Boog's Blog

Bagged the tours for today, and decided to wander the city.

This port is a military port, a joint port between both. Not especially charming.

Commander Fleet Activities Sasebo (CFAS) in Sasebo, Japan is a military base for both the Japanese and American forces. It is the home of the United States Navy’s only forward-deployed Amphibious Ready Group, anchored by the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), and is also home to a number of Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) ships.

We have been discussing whether Dee has such an apparatus. as we remember it, possibly not.

Taiko drums for departure

https://share.icloud.com/photos/051H3Dsw-YC85BoQgWE81AJVg

You are running into danger, and Medical emergency. Odd choices both.

Tour to see Arita porcelain area of nearby prefecture to Nagasaki. Up at crack.

The tour started with a little bit of rain, then some heavy rain, hail and lightning. First rain of the trip.

Arita porcelain town, museum and craft places factory area kiln visit.

Starts with a bus ride of one hour and 15 minutes. Through many tunnels, cutting the large mountains.

Kusho island museum

Factory and kiln tour after museum. A rather thorough tour of the factory from beginning to end, including details of how the stone is prepared and crushed plates, fired, glazed, decorated, the kiln, and then, of course, the most important part at the end of the tour the shop.

One way to shop is to take a basket and pay a fixed price and you can put in as much stuff in the basket as it fits to the top at that fixed price. Very odd retailing

The firing process here uses reduction rather than oxidation. The gas fire kilns ate reduction.

We ended up with a few pieces

All day city and temple tour. Continued warm sunny weather. Good that we brought lots of rain and cold weather gear.

Not at all clear to me why there is camping here, especially long-term camping. Maybe it’s the river access. May be a development site for Expo 2030.

We elected for the 6 1/2 hour excursion. We picked a long one with lots of bus riding and apparently a good deal of walking and many steps. The main reason we picked this is it included a city tour in addition to a temple and the fish market, and another market, local street market.

Tour write up

Very large port area with the ability to accommodate containers ships that hold 23,000 containers

Many Russians, in Busan, because of the port. Particularly fisherman who use the port to offload and then go back to sea.

Very likely the best temple we have seen. Far too many pictures of a spectacular location overlooking the sea with very colorful Korean glue paintings where the glue is designed to repel insects.

Italian food, dinner, the usual.

Bus and ferry ride out to Miyaja Island famous for oysters. We did not want to go on the peace museum for nuclear or any similar excursion.

Itsukushima, also known as Miyajima, is a small island in Hiroshima Bay, western Japan. It is known for its forests and ancient temples. Just offshore, the giant, orange Great Torii Gate is partially submerged at high tide. It marks the entrance to the Itsukushima Shrine, which was first built in the 12th century. Nearby, the Museum of History and Folklore has cultural artifacts in a 19th-century merchant’s home.

This is a world heritage site and possibly the first or third most beautiful island in Japan, or most scenic spot. Guide may have said Sendai Pineforest on the list of three.

Apparently, the island is famous for two treats in additional to the above, mentioned the maple leaf goodies, which we will try separately.

Apparently, there are two styles of “Okonomiyaki,”. The one in Osaka and the one here has to do with order and adding the ingredients. Pancake here looked a bit more like a crepe.

French restaurant dinner

A big temple and garden excursion

Koichi Temple is one of the 88 Temple pilgrimage bris pilgrimage is a very difficult one as the mountain show some of the challenge.

Rice, one time per year, due to shift of diet to bread and noodles for lunch. Used to do two crops each year here.

The above was stated, as fact by the guide. Hopefully in the comments, Tom or another will verify if the Japanese diet has changed with rice, being less important or even very important, my understanding was always related to the political power of the rice farmers.

Before we leave the temples, a bit about the 88 temples.

https://www.88temples.info/31/

A pilgrimage we contemplated and rejected because of its difficulty.

Makino botanical garden

Not a sculpture garden, but a true botanical one with almost every plant labeled and different sections in this typical of botanical gardens. Later in the trip, we will see sculptured or designed ones.

Very warm today. Very sunny today. Very warm I may have mentioned that.

A tour welcoming party. Just before George took this picture.

Spent another night in Kobe. Most others in our group, headed out to Kyoto. We decided to explore more of Kobe on foot.

Kobe mural art project

Lunch in Kobe. Patisserie salon de thé. A significant French influence in this town.

Overall a quiet relaxing day. Highlight was QB getting socks – her size……not so much.

We bagged the tours today, so as to spend time in the city of Kobe. Little need for us to do the side visits to Osaka, Nara or Kyoto – all popular tours.

Kobe is an overnight stop. We get at noon and leave at 7 PM the following day. Kobe is located of course not far from kyoto , Nara and Osaka with easy access by train

You might notice two sets of chopsticks on my tray. . Originally there was one and in the middle of eating they brought me a second set of chopsticks. I turned on Google Translate to ask why, they explained maybe you would prefer this type or maybe you would like these better.

Overall, basically a day of sleeping late eating a lot walking a lot and getting back to the ship for dinner.

Tom provided this link so one can track where we are port to port:

https://www.cruisemapper.com/?imo=9703150

Today’s itinerary is first to a very famous shrine via cable car, lots of steps. The tour was not well attended due in part to steps and an up charge. Next, a very famous fish market for sashimi lunch.

Kunozan Toshogu Shrine

Shizuoka is the number one green tea producing region started by the final Shogun. When the Meiji era started, they needed to find jobs for the samurai Warriors, who were unemployed. Keep tea plantations a solution.

Shimizu Fish Market “Kashi no ichi” is located in front of JR Shimizu Station.

Very fresh, unfortunately lots of salty stuff I couldn’t eat or wouldn’t eat but sashimi was excellent.

Tonight, pan-asian dinner.

Scroll down past this post as newest appears after Tom’s explanatory one. latest is Tokyo 2.

Posts out of order likely due to time zones.

All should revert to normal, soon.

Breakfast tourist tour bus then to the international cruise terminal and loading onto the boat. Possibly better refer to as a Ship.

Meiji shrine and bonsai exhibit at the shrine

Hama-rikyu Gardens. Seawater garden built for the Shogun.

Not a particularly interesting place. It’s main attraction was the contrast between an urban garden and the large buildings surrounding it, tall glass and steel concrete brutalist architecture.

Above at the coffee shop. Boarding was easy and room is lovely. Even has a walk-in closet. wi-Fi is very slow as to be expected.

Wind at 30 knots so dinner before cruise ship pulls out for a very rocking start with big bow waves.

Captain made announcement that it will be a rough night. Batten down the doors etc.