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Thursday, February 18, 2010
New blog writer, the old other one is sleeping:
Today was Okinawa, Japan. Very, very expensive but then I realized it is the exchange rate that caused the inequity between the dollar and the yen. Obviously, the Japanese yen is worth more than the US dollar either because Japan is doing things better or the US is doing things worst. It cost the equivalent of $2.30 for a can of their cheapest beer in a grocery store and it wasn’t very good. But, then there was Vietnam where the US dollar was king. Enough of that…
The Japanese immigration people were on board to check our body temperature as they don’t want any sick people entering their country. They also took photos and finger printed us. I might add this is the only country of the seven Asian countries that we visited that did the temperature thing and finger printed us.
We took the Princess shuttle to town and walked down the main shopping taking pictures and checking out the people. Interesting all the other countries had an overabundance of 7- eleven stores but we didn’t see any in Okinawa. Okinawa was a very clean city so clean in fact we were unable to locate a trash can and had to carry the Japanese donuts that we didn’t like back to the ship.
Summary of our countries visited:
Bangkok, Thailand – Trash in street, hot and humid, money fairly equalivant to US.
Ko Samui, Thailand – Poor, not very clean, helmet required, hot and humid.
Singapore, Singapore – Clean, money fairly equalivant to US, transit system incredible.
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam – Very poor, US dollar strong, hot and humid, crazy drivers.
Chan May, Vietnam – Motorbikes galore, very poor, hot and humid
Hong Kong– Hustle bustle, great transportation, fairly clean, night skyline beautiful.
Keelung, Taiwan – Cooler, unique good smells from cooking on the street.
Okinawa, Japan – Let down, very expensive, cool climate.
