We arrived in Shanghai, our first stop in China, on the morning of March 7.  Shanghai is a humongous city (25 million people, 3d largest in the world) located where the Yangtze River empties into the East China Sea.  It has a long and colorful history dating back some 6,000 years.  Starting out as a fishing village it became an important center for international trade in the mid-19th century, after the first Opium War, when it was one of five ports forced to open to European trade and European “concession” settlements.  By the 1930’s it was a leading commercial and financial hub of Asia.  Very cosmopolitan, Shanghai was a refuge for White Russians fleeing the revolution in the 1920’s and for Jews fleeing the Nazis in the 1930’s.  During that period the city gained a reputation for danger and international intrigue.  Indeed, since the 19th century,  “shanghaied” was a term for drugging and kidnapping, stemming from the practice of filling out ship crews with abducted sailors.  Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese during the second Sino-Japanese war that was a precursor of World War II, with great suffering.  In 1949 it became part of the new Communist People’s Republic of China and its economy was rebuilt.

     Originally we were scheduled to begin the Chinese leg of our voyage in Beijing.  But obtaining a Chinese visa was somewhat challenging and it turned out that visitors who begin their visits to China in Shanghai can spend a few days there and in other coastal cities without having to get a visa.  So HAL changed the itinerary a few months before we left Florida so we would start in Shanghai and end in Beijing (Tianjin).  The caveat was that folks without a visa could only leave the ship on a ship sponsored tour, or one conducted by a government approved tour provider.  Some folks went ahead and got a visa to visit places further inland, but we had never been to China before and wanted to spend our time in the port areas anyway.  So we were happy for this change.  Although some of our excursions here were conducted by our travel agency, those were treated as ship sponsored tours as well.  Which was good because today we were scheduled for two of them.

     We left the port early in the morning.  Passing through customs was fairly slow and some people were redirected for additional scrutiny, although it seemed everybody we saw made it through eventually.  For the most part Chinese customs was pretty bureaucratic and slow in all the cities we visited.   It is possible for some cruise ships to sail up the river and dock downtown, but our ship was too large for that (it sure would be nice if HAL would prioritize using smaller ships for these longer journeys).  So there was about an hour bus ride from our dock by the ocean to downtown Shanghai.  Bus riding isn’t our favorite pastime, but there is something to be said for seeing the city streets as you drive along.

     Our first stop was at the Jade Buddha Temple, opened originally in 1882 and rebuilt in the current location in 1928 after the original was destroyed during the revolution that overthrew the monarchy.  As the name suggests, it was built to house two large jade Buddha statues, one reclining and one seated, that were brought here from Burma by a monk.  This is an active monastery with dozens of monks on the premises, although we didn’t encounter any.  The entrance is through a distinctive long yellow wall with red lanterns above it.

     After entering we walked into a courtyard with buildings on several sides.  An incense burner was at work in the middle and the eaves of the buildings were hung with red lanterns.  The carefully sculptured trees in this area, trimmed to look like green clouds, were hung with red prayer tags.  On the far side was the Great Hall, the main building of the complex.

     If you look closely at the first picture in the group above, you will see a sculptured relief medallion on each side of the row of doors.  They are very colorful.  You should also notice the sculptural details on the ends of the rooftop.

     This is one of the largest temples in China, with three main halls containing some 72 chambers.  We did not have time to see most of that and the guidance we received was minimal and hurried.  Thinking back, we are not even sure we saw the two large jade buddha statues that were the reason the temple was built, and even if we did see one or both of them photography was prohibited.

     We did, however, walk through some of the notable chambers in the Great Hall.  We walked through a room with three giant gold plated seated buddhas.  On either side of this hall is a row of golden guardian deities, and we saw at least one row of these (we think).  And there was a collection of dozens of small statues with a big one making up a single display, called “Guanyin, Sudhana and his 53 teachers.”

     We mentioned that we have no pictures of the main sitting and reclining jade buddhas, but we did see a couple of smaller reclining buddhas in a different room (not sure which one).  They were encased in glass in red and gold displays.  On the left below are a photo and a closeup of the white reclining buddha (ceramic we think) and on the right is a photo and a closeup of the colored reclining buddha (jade, maybe?).

     Another unidentified room contained a large plaque with a deity sculpted in relief, all shiny gold, and a room with rows of tables where people were writing, presumably prayers.

     So we left the temple through the courtyard at which we began and headed for the bus (which took a while to arrive).  Walking through the courtyard we passed a metal dragon urn, we saw some brightly colored sculptures on a roof and we enjoyed the patterns of the graceful upturned eaves of the roofs of the buildings.

     We drove to our next place to visit, the Yuyuan Gardens.  On the way we saw a variety of buildings from the window and we made a brief stop to walk over to a spot with a distant view of the very tall buildings lining the opposite shore of the Huangpu River that runs through the center of the city.  We thought we would have a chance to walk along the river esplanade but we stopped well short of that.  The skyline of the Pudong section across the river has some of the world’s tallest buildings and has become, in the last 20 or 30 years, a recognizable emblem of Shanghai.  Notable in the pictures below are the 2,000+ foot high Shanghai Tower and the 1500+ foot high Oriental Pearl Broadcasting Tower.

     Yuyuan Gardens sits in the center of the old town, which was surrounded by large defensive walls that were built built in 1554 to protect from Japanese pirates (and torn down in 1912 to accommodate city expansion).  The Yuyuan Garden was first built in 1559, just four years after the city walls.  Pan Yunduan built the gardens to comfort his parents in their old age.  But he was transferred away to be governor of Sichuan province, which delayed completion of the gardens until 1577.  Over the centuries the gardens passed through several owners and were expanded, damaged and restored.  In 1842 the British used it as a base during the first Opium War and during the Taiping Rebellion many of the buildings were damaged when the Small Swords Society used it as a headquarters.  The gardens were damaged again in 1942 during the Japanese occupation of the city.  The gardens were repaired in the 1950’s and opened to the public in 1961.

     The gardens encompass five acres in six areas divided by Dragon Walls, which have undulating tops with dark tiles looking like a dragon’s tail and sculpted dragon heads at the ends.  Very cool.  There are passages through the walls between the separate areas, at least one of which is a moon gate.

     The pavilions are mostly red in traditional Chinese style with roofs curving up on the end.  Many of them sit next to landscaped ponds and are connected by curving covered bridges. 

   As you can see in some of the pictures above, landscaping rocks are an important feature of these gardens.  Many were imported from distant lake areas and were used to build carefully designed “rockeries.”  The most famous rock, considered the jewel of the gardens, is the “Exquisite Jade Rock,” around 13 feet tall and full of holes created by nature.  It is said that the smoke from a burning taper placed under the rock will exit through all the holes in the rock.

     And of course this is a garden, so it had a lot of very colorful flowers, although there would probably be many more later in the Spring or Summer.  White ducks were swimming in the ponds.

     Our time was too short to see all of the gardens (at least in the opinion of our guide, who seemed pretty rushed all day).  We left through a gate with stone lions on each side and proceeded to the Yuyuan Bazaar.  We had been told we would have free time in the old town, which sounded good, but it turned out that the place we had free time was a huge shopping mall right next to the gardens.  To be sure, it was in the old town and it had some very impressive buildings with traditional Chinese architecture. We don’t know whether these are old buildings repurposed for shopping (possible, since this was in the old city area) or new buildings designed to look like old ones; either way they were interesting to see.  But still, a shopping mall was not what we were hoping for.  We must have spent at least an hour there; we looked through some interesting stores but the prices were high and we didn’t see anything that called our names. We understand that these buildings are dramatically lighted at night, but we weren’t here then.

