Our recent trip to Georgia and Alabama was our first occasion to travel since Susan and I arrived back from Israel, Jordan, India, Dubai, and Nashville on March 5, 2020. Society, including our company, Healing Healthcare Systems, shut down totally at the end of that week...
Our parents’ generation all remembered where they were when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. I was in high school in Columbus, Georgia, when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963…at Florida State University when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in 1968. On September 11, 2001, I was in Reno, Nevada, with my wife Susan, and a nurse friend, Rosemary, who was visiting us from Oregon for the purpose of recording guided imagery meditations with Susan’s and my music. . .
Singapore is a very small country located at the bottom of the Malaysian peninsula. It has no natural resources. Alli its food has to be imported. As a financial center and trading center, Singapore is extremely successful. Its citizens enjoy one of the highest median incomes in the world. Singapore's citizens are 70% of Chinese ancestry. Other ethnic groups include Malays, Indians, Thais, and more. Enjoy the photo gallery of Singapore's rich urban landscape.
It’s often said that India is a land of contrasts, which I am happy to confirm and illustrate. India has some of the world’s richest people and many of the poorest. It has luxurious high-rise apartment buildings, surrounded by the huts and hovels in which the servants, maids, drivers, cooks, and workmen live who take care of their richer neighbors.
The medieval walled city of Dubrovnik has been called “the Pearl of the Adriatic.” The city dates from the 7th century, and existed as a prosperous independent city-state during the Middle Ages, known for its diplomacy and wealth.
Malta is nicknamed the “navel of the Mediterranean” since it is in approximately the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Its location has made Malta the object of conquest, starting with the Phoenicians, and followed by the Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, the Knights of St. John, French, and finally the British in 1813-1974, when Malta became an independent neutral country.
Hiroshima is a beautiful city. Its present beauty hides the hideous past, in which Hiroshima was the first target of a nuclear weapon. Its Nuclear Memorial and Museum preserve the disturbing images which every current leader of a nuclear power should be obliged to visit.
As we traveled across the Denali Highway, the 105 mile dirt road through this incredible wilderness, with higher elevation came fresh snow.
Our third Viking port of call was Puntarenas, Costa Rica. As usual, several excursion choices were offered. We chose one entitled “Walk in the Clouds.” We boarded a bus for an hour’s drive from the coast up to the highlands of the central valley running through the country. Our Costa Rican tour guide spoke for the whole hour as we traveled, providing many details about his country. I remain very interested in Costa Rica, having heard that it is a popular destination for retired Americans wishing to relocate to a foreign country less expensive than the US and having a great climate. I’m happy to continue to live in Reno, but we might want to visit Costa Rica again for a more in-depth visit...
There has been an interesting progression on this month-long trip. First, we visited purely Buddhist and sparsely populated Bhutan. Next, we visited partially Buddhist and more densely populated Sikkim...