Osaka

30^th March 2012 

We entered Osaka harbor at around 7 am and were docked at our berth by 8 am. As we approached the berth, we were surprised to see a full brass band on the dock break into tune to welcome us. The entertainment went on for about 30 minutes until docking was completed.

Today we have booked an organized tour to take us out of Osaka to two of Japan’s ancient Capitals, Nara and Kyoto. It is planned to be a long day, and we have to assemble to meet up with our tour at 8.10am. Everything ran pretty smoothly and we were on the bus and on our way by 8.30am, with our first destination to be Nara which is located on the inland side of the mountains that surround Osaka. This required a trip through a very long tunnel before emerging on the other side at Nara.

Our first visit was to see the Great Buddha, enclosed in one of the World’s largest wooden buildings. Located within parkland, with very tame wild Japanese deer wandering freely around harassing tourists for deer “cookies” which are on sale everywhere, the setting and surrounding gates and buildings make a spectacular site. Once the deer realized someone had some of the “cookies”, they mobbed them creating quite a lot of amusement for onlookers.

The tour through the hall of the Great Buddha and grounds took about an hour, and we were soon back in the bus heading to our next destination in Nara, the Kasuga Shrine. Stone pathways, lined with stone lanterns (donated to the shrine by individuals and companies lead up to the main shrine. There are more deer wandering around freely, but are not as aggressive as they were at the Hall of the Great Buddha. The brightly coloured buildings and lanterns everywhere provide a great visual experience, and as with all things Japanese everything blends in with the gardens and natural landscape.

An hour later, we are back in the bus and drive to Kyoto for lunch. We were expecting the usual organized tour buffet, so were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in 5 star Japanese Hotel, enjoying a 4 course sit down meal, including soup, sushi, teriyaki chicken and a light desert. Staying awake on the drive through Kyoto streets to our next stop, The Golden Pavillion, (probably the most photographed building in Japan), will be a challenge.  We were not disappointed when we arrived there, and got some great photographs, both of the pavilion and the beautifully landscaped grounds surrounding it.

Our last visit was to the Kiyomizu Temple, the most famous temple in Kyoto. It was very crowded and some of the tour members didn’t get past the shops in the street leading up to the temple. It was a fair climb up to the top of the complex, but you were rewarded with great views of Kyoto once up there. It is another massive wooden building, built without the use of nails and with complex sliding joints in the structure to withstand earthquakes. Built on the side of a steep hill, the main building is supported by a massive grid of columns and beams, which have withstood the ravages of time supporting this massive building.

On the way back to the bus, we bought a local green tea ice cream, and settled in for the trip back to Osaka Port (approx 1.25 hrs). We arrived back at 7 pm, and were not inclined to get changed for dinner, so decided to go to the pizza place and have a pizza. We weren’t the only ones with the same idea and saw both of the other couples from our dining table doing the same thing.

At Sea

29^th March 

Today is a sea day, on the way to Osaka.

Shipping is a lot busier

There is a destination lecture on Yokohama at 11.15am which, as usual is very helpful, as we plan to do our own thing in Yokohama.

Later in the afternoon, at 4pm  there was a special interest lecture on “Osaka – Gateway to the Cultural and Historic Heart of Japan”. It provided a great historical context for the next days’ visits to the various attractions Around Osaka.

Otherwise, it was a very relaxing day at sea, with mider than expected temperatures and relatively calm seas.

Nagasaki

28^th March 2012 

                                                              Sunrise off Nagasaki

We sailed overnight to Nagasaki, the first of our ports in Japan, arriving on time at 7am, docking at Matsugae Wharf. It is cool, but fine and pleasant enough to get around in a T Shirt. Immigration formalities are a bit arduous as each passenger has to clear immigration individually, including fingerprint scans.

                                                      Sea Princess at her berth

A hour or so after we berthed, another smaller cruise ship arrived , the “Athena” and berthed a bit further into the harbor at the Dejima Wharf.

                                                       Athena at Dejima Wharf

We waited till a lot of the tour groups went ashore and had cleared the whole process ourselves by around 9am, setting out to explore Nagasaki on our own. The first challenge was to get some Yen, which we were told by the tourist information officials we could extract from ATM machines in nearby convenience stores. No such luck, they wanted nothing to do with foreign cards, so it was a quick walk back to the port to change some AUD cash for Yen at less than attractive exchange rates.

Our first destination was Glover Garden, located in the old foreign settlement area, and named after Scots merchant, Thomas Glover. Within the gardens were many of the residences of Glover and other foreigner merchants of the era, including Glover House (built in 1863) which is the oldest example of Western Architecture in Japan. Nagasaki was a major trading port, and had strong trading links with Shanghai.

The gardens are located high up overlooking the port, and both the buildings and the gardens are well worth the visit.

On our way to the gardens we passed another historic building, Oura Catholic Church,  a wooden Gothic church  built by French missionaries in 1864.

Oura Catholic Church

From the gardens we ventured back down the hill, and  into the streets around the port area looking for a tram station. The trams (they call the streetcars), have an impressive network around Nagasaki, and you can travel anywhere for 120 yen (approx A$1.50) one way. We eventually boarded a tram at Dejima station, and headed off to see the Atomic Bomb Museum and Peace Park complex, which is a little way out of the main town area, and is the site where the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki in WW2. On our tram ride, we spoke to some other Aussies on board, who it turned out came in on the Athena which sailed out of Fremantle and was doing a similar cruise to ours, but in the reverse direction.

