First impression of Tokyo – unlike Shanghai, it is very noisy (no electric vehicles to speak of) and quite old fashioned. This is the famous Shibuya Crossing, busiest intersection in the world.There are lots more actual crossings, just can’t get them all in the picture! You would need to get above to see it properly, try Google! https://vimeo.com/349499724

Every time the lights change, 2500 people cross. More video here.

Our first week in Tokyo, there was very little cherry blossom. These people are getting excited about the tiny amount here, in the Imperial Palace Gardens. Note the yellow grass! I think they cut it too short.

Edo Castle, Edo being the old name for Tokyo. The castle was rebuilt many times, after being destroyed, but on this last occasion, the emperor was persuaded that the city was now peaceful, and there was no need to finish it, so this base is all that was ever built. Gatehouse of the Imperial Palace. There are quite a few! All look the same. The buildings are not very glamorous, no fancy glass skyscrapers, possibly the earthquake risk? It’s the most earthquake prone city in the world. One of many parks. The main attractions in the city are parks and temples, and the Imperial Palace.

No ugly plastic wheelie bins here! Look at the shapes of the ties on top, similar to the prayers below.

These are at all the shrines, they are wishes I think. Anyone can put one there, you just have to pay! These photos haven’t all been processed, if you are wondering why the corner is missing. These are sake barrels, donated to a temple by the brewers.

Another park, and the Japanese indulging in hanami, having a picnic under the cherry blossom, or sakura, sitting on a tarpaulin, even though there is hardly any there. You would be amazed how popular this is!

It’s interesting to see what they wear at Shinto weddings, when you think of the Japanese weddings we used to get in Christchurch. At least, we thought they were Japanese – maybe not? Look how plainly dressed the two older women are, presumably the mothers? You see lots of girls dressed up in Kimonos, walking around the attractions. You can hire a Kimono and wander around yourself, take photos.

That was the end of our first week, and time to join our ship, the Diamond Princess, for our Japan cruise. I have to say, we didn’t like the ship as much as we liked the Marella Discovery. For future cruises, I would look out for Marella, but would avoid Princess lines. This was a surprise, as I expected the American ship to be super organised and glamorous, and the British ship to be maybe not quite so glam, but I was wrong. Our first port was Gamagori. Again, the ports were pretty ordinary, whereas in the Baltic we visited some spectacular cities. We decided that we would just have to enjoy it in a different way, which turned out to be seeing “ordinary” Japan. Gamagori had a Cherry Blossom Festival happening, but when we got there, the blossom wasn’t out yet. The whole town had turned out to greet us, they were really lovely, and told us that in order to boost the town, their mayor had extended the pier so that big ships could come in, and we were the first. They were most apologetic that the sakura weren’t in flower! Everywhere we went, we were marshalled by the townspeople, all in hi vis vests. These two lovely ladies told us about their visit to London. The one on the right is wearing a pink jumper she bought in Liberty! You can just see it.

These shrines are pretty much the equivalent of our parish churches.

Our second port was for Osaka, we went from the ship to the city on the train. Very good transport system in Japan, clean and on time, and cheap. These buildings were on the walk up to the station. I think these are kumquats. Osaka Castle. We were really excited to see a Japanese castle! This isn’t the original, it was rebuilt in the 1930’s in reinforced concrete. Inside is a museum, and it’s just like a modern building. There is a lift, but with a very long queue, so we went up the stairs. Many many steps!

That pale grass again!

Sun came out, so took a better one.

Another wedding, this time western style. Their dog was desperate to get to them, but see the lake just behind, you can imagine what would happen. He was wearing a bow tie. The castle is in the background of their shot. Thus

Yes, starting to see some blossom.

The boys and the men are just as much into the sakura viewing, as the women. Osaka Castle wall, and the modern city. And back at the docks, a Lego giraffe! You can just see the ship behind. Our next port was Kochi. Kochi also has a castle, and it’s the original. I really wanted to see inside it!

