Of course we went to Disney. What would you expect?

On Saturday we stopped at the information booth in the terminal at the port and asked an information lady how to get to Disney. She gave us great information. Then early Sunday we got off the ship and went to the taxi stand. There she was! This was the same lady that gave us the information while wearing her red information desk jacket. On Sunday as she ran over to see us, she took off her jacket to show us what she was wearing just for us. Yes, Daisy Duck. And a huge smile. She then ran over to the taxi driver and told him in Japanese where we wanted to go. It was smooth as silk for us. And fun.

This is the entrance. Notice the crowds! This is still Golden Week in Japan. Because it was also the coronation of the new Emperor, Golden Week was extended to 10 days. Almost everyone was off work for 10 days. And the day we went to Disney was designated as Children’s Day in the country. Much like Mother’s Day in the states except for kids. So of course everyone went to Disney. Of well.

Main Street in Tokyo Disneyland is a complete covered area. They don’t have quite as good weather year round as Florida. So this is the first real look at the castle. And it was worth the trip.

Of course Disney has great landscaping and topiaries. Love the dragon.

This season was Spring something or other. So the celebrations included eggs. Lots of eggs. Kids had eggs decorated at animals with legs and feet. Some had ears like a bunny. Others like Mickey. And the flower beds has lots of eggs.

We did ride rides. Yes, Lisa, we rode that one too.

It’s a Small World. We also rode Jungle Cruise, Philharmagic, and a few others. Then we went shopping. That was somewhat disappointing. Especially as compared to Disney Hong Kong. But I have two shirts and Kathy has a funky shirt. She can spread her wings and almost fly. Well, maybe that is an exaggeration.

We shared a Mickey Mouse hamburger for lunch and later in the afternoon we each had a box of popcorn. We had fun and were tired. So I didn’t get to work on a blog.

Our excursion today was intended to be a 2 hour bus ride through the city. Originally it would have stopped at the Imperial Palace. But with the new Emperor and the country wide 10 day holiday, that wasn’t possible. But we drove by the palace. Sort of. Our two hour drive took 3hours. And the police made us turn around after being stuck at a standstill for 20 minutes.

But the good part of the drive. These buildings under construction are part of the dormitories For the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. And we can see them from our ship. We are right next to the Olympic village.

We saw several of the sports venues under construction. This one is the volleyball venue. It will be fun to watch the Olympics and see the buildings completed. I feel certain that many cruise lines have booked dock space to just stay and have basically a floating hotel for perhaps a week or so.

We did drive by one of the Temple areas. I was glad we didn’t try to stop. Do you see the crowds. If someone got lost we could have been there for hours trying to find them.

We will fight huge crowds until Tuesday when the holiday ends. But by then we have left Tokyo and only have one more stop in Japan. Oh well. It is fun.

We decided to take a day off from the bus rides and QuietVoxes (headphones we wear to listen to the guide babble on about some building or monument). So we walked to the Ferris wheel and rode it. that gave us a view of the city.

This was the car on the wheel.

It was an interesting view from the top. That is our ship. It wasn’t very far from the wheel.

We did see Mount Fuji from the city. The sky was blue but lots of smog and or fog. I could have provided a beautiful blue sky photo from the web.

There is a large pine forest near the beach. To me the best part of the forest was the way the trees grow. Some were more or less straight. But even more were like the one in the center of the photo. And the branches are all over the place. It was fun.

When we returned to the dock there was a market. One of the shops sold kimonos and Samurai outfits. But they let people try them on for a few minutes. These are two of our favorite (we have many favorites by now) servers, Nelson and Rosalie.

The evening before while sailing to Shimizu we had a surprise dessert for dinner. Jan, the passenger lady in the photo, had a cake and a bottle of champagne delivered to her stateroom with a note wishing her a Happy Birthday. The best part of that is that her birthday is November 18th not May 2. How did that mistake happen? In Hong Kong the Guest Services had to type out Landing Cards for every guest. They had our Passports with all of the information. But somehow they made a mistake on her records on the landing card and therefore in their computer database records. So she got the cake. We enjoyed it with her. Notice the server!

It was raining. We were tired of buses. And especially tired of the devices Viking calls QuietVoxes. They are meant to make it so a guide can talk while walking around some famous place and everyone can hear them. Everyone can hear the static. Sometimes the guide. And having something in my ear is not normal for me. So we didn’t do our excursion today. Instead we rode the Ferris wheel which was located perhaps a hundred yards from the ship. At night it was lit with many changing colors.

Next in line to get into our car. Just the two of us!

From high up on the wheel I took this photo of the aquarium located right next door. When we bought our Ferris wheel tickets we bought a combination ticket for the Aquarium and the wheel. Great fun and not much walking in the rain.

