Yesterday we were at sea with nothing much to tell you other than the previous night was quite a lot of motion in the ocean…. Had quite a bit of interrupted sleep. 

Guide today is Ada… a much younger gal. Today, we are back in Taipei. It was formerly was called Formosa….( I knew that but had forgotten). It is only 250 kms from China. 

Evergreen, Eva Air, Asus, Tesla (1st 2 motors made here) are all big names in the international business world , golf balls, wet suits, optics in phone cameras…..big industry. They also export dolphin fish, orchids & eels to Japan, “sensei” orchid is like a girl dancing and pineapple & edemane. And a liquor that is 58%… to China (I bought some. It’s kinda like white lightning). Most exports go to US, Japan and China. 

First stop is Yehliu Geo Park. The park is a peninsula that juts out into the sea for about a mile. There is lots of walking and steps to climb. The figures all have a hard top….. (looks like lava) with sandstone below. As a result of the wind, rain and ocean waves, etc., the figures have been carved into some very cool shapes…. The most significant is of “the queen” and the “fairy slipper”.

Upon exiting the park there was a market…. Predominantly with fish products.

Back to Keelung and another park….. Chung Cheng park where the largest statue on Taiwan is located.

Special animals on the island are the Formosa black bear (has “V” on chest)…. It is endangered now as are leopard cat, owl & pangolin..  so many because they believe that parts will increased sexual performance. Bee-eater bird…. Beautiful… seen only in May. Hoopie bird.

Has been ruled by Spain, Holland, China and 41 years by Japan. 

As before, it is quite apparent that the building are not well cared for … kind of looking shabby. My thoughts are that it is because of all the rain causing mold on the buildings. Also the constant rain would take away initiative to clean it up. 

Today we have 40 kms winds with 3 metre seas….. a little rocky by not bad!

Feb 18-the day started out in Kagoshima, breezy and quite cool but it has steadily improved….. yeah!  This is our last stop/tour in Japan. The excursion is called Volcanic Sakurajima. It is on the southern most tip of Japan on island of Kyushu. 

Our guide is Naomi …. name means honest and beautiful. I am not sure that I would call her beautiful but she certainly was the best…. the best English spoken guide we have had. When question about her great English she said she was an English “geek”. 

In 1914 there was a great eruption. Sakurajima means Cherry blossom island but it’s not island anymore. Most of the flat land here is reclaimed land….many mountains surrounding it….70%  of Japan is mountainous. There are over 100 active volcanos in the country. There are 47 prefectures in Japan . In this prefectures  there are 600 islands spreading over 600 kms. There are 1.5 million people in this Prefecture.. 

In the 16th century Portuguese and Spanish came to the area. In 19th century began the modernization of Japan, starting here. Population of this city is 600,000. 

Sakurajima Mountain is comprised of two peaks   One is 1117 metres high, the other 1040 metres. It has erupted already 50 times so far this year. There are 300 ash collecting stations on the mountain. One side has deeper gulleys because the two mountains are of a different age… the newer has the deeper gullies. 

We take a ferry ride over to where we are going. Where we embark on ferry, there is an aquarium that has a roof like Sydney opera house with over 7000 fish.  There are no high schools on Sakurajima so students must travel to Kagoshima. Tokyo Bay is only 18 metres deep. Here in Sakurajima Bay, it is as much as 200 metres deep. It is rich with fish …. Dolphins resides in the bay. Every year they hold a 4 kms swimming event for school kids from the city to the “island” with a separate one for adults. Most cars in Kagoshima are grey in colour, to camouflage the colour of the ash. 

After only a 15 minute ferry ride we arrive on west side, then travel along the south to the east side to the lava fields. During the eruption of 1914, the lava flow lasted over a month, discharging 3 billion tons of lava, burying 8 villages and made it part of Kagoshima. It was no longer an island.  The sea at this point used to be 400 m wide and 70 m deep. It has erupted majorly 17times.

Shrubs along the road, covering the fruit in bags, are loquats. 

There are many what look like dry river beds, that have been created for mud slides caused when ash gets wet… which is often. There are concrete shelters placed every km.  Kids wear helmets to school (adults too), in case of eruption. 

3300 people live on the island. Why…because of agriculture…… huge Japanese radish (daikon)… record 31 kgs and more than 1 metre in circumference, many fish farms (yellow tail) & tourism to see the volcano. Sakurajima is the most active in all Japan. There are 2 stations monitoring it at all times…. With the latest equipment. 

In December before the major eruption of 1914, there were signs before  it blew…well water was boiling, there were 200 tremors , snakes came out in middle winter & earthquakes.  There are 28 evacuation centres on the  island. 

Lots of rain in Japan and because of the heating going on underground, it makes for 300 hot springs in Japan. 4 tectonic plates merge around Japan 

The Lava field here at Sakurajima is 40 metres deep. The hike to the observation spot is 200 stairs up & down. Naomi thinks that there is plenty of magma built up in the last 100+ years so expects it will blow sometime soon. 

There are 80,000 shrines in Hapan but only 55,000 convenience stores…. Lol!

Pine needles can be eaten. They would eat them when they were under siege. That is why there are many pine trees planted in castle grounds. 

Volcanic soil covers 2/3 the land in this area.  Sweet potatoes are a huge crop. Pigs eat sweet potatoes…. makes them more tender. Kagoshima is a big producer of pork, beef and chicken., also “Shochu” alcohol made from sweet potatoes (& rice). 

Wagyu beef ….. won first place in competitions but Kobe is the place that is “world famous”. 

This has been the most difficult post to download. Sorry but it is like 4 days late thanks to the blocking of wifi signals and although I have an eSIM, one is not usable if not close to a cel tower (like when in the middle of the ocean.

