Five countries and a wedding

Although it was a rather wet and windy night, Tokyo seemed to have escaped the worst of the typhoon and the day dawned reasonably bright and dry. We had arranged to meet up with Hiromi, an old work colleague and friend who, being local, would be able to guide us easily around the vast city. Firstly we headed for the Odaiba district, a futuristic looking set of buildings on the other side of the Sumida River. Although there is not a lot to do there as such, there are some great views of the Tokyo skyline. Then, on the way back across the river, we went over Rainbow Bridge, something that caused some amusement and black humour. Next stop was Hama-rikyu gardens where as well as enjoying the peace and tranquility we could also stop for a Japanese speciality, bean paste cakes and green tea. The exquisitely decorated little cakes were brought to us as we sat cross legged and shoeless on the floor.  By now the heat was building and it was lunchtime so we exited the gardens and continued o...

The disembarkation at Yokohama went with typical Japanese efficiency and we got of the ship at exactly the minute allotted. Unfortunately the traffic on the expressway back up to Tokyo wasn't moving as slickly as the disembarkation and it took a couple of hours before we got to our hotel.  It was too early to check in and so we went into Ikebukuro station and bought Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets for Kyoto and then went and had some lunch. After checking in (yes, we had a room in Tokyo as well as in Kyoto for the night), it was an easy enough task to get the Yamanote line to Tokyo station and then, with a little help from a station assistant who spoke good English and looked about 12, found our seat on the right Shinkansen. The journey from Tokyo to Kyoto took a little over two hours. Along the route there is no rolling countryside as such, just a continuous view of towns, houses, settlements, factories and a few cities. The greenery inbetween is nearly all rice paddy fields. On...

The cruise section of our holiday is now drawing to a close as we head back to Yokohama and we now look forward to a few days in Japan. It's been a very good cruise with interesting ports of call, despite the missed port and the heat and humidity. But we do have a few grumbles about Princess. For example, it peeves me that the itinerary says Hiroshima, and yet to get there you have to pay for a shuttle bus to the port station and then pay for a train to get into the city itself. The alternative is to pay for a tour, so I guess it's another way of Princess making money. Claire (along with a few others) are disappointed that lobster has disappeared from the dinner menu and the international cafe no longer serves food (more cost savings, presumably). So, you can no longer get food at 3am if you feel peckish, although room service is an option.  For some reason, we no longer need to take life jackets to the safety drill. Maybe maritime law has changed. The staff and crew have, as a...

Tuesday's port of call was for Keelung in Taiwan and we caught the coach for the half hour drive in to the capital, Taipei. The drop off point was the Taipei 101 tower, but as we had been to the top during our previous visit here, our plan for the day was to explore a different part of the city. The MRT line that we wanted was right at the Tower and at a cost of only 60p per journey we were soon arriving at our first stop, the Chaing Kai-Shek summer palace and gardens. (Again this was with a nod to my great Uncle Wilf who, family legend has it, took tea with the President when he was stationed out in the Far East with the RAF after the end of WW2.) The palace was large, but simple, the Presidential limousine was on display and the gardens beautifully kept with different sections for different themes. We particularly enjoyed the bug garden where butterflies and dragonflies, both the size of small birds were flitting about. There was a turtle in the pond and a couple of squirrels pla...

After three days at sea, we finally reached the port in Ishigaki Island. Well when I say port, I mean just outside the port as a tendering operation was required. We had booked an excursion in Ishigaki, mainly because we wanted to maximise our time ashore and tours are given priority when it comes to tendering. Also, we thought that our earlier than scheduled arrival meant that tender operations would be starting earlier. So, we waited and waited...for over an hour for our scheduled time slot...wondering what on earth was happening and how could Princess be so disorganised. Eventually we were called and the reason quickly became apparent. There was a heavy swell running making boarding the tenders a slow, and for the more infirm, a somewhat hazardous, process.  Once ashore we were quickly on our way. First stop was Kabira bay, a picturesque little spot with sand beaches although dangerous for swimming because of strong currents. We climbed aboard a glass bottomed boat and watched a...