Steertcars

The “Hypercentre” of the blast, is now just a large park area, with a monument at the location of the centre and a viewing area showing the original ground level prior to the blast. From there we wandered off to the Atomic bomb museum, which is very well put  together and provides a quite balanced view of the events leading up to and after the bomb was dropped. There is also a life size modal of the bomb “Fat Boy" that was dropped on Nagasaki, it is considerably larger than I had expected. There are also some quite confronting accounts of the period immediately after the blast from victims.

Monument at the Hypercentre

Life size model of "Fat Boy"

Atomic Bomb museum

Next we went to the Peace Park which is larger elevated park area about 500m away. It has the famous peace statue at one end, and many other pieces of sculpture dedicated  to promotion of peace.

Peace Park

By now it was lunch time, and we decided to head back to the Dejima Wharf Area for lunch, so simply caught a tram back to the Dejima station. It is only a short walk back to the harbour front from there.  We saw the Athena, berthed at the cruise terminal, and wandered along the waterfront to find a restaurant for lunch. We sat down at a Japanese restaurant that had just served some other diners a great looking tempura meal, only to be told the kitchen was closed. This was at about 1.40pm !!!

Anyway, our second choice was a Chinese Restaurant , the “Red Lantern”, which served one of the best seafood noodle soups I have ever had, so we were quite happy with the outcome.

Dejima Wharf Precinct

After lunch, walked to a huge shopping centre, “You Me Saito” and found an ATM that would take foreign cards, but would only allow me to withdraw 10,000 yen. I guess I’ll have another go in Osaka.

On the way back to the ship, we still had an hour or so of spare time, so decided to explore the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Museum, not far from the ship. It was the site of what must have been a very busy bank when trade was vigorous, and had very strong links with Shanghai. Many of the exhibits were related to this trade route.

HSBC Museum

It was then back to the ship, with a short break in the terminal to see if I could get access to the free wifi there. Getting access took a while, but it was so slow that you couldn’t do anything other than recover your email (very slowly), so blog updates had to wait.

Back on board at 5pm, we were treated to a dance performance by local school children in the Princess Theatre. It was terrific !

There was also a gift exchange with the local mayor, as Princesss Cruises has a special relationship with Nagasaki, having built two of it’s latest large ships (including the Diamond Princess), at the Nagasaki shipyards. Our current captain spent some time here commissioning the Diamond Princess.

After all of the ceremony everyone headed back upstairs to be greeted by very loud drums from the dockside. For the next hour, we were entertained by groups of traditional drummers and musicians, who had set up on the dockside to farewell Sea Princess. A large gathering of locals also thought it was pretty special.

We cast off at 6pm.

We thoroughly enjoyed Nagasaki, and friendliness of the people. The lasting impression we leave with, it how much the nuclear blast changed their lives forever, and the overwhelming message everywhere is for World Peace.

Busan

27^th March 2012 

In the early hours of the morning we sailed into the Korean Strait and passed Tsushima  Island (the nearest Japanese Island to Korea) about 20nm off our starboard side. All night we could see bright lights from fishing boats, and we think, ships at anchor as we got closer.

We docked on time at 6 am, witnessing an impressive sunrise. It is not hard to see why this part of the world is renowned for the rising sun.

                                                                       Sunrise off Busan

Busan is a very, very busy port with incredible levels of shipping activity. It is Koreas' major shipping port, and still growing rapidly with lots of shipbuilding yards, a large new bridge under construction, dock extensions happening  and new buildings underway.

                                                      Entering the harbour

                                                            Container Terminal

                                          The National Maritime Museum

We have booked a tour to see of few of the city highlights, the Beomeosa Temple, and the Ja-Gal Ch’l Fish market. The tour left the wharf at 9.30am and we are scheduled to be back at the ship before 3pm as the ship sails at 4pm.

The tour guide we ended up with was very amusing, and as well as a comprehensive coverage of the sites we visited, we got her life story, medical condition, and a great insight into what it is like to live in Korea today. She was from Seoul and had come down for the day on the bullet train, but had lived in Busan and was very knowledgeable.

The temple was about 50 minutes from the wharf located up in the hills that surround Busan, and whilst it was a bit cool, the weather was fine and perfect for walking around. There were a few too many steps for some of the oldies (it still amazes me that despite being told there are a hundred steps over uneven ground to traverse, people with “walkers” turn up on the tour). The temple was colourful and the dialogue interesting, and overall a good visit.

Next was the fish market, which is 40 minutes away, in the middle of town. We were told that the commercial market was closed for the day, and everyone was a bit disappointed, as we thought we were not going to see anything much of interest, however, spirits picked up quickly when we arrived.

The “retail” part of the market was thriving. I have never seen such a variety of live and dried objects from the sea in one place. The market stalls are largely run by old women, and is also called the “Aunt’s Market”. All of the fish looked very fresh and there were a few things I had never see before.

It was then off to the “International Market” , just down the road, for those who haven’t had enough retail therapy yet (and there appears to be plenty in that category). We had a wander around, marveled at the variety of food stalls, more than the usual collection of souvenirs, and had not even bothered to cash any currency into Won.

The ship sailed about 15 minutes late after waiting for the usual straggling passengers, but while we were waiting a live cultural show (dancing and singing) had been organized on the dockside to farewell the Sea Princess. The portside of the ship was lined with passengers enjoying the show.

Busan was a pleasant surprise, with very friendly locals and plenty to see.

                                                              Leaving Busan