Since we were unable to book an excursion to see Mount Fuji from Tokyo, we are hopefully going to see it from this Shimizu…. hoping for sunshine☀️. As it turned out, it was beautiful pretty much all day.

Miya is our guide today. She says we are the first ship of the season in the port. 

There is a statue on either end of a bridge ….of a celestial maiden … An angel wearing a Celestial robe … no wings. There is a story that goes with it but too long to write here. It has to do with Mt Fuji..

Our first stop is a pine grove (part of the story)…one of the trees is 650 years old and survived the last eruption of Mt. Fuji.  The rest of the pine trees are in excess of 300 years old. It is UNESCO  world heritage site. 

Strawberries produced  in greenhouses built on rocks. As a result the heat created from the rocks make them eco friendly. Season is from December to June. The area covered by these greenhouses go in and on….. massive. They must feed all of Japan with strawberries.

The sea at this point is very deep…2500 metres. There are lots of tetrapods used along the shore to prevent more sand and shore being lost to the sea. The area is also known for green tea, mandarin oranges, wasabi, horseradish, Yamaha motors and musical instruments,  Susuki motors.

Sumpu (now Shizuoka city)Castle Park. The castle tower was build in 16th century by shogun but destroyed by fire…. twice. Now there is no castle… just gardens….extremely beautiful… wow! First shogunate …..Tokugawa Ieyasu 1549-1560…. Buried here. 

80% of Japanese are Shintoists but 80% are also Buddhists 

At the Sengen shrine there are actually 7 shrines. Torii gate is a kind of boundary between outside… (secular) world and sacred world. They are doing a 20 year makeover on these shrines so some structures were not visible. You can certainly see the difference between the buildings done and those not done.

Sake is very important in Shinto rituals …. Used as a sacred holy water. 

Shizuoka has a population of 700,000 is also declining. Most of homes are 2 stories (very few with garden) with few tall buildings. 

If temp is 16-17 C, clouds will form from the sea,usually covering Mt. Fuji but we are very lucky today. The mountain is totally exposed….. beautiful. Mija believes we brought luck with us.

Mt. Fuji is 3776 metres high…. more than 11,000 feet. Pictures don’t do it justice!

Feb 12th ……we were to have gone into Nagoya. As mentioned in the previous post, we passed by it in order to get to Tokyo earlier when high winds and rotten weather were expected. That did not materialize. I don’t know what the captain was thinking. Maybe, Tokyo Bay is too shallow. It took a long time to get into the port of Tokyo. He might have thought we’d be thrown off course. I don’t know, but we did not get to do or see anything on land. It’s our Linda’s birthday so we did celebrate her by going to “Jacques”, having a wonderful dinner and drinking champagne.

Feb13….Our excursion today goes to Kamakura

Our guide today is Romy-sad though understandable, her father told his daughter that Japan was guilty and so she grew up hating her own country. 

It’s an 1.5 hour to our first destination…. Historical Komachi Dori (dedicated to God of War) Shinto shrine … 11th century and giant Buddha (19tons) at the grounds of Kotoku-in…..erected in 1252

Fiji is active but hasn’t erupted in 350 years. Tokyo has a population of 14 million of which 3 million commute ever day. In 1868…. The country opened the ports to international trade. Previously they didn’t want Christians… because their missionaries colonized other countries and they didn’t want them to do the same with Japan. 5 ports that were opened in Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki, Kamakura and Niigata. Two national airports here… Narita and Haneda. 

 Japan’s economy is continuing to decrease as with a lot Asian countries. English is taught in middle and high school for 6 years. For 60 years it’s been mandatory 

There was an accident on the bridge that caused a big delay in getting to our destination on time. Once off the highway, it was quite a windy narrow road.

Japan armed itself during the 1800’s so that they wouldn’t have the same problem of opium like China had. Not sure why they attacked the US when apparently they are very interested to keep learning the American  form of democracy…. (We’ll see how that goes).

Pine, bamboo and plum trees are considered noble trees.

Geisha is a woman of arts like music, singing poetry….. not a courtesan. Funny, but the southern Japanese doesn’t understand northern Japanese because of dialect differences. For some reason I didn’t expect that. 

Shintoism is about this life, nature. 90,000 Shinto Torii gates in Japan.

In between, we shopped a cool pedestrian street. There was some interesting stuff… should have bought something but always pressured for time.

Buddhism is to look to the future after death.  Amida is name of the Buddha….. means “in your heart”. The giant Buddha built in 13th century …is made of copper…. Is 13 metres high.

Hair on Buddha is means wisdom. The one button on his forehead means give light unto the world. Hand gesture are different with each Buddha. His is meditative.

It was erected in bronze in 1252 …and was inside a temple but in 1498 a tidal wave destroyed the temple leaving the statue standing leaving the foundation stones. In sept 1923 an earthquake destroyed the base. 

Again there is so much industry along the roads…. It’s hard to imagine that their economy is not doing well.

Hiroshima means broad island (shima means island)… happiness Island

Port area of Tokyo is only 25 years old…. Built on reclaimed soil.

Feb14…. We just took a taxi to go shopping but he drove us to the very high end Ginza shopping area….way out of our league so we left. Next to the Tokyo Diver Mall….. ho hum! Not too much of interest to see so walked the rest of the way to the ship.

Feb15 This is our last day in Tokyo but I am too sick to venture very far. The other 3 went in search of something interesting but I am afraid Tokyo is just a big, absolutely spotless city. The buildings are sleek and a whole lot more interesting architecturally than ours but nothing compared to Shanghai. There is NO garbage, no garbage cans anywhere (we did see near the pier, recycle containers…..once) ….. like you’ve never seen.

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