Hiroshima, Japan

Friday, March 13 8:00 am (it is 5:00pm in Denver). We are approaching the port in Hiroshima - it is gray, foggy, and raining. COLD Part of our scheduled tour is a 2 mile walk… I’m debating whether to go…. I really want to ride the bullet train, but the walk doesn’t sound appealing.

Our weather was beautiful yesterday, cold (35F) early and about 50F at 1:00 when we returned to the ship but the sun was shining. Last night we cruised the Inland Sea which would have been great in the daylight with all the islands, boats and towns along the way.


There were 60 people on our tour and divided into two coaches so they weren’t full. We left the ship and went directly to the train station for our bullet train ride to Iwakuni to visit the Kintai Bridge and Samari houses. The train is fantastic - comfortable and quiet; no clacking along the rails. Our ride was only 20 minutes and there were many tunnels through the mountains. The speed was about 200MPH. Amtrak needs to go this way and maybe people will actually take trains again… I probably would.

In Iwakuni we had a short coach ride to the bridge which has three large curved spans and two smaller ones. The frame is built without nails. Very impressive. It was raining and the sky was very gray and foggy but I took a number of pictures - the umbrellas sort of added to the ambiance. We crossed the bridge and wandered a bit among some shops and houses and then returned to the bus to get out of the rain.

We then went to the Aki Grande Hotel for lunch. The lunch was completely laid out for us when we arrived and consisted of many different little dishes… kind of a taster meal. It was quite good. Jim even ate the sashimi… he said it was like fish flavored bubble gum. (He’s one of those that wants food cooked!)

After lunch we had a ride through the countryside back to Hiroshima and a stop at Peace Park for the A-bomb dome. There isn’t much that can be said about the dome; it is a silent reminder of the power of nuclear weapons. Then we went back to the ship. Good ship tour - I’ll give it an A. The weather was bad but so far we have been very lucky and our bad weather has pretty much been sea days.

Osaka, Japan

We got in line at 7:15 this morning for immigration and customs - it was already very long even though everyone had specific times to report. As I looked around us I saw people holding 8:00 and 7:45 time sheets… you know how that goes they feel they are so special they don’t need to wait for their time. Anyway, we got processed in plenty of time for Jim to grab a bite of breakfast and then we met the bus for our tour.

I hate to admit that I wasn’t listening too carefully to our guide in the bus, but I was fascinated just looking out the windows. But a couple facts I did pick up - the prefecture of Osaka has 8.8 million people; the city was virtually flattened in WWII. There are beautiful sky scrapers and many bridges. The road system is amazing in some areas there are stacks of 5 or maybe more roadways curving in all directions.

Our first stop was the Sumiyoshi Shrine. This Shinto Shrine is a Japanese Treasure. It was a wonderful place for photographs. It wasn’t too crowded and many of the people were not tourists; they were there to pray. I did quite a bit of “shoot from the hip” as I didn’t want to impose on their worship.

The other stop was at the Osaka Castle. I wish we were two weeks later… they cherry trees were just about to bloom; the buds were big but not quite ready to open. The castle itself is a museum and was rebuilt in 1931. It is exactly what you picture for a fairy tale Japanese castle; White with the dark green/black roof with the upswept corners and lots of gold trim and it is surrounded by a moat. What’s not to like there?? I’ve always wanted a moat around my house. The whole park area is huge and includes a baseball field, playground, band-shell and beautiful gardens and bridges.

We had a fair amount of time at both stops to wander and take the photos I wanted so I was pleased with the tours.

This is the Royal Princess’ maiden (inaugural) call in Osaka so there was a band playing on the pier as we arrived and there will be a ceremony at 5:00 for the presentation of the plaques with city and ship officials followed by a ninja show.

At Sea

This is the last of our 3 sea days between Guam and Osaka, Japan. We filled out and returned (to the Purser) our immigration and Customs paperwork yesterday. We will report to the lounge tomorrow morning at 7:15 to be processed. This will include face to face interviews, photo and fingerprinting for all passengers. We will leave at about 8:00 for our morning tour.

Last night was really rough. It kept us awake until about 2:00 in the morning with the ship slamming into the waves and swells. It felt like the ship was slamming into a wall; each time there was a slam and then a ripple shudder through the ship. This is the first time in 30+ cruises that the sea has ever kept me awake! It is much better this morning, but we slept until 7:30 - our room service steward said he wondered what happened to us.

Congrats to the chef! Last night was formal night and we went to the dining room. I ordered the prawns and lobster for the first time in years… The lobster was perfect although about the same size as the prawns. I quit ordering it a long time back as it always seemed poor. There really is no way to cook that much seafood and expect it to be really good. Another benefit of the small ship!

Guam

Ben - See comments.

We were in Guam on Sunday. Our only plan was a trip to Kmart. The there was a free shuttle from the ship to the Duty Free mall in the Resort area of Tumon and then there were local shopping trolleys that you could hop to go to different malls and hotels. We decided to taxi from the ship to Kmart and then trolley to the DF mall. $50 for the taxi to Kmart - aaack!… but we got there fairly quickly and did our shopping. I now have undies with elastic, some scissors for hair trimming and a few other assorted things we had on the list including POTATO CHIPS. I’m all better now, my craving for chips is fixed!

This was a short port stop - only 5 hours. We were back in about 3 hours and the air conditioning felt good. At 5:00 a group of local children boarded and did local folkloric dances. They were very good


Monday was another of the laid back sea days for us. We didn’t do anything of note except attending one of John’s lectures on the Normandy (the ship, not invasion as some of the passengers were expecting).
The temperature in Guam and Rabual was near 90 with very high humidity. Hot, Hot, Hot. We are now headed northwest to Japan and it is noticeably cooling - temps there will probably be near 45. They we head to China where it is very cold. The temps we have been seeing for Beijing are in the 30s.