     The long drive back to the port left us just enough time to eat dinner in the LIdo buffet and get ready to board another bus for our evening excursion, a boat ride on the Huangpu River lined with lighted buildings, near where we had spent the afternoon.  This river is some 70 miles long and flows into the Yangtze just before it enters the ocean.  It has been a commercial backbone of the city for centuries, reputedly assisted by some engineering during the 16th century that enabled water from a lake to flow into the river near its source.  This is hardly the Amazon, but it is a sizeable river: in Shanghai the river varies between 1,000 and 2,500 feet in width and averages 30 feet deep.  On its west bank is Puxi (the old city) and on its east bank is Pudong.

     We arrived at the terminal on the west bank at about sundown and the nearby buildings were already lighted. 

     We spent a good bit of time winding through the long line for admittance to the dock.  It was actually a fairly long walk, including some stairways.  By the time we reached the dock the sun was down and we walked down the dock to board the boat.  On a tip we went upstairs and right to the back of the boat, where we had the best view of both sides of the river during the entire cruise, which lasted close to an hour.

     Along the riverfront on the west (old city) side is a mile long row mostly of 100+ year old buildings called the Bund (sounds German, but actually from a Hindi word for embankment).  There is a wide concrete promenade between the buildings and the river.  This was the financial center of Shanghai in the 1920’s & 30’s when Shanghai was a financial center of Asia.  The architecture here is stolid European style, reflecting the power of the American and European concessions that were located behind it.  In the 1950’s many of the banking institutions here moved to Hong Kong.  This area was restored about 15 years ago.

     So here are some pictures (handheld from a moving boat at night, so many are not entirely clear). We will try to identify each building as best we can.

— First is a panorama of the Bund shoreline.

–The Second shows the old Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp (HSBC) building (built in 1923) and the Customs House (1927) (the clock and tower were built in England and copied from Big Ben). 

–The third picture includes (from left) the China Bank of Communications Bldg (built in 1948) now housing the Shanghai Council of Trade Unions; the Russo-Chinese Bank Bldg, now the Shanghai Gold Exchange; the Bank of Taiwan Bldg, now the China Merchants Bank; the North China Daily News Bldg, now AIA insurance; and the Chartered Bank Bldg, now home to several businesses.

–The large building in the first picture below is the Bund Center, with its easy to see lotus flower crown brightly lit, a little way back from the riverfront.  It was built in 2002 and is 659 ft tall.  The building on the lower right is the Telegraph Building, in middle is the China Merchants Bank and at the lower  left is the Nissin Navigation Co. Bldg (more info on these below).

–The second picture below shows it again, with a larger building in front sporting a red pyramidal roof which we haven’t been able to identify.

–The first picture below includes (from left) the North China Daily News Bldg; the Chartered Bank Bldg; the Palace Hotel, built in 1906, which was one of the best hotels in Shanghai until 1949, when it merged with the next building to form the Peace Hotel.  That building, originally called Sassoon House, with its distinctive green pyramidal roof, was built by tycoon Victor Sassoon in 1929 and had a famous jazz band in its cafe (which can be seen again today).  The tall rectangular building on the right is the Bank of China Bldg, built in 1937 by H.H. Kung, a rival of Sassoon’s.  Its height was cut short because of Sassoon’s insistence that no other building on the Bund could be taller than his.  Rivals indeed. 

–The second picture below is of the Shanghai People’s Heroes Memorial Tower, built in 1993 and located in Huangpu Park.  To  its right you can just barely see the Waibaidu Bridge, lit red like the Memorial, crossing Suzhou Creek.  Built in 1907, it was the first steel bridge in China. 

–The third picture below shows (from left): the Shanghai Club (we think), built in 1910; The Nissen Bldg, built in 1925 by a Japanese shipping company; the China Merchants Bank Bldg, home to the first Chinese owned bank in China; and The Great Northern Telegraph Bldg, which in 1882 had the first telephone switch in town. In the distance on the right with the white spires is the Shimao International Plaza, which is more than 1,000 feet tall and opened in 2006.

     Hard to see in the dark, but there were some parks near the river, one with what looked like a brightly lighted dragon, and some other excursion boats on the river.

     On the east bank of the Huangpu the waterfront of the Pudong New District is called Lujiazui.  It occupies a peninsula where the river bends.  The area was mostly farmland, warehouses, factories and commercial wharves until 1990 when China began developing it into a financial and commercial center.  Today it far outshines the older and smaller buildings of the Bund across the river in both the size and modern design of the buildings along its skyline.  Probably few will fail to recognize at least some of it.  At night it is illuminated with brightly colored lights.  While we don’t know the names of most of the Pudong buildings, we can tell you that the four tallest buildings in Shanghai, and among the tallest in the world, are there:  The 1,400 foot Jin Mao Tower (1999), the 1,600 foot Shanghai World Financial Center (2007), the 2,000+ foot Shanghai Tower (2015), and the almost 1,500 foot Oriental Pearl (Broadcast) Tower (1995).  They aren’t hard to spot in the pictures . . . The Shanghai Tower is obviously the tallest, the Jin Mao Tower is shaped like a very tall pagoda with a pointy roof, the World Finance Center has a large hole in the top, looking like a giant beer bottle opener, and the Oriental Pearl is made of struts and spheres.  But we will name them in the picture captions (which you can see on a computer by hovering your mouse over the picture).

     So these river banks are bright and shiny kaleidoscopes of light and color, a pretty spectacular sight as we cruised up and down the river.  But that’s not all: some of them continuously change their lighting pattern as the show goes on.  Below is a good example of this, the 1.000+ foot White Magnolia Plaza, which opened in 2017.  It is on the Puli side of the river, slightly up river from the Bund.  Here are four pictures of it showing its changing light presentations (though always with a golden roof).

     Well this was quite a lot for one day exploring Shanghai, particularly since it included 4 one hour long bus rides to and from the dock.  But this is a city with quite a lot to see and we hardly scratched the surface.  We drove back to the ship and went to bed, because our excursion for the second day in Shanghai leaves at 6:30 AM.  Yikes!

   Kanmon Strait

     On March 4 we sailed through Kanmon Strait.  Kanmon Strait is a narrow water passage dividing the Japanese islands of Honshu (home of Tokyo and Kobe) and Kyushu (home of Fukuoka), two of Japan’s main islands.  There are cruise ports in this strait but we didn’t stop at any of them.  This was listed on our itinerary as “scenic cruising,” and while we were certainly cruising there, it was really not very scenic.  But the route from Kobe to Fukuoka took us through here and the shore was visible on both sides of the ship, so there you are.

     Two cities line the shores of Kanmon Strait.  Kitakyushu, a city of about a million people, sits on the Kyushu side, and Shimonoseki, with a population around a quarter of a million, is on the Honshu side.  Sailing into Kanmon from Kobe, Kitakyushu was to port (left) while Shimonoseki was to starboard.  Our cabin was on the starboard side of the ship and we watched from our veranda as we sailed through the strait, so we only saw Shimonoseki and the Honshu shore, and that’s where all of our pictures are.  We have read that western style lighthouses were erected at both ends of the strait in the 1860’s when Japan was opened to foreign trade.  We don’t know whether it was one of the originals, but a lighthouse was the first thing we saw as we approached the Strait.