However, when we arrived, we would have had to take our shoes off, and I wasn’t wearing socks, and I wasn’t going to walk around barefoot, so we didn’t go in. We had a good look at the grounds instead. Apparently the Japanese can appreciate the shape of the tree, all propped up like this, without noticing the supports. I can’t!

We saw a lot of Japanese gardens, and there are a lot of gardeners. However, the Japanese themselves don’t seem to be home gardeners. Not that they have very much land to garden! Houses are very crowded together. Kochi, the town. As you can see, very ordinary. These knives were outside a shop, just on the street, and they weren’t fastened down. In the UK, they would be stolen, and probably used in all the knife crime that exists here. Japan seems to have very well behaved citizens. The mall in Kochi town. Used to see a lot of Japanese schoolgirls in Sydney, dressed like this, on school trips. Next, we sailed to Busan, second city of South Korea. One sea day to get there, one sea day to get back. I would rather have had an extra day at the Osaka port, and had a day in Kyoto, which is very close. Sea days are a waste of time IMO. Somewhere close for the extra day, then we wouldn’t have had the problem with immigration. We did do a couple of wine tasting events, had some very expensive wines, but I’m not a connoisseur of wine, I don’t find the expensive ones a lot different from the cheap ones, so that’s OK! We took the ship’s tour here. We covered a lot of ground. We spent a lot of time on the coach. It would have been better to go less far, and spend more time at each place.

Yes, another shrine!

Wishes attached to paper lanterns. To be fair, it was a nice shrine, and very big. It was freezing cold, and I didn’t have enough clothes on! We saw more cherry blossom in South Korea, than we had seen so far in Japan, but our tour guide was blase, she didn’t want to hang around. Duck pots in a museum.

There is a mound that you could go in, which was very interesting, but too dark to take photos. There was a massive all you can eat lunch, in a big venue at a hotel, felt like an aircraft hangar, and they didn’t close the big doors, so very cold. Food nothing special, just like takeaway.

Leaving Busan.

Because we went to a different country, we had to go through customs in both directions. Arriving in SK was OK, but getting back was not. Our final port was Yokkaichi, but the organisation was poor. We were supposed to get off the ship at 8:15. but in the end, they were so disorganised, that we didn’t get through customs until mid day, by which time it was too late to go into town, with All Aboard at 3pm. Not impressed!  The excuse was that they had far more than usual foreigners on the cruise, and even though they had 15 Japanese customs officials, it wasn’t enough to get us off quickly. Not really good enough, our whole last day was wasted, and it’s not as if they didn’t know who was aboard. Just for contrast, the only time we had to go through customs on our previous cruise was at St Petersburg, and that went like clockwork. So the Russians are more efficient than the Japanese? The dining room on the ship was very good. Somehow, we had booked ourselves into the formal dining, we could have gone to the buffet, but we didn’t want to let the waiters down. They were brilliant, so good at their jobs, one Thai, one Indian. If everyone goes to the buffet, I suppose they won’t have jobs, but honestly, we prefer it. The food was lovely. Tried lots of different wines, finally settled on a Chablis, discovered at the wine event on the sea day. They had two formal nights, which we didn’t go to. Just went early to the buffet. No way was Colin going to drag jacket, tie, shirt and trousers all around Japan, just to sit and eat his dinner. We have enough gear to carry! Next time, I am really going to try and take just a cabin bag, I am getting too old to bother with the big bags. Back in Tokyo, the weather was beautiful, and the cherry blossom in full bloom. You can see Mt Fuji in the middle of the shot. We had booked a coach tour to Mt Fuji, really looking forward to it! But first:- Tokyo doesn’t have a skyline as such.

But it does have beautifully pruned trees! These people are all on their way to the Imperial Palace Gardens, to view the sakura. It’s only open for a few days every spring. It was very crowded, most photos just lots of heads with some blossom at the top! Although the visible pollution is much greater in Shanghai, masks are much more common in Tokyo. This is the Ginza, Tokyo’s most famous and most luxurious shopping area, with designer shops everywhere.

