Day 45 of 111. Port of Incheon, South Korea

Early morning entry into Incheon, Korea, involved passage through a lock with very little room to spare. At each port, a pilot from the locality comes on board. Looking up into the navigation window I could see our captain and I think the other fellow was the pilot. The sun was just coming up as we left the lock. From the breakfast area on deck 8, we were eye level with the tower of the lock with the sign, “Port of Incheon”!

As we entered the bay on our way to Incheon we saw a tugboat, the captain in the navigation deck and a LOT of cars ready for export… probably Kia or Hyundai.

Day 44 of 111. The Yellow Sea nearing Incheon, South Korea

In watercolor class we tried our hand at stylized bamboo painting. On our tours I took pictures of bamboo to get some ideas about how the leaves should look. It turns out that there are over 300 species of bamboo so almost anything can happen with leaves. Who knew?

Here are two of our table mates on Kimono Night. The ladies are posing with our head waiter, Indie. We are leaving Japan and heading to Korea where the weather is -6 C!

Day 43 of 111. Nagasaki, Japan



Nagasaki, Japan. We toured Ground Zero where the second atomic bomb was dropped. It was a somber visit with the message that Nagasaki must be the last place on earth where an atomic bomb is ever dropped. The black obelisk marks the exact spot of ground zero. There were many, many origami cranes of all sorts around the park and in the museum. The special display of 1000 golden cranes caught my eye. The museum above ground zero is very well done, but still rather little disturbing. The artwork of the clock represents a clock at the beginning of the museum that remained after the blast but stopped at 11:02 on the summer day of the bomb.

The second stop in Nagasaki was the Nagasaki Peace Park. There are statues all over the park sent from various countries. The huge blue man is bronze and is thirty feet high. His one hand point up represents the bomb dropping from the sky and his horizontal arm represents peace. His eyes are closed in prayer for the souls lost in the blast. The statue with the angels holding a bell is above some buckets of water and flowers. Our guide told us of a 14 year old schoolboy who had been sent into the machine room on an errand when the atomic bomb dropped. The boy survived the blast but his hair and clothes were burned off. When he returned to the ground level he found his schoolmates very badly burned and calling for water. He returned to the machine room, found a rag, dipped it in water, and gave water to the others before they died. As we were nearing the main fountain a man walked into the park. Our guide told us that this was the same man from her story. He spoke to us in Japanese with the same message of peace. He shook all of our hands. It was a highlight of the trip.

We had a little time after the tours to wander the streets near the ship. This character is all over Nagasaki to welcome visitors. I saw another cool manhole cover. Finally, we saw a “fish spa” where you can stick your feet in tanks with tiny fish. Poor fish!

Day 42 of 111. Kagoshima, Japan

We visited Kagoshima and the Sakurajima Volcano. We took a ferry over to the island volcano and could see puffs of smoke rising from the peaks. The island is also the home of the huge white radish! Cool stuff.

Sengan-en Garden was built as the second residence of the powerful Shimadzu family. The residence overlooks Kinko Bay where our ship is docked and Sakurajima is plainly visible. The symbol of the family is the circle and cross and could be seen on walls, the main gate, and now even on manhole covers. The gardens are beautiful with many ponds, waterfalls, and shrines. Nariakira, the 28th head of the Shimadzu family helped modernize Japan by bringing in modern industrial technologies producing cannon and glassware and other useful items.

On our travels through Kagoshima, there were interesting sights. The safety barriers were held up by cute bunnies. The use of brightly colored plastic at the car dealerships was eye-catching and different that in the US. At the Sengan-en Garden there were blossoms, but I did not know what they were. It is too early for cherry blossoms and they are too pale to be plum blossoms. They were pretty, however. The manhole cover had the Shimadzu family crest on it.

Of course, it bears notice that there are Eastern-style and Western-style toilets to choose from. In some of the higher-tech stops, the seats are warmed and water jets will clean you if you push the right buttons. I’ve even heard that music plays in some of them, but I did not experience any of those… yet.

Day 40 of 111. Osaka, Japan

At dinner, we decided to leave the ship one more time and ride the giant Ferris wheel. Our table mate, Bernice, really wanted to go, so we ended up going along with the idea. It turned out to be a smooth and pleasurable ride and we got a good view of the ship from above.

We walked around the marketplace one more time before returning to the ship. Besides restaurants and souvenir shops, there was a petting zoo sort of place. They had dogs and cats and rabbits, hamsters and a large pig. I was told there were also small kangaroos and a llama! Ron thinks that maybe people who cannot have pets in their homes might be able to come and visit/pet animals at this station. It was certainly fun to watch through the little viewing windows. The animals seem very happy and healthy. I’m not sure whether it was just trying to be cute or if it was a real shrine, but there was a very cute shrine with cats in it near the restaurants.