     While these modern cities are less than 150 years old this area has a long history.  In 1185 it was the scene of a decisive naval battle (Battle of Dan-no-ura) in the Genpei War in which the emperor, Antoku, was killed and the Minamoto clan established the first shogunate.  In 1863-64 it was embroiled in the struggle between the supporters of the shogun, who had opened some Japanese ports to foreign trade, and those of the emperor, who had ordered all “barbarians” expelled from Japan.  Several naval engagements between Japanese and Western ships were fought here and the town that grew into Shimonoseki was bombarded. 

     During the final months of World War II US bombers dropped some 5,000 mines into and around the strait to cut off Japanese transport between Honshu and Kyushu (and between the Sea of Japan and the Inland Sea).  About 3500 of those mines have been recovered and destroyed since the end of the war but hundreds are still there, unlikely to explode because of decades of deterioration but still containing dangerous explosives.  Just two months before we arrived here one of them was recovered and safely detonated.  Finally, the city of Kokura, now part of Kitakyushu, was the original target for the second atomic bomb in 1945, but because of dense cloud cover (some natural and some created by workers burning tar and releasing steam) the mission was diverted to Nagasaki.

      As we sailed along we saw small towns, or maybe suburbs, among green hills.  Although our cruise director, Kimberly, narrated as we sailed through the Strait, we couldn’t really understand because we were sitting on our veranda and only heard her from muddy sounding deck speakers (must be the speakers, it sure couldn’t have been our ears, I am sure).  So we can’t tell you anything about these neighborhoods.

     At one time travel across the strait was limited to ferries.  There still are ferries operating here but now most of the traffic is by tunnel.  The first railway tunnel was built in 1942 and the first highway tunnel opened in 1958.  Other tunnels followed.  In 1973 the Kanmonkyo Bridge between the islands began carrying cars and trucks.  We sailed under this bridge, which is a white suspension bridge with a central span of about 3500 feet.

     Most notable as we passed the central area of Shimonoseki was what looked like construction or repair of a Torii gate near the shoreline.  We looked closer and it appeared that there was a steep staircase up a hill covered by a long series of red Torii gates.  Usually if you see a Torii gate there will be a Shinto shrine nearby.  We couldn’t spot one, but we assume that is where this stairway led.  We also passed an amusement park on the waterfront with a large ferris wheel.  In the distance behind it was what we think is the Kaikyo Yume Tower, about 500 feet tall, which opened in 1996.  And we passed a solar energy farm separating a housing neighborhood from the waterfront.

     We sailed on past the city, passing a final peninsula (or island?) as the Strait opened into the Sea of Japan.

Fukuoka, Japan

     We woke up on the morning of March 5 in Fukuoka, our last port in Japan.  It was another gray and wet day, but we were booked on an excursion. 

     With a metropolitan population of about 2.5 million people, Fukuoka is the largest city on the island of Kyushu.  Its strategic location on Hakata Bay, relatively close to mainland China, made it a center for international trade even in ancient times . . . and also a convenient target for invasion.  Kublai Khan mounted two unsuccessful invasions in the 1270’s.  After the first attempt in 1274 the local samurai built a wall along the waterfront some 12 miles long and 5 to 10 feet tall with a base about 10 feet thick.  Five years later a Chinese delegation was beheaded after demanding Japanese submission and in 1281 Kublai Khan sent a large army in 4,000 ships to Fukuoka. The Japanese were not strong enough to resist this invasion.  But the invading forces were stopped by a major typhoon that sank many of their ships.  The Japanese called this the “Divine Wind” –  Kamikaze in Japanese, a label applied to Japanese suicide pilots near the end of World War II.  The modern city was formed in 1889 from the merger of the cities of Hakata (still the name of the bay) and Fukuoka.

      Since all-aboard time was at 3:30 our excursion set out early, around 8:30.  Our first stop was Dazaifu Tenmanga Shrine, 9 or 10 miles away.  The shrine was a bit of a walk from where our bus parked, up a commercial street lined with shops and cafes.  We walked past the Dazaifu train station, built in 1902 when the only vehicles traversing the tracks were still drawn by horses.  One storefront was one of the best known of the countless Starbucks in Japan.  It is decorated with kigumi woodwork, a traditional Japanese building technique in which the wood is connected by slots and no nails or other metal supports are used.  We didn’t have a chance to enter this store, as it was not open, but the green Starbucks sign among the wood posts caught our eye.

     Dazaifu Tenmangu is a Shinto shrine dedicated to Tenjin, the deified name given posthumously to Sugawara no Michizane, a monk who died in 903.  He was a poet and scholar who rose to prominence at an early age but was exiled to Kyushu when he lost favor with the ruling clan.  He spent the rest of his life studying and died at the age of 57.  Michizane’s body was carried by oxcart for burial, but the ox stopped in the road and refused to go any further.  So his followers buried him on that spot and erected a shrine over his grave in 905.  The current shrine was built in 1591 on the spot where Michizane is buried and, although there are some 12,000 Tenjin shrines throughout Japan, this is considered the primary one.

     The shrine’s grounds cover more than 3,000 acres and, as usual with Shinto shrines, you enter through a Torii gate with several more as you walk through the grounds.  A number of stone lanterns also line the path.

 

     The story of the stubborn ox has led to many offerings of ox sculptures, eleven of which are prominently displayed on the grounds.  Called shingyu, many have shiny bronze heads because patting the ox is supposed to grant wisdom and these have been patted every day for centuries.

     The path toward the main shrine area took us across a beautiful pond by way of a three part red bridge, the first and last of which are arched.  These three sections are said to represent the past, the present, and the future.  At the top of the first arched bridge you can see back to where you walked from; on the flat central bridge representing the present you can see neither what was behind nor what is ahead; on the third arched section you can see forward to the central shrine complex.  In the pond are islands, fountains, birds and fish.

     Back on the path we walked under another torii gate to get our first full view of the two story Romon gate to the inner shrine compound.  Off to the right of the torii gate are several structures, including a colorful well and a bronze sculpture of a Kirin, a mythical beast with the head of a dragon and the body of a deer or a horse.  Several pairs of Komainu sculptures, protective creatures that are part lion and part dog which were called Shisu in Okinawa, are on the grounds as well.

     We entered the central courtyard through the Romon gate.  On the opposite side is the Honden, the primary sanctuary that was built over Michizane’s grave in 1591.  Unfortunately we were unable to see it because it is covered in construction cloth for a renovation project (the first in 120 years) that will not be finished for two more years.  There was a poster with a picture of it nearby, and a temporary structure, with a garden roof, has been set up in front of it to accommodate prayers. 

     You will recall that Michizane was a venerated scholar and he is is now considered the primary deity of learning and wisdom.  This shrine is a popular place to pray for academic success and is particularly crowded at exam time.  A group of students came to pray in front of the Honden while we were there and hopefully passed their exams.  In front of the Honden was a large rack of small hanging wooden cards.  These are called Ema and can be purchased for less than a dollar apiece at a nearby kiosk.  You write a wish or prayer on it and hang it on the wall to submit the prayer.

