We woke up finding ourself in dense fog but never the less delivered to Kushiro on time. We set out in the fog on our tour to Lake Mashu which turned ourt to be a lake in the top of a volcano in an active thermal area. Our guide warned us that Kushiro is known for its fog, with less than 5 sunny days a month, thus dampening expectations. But when we arrived at the site (2 hours later) the sun was out and the day was clear. What we did not expect was snow. I...

We sailed out of Tokyo Bay to the music of a High School drum band and arrived at Hakodate on a fine but cool sunny morning. Our tour today is to take in the Hakodate Magistrates Office which was the regional centre of power in the Shogunates. This was contained in a European styled star shaped fort, Gorakaku. Hakodate was one of the open ports forced by Cdr Mathew Perry on the Shogunate of the time. This was instrumental in creating sufficient unrest that lead...

Wednesday 29 April. As usual we docked at 6.00 am for a 7 am arrival. Because we had already gone through immigration the staet to the trip was a breeze. We picked this two day tour because we wuld go into the country and we did so after we passed Yokohama. Hakone is about 120 km from Tokyo and we took the whole two hours to get there by bus. However because our group was only 9 we had lots of room. Another good thing about the bus was I could actually stand...

Arrived at Kobe at 6 am. We are to go to the ancient capital Kyoto (796 to 1867), but Margaret decided to stay on board to get better for Tokyo. So off I went alone. I expected a lot from Kyoto (literally West capital) because it was the capital for about 1100 years. Our first visit was to the Nijo Castle built 1605-1626 for the Tokugowa Shoguns. It is a lovely simple building depicting the everyday life of the Shoguns (Military Dictators) and their 270 fue...

It is 168 nm from Busan to Nagasaki and we arrived at 7.05 am on a moderate 22 c day. The ship recognised Anzac Day for the Australian and NZ passengers. We had looked forward to this day because our tour includes the Atomic Bomb Museum and famous Peace Park. It is worth remembering that in WW1 Japan was our ally,since they and the USA had reached the 1912 accord which saw Japan take over Korea and US get bases in the Phillipines. So it seemed a good place to s...