It’s a beautiful sunny day out there with few clouds in sky. 

Yoshimi… guide. It is a 50 minute ride to the Osaka Castle. Red tower of Kobe in the port as we are leaving.

The highest mountain  is Mount Rokko at  931 meter high. 

Sake … very famous, made from (big) rice. Also shoes, jazz festival. Kobe ….150 years ago the port was opened to trade….. was end of shogun era.

Skiing close by. 

From 800-1800’s Kyoto was the capital. 

Kimono and obi sash made here of silk….  each one is different. 

Octopus dumpling is supposed to be wonderful. 

Emperor moved the capital to Tokyo 150 years ago. population for area of Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka is 8.8 million   With Osaka being 2nd largest city in Japan. Each of the 3 cities average 3 million. 

Osaka Castle where we are going today is the highest castle in Japan at 51 metres high … built in 1585. This is the 3rd reconstruction of Osaka castle. It is now concrete. Surrounded by 2 moats, the widest is 75 metres wide. The outside one is totally surrounded water, inner is part water…. Part grass or dry.   It is a trap.  Rock walls are original. 

Toyotomi Hideyoshi…. Was a feudal lord, united all of Japan…. Was from farmer stock so could not be a shogun. He was 62 years old when he died. His only son was 6 years old when he died…. his only heir and not old enough to take over the reigns.

First building we see built in 1931, is museum and gift store. I didn’t have time to go it on the 1st day but did on the second. 

Last year not til end April, did the cherry trees bloom. Year before, the blossoms fell beginning March. No bbq are allowed during cherry blossom time. It interferes with the scent from the trees. April is when school starts and business starts as well as cherry blossoms come out. 

The Osaka Castle was repeatedly destroyed again and again by fire/lightning and war although not so much by WW2. It was reconstructed in 1928. Buddhism was imported to Japan in 5th Century from India. Shinto religion is endemic. A good Buddhist pray for a good day every day with fresh water offered to Buddha first thing in the morning, even before using the bathroom. 

 

Our guide today Feb 12th, is Shomi. 

It would have been good to see Kyoto. Today I will be seeing the same Osaka Castle that I saw yesterday but will be seeing another castle as well…. a Buddhist temple.. Shitennoji. 

Shitennoji  Temple ….. Inside main…. 4 warriors guarding Buddha…. all incl. Buddha are wooden… beautiful carving and paintings but sorry, not photos allowed. 

Edo period (1603-1863),Japan had closed the doors to western/european culture. That world was opened to the world, in Kobe….at end of Shogun warrior period. 

Mount Rokko-930metres high. Golf was introduced there. 

Okini ….in Osaka or arigato anywhere in Japan, means thank you

High of 7C. today with mostly sunny.  

Hokkaido the most northerly island, is known …. For skiing 

Honshu, the main island has 500 cities. 

Shokuku, the smaller of the 4, is famous for udon noodle. It has a milder weather

Kyushu, the southern island, there are many foreign students from Korea. 

Apparently on east side of Honshu’s mountain range, everyday they are having to shovel snow. 

Osaka….2.6 million 

We cross over a Yodo river (it divides Osaka from Kobe) that is fed from Lake Biwa. 

Many times you will see Shinto gate in same area of Buddhist temples. Shinto gods are a manifestation of of Buddhist divinities according to the powers that be. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the feudal lord that built the Osaka Castle, believed that the Buddhist temples are a natural barriers against intruders  esp. Christians. Where the temple is, it used to be near the ocean shores. Most Japanese are Buddhist although they overlap with Shintoism religion. Today is a holiday……National Foundation Day. There isn’t much traffic.

Japan is only size of California 

Osaka airport is on a man-made island. And Kobe has one too…. on man-made island. Huge number of warehouses. No beach anywhere to be found. 

Kobe sake is made with hard water and is called masculine. The sake from Kyoto made from underground water source, is soft and they refer to it as feminine. 