     Plum trees were reputedly Michizane’s favorites and there are more than 6,000 of them, in some 200 different varieties, on the grounds of his shrine.  The most famous is the Tobiume, the Flying Plum.  The story goes that this tree was Michizane’s favorite when he lived in Kyoto and after his banishment to Kyushu this tree missed him so much that one night it flew to his grave.  If so, it would be more than 1100 years old by now.  It is said to be the first plum to bloom in Japan each year.  There are so many trees here it is difficult to keep straight which is which, especially with the construction site making much of the area hard to recognize from pictures.  The Flying Plum sits just to the right of the Hondo entrance in the poster picture above and we think we found it, jutting out just in front of the construction curtain in that area.  If it is the first to bloom, at the beginning of February, its blossoms may already have gone by when we were there because there are none on the tree in this picture.  Other trees in the courtyard were in bloom, however.

     This shrine is also known for its ancient camphor trees.  Two of them, situated near each other, are said to be “married.”  And one big gnarled one is said to be 1500 years old.  We don’t really know whether the large trees we photographed are those, but they might be.  The rack of red gourds on the left in the first picture are for depositing paper prayers.

     We left as we had come, out through the Romon gate (which is unusual because it has two roofs on the outside, but only one roof and a balcony on the inside), down the path under the torii gates and over the bridges, then back down the commercial street to where we left the bus.

     Leaving the small town of Dazaifu we drove to our next stop . . . another shrine.  Located in the heart of Fukuoka, the Kushida shrine is believed to date back to 757.  But it was rebuilt in 1587 under the sponsorship of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who also built the Osaki Castle we saw a few days ago.  It is dedicated to three deities:  Amaterasu (sun goddess), Susanoo (her brother and god of storms), and Okuninushi (Susanoo’s son and god of agriculture and medicine).  This shrine is considered the protector of Fukuoka.

     Entering through the Sakuramon gate just inside the torii gate near the street, we walked under a large red lantern hanging in the middle and a round chart of the Chinese zodiac, called Etoehoban.  Every New Year’s eve they rotate the pointer in the middle to point to the new year’s zodiac animal, indicating which direction will be the lucky one that year.  A pair of Komainu flank the sides of the entryway.

 

     To the left of this gate is a huge Gingko tree that is said to be more than 1,000 years old.  There is a yellow skirt around its trunk and displayed in front of it is a long stone said to be salvaged from one of Kublai Khan’s ships sunk by the Divine Wind in 1281, as discussed at the beginning of this episode.  At the time of our visit the tree was still bare of leaves but we understand that during spring and summer it is very lush and green and in autumn it turns bright yellow.

     Once we passed through the main gate we came to an inner gate that led into the courtyard of the main shrine (Honden?) at the end.

     The courtyard is quite busy with flora and sculpture.  There is a large statue of a horse and a small well for praying for eternal youth, guarded by sculptured cranes (which is said to produce salty water from a natural underground source).  Some cherry or plum trees were in bloom when we visited.  We passed a couple of young women in kimonos (probably rented) walking past an elaborate metal lantern.

     There were two tunnels made of torii gates all in a row, which we think led to auxiliary shrines.  One was wooden with most of the torii gates painted orange or red, and the other was stone.  Nearby was a building displaying what appeared to be small religious artifacts, with Komainu guarding on both sides.

     The shrine has a display of Chikara Ishi, large stones used for power lifting.  This practice dates back more than 1200 years, and it has had religious, muscle training and competition uses over the years.  Sumo wrestlers are known for lifting these heavy stones.  We also saw a rack of sake barrels donated by various breweries, which we have seen at other shrines, because the Shinto religion considers sake to be the drink of the gods. And there was a Hakata-bei wall built in the 16th century.  These earthen walls with salvaged rubble embedded in them were very popular at that time because of the widespread destruction from civil wars but only a few of them are left. 

     We walked through a side entrance to the courtyard that was hung with a large yellow lantern.  On display outside were two floats from the Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival held every July for almost 800 years.  Floats like these, which are built anew every summer, are raced through the streets carried (or dragged) by groups of men from seven neighborhoods in the Hakata district wearing loincloths.  There are two kinds of floats, stationary ones and smaller mobile ones; we are not sure but think the ones on display here are two of the stationary ones set up around the racing streets.  They are about 30 or 40 feet tall and are brightly colored, with figures of horses, samurai, buildings and dragons, which we have read are fashioned from papier mache.  The mobile ones weigh about a ton.  We also saw the golden Mikoshi portable shrine through a picture window in a building, with two scary dog(?) masks sitting in front of it.  A portable shrine is for transporting a god when it leaves its shrine and in October, during the Hakata Okunchi festival, this one is hitched to an ox and paraded in procession around the streets of the Hakata district.

 

     Leaving the shrine, we drove through the rainy streets of Fukuoka to our last stop, the Fukuoka Tower at the seashore.  On the way we passed the Mizuho PayPay Dome, the home of the city’s professional baseball team, the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.  It was built in 1993, has 40,000 seats and until last year was the only stadium in Japan with a retractable roof.

     Opened in 1989, the Fukuoka Tower is, at 768 feet, the tallest waterfront tower in Japan.  Its circumference is triangle shaped and it is covered with 8,000 one way mirrors, reflecting the sky from outside but allowing a view of the outside for those inside.  Our first view of the tower was through the raindrops on the bus window.  We rode a fast elevator to the observation deck almost 404 feet above the street (the other 350 feet of height is a television broadcasting antenna).  The elevator is the only thing inside the tower until you reach the observation decks.

     It is quite a view from the observation deck.  Following the beach toward our right we could see the Hakata port in the far distance and behind the yellowish building is the baseball stadium.  The panorama to our left was broken by the Muromi river flowing through town, with a tiny corner of the public library at the far left of the picture (if we had known at the time that this was the library there would be a better picture of it).  Looking down in front along the beach was a group wielding umbrellas (yep, still raining) and on an artificial island in front of the tower was the Marizon at Momochi Seaside Park, which includes upscale seaview restaurants and a bridal chapel.

     So that’s the end of our visit to Fukuoka, from which we sailed away in mid-afternoon, and of Japan.  But its not the end of our voyage, so there is plenty more to come.

     As always seems to happen when we have an overnight stay, we woke up on the morning of March 3 still in Kobe harbor.  Today we had scheduled an excursion to Osaka, a lengthy bus ride away, on which we left early in the morning.  With a population of about 2.7 million, Osaka is the third largest city in Japan and is a major commercial and financial center for the country.  It is home to important international electronics companies like Panasonic and Sharp.  People have lived here for at least 2,000 years, one of the earliest settlements in Japan.  Like other Japanese cities, Osaka was subject to extensive Allied bombing near the end of World War II but was successfully rebuilt after the war.

     It would be difficult to plan a visit to Japan without including visits to temples and shrines.  Our first visit today was to Shitenno-ji Temple, considered by many the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan.  It was first built in 593 by Prince Shotoku, one of the first to promote the spread of Buddhism here.  Its buildings have been destroyed many times, by both war and natural calamities, most recently by the bombing in World War II.  The current reconstruction, based on archeological excavations as well as old records, was completed in 1963 and is considered to be as true as possible to its original appearance.

     The temple’s core consists of a covered walkway around the main courtyard, with a gate on one side and a lecture hall (Kodo) on the other.  In the courtyard are the Kondo (the main hall) and a five story pagoda.  The predominant colors of the buildings are red and white.  The buildings are aligned in a straight line – Chumon gate, pogoda, kondo, Kodo – an arrangement that came to be known as Shitennoji-style and was widely copied.