The aquarium was good fun except for one thing. There were more people walking in the aquarium than there were fish. It was wall to wall people. And by the time we finally got through it (about 2 hours) the line to buy tickets was over 2 hours long we were told.

At dinner Gilbert (a chef) asked if I wanted lamb. Of course. So even though it wasn’t on the menu he grilled 3 lamb chops perfectly and then I had some fresh mushroom pasta to go with it. Lamb! Yum!

This was a very special excursion that I really wanted. Have you been to Disneyworld and seen the Japanese Pavilion with the reddish shrine in the lake? Well, Disney doesn’t build anything by chance. There is a reason. Here goes!

This should look familiar. There is a duplicate At Epcot except the color is perhaps slightly different. But this shrine is just a small part of a Buddhist Temple area. Most of the island is a temple which is really now a tourist destination. Again the lines were huge because it is Golden Week in Japan. Typically Golden Week is annual and most businesses are closed for the week. This year with the Emperor abdicating and his son becoming the new Emperor, japan extended this to 10 days with everyone off work.

This is part of the Temple area. Again notice the crowds. But we could walk through, slowly.

Up close it looked really interesting.

But the island has become home for wild and protected deer. They are everywhere.

Even the cafes in the tourist area includes the deer. It was fun wondering the shops and the temple. One typical item used in Japan is a wooden rice paddle. So they are found in every tourist souvenir shop with pictures and Japanese letters. We wanted one and found a reasonable sized one with the shrine on it. I found a really nice one with the shrine carved into really good quality wood. Of course it was 6 foot tall. Not too practicle to bring home.

Being a tourist area they also sell lots of street food. Like ice cream. Notice all of the colors. What interested Kathy the most was the rally large cone with white ice cram and brown specs. Kathy was wondering with all of the deer roaming around in the crowd, what those brown specs were. There were lots of brown specs on the sidewalks. We avoided walking on them.

When we got back to the ship we were greeted by many of the staff waiting in a line by the gangway. This lady is Beth. She is one of the Viking Vocalists. We have been to a bunch of their performances and all 4 of them know us very well by name. She is from London and we have shared stories about the West End Theater in London. I got a big hug also but no photo.

We took another included excursion in Hiroshima. Of course the most important tourist area is the Memorial Peace Park. We toured the park but there was no chance to go into the museum. The line for tickets was at least 2 hours long. The building in this photo is the A-Bomb Dome. It was damaged when the bomb dropped. But it was decided to leave it in the damaged condition as a reminder. There was also a memorial which included the names of all those killed. But besides the building notice the line of people waiting just to buy tickets to the museum. And it was raining.

So after we saw what we wanted we walked on our own to the shopping Arcade. It was huge and covered. So we shopped. There was a fabric store. So we found 2 more meters of interesting fabric. Dragons anyone? We also bought several packages of candy. We just don’t typically buy candy but this was most interesting.

In the evening Viking once again had a local dance troupe provide entertainment. The dance was called Kagura. We have had local dance from most of the Southeast Asian countries. Some have been in the evening at the theater and others on shore as we were departing. Fun!

Often we are greeted at the dock with signs welcoming our ship. At Busan it was a bit different. This was a large mosaic piece of art work welcoming us.

Our most significant stop on our excursion was at the Busan Tower. Unfortunately the weather was so overcast that a white building against a white sky didn’t look good. So I took a beautiful photo from the web. The statue just behind the flower clock was the most famous Korean General in there wars against Japan. The stories sounded much like the history of France and England. Many wars over many generations. Then there is a Buddhist temple just at the right of the photo. And the tower. The tower is just a vantage point about 120 meters high with views at the top to look down over the city. It has no other purpose than to encourage tourism. But it does pretty well at that.

There is also a great looking dragon statue at the base of the tower.

So while we walked around we found three of the Viking servers that know us well. The young lady on the left is Xiamin, the next is our good friend Mengfei, then one I don’t remember her name. The funny part was when Xiamin ran up to me to get a hug. She ran so fast at me that I almost fell over backwards. It was hilarious.

Today was one of the best days of the trip. One of many I must say. But we walked a lot. we saw a very special site. And we laughed until we almost cried. Lets start at eh beginning.

We started the day with an excursion to the Peace Park. This was the area of the second atomic bomb dropped in Japan eventually ending WWII. This is the Japanese sculpture in the park representing their desire to end war and especially nuclear weapons. Everything about eh sculpture has symbolism. I just don’t remember all of it. But the entire park makes a statement.

14 countries have sent sculptures mostly with statements of peace. It is moving. It also is very quiet. We just walked around with little noise and lots of thoughts.

