We were at sea on Friday on route to Nagasaki when the earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan. We didn't feel anything onboard, the news was quickly spread around the ship from SkyTV. A group of 34 passengers were on an overland tour to Tokyo and all were safe but shaken. We could not dock at Nagasaki on Saturday because all ports were closed for safety reasons, but we met a ship off port that brought the 34 passengers back. Everyone on board is very saddene...

Our long sea journey northbound was absolutely worth it. We arrived at the "land of the rising sun", Osaka, Japan to a band on the quayside and many locals waving the ship into port. Japan is one of the highlights of our voyage so far, it just didn't feel like we had to travelled to a different country, it felt like a different universe! We quickly found that Japan is very clean, the people very polite and their mannerisms so different to what we are...