     The five story pagoda is easily the most prominent building in the temple complex.  Each floor reputedly contains a different set of religious artifacts.  I say reputedly because, although entry was permitted if you removed your shoes, we did not climb the stairs here.  Really not enough time.  But Rick walked up the concrete stairs and took a photograph of the interior through the door.

     We have read that there is a market at this temple every month on the second or third weekend.  But we were there on March 3 and there definitely was a lively market inside the gates, with many people selling crafts, clothing and other things from temporary looking cloth roofed kiosks held up by poles.  Our guide said this occurs every Sunday.  So maybe this isn’t the official big time market scheduled once a month, but it certainly occurs on Sundays (at least the Sunday when we were there).

     The Kondo is the main sanctuary sitting in the middle of the courtyard, but it was closed the day we were there so we didn’t see the inside.  We also have pictures of two interesting buildings we can’t identify, one with a hexagon shape and a gold looking figure on the apex of the roof and another that is mostly red and white, with a surrounding porch sitting on short pillars.

     Our next stop was Osaka Castle.  On our way there we passed a couple in a park teaching their son how to wield a baseball bat (baseball is, of course, very big in Japan).  We parked in a lot a good bit away from the castle and had a long walk, through woods and along moat walls, to get there. 

     Osaka Castle was originally built in the 1580’s and 90’s by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.  The Toyotomi clan were the primary rivals to the Tokugawas for the office of shogun, the military leader and actual political ruler of Japan.  If you have read or watched James Clavell’s historical novel Shogun, you will recall that much of the action takes place in Osaka Castle and Toyotami is an important character (under a fictional name).  In 1600 Tokugawa Ieyasu became shogun.  In 1614-15, after a siege, the castle fell to the Tokugawas and while Hideyoshi had already died, both his son and his widow committed suicide, ending the Toyotomi clan.  The castle was burned to the ground.

     In the 1620’s the Tokugawas rebuilt the castle, burying what was left of Toyotomi’s castle and building new stone walls (still standing) and a new tower on a different spot near where the old one stood.  Most of the castle’s buildings were destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries, most recently by Allied bombing near the end of World War II.  The current version, restoring the castle largely to its Tokugawa era appearance, but with more reliable modern materials, was completed in 1997.

     On our way to the castle we passed a small Shinto shrine called Hokoku-jinja.  It was built by the Meiji emperor in 1879 to honor the Toyotomi clan.  We did not go into the shrine, but we did see the torii gate at its entry and a statue of Toyotomi Hideyoshi erected in 2007, which faces the castle.  He does not look warm and cuddly.

     Walking around the moat we saw a white watchtower above the stone wall on the opposite side.  We didn’t notice it at the time, but through the bare trees behind the watchtower the green roofs of the castle tower were just visible in the distance.

     This was a weekend and it was early afternoon when we reached the castle, so the area was quite crowded.  The castle is white with green roofs and decorated in gold.  It is five stories tall from the outside, but 8 stories on the inside.  We had to wait in a long line for quite a while to gain admittance. 

     There is an elevator inside (as mentioned, this is a modern concrete replica, not the original wooden castle), and the easiest way to see the castle inside would be to take the elevator to the top and walk down the 8 flights of stairs.  But the elevator is slow and so many people want (or need) to use it that the wait is substantial and we didn’t really have extra time to waste standing in line.  So we walked up the 8 flights of stairs. The castle today is really a museum with exhibits on each floor.  Here is an exhibit of ancient Japanese war helmets on one floor, one of which was marked as having belonged to Toyotomi Hideyoshi.  For a fee you could don one of these helmets along with some armor to have your picture taken.  Also on exhibit was a life size example of the golden dolphin and crouching tigers that adorn the outside of the castle.  There were many more interesting exhibits, including large paintings, that were difficult to examine because of the crowds in front of them.

     In the end we reached the top floor, which had viewing windows all around with fabulous views of the surrounding area and the gold dolphins adorning the the top of the roof just below.  The entire area was screened in and you could see the screens from the ground outside.  We looked down on the moat where visitors could ride in a boat (a moat boat?).  In one direction was a cityscape of skyscrapers and in front of the castle we looked down on the grounds of the entry area.  The view was worth the walk up the stairs.

     We returned to the ground floor down the stairway (there are separate up and down stairwells, which undoubtedly helps the traffic flow).  As we walked back to the bus we had a last view of the castle with its nicely landscaped grounds and also another view of the moat boat, this time sailing down the moat.  We ate lunch at a nice hotel, happily a sit down meal rather than a buffet line, where the Japanese food was interesting, tasty and beautifully presented.

     After lunch we were dropped off at the beginning of a district called Dotonbori (or Doutonbori) and told to meet back there in an hour or so.  This neighborhood began in 1612 with the building of a canal on what was then the southern edge of Osaka.  The canal was completed in 1615, after a delay caused by the Siege of Osaka.  It was named after one of its designers, Nariyasu Doton, who had died fighting for the Toyotomis during the siege.  The Tokugawas designated this as Osaka’s entertainment district and by 1662 it had 11 theaters and a mechanical puppet show, along with restaurants and cafes built to serve the entertainment crowds.  However, over the centuries the district declined and during World War II all but one of the remaining theaters were destroyed by bombing.  In the 1960’s the canal was renovated and in the early 2000’s the streets lining the canal were redeveloped.

     Today this is a bustling area with large crowds patronizing cafes, restaurants and commercial stores, many located inside a large covered mall.  We walked along the canal looking, but not stopping in,  a large variety of stores and restaurants.

     As you can see, the canal is lined with rows of commercial buildings of all types.  Most notable are the colorful signs, many outsized, eye catching and even mechanical.  For example the giant crab above the Kani Doraku restaurant moves all of its arms.

We came to a covered shopping mall, which we spent some time walking through.  Lots of stores and restaurants in here too and it was really crowded.

     Walking back down along the canal we saw more unusual commercial signs, some very large and surely quite expensive.  We also walked past street decorations, one of which was a manhole cover with the Osaka castle and cherry blossoms on it.

   Well, this was all quite interesting in an over-the-top sort of way.  We have seen this neighborhood likened to the street scenes in the movie Blade Runner and there is certainly that kind of flavor to it (although we understand that those movie scenes were actually inspired by a district in Tokyo).  It must be quite exciting at night when all the neon lights are on, but of course by night time we would be at sea.  Still, pretty impressive that this area attracts such crowds even in the early afternoon, although it was a weekend. 

     We met our bus and drove back to the port.  Our veranda was perfectly situated to watch the farewell festivities mounted by Kobe on the roof of the terminal right by the ship.  We were serenaded by the Kobe Hardi Wind Ensemble (which we know because it was printed on the white tuba), although only about half the musicians were actually playing wind instruments.  They were a “hardi” group indeed who were bundled up against the cold but were still there playing when we left the dock.  At one point pink, white and green balloons were released into the air and there was a fellow nearby waving what looked like naval signal flags, whose meaning we do not know (but we would guess something like “farewell”).  Families and children were there as well, many carrying balloons.  As we pulled away from the dock they struck up “Anchors Aweigh.”  Much fun and a great send off.

     We sailed out of Kobe harbor as the sun was setting, getting a last look at the city skyline in the harbor area and passing two nice bridges before seeing a nice sunset as we reached the ocean.  It had certainly been quite a full and rewarding couple of days.

