Upon leaving the dock there is an obvious, wide, straightish road heading into the city that we followed. Two dragon statues marked the start of it and we passed by them, knowing that staying on the road we were on would bring us to Kokusaidori Street in about 15-20 minutes.

Or it would have taken us 15-20 minutes if I hadn’t been distracted by the appearance of a block of greenery on our left that demanded a quick exploring. This turned out to be Matsuyama Park and we didn’t know it at the time but it continued on the other side of the street too and looks like it’s worthy of a nose around if you’re passing by; we certainly will if we return to Okinawa on a future cruise. The park contained an artificial pond and several statues and monuments, though to what we couldn’t tell. One sign did seem to indicate that the original hospital of Naha may have been in the area. With some schools for younger children and some playgrounds in the area I kept my camera away for the most part. The other thing of note in this park was a large gathering of people in similar attire with placards and bullhorns. They didn’t look the friendliest bunch in the world so we steered clear of this group too and decided against any inadvertent antagonisation by keeping the camera firmly down. As it turned out this wouldn’t be the last time we saw them.

Leaving the park we continued approximately southeast along the road we’d been walking on with the only landmark of any note being when we crossed over one of the tributaries feeding into the Kokuba River, alongside which were the elevated concrete rail pillars we remembered fondly from our previous visit to the city.

This then brought us to the large four-way road junction with its diagonal pedestrian crossing markings that signified the start of Kokusaidori Street and it was here that we encountered a wonderful surprise: the street was entirely closed off to traffic so we would be free to wander along its length and cross over to view shops at leisure. We didn’t know if this was just something they did on a Sunday (it was a Sunday when we were there) but it meant there was a gentle pace to exploring that could be shared by both locals and tourists alike.

It was great to see some people really making an effort and enjoying the pleasant temperature of the late afternoon on Naha’s main shopping street.

We then discovered the reason that Kokusaidori Street had been closed off. Our visit to the city of Naha had coincided with a large, public martial arts demonstration. Within many of the city blocks there were one or two red carpeted areas on which either a demonstration of moves was taking place or had already done so by the time we arrived. Groups were either engaged in their moves or milling about awaiting their turn. People in white martial arts outfits ranged in age from the youngest of children to the oldest of men and women. We saw some with sticks and some with other weaponry but the vast majority were unarmed. Some signs on poles along the street seemed to indicate that karate was the main martial art on show although I can’t say for certain that every person demonstrating to the onlookers was definitely performing just that skill.

The sun getting lower in the sky made for some lovely long shadows along the street.

We’d been making our way slowly along Kokusaidori Street in a roughly easterly direction all this time as we’d been entertained by the martial artists along its length when we spotted something very familiar to us. During our first visit to Naha we’d very much enjoyed finding an indoor market area and had picked up some souvenirs at the time. Guarded by an odd-looking sculpture of a creature playing a musical instrument we saw the arched entrance of the market again and decided to pop in for a look to see if anything would entice us to part with our wallet of yen.

Emerging back into the noticeably fading light but without any goodies we endeavoured instead to head back down Kokusaidori Street and check out some of the many shops we’d passed on the way up. The martial arts demonstrations had come to an end at this time and we could see some of the children being warmly congratulated by proud parents while adult practitioneers seemed to be drifting away in groups too.

It was strange to see so many Japanese schoolchildren around with it being a Sunday but not quite so strange as seeing a few of the schoolgirls taking photos of their sausages on sticks in the middle of the emptying road.

We ducked into several shops and started to spend our money. We like trying to use local currency when we’re travelling because it gives us a chance to pick up small change and keep it as a memory of our trips. Importantly, though, if you are travelling to Japan then it really helps to have yen on you because while it’s a very advanced country technologically in many ways we’ve found that the use of credit cards is not as widespread as you might expect; many businesses will only accept cash so if you’re looking to spend in Japan then keep that in mind. You can read more about this tip and others by looking at mistakes to avoid when planning a trip to Japan.

As we got closer to the junction that would mark the end of Kokusaidori Street and the point at which we would be turning back towards the direction of the cruise ship the low sunlight that had been creating such lovely long shadows along the concrete disappeared behind distant parts of the city and with that darkening of the evening the lights of the buildings became more prominent.

Dusk cast the evening sky over Naha City into gorgeous shades of pinks, purples, and dusty blues.

Now, you may remember me mentioning the group of people we’d stumbled upon who’d been preparing placards in Matsuyama Park when we’d paid that area of greenery a visit on our way towards Kokusaidori Street. On our walk back towards Diamond Princess we encountered that same group only this time they were in full protest mode. Slowly marching down the road they were accompanied by vehicles travelling at the same pace and one person inside one of those to which was attached a huge megaphone was yelling slogans to the sound of heavy drumming. Our grasp of Japanese is as close to zero as makes no difference so quite what this group were upset at was and still remains a complete mystery.