Overnight we have continued our journey southwards although the Captain has tracked so as to skirt around the worst of the tropical storm. Having said that, the skies are very grey as we traverse the outer bands, there is a large swell running, the promenade deck has been closed due to high winds and the swimming pools have been emptied. The Captain has been on the pa advising that Naha, the capital of Okinawa prefecture is being battered by the storm but that we are still anticipating an early arrival into our next port, Ishigawa. Fingers crossed! In the meantime we have kept ourselves entertained with the inevitable trivia and have a new team of four Aussies, a couple from Adelaide (Warren and Barb) and a couple from Cairns (Craig and Jen) but we have yet to win. We took part in a game show where Japanese and non-Japanese were teamed together and we had to write and speak in each other's language....it was a lot of fun and a good way to break down barriers. Luckily, one of the la...

After five ports days in a row it was nice to have a day at sea before returning to Yokohama. On the plus side, the temperature was some 15 degrees lower than previous days and therefore much more pleasant and the sea was flat calm. On the minus side, it was thick fog and for much of the morning we couldn't see the front of the ship from our balcony, but it did clear as the day wore on. Being the last day for the majority of passengers, it was time to say say sayonara to many of the people we had met on board. Jen and Lawrence from Newcastle had been our dining companions for the week and were returning home but Hilary and Barry, the other couple on our table (South Africans but now living in Sydney...no offence), are staying on with us.  We also had to say farewell to our trivia team of Simon, Denise and Sophie although not before Sophie had entertained us all with a karaoke version of "Somewhere over the rainbow". Upon arrival, we had a few hours to spend in Yokohama, b...

Today's port of call was Sakata, and it has been just such a wonderful day. We understand that it is only the second time that the ship has visited Sakata and right from the outset the locals have gone out of their way to make everyone so welcome. It's not a city, it's really just a small town with a main street; in fact the back streets look almost run down, but you cannot judge a book by its cover.  When we were dropped off by the shuttlebus, events were in full swing in the central precinct. A judo club was giving a display, and the local high school girls were raising funds for victims of the recent terrible floods by holding little tea ceremonies and writing names in Japanese characters. We walked a little way up the road only to be invited into the studio of a local artist who specialised in calligraphy and who was 96 years old. A cup of green tea and some rice crackers  were served and we watched as he wrote the characters for a horse and matcha tea and then wrote a ...

The next port of call has been Kanazawa, a much bigger city than Sakaiminato, but no less hot. We took the shuttlebus into the centre of town and set off to explore. Firstly we stopped at Omi-cho market, a large enclosed and covered area selling mainly seafood, but also hosting a number of small restaurants and cafes. Even thought it was only mid-morning, all the stalled seemed to be doing a roaring trade. We sampled a special green tea and Claire braved something on a stick with a local speciality sauce, described as "loaches".  No, we don't know what they are either. Throughout the market were blocks of ice, the idea being that as you passed, you rubbed your hands over the block and used it to cool down face, neck and arms. A great idea when air conditioning is non-existent. Moving on we reached Kanazawa castle. Like nearly all castles in Japan, it is a faithful reconstruction and we stopped only to take a look around one of the guardhouse entrances, almost a castle in ...

The are many things which make Japan such a wonderful and unusual country. 1. Japanese toilets The functionality of Japanese toilets is already the stuff of legends with some of them having a control panel resembling Concorde's flight deck. Instructions are invariably in Japanese, so there is no telling what is going to happen if you press any of the buttons. However, for the Westerner, there is only one thing that you need to know....that is that the one big red button means "stop everything". 2. Bonsai One of the Japanese art forms is the miniaturisation of trees, known as "bonsai" and which decorate the inside of the house. We tried hard to find some of these but could only find the outdoor giant bonsai. 3. Important people doing very little Unemployment level in Japan are very low. One of the reasons for this is that you often see important people, usually in uniform, standing around and not doing very much. Sometimes they might wave a flag or baton but that...

Overnight we sailed from South Korea back to Sakaiminato in Japan. This meant that all passengers and crew have to pass through Japanese immigration controls again and as we suspected, this takes some considerable time. So, even though we docked on time at 9am, we did not get ashore until after midday but it was really a blessing in disguise as the temperature peaked at 35C. Unless you are willing to travel some distance, there is not a lot in Sakaiminato apart from one thing. Manga. It is the home of Mizuki Shigeru, a very famous (in Japan at least), Manga artist and his artwork appears everywhere. Along the Main Street there are over one hundred brass statues of his Manga characters and just about every shop sells souvenirs of the same. Children can buy a small book and complete it with special rubber stamps of characters at different points and several extremely unlucky students wear Manga character costumes. They must be beyond sweltering. Because of that heat, we didn't do too...

