mj_holiday

Monday, April 15 Miyako. Hills and Mountain are back in the picture of the horizon. Today we took the shuttle bus into town to look around and go shopping and the community was very welcoming and ready to help anyone from the cruise ship. There were interpreters with yellow vests on throughout the town. After seeing the sites of the town and buying some souvenirs, DH decided he needed to rest. We found a bench in front of a small store and sat down and watched the traffic go by. DH is still recovering from back surgery and he had a hard time getting up out of the bench. Several ladies from the store came out to watch. I don’t think they could’ve helped, DH eventually got up. (after drawing a crowd) We walked for several more blocks, sightseeing,window shopping and decided it was time to find a place to go in and have a beer As we were looking around an interpreter, came up and offered to help. We explained we wanted to have a beer and a place to sit down for a while. He took us to a convenience store, and the owner took out two beers but I said we wanted to sit down. Soon the husband of the convenience store came out from back with two folding chairs, and set them up in front of the store While enjoying our beer and watching this traffic and people go by, a couple people stopped and asked if they could take our pictures. One last thing I wanted to do while in town to find some type of cream for achy joints/arthritis. I found a pharmacy close to where the shuttle bus will pick us up and DH and I went in. I attempted to explain to the pharmacist that I needed some type of cream for my husband’s, swollen hand and joints from arthritis. The pharmacist looked at DH hand and then looked at me and motioned that I interpreted him to say “Did he hit it with a hammer?” Finally got it understood that it wasn’t an injury but arthritis. The pharmacist took me over to a bunch of shelves and pulled out a roll-on ointment told me to use it three times a day. It works.

Sunday, April 14. Hitachinaka This town originally started as a company town for Hitachi. We took the shuttle bus into town to be dropped at a very large shopping area. We did have some things we needed to pick up and everybody throughout the mall gave us some very good directions to get where we needed to go. Up until today, the horizon had always been mountains. Today the horizon is flat. We became part of a new trivia team since our other team got off the ship and we’re going to have a lot of fun together getting to know them

We are on Explorer right now, Yes have been since April 1. I haven’t experienced any problems with Service. Yes they are offering chips and pretzels but the trays that I see also have some canopies on them. I agree with other posters that you need to talk to the hotel manager or food and beverage manager, or the head bartender with any issues that you have.

Saturday, April 13. Some friends that we made will be leaving the cruise. And we will need to find a new tribute team. Surprisingly, we were little affected by the change over with some people leaving and new passengers coming on. We were given pink wristbands to wear in the port area so people knew we were transiting passengers. We decided to take a walk to see the Maritime museum that we had noticed when we were driving into Port 11 days ago. we got a map and instructions at the tourist information and they pointed us in the correct way. Well, it was a nice walk, but the museum was closed and it looked like it had been closed for longer than just a day. So we walk back to the ship, this walkway seems to be very popular with people who have dogs we saw several dogs being taken on an outing, and they seem to be very happy.

Friday, April 12 we sail into Tokyo Watching the sailing in to Tokyo Bay was very interesting. We soon saw what looked like a very large sailboat sail, blue and white striped on the back side and white on the front. But it wasn’t moving. A quick search on the web show that it was in “air vent” for a tunnel that is under Tokyo Bay. We took a taxi into the Ginza district which from the pre-cruise trip, looked to be very interesting. It was raining and very crowded. It appeared to me that all the office workers were out for a fast lunch and packed all the little restaurants. Many of the restaurants that were on second floor, only had access via steps, and no handrails. I did find a needle workshop. I bought a piece of Sashiko with instructions and threads and of course needles. There have been some articles about this style in needlework magazines that I get. Looked around some other shops and didn’t see anything that interested us and headed back to the ship for a relaxing afternoon. After dinner, we went to the observation lounge. The nighttime silhouettes of Tokyo skyline was really pretty.

Thursday, April 11 Sea Day Today was a laid-back day with a couple of naps. This afternoon we had a cognac tasting, of Hennessy Cognac. The tasting was elegantly presented, and we received a lot of useful, new information on drinking various types of cognac.