Since we had some time we walked over to a shopping mall called Mosaic. Below are scenes from the walk and some of the products we saw.

We were told, just as we were just barely underway heading to Nagoya, that that port would be passed by. That apparently because, the weather would be too difficult going into Tokyo if we didn’t get there a day early. GRRRRR🙁! We’ll see….

The weather since leaving Busan especially, has been wrecking havoc with our itinerary. We were supposed to go to Hiroshima …. yesterday. That was the whole reason we took this leg of the cruise. It was cancelled because of the inclement weather. It was really quite bad.  In Busan, S Korea when were about to leave, it felt as low as -12 C because of the wind. They had mentioned that the strait that we would have had to go through was too treaturous to navigate in these winds.  When I looked in the map, I totally get it.  Next scheduled stop was Kochi but they don’t have proper facility for arriving passengers…. (Immigration). That would have been done at Hiroshima so now we go to Kobe earlier than planned.., spending an extra part day there.  At this moment, it is bright and sunny, the seas have just a little chop and it’s slightly warmer than it has been. 

We have arrived hours ago but the face-to-face is taking a whole lot longer than I think anyone imagined.  Because we were not expected here today there are no scheduled excursions.  That is a good thing.  And…no one can come back onto the ship until everyone has been through the process

It was -3C but “feels like” -8 when I got up. Our guide today is Mia

Huge city….biggest port in Korea, amazing bridge at entrance. It is the largest port city in the world. 

The area is known for its mountains and hiking vacations, transportation hub for high speed trains, ferries to and from Japan.

At 3.5 million people it is the 2nd largest in country, birth rate declining .. houses are sitting empty. 

Many mountains so many tunnels. 

Beomeosa Temple was built 678 AD…over 1300years ago. Mountain is called “wishing well”. The area is quite lovely with big boulders placed along stream with along the running water.

Based on meditation…. Is a Buddhist temple. If you pass through gate you will be purified. 

It was a long hike up and long one down

1945… biggest international market was started. It’s like a street market but nothing too exciting. Originally there were many smuggled products back in the day… the only was to get European products.

Also going to one of biggest fish market in world. Originally it was all outdoors but now most are indoors. Thank goodness for them…. It is so, so very cold.

Kia and Hyundai cars manufactured here… run by AI. 

Diamond bridge… beaches and yacht marinas… beautiful! ChungMu beach means pine beach.

Now it’s snowing…. and windy…… bitterly cold! With wind chill -12. Who knew. It is not normal for this area. For our guide it was snowing for the first time.

Yesterday was a day of trying to get our sea legs ….. quite a bit of motion in the ocean.

Today we have arrived into the port of Nagasaki. Our excursion that we had booked was cancelled due to inclement weather so we booked another. And guess what….. it is snowing pretty heavy!!!  The temperature is only 2C with wind (so even colder)… going to a high of 5C. Funny though that the sun is trying to come out. 

A bit of weirdness  with getting on bus on ”wrong” side. They drive on the left side of the road. 

Kaori is our guide

First time they’ve had snow in 10 years … unbelievable. 

Nagasaki … for years, there was international trade with Holland and China…. the only place in Japan that did. 

Christianity-30% … was banned for 200 years by the shogun. But ……they kept the religion…. Secretly. 

Nagasaki is on west side of Kyushu. Known for Ship building and tourism. 

In 1945 on Aug 9 @11:02am, the atomic bomb was dropped on it. Nagasaki was not intended target…. but was Kukura. It was too cloudy see the target and so chose Nagasaki. 47,000 were killed.  Many of those killed were Christians. Because the pilot couldn’t see the target there either, so hit what he could see. 

3000 students and teachers were killed. Nagasaki’s population at the time was 263,000. In Hiroshima, 140,000 were  killed of 350,000….cuz the area was flattered were more deaths proportionally.  