     We docked at Kobe on the morning of March 2 for an overnight stay.  Kobe is the 7th largest city in Japan with a population of 1.5 million and Japan’s third largest port.  This area has been settled for at least 1,000 years, although the modern city was founded in 1889.  Its cosmopolitan reputation dates back to 1853 when it was one of the first Japanese ports opened to trade with the West.  Some 21% of the city was destroyed by Allied incendiary bombing in March of 1945, which killed close to 9,000 people, and large parts of the city were destroyed again in the Great Hanshin earthquake of January 17, 1995, which killed almost 6,500 people.  If nothing else, you have probably heard of the extremely expensive gourmet Kobe beef, which comes from cattle pampered with special food and even massages.

     No doubt Kobe would be an interesting city to explore and we know people who had a very good time there.  But this was our first visit to Japan, we only had two days and there were two out of town cities that were higher on our to-do lists.  So we signed up for long excursions for both days.  On this first day we went to see some of the important sites of Kyoto, the ancient imperial capital of Japan until the 1870’s when the Meiji emperor moved to Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration.  So really, just about our only view of the city of Kobe today was from the bus window as we crossed the bridge to head out of town.

     As mentioned above, Kyoto was the seat of the emperor and thus the capital of Japan from 794 to 1879, more than a thousand years.  In fact, Kyoto means “capital city.”  Emperor Kanmu first moved the capital here from Nara because he wanted to get the Buddhist establishment out of his hair.  There was unrest and violence in the city during the 15th century and again before the Meiji Restoration in the 1860’s, but on the whole it seems to have avoided the devastation of war and earthquakes seen by other cities in Japan. 

     One notable thing you will not read in this episode:  Kyoto was not subject to Allied bombing in World War II, atomic or otherwise.  It originally was at the top of the list of Japanese cities proposed as targets for the atomic bomb.  But Henry Stimson, US Secretary of War, convinced President Truman to remove it.  It is not clear just why he wanted Kyoto removed, possibly its importance in the cultural heritage of Japan (he had visited there at least twice, but not on his honeymoon as some suggest), or possibly because he thought its destruction would so alienate the Japanese that they would side with the Soviet Union after the war, or perhaps something else.  Either way, this preserved the ancient wonders of Kyoto from destruction and, among other much more important things, made our visit to its landmarks today possible.

     After about a 90 minute drive we arrived at our first stop in Kyoto, the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, called Kinkaku-ji in Japanese.  Originally a private villa, it was bought by the shogun in 1397 and developed as his retirement villa.  Pursuant to his wishes, when he died it was converted into a Zen Buddhist temple.   The upper two stories of the three story building are entirely covered in gold leaf and are said to contain relics of the Buddha, including his ashes.  Each of the three stories was designed in a different architectural style.  Situated over the edge of a large reflecting pond in a woods, the Pavilion makes a rather spectacular sight when the sun is shining, and many consider it one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.  After receiving our entry tickets (there was a bit of a crowd) we walked a path through the woods to arrive near the water’s edge on the opposite side of the pond from the Pavilion.

     After admiring it for a while from this vantage (and after everyone got pictures) we walked around the right side of the pond toward the Pavilion.  In the pond were a variety of rocky islands, carefully placed according to Zen principles.  There were two birds, a black one and a gray one on two of the islands; we don’t know their species but they looked like something we had seen in Japanese paintings.

     We told you earlier that Kyoto escaped the bombing in World War II so you might think the Golden Pavilion came through the war unscathed.  And it did.  But on July 2, 1950, the building was completely destroyed by a fire deliberately set by a young monk later found to be mentally ill (he was imprisoned but died six years later of tuberculosis).  So despite surviving the war, not to mention the centuries before that, the building we see here is a recent reconstruction completed in 1955.  It is supposed to be a very close copy of the original.  In the 1980’s the gold leaf was replaced by a much thicker variety after it was found to be peeling off and in 2003 the roof was restored.

     Coming around the back of the temple gave us a much closer view of its structure.  Unfortunately, this was as close as we could get because there was no admittance into the building.  At the apex of the temple’s roof is a distinctive bronze phoenix, which escaped the fire in 1950 because it had been removed for repairs. A wooden “fishing pier”juts out to the right with a floor high enough for small boats to pass under.

     Behind the Pavilion we walked up a path that took us by some interesting spots.  There is a small waterfall called Ryumon-no-Taki (Dragon’s Gate Falls).  The large stone under the falling water is the Carp Stone, which is placed to look like a fish swimming up the waterfall.  It represents an old Chinese legend in which a carp becomes a dragon after climbing a waterfall.  We also passed some stone images called Jizo, which are supposed to be guardians of children, travelers and firefighters.  People are invited to throw coins to invoke their protection.  And we saw a small stone pagoda called the Hakuja-cho (White Snake Mound) sitting on an island in a woodland pond that never dries up and is therefore considered a good place to pray for rain.  Looking in the opposite direction we had a nice view of the top story of the Golden Pavilion peeking over the edge of the hill.

     Finally we came to the Fudo-do, a Buddhist hall.  Since the fire that destroyed the Golden Pavilion this has been the oldest building in the complex, the current iteration dating back to the 16th century.  Inside is a statue of a protective deity that can only be viewed two days a year.  In front of the Fudo-do is a large turquoise urn full of sand to hold burning incense sticks (which can be purchased nearby). When we were there it was putting out a lot of smoke.

     Another interesting building on the grounds was the Abbot’s House (where the temple’s abbots resided).  In front of it is a 600+ year old pine tree planted by the shogun who built the Golden Pavilion.  It was originally a Bonsai and has been trained to resemble a ship.  The trunk growing straight up represents the mast and the large branch reaching forward, held up by a bamboo cradle, represents the bow of the ship.  Some say it represents the journey the shogun hoped to take to the afterlife.

    After visiting the gift shop near the exit (of course) we walked down a long path to reach the bus in the parking lot.  Notice in the picture that the wall has five parallel white lines.  We have read that the number of white lines indicates the importance of the temple, with five lines being the top tier.

     We had a buffet Japanese lunch in a hotel restaurant across the street from the very modern central train station in Kyoto.  The food was good but the long buffet line was inefficient and time consuming.  From our seat at the table we had a nice view of the interesting abstract facade of the train station.

     Nijo-jo is a castle in Kyoto built by the first Tokugawa shogun, which opened in 1603.  It was financed by funds he forced all the daimyos (feudal lords) of Western Japan to contribute.  It is surrounded by a heavy stone wall and a moat (actually two concentric sets of walls and moats).  It is the only fortified castle in Japan from that period that still exists without having been destroyed and reconstructed (its tower was destroyed by lightning in 1750 but was not reconstructed).  Of course Kyoto was the imperial seat at that time and the shogun lived in Edo (Tokyo), so the purpose of this castle was to serve as the shogun’s residence when he visited Kyoto (and to remind everyone who was the real power in the empire).

     After obtaining our tickets we entered through the Higashi Ote-mon Gate, the main entrance that was probably built in 1662. 

     To enter the palace precinct we walked through the magnificent Kara-mon Gate.  It was probably built in 1598 for another castle and moved here in 1626.  The gate is very large and striking, covered in fine carvings and detailed metalwork.

