This volcanic island is 5.5 km long by 4.0 km wide, elevation is 704 mtrs (2309 ft). The crater is about 400 mtrs across.
The volcano discharges about 1300 tons a day of sulphur dioxide, and over a year it is 474,500 tons, and global warming is supposed to be our fault.
From Hong Kong to Osaka we passed close to this island, which is about 50 km from the mainland of Japan – Kagoshima Province.
The island has a ferry service from the mainland, which runs twice a week and takes about three hours. The island doesn’t have an airport.
Population in 2006 was 121, I couldn’t find any updates – but allowing for inflation, when everything doubles in ten years, I’d say the population today is around 250.
As you see it was a beautiful day.
The small white boat can be seen on the full picture – had to shrink so as to post.
We passed the island and fortunately it didn’t erupt. The volcano is considered to be ‘restless’, which was noticed by satellites in 2013, when white plumes rose from the crater to about 400 mtrs above the island.
A farewell picture – it was lunchtime.
This island is named Satsuma Iwo Jima, and is part of the Satsunan Shotō group of islands.
These islands don’t have anything to do with the Iwo Jima island of WW2 fame, which is 1000 km directly south of Tokyo, and is part of the Ogasawara Islands Group.
There is another Iōjima, which is near Nagasaki.
The above blog is due to friends in the UK who commented that I’d missed off passing the volcanic island, when I blogged of the Diamond Princess’ passage from Hong Kong to Osaka – they were also on the Diamond Princess at the time – I can’t get away with anything :- o)
Autumn Equinox northern Hemisphere
Spring equinox in Sydney – same date 21st September.
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which would require a transit stop in Dubai. We flew with Emirates last year and it worked out well, but this year the ticket cost is much more expensive, plus the night flight syndrome.
The last time we flew with Finnair was out of Bangkok to Venice via Helsinki. The flight and cabin service were very good, so if the price was right we wouldn’t have any complaints.
The last night of the cruise – don’t know how many balloons they go through in a year, because there is a big ‘bash’ at the end of every cruise.
Morning arrival in Yokohama – later we would cross the bridge shown in the picture.
We crossed the bridge after which we encountered traffic.
There were plenty of very quiet planes.
We were at gate 93, and passed four lounges (for the same airline – JAL) before getting anywhere near Gate 93 and the lounge allocated for this area. The exercise was good for both of us . . .
Because of our early start we hadn’t had breakfast, so the spread was very welcoming. The blackboard is advertising some sort of food along with Mount Fuji, but self serve was better.
The lounge was very nice and quiet and had good internet reception.
Follow the leader for take-off to Kuala Lumpur, we were flying with Malaysian Airlines.
Airborne
Very apologetic cabin member (can’t say stewardess anymore), said that they had run out of the meat, but I could have the poached haddock.
Typical Premier Room, which gives you access to the Executive Lounge.
The advantage is that it includes food and drinks from 6 to 8 pm. By the time you’ve picked through the offering you don’t need an evening meal.
Over eating might be a problem
It has all been refurbished
Hot food to order – just ask for the type of omelette you want and the chef makes it . .
Various types of food for breakfast from western to Asian; hot or cold.
Brunch on the plane.
I should have had more faith – Nasi Lemak, one of my favourite Malay dishes.
Getting close to home – the wide open spaces of Australia.
Strapped in the seat for landing and held the camera onehanded across Maureen – must do better next time – give the camera to Maureen, I can be an idiot when I try.
I asked this lady’s permission to take her photograph. It was during a ‘formal’ evening on the Diamond Princess when a number of Japanese ladies dressed in the national dress of Japan.
Wind farms as we entered Akita harbour area, I suppose to supply the dock area with power.
The local people seemed pleased to see us – I was quite surprised as we normally see more people farewelling than greeting us.
The inevitable manga showed up. He gets around.
While we waited on the train we were entertained by a display of Japanese kanto lantern skills. Akita is well known for its rice, from which they make award winning Sake, and over the years this has grown in to a celebration of rice.
The kanto (or pole lantern) comes in different sizes with the largest measuring 12 meters, and weighing 50 kilograms (about 100 lbs) and carrying as many as 46 paper lanterns, which are lit by real candles at night. To the sound of drums & flutes onlookers chant “dokkoisho, dokkoisho”, (a loose translation is ‘heavy ho, heave ho’), when each kanto is hoisted up by a single performer who balances the kanto on end using various techniques. The performers change every few minutes and gradually add extensions to the pole until the kanto is at its maximum height.
One handed
When the wind blows . . . but he managed to save it.
If he’d been a ‘chinless wonder’, (a British thing), he couldn’t have managed this feat.
Picture of the night scene taken from the internet.
As we stepped on to the train we were greeted by Geishas – the more experienced Geisha is called geiko and the student or apprentice is called maiko – for those who are wondering, sex doesn’t come in to being a real geisha. They are entertainers, and the geisha is often skilled in classical music, dance, conversation etc and the word Geisha in English means ‘performing artist’.
Maureen and the welcome party, they joined us on the train to the city centre.
As the train pulled out of the station we were farewelled by a group of well dressed males. Not sure if they were from the town council, rail company or port authority.
On arrival in the main city station we were greeted by a couple of longhaired old friends on the platform.
Akita inu (Akita dog),
So of course you can buy a stuffed Akita dog at the railway station . . .
Once again, every where was spotless and graffiti free. I took the above from the escalator as we went down to street level.