There was a chain of 1000 origami cranes build by 10 year old girl that developed & later died from leukaemia 

We stopped by the Peace Park as well as Ground Zero

Dr.Takashi Nagai, an X-ray doctor who had leukaemia because of using X-rays …….before the bomb, began to assist victims and launched studies of diseases caused by atomic bomb. He later became world peace activist.  

Drive on left side because samurai decided since most Japanese are right handed and the swords swing on left side of body. If they walked on the right, their swords would hit each other when passing.

Dutch trading post of Dejima island.  No women were allowed, only geishas (temporary girlfriend) … some babies seemed to have appeared. 

Dutch language used to be second official language….. not anymore. 

Wifi has been very difficult and so I am running behind in my posts. I am going to cross my fingers that this post gets sent.

The day is bright… no clouds in the sky but the temperature this morning was only 0C. 

Shanghai has a population of 25 million and is 4 m above sea level 

Bund (means muddy waterfront) was the old financial centre since 1920’s… The building that was Seamen’s club built in 1860, is now the Waldorf hotel (lotus flower on the top).

We take a walk through Yu Garden

It was designed and built in 1550’s by a military officer. The dragon is a symbol of emperor…. There are lots of dragons which raised the hackles of the emperor at the time but nonsense story by the officer made it all right. It was built during Ming dynasty 

Water (lots here in the garden) are symbols of Yin…. is soft and female. Yang… rock (lots here too)is hard and male

10-15% less price for electric vehicle. And no charge for registration that normally costs $15,000 USD.

1992 Nanpu Bridge… Chinese designed but looks like Alex Frazer Bridge in Vancouver 

At the museum-16 C BC bronze gallery on 1st floor… some over 3000 yrs old….. is the only one in world. 2nd floor is paintings. 3rd is sculpture 

It is in Pudong…. Area is only 30years old. It was previously farm land. Our guide’s grandma was paid 30,000 USD plus 600 sq ft apartment to forfeit her 200 yr old 6000 sq ft home and farm.

The Shanghai Tower is 632 m (2,073 ft) tall with 128 floors. it looks like bamboo. 

JinMao tower is 420.5-meter-tall (1,380 ft), 88-story (93 if counting the floors in the spire)

Near the mouth of the Yangtze at the Yellow Sea they gave built a bridge to the new sea port for Shanghai, that is 34 kms long.

I woke up around 2:30am cuz the ship was not being bounced around any longer. I looked out at that time. I would say that we were probably sailing up the Yangtze. I saw no high buildings but lights all along the banks.

J and I don’t have any excursions booked so we went in search of a mall. It was strange to see hardly any vehicles on the streets…. Big wide empty streets. It’s still part of the New Years time so not much activity this early in the day. The architecture of the buildings both on this side of the Huangpu River and the Pudong, are spectacular. It is absolutely amazing. There are lovely parks and huge jungle Jim type facilities as well as a skating rink for kids outside the mall. When we decided to return to the ship, we couldn’t find the access to return to the ship even if you could almost touch it. We have gotten our quota of steps in already and the day is only partly over. The sun is trying to shine but there is a lot of smog in the skies and it is quite cool…. At most only 8C. today. 

Later L and I went on an excursion called Shanghai by night. The bus took us through the tunnel under the Huangpu River to the Pudong area… the area that was only started to be built in the 1990‘s…… amazing architecture. Formerly it was only farmland. Because it is still the New Year celebration there are now huge number of people out and about now. Our first stop ….. (that we had to wait atleast an hour in lineup), was to the 88th floor of the JinMao tower.

Then we travel across the river via the Nanpu Bridge….. that looks like the Alex Frazer Bridge in Vancouver.

And then onto the old French “Quarter” where we stopped for a libation. These old buildings have been turned into a destination place of bars and fancy shops….like Gastown, I am thinking.