The remainder of the walk towards the cruise port took place in suddenly very dark conditions. It’s quite weird to look back now and see just how quickly the sky turned from twilight to pitch black. A few buildings were eyecatching enough in the dim conditions to photograph and the most interesting places included a building with a giant lobster on its exterior wall and public toilets with twisted industrial decorations outside.

Eventually we reached the dragon sculpture marker that signalled we’d reached the end of the urban part of Naha and the start of the port area but with this being night and with Diamond Princess being lit up and impossible to miss we didn’t really need any help identifying the location.

This then was our last moment at a port of call on our second cruise aboard Diamond Princess ten years apart. Following our departure from Okinawa we would have two relaxing days at sea before our cruise would end where it started, in Yokohama, and where we would sadly have to leave Asia and head home.

We noticed that the pools were all closed off as we went to breakfast which seemed a little bit like overkill to us. I understand closing off the shallower, adults only pool in the Sanctuary area of the ship because the low water depth and even fairly mild waves can make for dangerous conditions but with the deeper pools this risk is mitigated quite a bit and there’s nothing more entertaining than being in a pool with the waves sloshing around everywhere. While eating breakfast in the buffet area we were captivated by the view of the horizon rising and falling as we made our way through the choppy waters towards Japan and you can see some of that in the video accompanying this post.

There was time to kill in the morning and we spent it watching some of the entertainment in the piazza, taking part in the trivia, and getting a little bit of reading in; all the elements of a typical, lovely, relaxing sea day but with a port arrival imminent!

As we neared the port city of Naha tug boats appeared to give us an escort to shore. Our balcony position gave us a good view of one of the vessels although it was not entirely clear what their main purpose was on the approach to Okinawa as they seemed to be neither really pulling or pushing the cruise ship. It’s possible they were there in a precautionary capacity in case the sea and wind conditions required the ship’s pilot to call for some assistance.

We didn’t spot many other vessels as we entered the harbour but one that stood out was the Star Cruises SuperStar Gemini cruise ship, formerly the Norwegian Dream. I love seeing these older ships operating for lines that are more localised, especially ones that have changed ownership several times, and it’s great to take a look through their deck layouts and cabin arrangements and entertainment offerings to see how they cater for the markets they target.

We eventually came alongside in Naha. We’d visited Naha before back in 2008 but on that occasion Diamond Princess had docked considerably farther north and had required us to use a complimentary shuttle bus to get from the ship into the city. Everything would be in walking distance this time around which also meant there wasn’t an unattractive (well, I don’t tend to mind them) commercial port for a view and we could instead look out at the outskirts of the city and towards where we would later be heading.

This video (temporarily removed) shows the sea conditions in the morning, some of the actions of the tug boats, and a little of the port of Naha from the top deck of Diamond Princess.

Japanese Immigration

There is never any point rushing to get off the ship as soon as it docks because there are formalities to be observed first. In many ports there is a brief customs clearance procedure for the ship and then an announcement is made and everyone is allowed off. In some places passports and/or visas and/or landing cards may need to be shown. And then there’s Japan where every single port of entry requires a cumbersome immigration process. You have to pass the thermal scanning to ensure you’re not running a temperature. You have to show your passport. You have to have filled in a customs declaration form. And this all needs to be scheduled because they don’t want three thousand passengers trying to do this all at the same time.

On the plus side you don’t need to do the scheduling; that’s all arranged by Princess and you get notified in your cabin the day before when you’ll need to gather in one of the lounges or dining rooms to be called ashore. Counter to that, though, is that you might want to get off the ship early but that’s completely out of your hands. If you have arranged an excursion through Princess, of course, then you’ll get scheduled early to take advantage of it but whether that applies to people arranging their own things I can’t say. Certainly something to consider if you’re thinking about private excursions while on a cruise hitting Okinawa.

We passed some time observing occasional passengers making their way along the dock beside the ship, having completed their Japanese immigration procedure. We did this to try to gauge just how long it was taking people based on when we saw them leave the ship and enter the terminal to when we recognised them coming back out and heading ashore but it wasn’t an easy thing to do.

It eventually came to our time to head to one of the dining rooms and wait to be called ashore. And wait. And wait. And listen to the apologies for the delay. And wait some more. And watch some people assume queues were for other people and jump them. And wait. And then get let through. A lengthy walk from the ship to the terminal then left us in a long, snaking queue of hundreds of other people with a sinking feeling that this would take forever but, fair’s fair, the queue moved pretty rapidly as there were a lot of immigration desks open. I passed through very quickly and had the opportunity to see the immigration desk computers from behind as my wife was being processed: lots of screenshots of not just her present passport photo page but previous ones too flashed up along with screens of additional information that I clearly couldn’t read. It was actually quite fascinating to see just how much data was being held on her and easily accessible to the customs authorities.