Toru, our guide, steered us towards an area similar to a public square, where we saw smaller kanto close up.
Maureen was given the smallest one that we could find, and it was still heavier than it looked, and awkward to handle. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the photograph of Maureen balancing the kanto on her chin.
We walked up the hill to the old ‘castle’s’ front gate. We saw inside the castle guard house, and the surrounding area. Main gate shown below.
We walked up further from the gate to the Kubata Castle at the top.
I was on one of the centre aisle seats, and the head in front (black hair) is Toru our guide. At least the centre passengers were first off when we reached the ship.
A quiet town with a very unusual historical link.
Another temple – Kehi Jingu Shrine, or as the locals call it “Kei-san,” I took the above photo, but as usual you couldn’t get a clear shot for the tourists :- o)
This shot is from the Tsuruga Tourists Association site.
As we crossed the bridge to enter we came across a bride & groom.
Couldn’t get a clear shot of her because the lady in blue kept getting in the way, perhaps she was the bride’s mother making sure all was well with the dress. She did look lovely, and everyone wanted a photograph of her.
Part of the temple.
The prayer board was not far away.
It appears that as well as selling prayer boards and good luck charms, she also fixed radios & told jokes, because her customer was laughing his head off.
Once again after the faithful had purchased a fortune slip, and it wasn’t what they wanted, they would tie the slip to the line and walked away, leaving their bad luck behind.
These ladies seemed to be working for the temple on a tea stall, and they were quite happy to have their photograph taken with Maureen & I. Perhaps they were the Japanese version of Mother’s Union.
These ladies were trying to encourage us to visit their tea shop – if we’d have had more time perhaps we would have sampled their tea, but our time was limited, because we didn’t want to miss the coach.
Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum
Chiune Sugihara was a most unusual diplomat.
The trains never stopped, the lights dimmed to simulate night and the ships came alongside, with their navigation lights lit. The ships also sailed during ‘daylight’.
Note the ship at sea near what looks like a lighter coloured part of the sea – this is a viewing hole. From where I took the picture one could crawl underneath the ‘town’ and pop up to take photos of the town from the sea. The images on the top right hand side are, I think, reflections of a photograph of railway workers that was behind me when I took the picture. I didn’t know of this until I arrived home and transferred the images from the camera to the computer.
Even the buses and the general traffic moved around and stopped at lights.
at the same time we were shown a beach –
Nothing like an Aussie beach as the sand was very gritty.
As you can see it was not beach weather, even for an optimist like me in my shorts . . . the top for the day was 15 c (59F), not sitting out weather.
Of course we had to go round another market – not too bad, because they had plenty of samples, mainly fish and various seaweed etc.
This stall holder was shaving seaweed in to very thin strip from a large piece of seaweed. It was interesting to watch his skill at getting slices that you could nearly see through.
They had various restaurants & cafes. Some of the tour group had lunch others just made do with the samples.
I didn’t receive any free samples of crab at $81.50 for one crab . . .
Various types of fish mixed with herbs and . . . can’t remember, but it smelt ok.
The smaller towns do make an effort to turn out for a ‘sail away’ & wave goodbye,
and the band with the Manga figures as well.
Shigeru Mizuki is a Japanese Manga author who was born in 1922 and lived in Sakaminato.
Shigeru Mizuki
Father and son in 1942
The artist creates his own pictures and tells the story around the pictures – he changes the pictures as the story progresses. The above is NOT Shigeru Mizuki
He published other works which always focused on peace, and the characters that he created only came out during peace time.
He also produced a Manga biography of Adolf Hitler. I don’t think the Nazi party would have been pleased.
also buildings surrounding the train station had characters.
When our guide spoke of the characters I had the feeling that she considered them to be real – she was so passionate about them and the stories in which they took part. We were regaled with some of the stories and the background of the characters.
Even the street lighting in a small park that we passed had a ‘manga’ eyes.
The side of a toilet block was pressed in to service.
Just some of the characters along the ‘memorial’ street, but I don’t know their names.
Children’s comics ?
Arriving at Sakaiminato on the west coast of Japan.
We arrived at 7.30 am, after an over night cruise from Busan in S. Korea
Should we buy these as presents or . . .
or should we buy these ??? living in Australia all edible items have to be declared to quarantine, even those which have been manufactured.
or how about these ??
Can’t remember what this stall was pushing but it tasted quite pleasant. All the packaging was ‘just so’ nothing out of place.
Our next stop was to be the gardens, but on the way we had to pass Oni (鬼) are a kind of yōkai, which is a supernatural ogre, or a Scandinavian type troll, but Oni is a part of Japanese folklore.
Shortly after passing the Troll we arrived at the garden.
The spring flowers were magnificent, and I couldn’t stop clicking.
The walk way to the Domed hot house.
The whole garden reminded me of the waterside garden in Singapore.
It was very pleasantly warm in the orchid house. Maureen wrapped in flowers.
Everywhere we looked there was colour.
Even a small waterfall.
Told you I couldn’t stop clicking.
Maureen stayed in the hot house and I took a stroll around the outside garden. I took the above picture because it reminded me of a certain part of Birkenhead Park, (which was the first municipal park in the world), on Merseyside, UK.
The cherry tree was free of crowds.
Floating gardens containing young plants – the train was available for carrying people around the gardens, which also contained a large herb garden, and a flower clock.
The hands of the clock are garden pitch forks – red & blue.
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