Oh look what I was doing on my birthday! Didn’t buy anything. In these two photos above you can see the difference between processed and unprocessed, but since we have another 800 Japan photos to process, decided to do the blog before I forget everything! And what is in the shops in Tokyo? What about the man’s trousers? Anybody game? I like all the shoes. These two are Australian. I think. Japan isn’t that far for them, especially from Brisbane.

I couldn’t resist snapping this outfit. That top seems to be a sleeve at one side, a cape at the other. Those long pleated skirts are everywhere, they suit the Japanese shape. A lot of walking on this day, this is the Imperial Moat. We were looking out for boats, it’s a thing to take a boat out on the moat at sakura time.

We had to come back on another day. As you may know, we tend to eat at McDonalds in Asia, not being lovers of Asian food. See all the individual tables, it’s very silent, everyone looking at their phone and munching away. We used the metro a lot, and found that no one ever stood up for us. This applied to their own old people too, not just foreigners. Unlike in America, where we always got a seat. Luckily we are fit enough to stand. Also noticed how uniformly everyone dresses. The girls all wear black, with a camel trench coat over, and black heels.

Another famous district, Electric City, famous for computer bits. Those machines are selling little plastic toys, superheroes and things.

Next our day out to Mount Fuji. This was the view from our half way stop. We were going to stop at the second level, but the driver heard the car parks were full, so we carried on to, I think, the fourth level. This is what we saw:- I guess it’s common for the mountain to be invisible, that’s why they’ve got the picture up. Lots of people just had their photo taken in front of that! Our tour guide was interesting, a Japanese woman of about 50. Very nice, she was telling us that in the past, Japanese women walked behind their husbands to show respect. I don’t why that shows respect, but there you are. Nowadays, the young women all walk in front of the men, to show they are equal. (But did you hear that recently Japanese women requested that they shouldn’t be forced to wear heels for work, and the government refused?) What I found interesting about our tour guide was her manner. She had a lot of knowledge to impart, but she spoke in a very apologetic way. After every chunk of information, she said, “yes!” and nodded, as though it was surprising that she should know that, and needed to convince us, and lots of giggles, that it was amazing that she should actually know more than we did. After Mount Fuji, we had lunch. It was called Hotpot. Chop sticks of course. It’s my belief that this is why the Japanese are so slim, it’s hard to get the food in your mouth, and when you do it’s practically tasteless, and hardly worth the effort. Next was a cable car ride to this thermal area, nowhere near as impressive as NZ thermal areas. NZ has the best thermal areas in the world, IMO. But then, we haven’t been to Yellowstone. Then a lake cruise in one of these pirate ships. Then Bullet Train back to Tokyo! This photo is unsharp, sorry. It’s very orderly on the platform, you have to stand in specific places, where the train doors arrive. All the time you are standing there, they are announcing, don’t stand near the edge. Then, a train came through without stopping. My God! I felt my jaw drop! Everyone from our tour was just gaping as it sped through. Anyway, we got on our one, it was quite ordinary really, it’s so smooth, you don’t notice anything. Colin clocked it at 200kph on his GPS. They are currently building a new line, and expect the new trains to travel at 500kph. Crikey!

Pale grass again! I can’t tell you what a great day we had in this park. Cherry blossom at it’s peak, perfect weather. It was lovely. We had an ice cream, it was a slab of ice cream sandwiched with red bean paste, coated in chocolate. It was delicious. I love the sweetened red bean paste, they use it in a lot of sweet things.

The tall building is mainly a cellphone tower.

Americans in Japanese traditional dress. Japanese ladies in kimonos do NOT stride! Nice when people dress to match the surroundings! More parks:- This was my favourite park, just a small one in the city that we came upon when out walking, but lovely.

He thought I was going to feed him. I can say that actual Japanese gardens, in Japan, are much nicer than the ones you see elsewhere, mainly because they are so well looked after. They are immaculate. And the people are tidy. You don’t have to wait for messy looking individuals to get out of the way! Something they share with Shanghai. Looking at these photos makes me wish I was there, but of course the sakura is gone for this year. We were lucky that we made the mistake in the booking and had to take the third week, because it was the best week, for weather and for blossom.