And then through the Bund area

Yesterday the 1st of February, we stopped in Naha, Okinawa. We could not get on any excursions. They were all taken by the time we booked. Maybe if we took a taxi but…..  anyways it was an ugly rainy day so I just stayed put on board and tried to get caught up with my blog.. seeing as we finally had wifi. Still, it was less than ideal. 

Today is the first “chat” on board that I have listened to, is on Shanghai. I have been a couple of times before but one can always learn something new. 

Shanghai means “upon the sea”

China is largest country with only one time zone. It has a population of 1.154 Billion but is experiencing a falling birth rate. 

Shanghai is in the most populous province. It is on the Huangpu River, a tributary of the Yangtze River.   It is a financial hub. It was the first free trade area in the country. In other words, it is a capitalist society in a communist country. 4th largest global financial market. 

Bund… historical section… long flat walk along the waterfront… 52 historical buildings. Metro system apparently is best in world. Tunnel to Pudong. Pearl tower has viewing floor. 

Yu Gardens

Roof top bars along the Bund at night

French concession area where you can find jazz

The water towns of Suzhou and Zhujiajiao, floating villages … the Venice of Shanghai

Jade temple .. Buddha made from a single piece of jade. 

Because I don’t have any pictures to post of Naha, I am posting some pictures of this beautiful ship. I will also mention that the food on this ship is “to die for”. I know some of my friends at home would really love that.

Temperature is supposed to be 19C so not too bad. It is a lovely sunny day with no clouds. We arrived in the port for Taipei….. Keelung. Our tour guide is called “Rita”…. She lived for 30 years in US. We all have to wear seatbelts. She explains we have several hammers on board the bus  if needed to break the windows to escape (in case of an accident)and where exits are. I have never had that drill on a bus before.

Stopped for a pit stop in mountains … cherry blossoms and rose azaleas. When she was a teenager Rita had to have military training here for 2 weeks in preparation in case China attacked. 

It is 400 kms but only takes 96 minutes to travel from Kaohsiung to Taipei on the fast train. Our trip by ship took over 12 hours. 

French and Spanish colonized this area….. the Dutch colonized the south around Kaohsiung. 

The mountains are maximum 1100 metres above sea level. 

The population of 23 million lives in an area the size of Maryland. 7 million population in Taipei. 

85% of the time it is wet in Keelung so there is a steel representation of a microphone on side of road to suggest on your way home that you sing to make you happy….lol!

60% of worlds semi conductors are made here and is 15% of GDP. 

Metro is underground in city but above ground outside the city. 

To buy a car here you have to prove you own a parking space. 

They have 10,000 earthquakes per year in Taiwan. Average 4-5 strength so they generally ignore them but some are higher. One (7.4) in which 54,000 homes destroyed and 2500 died. 

It is also a volcanic island although hasn’t erupted for 6000 thousand years but where hot water springs. 

We drive up the hills to where the US military had homes from the time of Korean War, also the rich and famous…. Beautiful views. 

From 1951-65 Taiwan was in a bad way with very poor economy. It was supported by Americans…billions! It was all paid back. 

On to where the heat and sulphuric gases escape the mountain. It is called the grasses area because they used to burn all the bamboo and other grasses so to not permit people to mine the sulphur for the making of firearms to possibly overthrow the government. 

We stopped for lunch at the hot springs restaurant. The food just kept coming and coming. After lunch, we went down to the hot springs that are situated in the middle of the mountains surrounded by lush vegetation. The springs had 4 different hot pools, some definitely very hot. And then into the swimming pool that was very cold water. I am real proud of myself for going in a couple of times. So nice and so relaxing the whole experience was. 

This small island nation has such lovely mountains but generally the towns, the buildings are quite shabby, not well taken care of…. Not well off at all. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of pride in their places of residences or businesses. Kind of surprises me.

Wow!  This is one of the world’s largest (3rd) container ports. 

Today is New Year’s Day. Richard Lee is our guide. 

