The photo was taken from our balcony as we approached Shimizu in Japan, we were very fortunate that it was a clear day. We decided not to do any excursions, because we only wanted to see Mt Fuji and from reading Trip Advisor and Cruise Critic web sites, I knew that if we couldn’t see it from the town, then there was little chance of seeing it even if we were half way up the mountain
Of course, as we moved alongside I knew that we had a shopping centre quite close . . .
Like many of our fellow passengers we wondered over to the shopping area and the Ferris wheel. It was obvious that Shimizu was a popular place for private boats.
They do say that size doesn’t matter, but this one looked a fine vessel, not sure if it offered trips round the bay, or if it was a private yacht.
Of course talking of size – you can see the Diamond Princess alongside.
The above three pictures were taken as Maureen and I took in the views from the top of the Ferris wheel – not expensive for a single rotation, but when we were at the top the wind strengthen and caused the whole structure to shudder & sway some what . . . ..
Taken as our seats on the Ferris wheel reached the top.
Another shot of the ship as we started our descent.
Taken from the ground level.
The shopping centre, which was not all that large, also catered for the children.
Everyone seemed to be clicking cameras and they all pointed at Mt Fuji – we just couldn’t help taking more and more photographs. It seemed to hold a fascination for everyone.
As we sailed from Shimizu I remembered an old Japanese sage saying, during my time at sea when on the Japanese coast. If you see Mt Fuji as you leave you will return to Japan – each time we sailed from Japan I managed to see Mt Fuji, except the last time when we sailed at night, so I was unable to see the mountain – this would have been in the late 1960’s.
I didn’t return to Japan until the late 1980’s, (by air) when working for another company, and didn’t see Mt Fuji during that trip – in future I think I’ll stick to a simpler use for old sage, and mix it with onion for stuffing a Christmas turkey.
I forgot to mention that our guide in Osaka, Toichi, took out his felt tip pen and created the above in Japanese script.
The top one is ‘Geoff’ and the bottom is ‘Maureen’. When we arrived home I showed the piece of paper to my grandson, who is studying Japanese at school (he’s thirteen).
He looked at it and shook his head and told me that he could only recognise the bottom three syllables on the left. He said they represent the sound of ‘more’, so I said how about Mau as in Maureen?
Passing out of Sydney Harbour (North Head shown above), as we enter the Pacific Ocean.
We sail from Sydney to Darwin, Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia), Phu May (the port for large vessels visiting Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) in Vietnam, Nha Trang (Vietnam), Hong Kong, Osaka (Japan), Shimizu (the main port to see Mount Fuji in Japan) and Yokohama (also listed as Tokyo) The transit time from Sydney to Tokyo will be twenty two days.
We sail from Yokohama to Busan (S.Korea), Sakaiminato (Japan), Tsuruga, Akita and finally Yokohama where we leave the ship and fly home.
While we turned in the river I watched a ship coming down stream and getting closer and closer (I took a set off pictures just in case), as she rounded the bend in the river she gave a long blast on her whistle and altered course to starboard to pass down our starboard side as we had completed our turn. The one long blast is the international signal that a ship is altering course to starboard so that everyone in the area is aware of that vessel’s movements.
The sea was calm, the Diamond Princess had 2900 privileged passengers who dressed for dinner, while those fishermen that we past hung their washing on a long rod attached to the stern of their homes.
After leaving Conway in 1962, I went to sea, and my first ship was a tanker, the Ellenga, with a gross tonnage of 24,246 gt. At that time she was quite a large vessel.
silverfox175 