Wulff's Blog: April 2012

2012 PACIFIC CRUISE PART 1 JAPAN

(THIS IS ONLY 1 of 5 ENTRIES FOR THE CRUISE)

Holland America 22 day Japan, Korea and Alaska Cruise

Departure Sunday, April 15, 2012 Ship Ms Zaandam

The musically themed ms Zaandam offered a unique shipboard atmosphere. Inspired by the world's great music, artifacts and memorabilia from a variety of musical genres decorate the ship. At the heart of the ms Zaandam, in a soaring three-story atrium: a Baroque-style Dutch pipe organ.

April 13th, Friday

My wife Annette and I attended a performance of Phantom of the Opera at the U of Minnesota, Mankato on Friday, April 13th. After the show, we drove to Minneapolis so we could stay overnight at the Microtel ($50 for double, complimentary breakfast and airport shuttle). On the morning of April 14th I left for the airport on the hotel shuttle. Annette returned to New Ulm.

Minneapolis/St Paul, MN (MSP) depart 9:25 am seat 23C
Seattle/Tacoma, WA (SEA) 1 hour 3 min layover
Seattle/Tacoma, WA (SEA) seat 28C to Osaka, Japan (KIX) 28C

The captain visited passengers in the cabin before the flight. I assumed he was giving assurance of safe travel.

The flight pattern was similar to that of our cruise, only in reverse.

Young ladies sitting behind me were on a group tour of Japan.

Sun Apr 15 Kobe

In Osaka we were met at the gate by a waiting crew from Holland America. A shuttle bus took us from the airport to the port. The 90 minute trip took us through highly developed commercial areas.

Luggage was delivered by porters to our rooms.

After eating a hearty meal on the Lido deck I headed down to the Mondriaan Lounge and played a little Bingo with a free card.

I was waiting for the Welcome Show with the Zaandam Singers and Dancers. All of my photo shots on the entire trip were taken without flash and I made no use of mini video.

Then at 9:30 pm, an official welcome was given to our
cruise director by a dignitary from Kobe. This was accompanied by gifts of flowers and a bottle of sake.

Following the ceremony the Port of Kobe treated us to the vibrant Drums of Kobe.

I capped off the evening with a cup of coffee in the Lido Restaurant. All the tables were graced with real flowers

Monday, April 16, Kobe

Sunrise

Early in the morning I also took a shot of Meriken Park. This is a nice waterfront park in Kobe's port area. Built on an outcropping of reclaimed land, the park is covered in grassy lawn and open courtyards dotted with a collection of modern art installations and fountains. It is home to some of the city's more iconic contemporary architecture such as the red Kobe Port Tower and the Kobe Maritime Museum.

The Kobe Maritime Museum (above) stands at the center of the park in a building topped by a dramatic, white steel framework meant to evoke the image of sails. Half of the building is devoted to shipping. The first floor explains how Kobe Port functions and exhibits models of modern ships. The second floor introduces the history of the port, and how it has been an important connection between Japan and the outside world.

After breakfast (9 am) I took a Holland America sponsored tour which began with a bus trip and cheerful guides.

Our first destination was the Sake Museum of Kobe. A beautiful blossoming tree welcomed us by the museum entrance. The Nada district of Kobe is known as the mecca of sake brewing.

This particular museum was called The Kiku-Masamune.

A short movie explained the time-honored process of making sake. After which we toured devices used in the brewing process.

Naturally, we tasted the finished product. Both white sake and plum (yellow) sake were sampled. Of course, there was a showroom for sales.

Sake is also referred to in English as a form of rice wine. However, unlike true wine, in which alcohol is produced by fermenting the sugar naturally present in fruit, sake is made through a brewing process more like that of beer, thus it is more like a rice beer than a rice wine. To make beer or sake, the sugar needed to produce alcohol must first be converted from starch. However, the brewing process for sake differs from beer brewing as well, notably in that for beer, the conversion of starch to sugar and sugar to alcohol occurs in two discrete steps, but with sake they occur simultaneously. Additionally, alcohol content also differs between sake, wine, and beer. Wine generally contains 9–16% alcohol and most beer is 3–9%, whereas undiluted sake is 18–20% alcohol, although this is often lowered to around 15% by diluting the sake with water prior to bottling.