     As you walk through the gate you can see the beginning of Ninomaru-goten Palace, originally the shogun’s living quarters and official reception halls.  It is made up of six connected buildings with 33 rooms.  The floors are covered by more than 800 tatami mats.  The walls are covered by more than 3600 paintings dating to the early 17th century (actually what you see there today are very fine copies; the originals are kept in a separate painting gallery within the castle’s outer walls).  We walked through the entire palace along wooden corridors that surround the rooms in the 6 buildings.  The spacious rooms, intricately painted ceilings and numerous large and lively wall paintings were quite beautiful.  In the room where in 1867 the last shogun announced to the nobles that he was ceding power to the emperor were a number of mannequins dressed in the colorful costumes of the time representing the nobles and the shogun.  The wooden corridors are called Nightingale corridors because they make a squeaking sound when walked upon.  The story that this was done purposefully to alert inhabitants to intruders is, apparently, not true (too bad, its a good story).  Unfortunately we have no pictures of anything inside the palace because photography is completely forbidden there.  Sad but true.

     Behind the palace is the Ninomaru Garden, a leading example of a classic Zen garden.  Originally built in 1603 at the same time as the palace, it was extensively redesigned in 1626 for the Emperor’s visit.  There is a large pond with three islands, a large one representing paradise, and smaller crane and turtle islands representing longevity.  Numerous rocks are carefully landscaped along the banks of the pond.  The pond is fed by a small waterfall on the side opposite from the palace.  We saw a small bird on one of the banks enjoying the garden while we were there.

     We left the way we had come, though the courtyard behind the main gate.  To our right we could see the Southeast Watchtower, and that was also our last view of the castle, perched above the stone outer wall, as we headed back to the bus.

     We spent the rest of the afternoon on a walking tour of the Gion district.  Dating back to the 15th century, this district first developed to provide food, shelter and diversion to travelers visiting the Yasaka Shrine.  It later became one of the most important geisha districts in Japan.  Today it is still an important geisha district but is also one of the few areas where traditional architecture predominates.

     Leaving the bus we walked past two impressive religious buildings.  First was a Buddhist temple called Chion-in (Monastery of Gratitude).  First built in 1234, much of the temple complex burned down and was rebuilt in the mid 17th century and that rebuild survives today.  The massive Sanmon gate that faces the street below was built in 1619.  Second we came to the Yasaka Shrine, which serves the Gion sect of the Shinto religion.  It was originally constructed in the 7th century and achieved importance with imperial support.  As mentioned above, the Gion district began to serve the needs of pilgrims visiting this shrine. 

     We did not visit either of these buildings, merely walked past their entrances and viewed their entrance gates at the tops of tall and wide stairways.  That’s too bad, but we had limited time left to see Gion and it’s impossible to spend time at all the temples and shrines in Kyoto, since there are some 1600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines in this city.

     We walked down Shijo Street and turned left into the heart of Gion, with its narrow stone streets lined with vintage wood townhouses, mostly less than 3 stories tall, called Machiya.  Urban buildings of this style, generally used by craftsmen and merchants with retail space lining the street and living quarters in back, have been in use in Japan for 1,000 years. They dominated in Kyoto for centuries but in recent decades have been disappearing to make room for modern buildings.  They are typically about 20 feet wide along the street and about three times that in length toward the back, often including garden courtyards.  We did not enter any of these buildings but walked by many of them lining the street and serving as restaurants, night clubs and shops as well as homes.  We understand that each district has its own representative logo and that the red lanterns hanging in front of many of the Machiya here represent the Gion district.

     There are several notable features of the Machiya.  Particularly on the second floor windows they usually have screens made of horizontal wood slats woven together with string or yarn, which can be rolled up or folded out of the way.  These are called Sudare, and they let air and light in from outside while protecting from direct sun, rain, some insects and viewers on the street.

     You will notice in the pictures that the sidewalks in this district are quite narrow and several of the houses depicted above have fencing barring use of the sidewalk in front of the house.  Instead of fencing, many of these buildings have a sort of curved wooden skirt reaching from the front of the house to the curb.  These are called inuyarai.  Inu means “dog” and these skirts were probably originally used keep stray dogs from urinating on the front of the house.  But they also protect the front wall from mud splashes and keep people from leaning against the house and eavesdropping on what is being said and done inside.

     One famous building we passed is the Ichiriki Chaya (Teahouse).  More than 300 years old, this has been an important building here since the beginning of the Gion district.  It figures in the prominent story of the 47 ronin samurai, who were all forced to kill themselves after avenging the death of their master, and it was the scene of much of the plotting to end the shogunate in the 1860’s, which led to the Meiji Restoration.  Access to the building and its geisha entertainment is strictly limited, mostly to individuals whose families have been patrons for generations.

     After a while we emerged for a time on what we think was Shijo street, a crowded boulevard lined with commercial establishments, such as shops and restaurants, although even here many of the buildings were of the Machiya design.

     There are two types of geisha: Maiko are apprentices still learning the business, while Geiko are full fledged official geisha.  It is possible to see actual geisha on the streets of Gion, but they are pretty rare.  We were warned that although photography was permitted on the public streets we were using, there are private alleyways where it is forbidden.  Less than a week after our visit we read that because so many tourists disregarded these rules, Kyoto had decided to completely ban them from entering the private alleyways.  We hope that, despite this remarkable timing, no one on our voyage misbehaved in this way.

     As we saw in Tokyo, there are also shops here that rent geisha style clothing to visitors who want their pictures taken in that guise here, but by law such rented clothing cannot be an accurate representation of geisha attire.  Our guide told us that you can tell an actual geisha from a dressed up visitor despite the similar clothing because the geisha are always in a big hurry while the visitors saunter around the area, stopping for photos.  Relying on that distinction we think we saw two geisha, both of whom were walking so fast it was difficult to get a photo.  One of them was past us so fast we only have a picture of her back, while the other was crossing Shijo street at a distance from us. 

     We turned right from Shijo street and walked for a while until we came to the Shirakawa River which runs along the border of the Gion district.  We crossed a bridge or two from which we could see the Gion side was lined with teahouses and restaurants of the sort seen in Gion while the opposite side was a riverbank lined mostly with trees (many cherry trees we have read, although they were still in bare winter mode when we were there).  We have read that the other side used to be lined with Gion style buildings as well, but they were torn down during World War II as a precaution against fires.

     We emerged into a somewhat larger square, in the middle of which is a small red and gray Shinto shrine variably called Tatsumidaimyojin or “Inari of Gion.”  Both local residents and geisha worship here.  Two men walked into the square pulling metal rickshas, in each of which was a traditionally dressed couple.  They stopped and put down the ricksha pulls, then took out cameras and took pictures of the two couples.  It must have been some kind of special occasion for them as they posed for pictures in their fine traditional clothes in the ricksha seats.

     All that was left of our walking tour, and our visit to Kyoto, was the long walk back to the bus in the parking lot.  We did pass some nice flora on the way and, as the bus drove through the town we passed a torii gate glowing in the lowering sun.  Where there is a torii gate there is almost always a Shinto shrine nearby, although we didn’t see this one as we drove past.  The sun was setting as we drove back to Kobe, where we had dinner and went to bed in anticipation of another very long and full day to come.

Tokyo Day 2

     We awoke on February 29 still docked at the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal.  This new terminal is located on Odaiba island and is much closer to downtown Tokyo than Yokohama, where cruise ships had docked before and many still do.  Yokohama has, actually, been the main port for Tokyo for centuries.  We had to be back on the ship by 5:30 for the sail away, which meant returning to the port in mid-afternoon to be safe.  We have had the experience of having unexpected difficulty getting back to our ship in foreign ports and certainly did not want to chance that in a city as large and complicated as Tokyo.  Everything we read and heard about the Tokyo subway system said that it is well marked in English and easy to navigate, but we decided that a more relaxing day closer to the port was a better choice for us.

