Our first sea day goes by quite fast. Gym, breakfast, then a full day of busy-ness beginning with Coffee with Jose and Ian our Travel Guide. Always entertaining. Then we make the tactical error of going to the Miso Lamb cooking show instead of Ian’s Made in Japan. Live and learn – the cooking show was fun and funny, Jose is a riot and the Chef is equally a nut. But, still. It is all the same thing – and you don’t get samples here – and well, we also thought that Ian’s presentations would be recorded an on the TV, but they aren’t. So pooh, we can only hope he does this one again on the next leg.
Lunch, then Ian’s port talk where we learn about Fukuoka and Sockcho. We stay firmly planted in the World Stage for Ian’s next presentation – Behind the Bowl, all about Asia’s iconic food dishes. All very interesting and a good way to make the time pass a little more quickly.
Around 4:30 we start to get our first glimpse of the Kanmon Straight. We quickly head to the gym, then out onto deck 11 to watch as we pass through the narrows that separates 2 of the 4 main islands of Japan – Honshu and Kyushu – with Ian providing commentary as we go. There is a lot of ship traffic through here as it is the connection between the Sea of Japan and Inland Sea – used as a shortcut for cargo ships on the way to Osaka and Tokyo.
There are some interesting structures on the Honshu side in Shimonoseki – a bridge we pass under, Octopus shaped kids playground structures and an interesting looking mosque or church or something that has a huge clock tower steeple type thing along with mosque like domes. Who knows? Most of Ian’s commentary gets lost up here as the speakers are quite pointed in the correct direction and aren’t loud enough to project.
No matter though, it is still a nice way to spend some time watching the landscape pass by on a rather nice, cool sunshining day. We stayed up on deck until we started leaving the straits, watching the sunset, then headed down to Canaletto for a lovely Italian dinner.
Sea day complete.
Andiamo 