Back outside our guide was waiting among the blossoms.

Part two of our tour took us up 3,000 feet to Mt. Rokko, the highest peak in the mountain range that spreads 19 miles.

The view was clouded somewhat, but we could make out the city and waterway below.

A modern observatory was nearby.

Then from the top of the mountain, we took a cable car down. The cable has operated since 1932.

We re-boarded the bus and headed back to the ship. We saw more blossoms along the way.

My satisfying dinner that night included tasty duck breast.

After dinner and enroute to Show Time, I often stopped along the way to listen to a string quartet called Adagio Strings.

Show Time featured an award-winning concert pianist Tomono Kawamura.

Back in Room 1851 Fred toyed with his Canon camera.

Tue Apr 17 At Sea

For Fred breakfast always began with fresh fruit in the Lido Restaurant.

The Pacific was not always pacific with a breezy wind.

At 9 am Cruise Director Michael interviewed Travel Guide Wallis.

At lunch in the main dinning room, I started off healthy with fancy veggies.

Ending with Swiss steak:

Dinner was formal tonight and I ordered quail followed with pecan pie and ice cream.

Later, at 7:45 pm Captain Jan Smit welcomed us aboard.

His presentation was followed by "Love, Broadway" production in the Mondriaan Lounge.

Wed Apr 18 Kagoshima, Japan 8:00am 5:00pm

The morning sunrise greeted me as I ate my standard breakfast starters of fruit in the Lido Restaurant.

As we approached Kagoshima, I watched a sleepy boat drifting in the harbor. It was a very long ways off in the distance and difficult to zoom in on for this picture.

A port guide tug approached to lead our ship into port.

The tug pulled along side the Zaandam.

I then went up to the Crow's Nest on the 9th floor to capture the view from there.

A couple of greeters along the shoreline waved at us.

Once ashore we located our designated tour guides and loaded into buses.

The bus ride took us through some nice neighborhoods laden with flowers. Later the scenery became more rural and the landscape more rugged (below).

Kagoshima is home to one of Japan's most active volcanoes. Kagoshima is Kyushu's southernmost major city. The city is often compared with its Italian sister city Naples due to a similarly mild climate, palm tree lined streets, and Sakurajima, Kagoshima's Vesuvius. Mt. Sakurajima. Kagoshima was a significant center of Christian activity in Japan prior to the imposition of bans against that religion in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Our tour concentrated first of all on Samurai residences. Kagoshima is home to the sublime classical garden, Sengan-en, constructed in 1658 for Lord Shimadzu.

Chiran, 19 miles south of Kagoshima City, is sometimes called "Little Kyoto" for all the Samurai residences that have been preserved there.

Several houses have been preserved along with several beautiful gardens, all approximately 250 years old. The gates to the residences, moss-covered stone walls, hedges and black tile roofs help recapture the flavor of the Edo Period.

Several of the residences are still used by the samurais’ descendants.

On the way back to the bus, a few passengers lingered to watch carp swimming in a water channel along the sidewalk.

Next we toured the Chiran Peace Museum that was not far from the Chiran Samurai Houses. This museum explores the background of Japan’s kamikaze pilots. They trained nearby before embarking on suicide missions against Allied sea vessels. Among the tourist were these Japanese soldiers at right.

The museum presents information about kamikaze missions from a Japanese perspective. Kamikaze pilots were (and still are) considered heroes. While the portrayal of the their story may be at odds with American sentiment, it was nonetheless an interesting visit and, in the end, hope for enduring peace is the overriding message.

Japan’s kamikaze pilots trained nearby before embarking on suicide missions against Allied sea vessels. The museum included photos and final letters of the young pilots, many of whom were teenagers, and it made a plea for World Peace.

Statue of a kamikaze pilot below:

Sleeping quarters for pilots used before their last mission.

Downed Japanese warplane retrieved after the war was on exhibit in the museum.

Near the entrance of the museum was this tree trimmed to resemble an airplane.

The highway back to the ship was the same one we took to reach our destination. This gave me an opportunity to see the scenery on the other side of the road. This photo of course was taken through the bus window.