Buoyed by Bylgja

a WWU VIking hits the high seas

Gamboling through Ghana

Our stay in Ghana also held ominous undercurrents of a dark history, but we felt a bright present and future as well during our brief stay. We spent an afternoon in Nima, a mostly Muslim neighborhood in Accra, learning about… Continue Reading →

Game for South Africa

One of the first things our guide said to us on our way out of Cape Town was to watch for baboons along the side of the highway. What?!?!? This seemed particularly odd as the scenery around the Cape looks… Continue Reading →

Kochi Muziris Biennale 2017-Art in (southern) India

Excuse my long absence. I have been needing to devote the little wifi we get on the ship to class prep, as we are in Africa, little known territory for me and little depth in terms of images. So, I… Continue Reading →

Burma Blues

While the current political situation (the repression and slaughter of the Rohingya) in Myanmar preoccupied us during preparations for landing in Myanmar, our time there was spent mostly in Bagan, a city in which the historical dominates the contemporary. The… Continue Reading →

China: Beijing Duck at Quanjude

For those of you who love Beijing Duck, you may have heard of this place. (Sorry, Alan; this post is decidedly not for you!) This is the restaurant where Dong Zhenxiang, chef of the famed Da Dong restaurants, got his… Continue Reading →

Japan: Shojin ryori

One of the highlights of Mount Koya was eating this type of food, which is a vegetarian specialty that originated in Buddhist temples. At Kumagai Temple, where we stayed in Koyasan, we ate shojin ryori prepared by the monks day… Continue Reading →

Chasing the New Year in Vietnam

The Japanese New Year had already been rung in by the time we ported in Kobe, but we hit the height of the New Year’s holiday in China and came in on the tail end of Tet in Vietnam. Saigon… Continue Reading →

Mao and Mao: Japan and China

Maos, of one sort or another, bookended my time in Japan and China. (Sorry; this post is a bit long, as It covers two ports.) In Japan, I was the “faculty liaison” for a trip of faculty, staff, and students… Continue Reading →

Shipboard teaching

I post this with thoughts of my mother, Barbara; today would have been her 87th birthday. She would have so loved this journey, as a traveler and an educator. As we sway and roll across the Pacific (fortunately no 20-foot… Continue Reading →

Happy New Year and welcome to the start of our adventure!

Bylgja, daughter of Ӕgir and Rán, the Nordic God of the Sea and Goddess of Drowned Souls, respectively. Ӕgir and Rán had nine daughters, each named for a different aspect of the ocean’s waves. Bylgja is the billowing wave, a… Continue Reading →

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