    Odaiba is an artificial island in Tokyo bay, connected to the main city by the Rainbow Bridge.  Its origins date back to the 1850’s after Commodore Perry’s first visit.  “Daiba” means fort or battery, and the plan was to build 11 small island batteries in the bay to protect against attacks from the sea.  Only 6 were finished before the project was abandoned and by the 1960’s most of the small islands had been removed and we have read that landfill was used to connect the rest to make the larger island of Odaiba.  After on and off development efforts in the 1980’s and 90’s, full development of the island has occurred rapidly since the second half of the 1990’s and the island is now crowded with hotels, commercial buildings, shopping malls, museums, restaurants and entertainment venues, many with very futuristic architecture.

     Although it was a bit chilly, this was a beautiful morning for a walk.  A shuttle bus was available going around much of the island and, after a leisurely breakfast and the departure of most tours, we boarded the bus and rode it to the Hilton Hotel stop near the waterfront leading to the Rainbow Bridge (which opened in 1993).  We walked along one of the boardwalks paralleling the water.  Quite a view of Tokyo and the bridge from here.

     You may notice in these pictures there are two long and narrow islands in front of the Tokyo skyline.  Numerous trees full of pink blossoms covered these islands when we were there.  It seems we were there well before cherry blossom season, so these are most likely to be plum trees.  No matter, they were quite beautiful, and we got a much closer look at some of them sitting in front of one of the malls on Odaiba.

     Walking along the waterfront we passed colorful flowers and a sea gull on a small sand bar in the water.  There was a reddish brown headed duck swimming nearby and a park with old ship anchors and chains displayed in the sand.

     We walked through a big 80 store mall called Decks and back toward the waterfront on the boardwalk, where we saw a movie being filmed (they tried to shoo people away without much success).  Then a little further we came to the Statue of Liberty.  What, you thought that was in New York?  Yes, but here is a 40 foot tall replica, about one seventh of the size of the original, erected here in 1998.  And why stop at just one?  There are also Statues of Liberty in Shimoda and Osaka.  This was a tribute to Japan’s relationship with France, not the US.

     Further down the waterfront walk we came to a beach with some young people wading in the shallows.  We have read that this is one of only two beaches in Tokyo not obstructed by industrial buildings, but actual swimming is not allowed.  This is also a convenient place to mention vending machines, which are everywhere in Japan.  You can buy a large variety of food and drink from them, cold or hot.  There was a bank of them here and we also saw an even larger row of them at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo yesterday.  Near the beach a sign was posted with a long list of “do nots” . . . it made us think of Singapore.  

     We left the waterfront and walked down a street that was a canyon among large buildings.  On one side was the 27 story Fuji Broadcasting Center. It has two tall buildings, an office building and a media building, connected by three footbridges longer than either building.  At the top just off center is a huge metal sphere containing an observation deck.  The entire building is covered in titanium & was opened in 1996.  At street level is a large transparent tube containing an escalator that goes up several stories.  Nearby is the pink Aqua City, yet another shopping mall.

     The sidewalk next to the Fuji building included an interesting safety feature.  On the left is a lane for walkers and on the right is a lane for bikers, separated by a median strip planted with red flowering bushes. We were told that the narrow yellow path on the left helps blind people with canes negotiate the sidewalk better because it is paved with different shaped stones.  This reminded us a little of the separate lanes for bikes and pedestrians in Amsterdam, and we saw sidewalks laid out like this in other areas of Japan as well.

     We walked up through a mall (can’t remember which one) to find a large mostly brick open patio like space.  There were sculptures, benches, many decorative pillars, vending machines (of course) and quite a view.  Families and other groups were spending time in this pleasant space in the sky above the streets of the city.

     On the sidewalk in the street below we encountered a life size Lego giraffe.  There is a Legoland in the Decks mall, but this was in a different location.  After this it was time to go home, so we walked back to the Hilton and boarded another shuttle.  We passed the Rainbow Bridge (which looks great from any angle) and, back on the ship, we had a view from our balcony of the cranes lining one side of the port looking nice in the late afternoon sun.

Sea Day Near Omaezaki

     Our itinerary was supposed to take us to Omaezaki, Japan on March 1.  When we researched this port we didn’t find anything we were really anxious to see, so we signed up for an excursion that would (among other places) take us to a temple on the side of a mountain that was supposed to have a great view of Mt Fuji, if we got lucky and the weather was clear.  But we were given a heads up on the evening of February 29 that sea conditions around Omaezaki weren’t looking good and we might not be able to stop there.  It is always disappointing to miss a scheduled port, but if one had to be missed this one would be better than most others we were scheduled to visit.

     Well, as our friend Pete commented, having an unscheduled sea day added in the middle of a long series of port days is like having a snow day when you are working or in school, an unexpected opportunity to rest up and recharge your batteries.  So that’s how we looked at it when, in late morning, it was announced that the sea was still too turbulent for us to stop here.  Sometimes it seems to passengers that the sea isn’t really bad enough to skip a port, but not this time.  The roiling of the water was enough that we could sometimes see rainbows in the mist that was thrown up by the waves, even from our deck 5 veranda.

     After the Captain’s announcement Rick went outside to try at least to get a picture of Omaezaki from the ship since we weren’t stopping there.  He took a number of pictures along the shore, but on later inspection none of them looked like Omaezaki, whose shoreline is dominated by a white lighthouse with beaches and few other buildings near the water (according to pictures we have seen).  We are pretty sure we were somewhere in Suruga Bay, but the area was too heavily overcast to identify.  I think I have identified in one picture (the last one below) the Fujikawa water pipe bridge across the Fuji river near the shore of Suruga Bay, which has a series of metal arches like this.  If so, Mt Fuji would be visible right behind it but hidden by the heavy cloud cover (as it apparently often is), but that would put us far from Omaezaki.  So, who knows?   Other shore pictures include industrial smokestacks and impressive mountains.

      Later Kimberly (cruise director) announced that the iconic Mt Fuji was visible to the aft of the ship.  This mountain is almost 12,389 ft tall, the tallest in Japan.  It is a volcano, last erupting in 1704, and has a snow covered top (at least when we were there) and an almost perfect cone shape.  While many people try to climb it in summer the Japanese government is trying to cut back on this by charging admission and limiting when and how many climbers are permitted.  We have read that an old Japanese proverb says “a wise person will climb Mt. Fuji once in their lifetime, but only a fool would climb it twice.”

      After the Captain’s announcement Rick, along with a crowd of other passengers, hurried up to the deck by the aft pool and, sure enough, there it was emerging from the clouds far in the distance.  It took a while to get to the front of the crowd, but the mountain was still quite visible and, like everyone else, Rick got a picture of himself with the mountain (not a selfie, Robert took it).

     Afterwards Rick returned to the cabin and stepped out onto the veranda.  The mountain was still there, more clearly visible than before.  It was really quite a sight.  He encountered our room stewards, busily cleaning a cabin down the hall and having no idea that this special mountain could be seen outside.  If Rick hadn’t told them about it they would have missed it completely, even though they were only a few steps away from the view.  The best known woodprint series by Japanese artist Hokusai is called “36 views of Mount Fuji.”  We won’t go that far, but here are two more, taken from our veranda.

     So we didn’t get to visit Omaezaki but in the end we did get to see Mt Fuji so it wasn’t a lost day.  We sailed out of the bay and headed for our next port.