Dream Mall… biggest mall in Asia. Kaohsiung ….expo production economic exhibitions. Semiconductor are its wealth

Population of Taiwan is 24 Million with Taohsiung having 2.6 million. It’s  the 3rd largest city in Taiwan. Semi conductors and new harbour in city, Taichung, mid way to Taipei has replaced Taohsiung as 2nd largest city. Surprisingly the traffic, is light on this 1st day of New Years. 

ROC (Republic of China)… is Taiwan. PRC is mainland China. 1945 Mao and Chaing Kai Chek butted heads so Chaing took to Taiwan. 

Solar panels and water tanks on roofs  supplied from underground river.  

Petrochemical plants in one area we drive through. 

Only 3-4 cruise ships per month in this port… not many. 

Bananas and lychee trees, eel farms (unagi means eel in Japanese).

Meilong village … paper umbrellas

Taiwanese…60%, Hakka people …(sub group of northern Han Chinese) 15%…wealthy people. Originally came from China in 1949 are called mainlanders….comprise 30% of population. Most language taught Mandarin but Taiwanese at home. 

Finland most safe country in world, Taiwan is 2nd. 

There is so much flood irrigation. The water table must be very close to the surface. At the same time they are water deprived as shown in the totally dry river beds.

2 kinds of Indigenous groups. 16 tribes.  Largest indigenous outdoor park but a big disappoint overall. 

60% of the population is Daoust…. 

We arrived at our destination absolutely exhausted. I usually don’t have any trouble sleeping (unlike a lot of people) but wasn’t very successful this time. Part of it was that the seats on the plane (a Boeing 77-300er) even though Premium Economy, were not nearly as comfortable and the noise level not as quiet as the AirBus 300, we had travelled on to Thailand last year. But we arrived without any other complications. By 6pm Hong Kong time (about 1 pm the following day from when we took off), it was off to bed.

January 28/25

Victoria Peak is only 500+metres high but is the highest peak in the area. The International Finance centre with dome like top across the bay from us is 2nd highest in HK. There are 200 islands in HG. There are 3 tunnels, 1972 first one built is the Harbour tunnel which we cross over to HK Island from Kowloon. 

Taxes are high in Hong Kong on fuel (to get people take public transport), cigarettes (bad for your health)and liquor (to not drink to excess)….are higher for all the same reasons as at home but are 20-30% less taxes on most products than on mainland China so mainland Chinese like to come here to purchase stuff. 

From March to April typhoons happen so the British lived higher up the mountain. Also it has cooler temperatures than lower parts of Hong Kong. 

We are going to Victoria Peak but this time by winding road on a bus unlike the last time when we went up by funicular. 

Population is almost 7 M. Apartments run about 3-400 sq ft for family of 4 and cost @$1 million HKG (only 185,000 CAD)

Interesting that our guide Pan, if she is to travel to the mainland, has to get a visa because she was born in HK. 

Now off to Repulse Bay…there is no charge to use the beach with beautiful silky white sand beach. People go there and Deep Bay to have BBQ’s. Repulse Bay as well as Deep Bay, have netting to protect swimmers from shark attacks. 

Ocean Park (yellow)with roller coaster and other rides …up on the opposite hills, is where baby panda born.

We are now going to NW side of city through the West Harbour  Tunnel) to see the new double deck bridge… is only way to get to the new airport. It is comprised of the one we drive on plus one underneath for subway and sometime for emergency. It, when completed in ’97, was 2nd longest bridge in world…..55 kms long.  The new airport replaced one of the most dangerous airports in the world.  The old one was so dangerous because the planes would run off the runway into water after quickly dipping trying to avoid the high rises and mountain on approach to runway below. 

Even though it was a little chilly this morning at the top of the peak, it was a gloriously sunny day at 16+C … not a cloud in the sky. 

Unfortunately at this point we lost all wifi. I think that they block all signals coming and going between China and Taiwan….my guess though! That is the reason I have not been able to send updates to this blog.