This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 Today, we are in our final Japanese (and Asian) port — Kushiro which is a port city in eastern Hokkaido. This city has been an international trading port since early in the 20th century, as well as a reliable fishing port. Both of these…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 Up to this point, our tour in Japan has taken place on the two largest islands that make up the country — Honshu and Kyushu. Today, we made the first of two port visits in Hokkaido, the northernmost island. And, as you might expect,…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After a rolly polly last 24 hours at sea, we pulled into Sendai, Japan, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture in Northern Honshu. We’re only here for a short time, so rather than spend time in what is more or less an industrial city, we…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After a sobering trip to Hiroshima, we were off to go to Kobe, Japan (yes, the Kobe with the wagyu beef). It’s actually quite a large city, but there was nothing in particular that we wanted to see there. So off we went to…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 We spent the day today in Hiroshima. While the obvious destination here is the Peace Memorial, there is actually much more to see here. We started the day visiting the island of Miyajima (Shrine Island), reportedly the home of the gods. Miyajima is a…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After arriving in the port city of Fukuoka, we went up into the mountains to the birthplace of Japanese porcelain — Arita. I wanted to come here for two reasons: (1) I’m a clay kinda guy and seeing how others perform their art and…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After visiting Busan, South Korea, the remaining Asian parts of our cruise will all be in three of the four islands of Japan. Today, we started by visiting Nagasaki, Japan on the island of Kyushu. Nagasaki is both the capital and largest city of…
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This is part of a series called Northern Pacific Wanderings 2024 After the excitement from yesterday and our sad inability to explore one of the remote islands in Okinawa Prefecture, we were excited to arrive in Naha to do some exploring. Rather than take one of the ship-sponsored tours, we got a private guide, Hiromi,…
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We were looking forward to a day in Miyakojima. After a week of hustle and bustle in Taiwan, the idyllic beaches, reefs, caves, and other exotic nature seemed like just the right thing. Excited, we left the ship and cleared Customs. Just as we got outside, my phone gave an Earthquake alert, centered not far…
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