We live in Oklahoma City

April 10 Kagoshima This morning as we sailed into the harbor, we were met by many individual people waving flags, all types of flags. They didn’t miss a country I bet. The buses looked very close to the ship, but looks can be deceiving. To get to the bus we had to walk a mouse maze to the port building on shore, show passport, and another short maze to the bus our tour was going to Chiron to the homes of former samurai, they are former because of feudal system that supported them no longer existed The neighborhood we walk through now resides many descendants of samurai. All of the homes are separated by beautiful hedges. There was a wide walkway and openings to the houses through the hedges. The homes that I saw were all the same floor plan with the visitors room looking out to the garden. The gardens were very nice, but nothing was in bloom, the guide pointed to one location in a garden that you could sit and see the mountain which was part of the design. After looking at four homes while very interesting I headed back to the bus. Our next stop was to the Chiran peace museum. This museum is dedicated to the kamikaze flyers of World War II. It was very interesting museum with a plane that had been recovered. A picture of every pilot that was killed in action was displayed. There was an example of a triangular house, which was a place a pilot stayed before going on a mission. It was called triangular, because most of it was underground, and all you saw was a triangle of the roof. This was a very interesting museum and we could’ve spent six or seven hours there We made it to trivia and our team came in first place.

We then went to peace Park, which was a large grassy area with many monuments donated by many countries in the world. This all centered around a blue man statue, which I’m sure has a very unique story, but I couldn’t hear the tour guide, so I’ll have to look it up later. We then went to a reproduction of a village known as Dejima. There was a small scale, reproduction of the Portuguese village, and then many reproduction of various shops and homes. This village reflects the first main trading that Japan did with other countries. And then back to the ship. We missed Trivia, and had a nice dinner and called it a night.

Tuesday, April 9, Nagasaki We thought it was going to be a lazy morning since our tour didn’t leave until after lunch. But we then learned since we were re-entering Japan we had to go through Japanese customs and immigration. And then we saw some areas we could go shopping in the terminal. we got on our tour bus around one in the afternoon and we had four or five places to see. The first place we went was the museum of the atomic bomb and we walked through the museum. It was very interesting. we then went to Ground Zero, there is a monument there of a piece of metal that survived the blast.

Monday April 8, Busan South Korea Today we decided just to ride the shuttle bus to town and do some shopping. Well, we headed out, went immigration and found the shuttle bus was on lunch break. So we got a cab. The driver took us on a small tour of the city. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom the previous day, so they were still beautiful. We also saw a UN monument and a beautiful beach in the center of the city. We got to the shopping area, looked around and decided we were thirsty. We found a little sushi restaurant and had a nice break. Not finding any thing we wanted to buy we headed back to the ship. Busan is a very large and modern city. Driving back to the ship I saw one of their artificial “police”. It was a blowup image waving an orange traffic flashlight warning traffic of road work. (I wasn’t fast enough to get a pic). We made it back for Trivia, short one team player, but still placed third. Had a lovely dinner with new server, many came on board this morning.

We were in an Explorer G for a transatlantic. The Queen bed size did not bother us. At that time (the first year) they were changing the name quite a bit. So I think it is a bit larger than a US queen. The thing that bothered us about the size was the coffee table. Since it is low like a coffee table and has a rim around the top (Explorer had more of a cage around the lower part) it really seems to make the table wasted space and we felt the smallness of the cabin. We have moved up to F levels.

The trip to the excursions was very interesting. The last spring we went to had a place that people could soak their feet in. Back in port we had to go through Japanese immigration and customs since we were leaving Japan and heading to South Korea. We made it to Trivia, we had a complete team. We managed to place third place. Dinner in Compass Rose was again very good. I had Mizo Glazed Sea Bass and really enjoyed it.

Beppu continued We next went to another spring that has a red pond. The garden around the spring was just beautiful. The spring is red because of the iron content. The last spring we visited, had a blue pond and even prettier gardens. All of the shops that we visited also had gift shops with items made from their mineral Springs snacks, and one had a sake tasting.

April 7 Sun I finally got down to the Coffee Connection this morning and got a Cronut, delicious, I am going to have to control myself with these. Our tour in Beppu was to several hot springs. As the bus was approaching the area you could see “vents” of steam rising from many places on top of the horizon. Our first stop was to a place with several small thatched buildings. It was explained that minerals were produced by letting the steam in the huts become liquid and then condenses and crystallized into the mineral, There was a basin of water from the spring to dip our hands in. Different springs contain different minerals.