Thursday Mar 1.........Raboul, Papua New Guinea.Raboul used to be the Capital but was devastated by a volcanic eruption some 10 years ago and there is not much left of it. The volcano is still active and looks very spectacular with smoke and fire issuing from the crater. Otherwise not much to see. The people are very poor and quite primitive, but very friendly and everyone turned out to see us arrive and try to sell us something, trinkets, wood carvings etc.It was also extremely hot and humid. Likewise on board ship. The QE2 is getting a bit long in the tooth now, like all of us, and the air conditioning system, originally designed for transatlantic crossings, can't really cope with tropical temperatures.The next four days are at sea, heading for the cooler climate of Japan. We crossed back over the equator, heading north and are now passing by the Caroline Islands, but not stopping, pity. We are also passing over the Mariana Trench which is the worlds deepest known the ocean bed, 35798 feet or 6.78 miles. God knows what's down there, not a place for scuba divers. Tuesday Mar 6........Finally arrived in Yokohama, Japan. This is the seaport for Tokyo which is a 20 minute train ride away, but having been there many times we decided to stay in Yokohama, which is a big city in it's own right. We walked around a lot, stopped for coffee, then went into their Chinatown which is a very big, interesting area. There were many great looking restaurants, both Chinese and Japanese, but we were a little early for lunch so walked on. Unfortunately we entered a new, modern, part of the city where the only restaurants seemed to be American style fast food places, so we went back on board ship in a state of near exhaustion, having walked so many miles. We had to be back on board anyway at 3.30pm for an early departure, and the weather had turned cold, but sunny. It was a good day, but tiring.Wednesday........Arrrived in Osaka later than usual at 10 am, but stayed until 11 pm.There was a very good subway train system, and we bought day passes and buzzed around. Visited Osaka castle, although we had been there before. It is a replica of the destroyed original, but still very interesting. Also visited the Peace Centre which is an exhibition of warfare, showing what American bombers did to Osaka (killed 1.25 million people), but also showed the other side of what the Japanese did to deserve all that. Conclusion.......warfare is idiotic.Later we had a very enjoyable lunch in a Japanese restaurant in the downtown and stayed on board rather than going out for dinner.The next two days will be at sea heading for Shanghai.