Our last stop we sat on a bench looking at he Peace fountain. We both sat in silence for severl minutes. I think we were tired …… and more!

We ate lunch back on the ship and decided to walk and do some shopping. Dragons are very much a symbol all over. I liked this one as we walked towards the shopping arcade.

Our neice, Alyssa, said she would like a kimono. So we asked in the terminal information for a good place to find kimonos. It would be in the Arcade at central city. She gave us a map and put dots at her favorite places. The arcade was a little more than a mile from our ship. And it was huge. And totally enclosed. This photo is only one of the areas. Notice the little KFC sign at the bottom right. I could have taken the McDonalds and Starbucks.

So of the stores she told us about one was only new kimonos and the other had new and used. That was our first choice. And we found it first. I won’t go into too many details but kimonos can be very expensive. We found a beautiful used kimono that was mostly green, her choice of color. So we bought it. It cost only US$45. Then we looked at new kimonos. The cheapest was something like US$400. We also saw one nice one at about US$1,500. Do you want to see the picture? It is still in the store. But I took a picture.

Okay what made this day soo great? First of all we walked almost 20,000 steps. It was sunny and cool. We have had so many hot humid and smoggy days that this was really refreshing. But ……

Kathy brought the bag with the entire kimono to dinner at the café. Several wanted to see it. So… Kathy started to put it on. Well she had no clue how. Very soon a Japanese passenger ran over and said to her “you don’t know how. Do you?” No. I will help you. And she did. Many of our friends in the crew came over to see. So did some of the other ladies sitting at nearby tables. I took many photos but will only show this one. That was the lady helping. There was one couple sitting at the table just near us who commented. The man said they took this table to have a nice quiet dinner. It was anything but quiet. And doesn’t she look good in that? Except for the shoes. Our dinner took well over 3 hours. And our sides hurt.

One more comment. I expected that Japan would be very organized. Perhaps they would have better systems than we have in the States. Well. I have been in the power industry for years and there are no places anywhere in the States that have power and communications lines that are like this. So far we have seen this everywhere in Southeast Asia. I don’t know what they do when they have a power failure or a storm that knocks out the power. I could never fix this mess.

Although the internet has been very poor in the stateroom recently I have to admit that we have been kept busy. I have not spent the time necessary to find better internet somewhere else on the ship. There are public places that work well.

Our first stop on our excursion was to a lookout high in the hills to overlook the volcano across the bay. Well, that didn’t work at all. The weather was terrible so we saw basically nothing. Much later in the day the weather started to clear and I took this photo form our veranda on the ship. It isn’t perfect. But I didn’t need to waste a few hours driving through a crowded city. Oh well.

Our next stop on the excursion was at a museum. That was sort of okay. Except there was not a single sign in English. We could look at the displays but had no idea what they were. The art work was really good on many. And being a museum no photos were allowed. Sorry! So when we got back to the harbor I took some photos of the flowers. I really have no idea what these are. But they were everywhere and very pretty. I thought they were a version of poppies. But others said no. What are they?

And just as we were ready to sail away some dignitary came out and made a farewell speech saying we were the first Viking ship to ever come to Kagoshima and they hope many more will follow. Then a troupe entertained us with their dance. The sister city to Kagoshima is Honolulu. So the dance sounded very Hawaiian.

Then we went to dinner at the World Café buffet and spent another 3 hours like normal.

Another new country and a simple excursion. Except it was 96 degrees and very high humidity. You would think I would get used to that, but I don’t.

Our first stop in the city was at a building named Taipei 101. It has 101 stories and was the World’s tallest building when it was completed in 2004. It was actually designed to have 111 stories but they either ran out of money or time. Soon it wasn’t any longer the tallest. But it interesting architecture.

Of course there is a large shopping mall on the lower floors but only for really exclusive shops like Yves Saint Laurent. We bought nothing.

I did find it interesting how many rental bikes there are. There are also as many motor bikes. The streets are very crowded. But they do seem to follow traffic laws unlike Vietnam.

Then we stopped at the national Liberty Square which ahs the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, the National Theater and National Concert Hall. Every hour they change the guard at the Memorial so we watched it.

This is from the steps as we were leaving the memorial. The concert hall and theater are on each side (I don’t remember which is which). But the gardens were perfectly manicured. We almost had a blue sky. The first one in many days.

Our last stop on this excursion was at the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine. Another set of beautiful traditional Oriental architecture and another changing of the guard.

During our excursion the guide didn’t give very good directions so we almost lost 3 people. So she had to run around the memorial and find missing people. She got really hot while we sat on the air conditioned bus.

It is a very clean city so we did enjoy it.