I understand that there is some obscure regulation that states that a cruise ships cannot leave and return to its starting point unless it leaves the country....in our case, we pay a visit to Busan in South Korea before we return to Japan, if only for a few hours. The immigration process was relatively quick and before too long we were looking around the local fish market which is rumoured to be the biggest in the world. All manner of sea creatures, some recognizable and some not, were in tanks and most were trying to escape. Those that did were quickly rounded up.  From there, we moved on to the Lotte Mall as we knew there was an observation deck on the top floor. It was a great spot to take a few panoramic pictures of the city and stop for a coffee. Lastly we headed into the centre of town and the street markets. Being an early Saturday evening, it was even more packed than usual and the locals were enjoying all manner of delicacies from the street food vendors. We made it back t...

The first sea day commenced with a 3am alarm call in order to get up in time to watch England play in the World Cup semi final. I joined a group of about 50 diehard fans in one of the lounges ready to cheer the lads on, but there was a problem. The night staff didn't know how to change the channel on the screen in order to get the feed for the match. Cue much anguish, anger, a demand that the IT department head be woken to get the problem fixed and free beer for all by way of compensation. Matters were not helped when one of the audience received a text from a friend saying that England were in the lead. Thankfully, some minutes later, a bleary eyed technician arrived, flicked a switch behind the bar, and we all settled down to watch having missed the first quarter of the game. As everyone in the country now knows, things didn't go to plan and the very disappointed crowd returned to bed at 5.30am for a couple of hours sleep. Not surprisingly, breakfast was taken late but we did...

As was the case last year when we came to Japan, a pre cruise excursion to Mt. Fuji was included in the package. Given that last year the rain, drizzle and fog meant that we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces, let alone Japan's most sacred mountain, we were hoping for somewhat better conditions this time. The day dawned bright and sunny and the thermometer was quickly rising. As we neared the mountain, it quickly became apparent that the lower slopes would be easily visible, but that the upper slopes and volcanic cone would be shrouded within the clouds. However, it was a vast improvement on 2017!  Upon returning to the hotel by way of the famous bullet train, we made a visit to a local cat cafe before turning in for the night. Two words describe this visit, "cute" and "expensive". As an aside, the first people that we spoke with on this excursion (and who are also on the cruise), come from Guernsey. Small world indeed. Embarkation day was not with...

The flight to Tokyo was made in two sectors, the first from Heathrow to Hongkong being 10 hours, a ninety minute transfer and then the Hongkong to Haneda leg taking another 4 hours or so. They were uneventful and ran on time, although in a moment of whimsy I did wonder when Cathay Pacific announced that they would be boarding the aircraft by seat row number if they would call out number 12, a 27, a 32 two 41's and some prawn crackers. So we are now safely ensconced in our hotel, have been out to get a few snacks from the supermarket and are looking forward to some much needed sleep before tomorrow's sightseeing trip. (Just a short note today as it's difficult keeping the eyelids open!)

Despite a delay leaving Jersey for air traffic flow purposes (read French air traffic control strikes), we managed to catch up on most of the time and by mid morning were checking into our hotel at Heathrow. Our plan for the rest of the day was to visit Windsor which, although only a few miles away, required several changes of train to get there. This rather tortuous journey was not helped at one station where despite the departures board and station announcer informing us that the next train was the one we needed, it never arrived. Perhaps it pulled into platform 9 3/4 instead. Anyway the services on the route were fairly frequent and after catching the next train, we made in into Windsor in time for lunch. Unfortunately Liz and Phil weren't at home for a drop in sandwich, so we had to make do with a burger and chips at Cafe Rouge instead. It was also rather warm and therefore not really conducive to too much sightseeing, other than a brief look at the castle, a walk alongside the...

As regular readers of my little journals may recall, our 2017 cruise around Japan was severely curtailed due to a typhoon or two in the area and we were refunded a substantial part of the fare in the form of a credit note to be used before the end of this year. Then in February, we received an invitation to a family wedding in Perth, Western Australia. With the assistance of a very helpful travel agent, we have managed to put together a travel package to the Far East and the Antipodes which includes both a return visit to Japan utilising the credit, and an acceptance to the invitation. Since confirming the booking, we have been working on a more detailed itinerary which will take us over six weeks to complete and will allow us to set foot in five countries along the way.  Our bags are now packed and our journey will shortly begin. If you, dear reader, would like to accompany us along the way, please feel free to check this blog as I will endeavour to post updates on a regular basis...