The Living Journey

Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park, Washington, USA, is named for the often-powerful winds that blow across the Olympic Mountain Range’s backbone (panorama)
 
Hurricane Ridge is a mountainous area in Olympic National Park in northwestern Washington State,

The Tartine Manufactory is the sprawling concept husband-and-wife founder Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt have wanted to create since opening their wildly popular but cramped Tartine Bakery and Cafe 15 years ago
 
Our visit to the Heath Building in the Mission District of San Francisco,

An iconic view of the city of San Francisco, CA, USA, behind the Golden Gate Bridge (whose construction began in 1930 and opened in 1937) with its International Orange paint (the U.S. military had wanted grey stripes on a yellow background for visibility!)
 

The exterior of the Taipei Xiahai City God Temple, one of the “Top 100 Religious Sites of Taiwan”
 
Capital and largest city of Taiwan (Republic of China), Taipei lies just 110 miles / 180 kilometers across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China.

A view of Sun Moon Lake from above the rear temple hall, dedicated to Confucius

Perhaps not quite as well known as the capital city of Taipei, Taichung has in recent years claimed its place on the “where to go in Taiwan” list. 

The exterior of the Sushi restaurant in Arita, Kyushu, Japan, where we had an excellent lunch; fortunately we had requested our local guide to make a reservation for us and she showed us where to walk to – otherwise,

The Baluan ceremonial canoe paddled out to the ship to welcome us to the island and then came back to the beach to greet us as we came ashore on Zodiacs
 
Formed by a now extinct volcano, Baluan Island is the southernmost of the Admiralty Islands. 

The Central Market in Honiara, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, is where the fruits and vegetables sold by around 1,000 vendors (mostly women) are grown locally (mostly organically) and the fish is brought in to the market’s pier by the fishing boats
 

The beach landing area for our Zodiacs on the small coral island, Santa Ana, Solomon Islands, where the larger village that we visited is located
The second island that we visited in the Solomon Islands was Santa Ana (also known as Owaraha or Owa Raha). 

 
Sailing northwest from Vanuatu, we next visited Tikopia, a small island in the southeast corner of the Solomon Islands that, although it is part of Melanesia, is culturally Polynesian.
Sailing northwest from Vanuatu, we next visited the Solomon Islands,

Mavea Island, Vanuatu, looks like (and is) a tropical paradise

Mavea Island is a small island in Vanuatu across a small channel east of Loganville, Espiritu Santo Island (commonly referred to as “Santo”).  The population is about 200, with only 34 speakers of the Mavea language,

The summit at the center of Ambrym Island, Vanuatu, is the home of the active volcano and its two craters (some smoke is visible coming out of them)
 
Ambrym is a volcanic island in the archipelago of the Republic of Vanuatu.

We left early in the morning to drive to the northern end of Zakynthos Island where we would board a boat for Navagio, also known as Shipwreck Beach – so named after MV Panagiotis foundered there and ended up deep in the sand,

Sorrento, perched on a ledge between the water overlooking Naples and Mount Vesuvius, is a beautiful Italian town of 20,000 residents, with just as many tourists in the summer months (and sometimes it feels like even more). Surrounded by lemon and olive groves,

Gaeta, Italy is a city in Lazio in central Italy, 75 miles south of Rome. It is set on a promontory stretching towards the Gulf of Gaeta. The town has played a conspicuous part in military history with fortifications dating back to Roman times.