peoples believed the earth to be flat.  There is no hint of a contour to the horizon.  Even though I can’t see evidence of it, I know that the world is indeed round and that the sun travels around it each day.  We received a reminder of this in the ship’s daily briefing paper “Reflections” which was left on my bed last night....