Another early start, my excursion started at 7.00. We drove over the Megami Ohashi Bridge, past the Mitsubishi Shipyard crossed back over the Asahi Ohashi Bridge and went to the Peace Park. There we saw the peace statue, a man with left hand raised to the sky where the bomb came from and his right held out for peace over the world. The park also had a couple of arches with strings of paper cranes (the peace symbol), a fountain with jets in the shape of bird ...

Our only Japanese sea day. The weather has been quite cool and it was extremely windy playing deck quoits. Today was the final of the ship building competition. The contestants had from the time we left Australia until today to construct a boat. There were three tests. The first was for the boat to sail from one end of the Terrace Pool to the other. It was windy and they all succeeded. The second was a repeat but with passengers. Six cans of drink! Final...

A very long day today. Up at 6.15, breakfast and then Japanese immigration. I joined the queue that went from Carmens past Champions, Medina, Masquerades to the shops. When it eventually started to move, it went quite fast. I sat in the theatre waiting for my tour to be called and the line went all the way to the stage! The excursion left at about 8.15. I went to Kyoto. The drive was about an hour. There was no discernible difference between Osaka and ...

Definitely cooler today. The temperature has dropped by half over the last two days. Our last sea day before Japan. We've been given the immigration information and tomorrow I have to report between 7 and 7.30 for my face to face meeting. I also have to take any bag and stuff that I intend to take ashore. It's going to be a long day. Still at least the clocks go back again, we'll be GMT -9. I hope I can finally hit the Internet to send these blogs. I ...