We finally stepped out of the terminal and onto Japanese concrete just over one hour after we’d been told to meet aboard the ship to pass through immigration. For a country that really, really, really likes putting people through immigration it could do with some projects targeting efficiencies in the process in our opinion.

In the next post I’ll cover our time ashore in Naha itself.

Shoko Shuseikan Museum

Before we hit the main reason for our visit, the gardens, we took a look around the Shoko Shuseikan Museum. During the 19th century Japan was in a self-imposed seclusion from the outside world. Kagoshima was ruled by the Shimazu clan, the head of which realised that Japan was in serious danger of being completely left behind by foreign nations. Against the orders of the ruling classes a number of Shimazu clan leaders with some western leanings in education and science, including Shimazu Nariakira, set about a process that would eventually kickstart and copy the industrial revolution of Europe and America in Japan. Other notable firsts at this time include the first western-style shipyard and vessels to protect the city and region from expected invasion and the oldest surviving photograph in Japan is a portrait of Nariakira.

Photographs were not permitted inside the museum which included numerous industrial artefacts from the past century and a half, the naval history of the area, and Satsuma Kiriko crystal (more western-style manufacturing techniques were used to create this unique style of glassware). Naturally, this didn’t prevent some people on our trip taking loads of video while pretending they weren’t but that’s because people are scum (which you probably already knew) but as I’m not you’ll have to do with some shots of the exterior, the building housing the museum notable for being the oldest stone factory building in Japan.

Sengan-en Garden

Our look around the museum completed we then walked the short distance to the main attraction, the Sengan-en Garden. Our guide had explained to us that to the Japanese a formal garden incorporated not just what was within what we might consider the grounds of the garden but also all the views from it. This explained the choice of location of the Shimazu clan’s garden with greenery-covered cliffs behind and a wonderful view of Sakurajima volcano in front.

There were a few ways into the gardens with the Red Tin Gate traditionally being used only by the clan lord and heirs.

The house and gardens were built around the middle of the seventeenth century with various clan heads making changes and additions as the years went on including the introduction of bamboo from China in 1736 which later spread throughout the rest of Japan.

Chinese influences also came from the name of the gardens, derived from the birth of Taoism in Long Hu Shan, China, and the Senjingan, carvings in the surrounding cliffs that are unusual for Japanese gardens.

While our guide gave us some more of the history of the gardens, pointing out features like the carvings in the cliff along with general explanations of the Japanese philosophy of gardens in general, we were distracted by the appearance of a woman in a traditional kimono with full make-up, the centre of some photographic attention by people accompanying her as well as by several of us. Indeed, some of our group walked right over to take photos of her close up which she didn’t seem to mind but which felt a little presumptuous to me so I made do from a respectful distance. We were told it was likely she was being photographed for her wedding but we don’t know for certain.

Another distraction in the garden was the abundance of flying things. Specifically, dragonflies and raptors of some description. I’m not a birdwatcher so that’s about as close a description as I can get and the assumption is that their main diet was the dragonflies which were in huge numbers in the air (rather difficult to photograph, I did manage to find a dead one, though). I’d estimate we saw in excess of a hundred dragonflies zipping around the gardens so if you’re a fan of the insect then this is certainly a place to come and see them.

We were then given some free time to walk around the gardens on our own before we were due to meet up for lunch. The Sengan-en gardens cover 12 acres and include a hiking trail taking you up the cliffs if you want. We didn’t have enough time for that particular activity so limited ourselves to the main area, following paths that passed by and over streams and other water features, past interesting rocks and remnants of industrialised additions to the garden area, but mostly just between cool, shady trees glimpsing gorgeous views across Kinko Bay to Sakurajima.

Our walk also introduced us to some other fauna, these being butterflies, lizards, …

…and spiders. Lots and lots and lots of big, yellow spiders. A little bit of detective work identified these spiders in Sengan-en as Nephila clavata, a popular orb spider in the country because of its bright colours. The photos don’t do them justice because I was only prepared to get so close but some of them were about the size of the palm of my hand. And once we actually spotted one we realised they were everywhere. Between every bush, in every tree.

It was the ones in the trees that were most problematic for my wife (who lies definitely more towards the completely arachnophobic end of the Don’t Like to Abject Terror spectrum when it comes to arachnids (I’m more jumpy, wary, but ultimately cautiously fascinated by them)) because the fear that one might drop on her – especially after I spotted one moving about to build its web right above her head – was so much she walked a less interesting path than me to meet up as I clambered over rocks to walk through Kyokusui, a specially-constructed part of the garden designed to host a poetry competition.

Together again we carried on a mostly circular route that brought us to the Oniwa Shrine, apparently the luckiest shrine at Sengan-en, itself composed of thirteen smaller shrines that were brought together in one place in the late-1800s.

Not far from that shrine was another one, this being the Cat Shrine, one of only a few shrines in the whole of Japan dedicated especially to praying for the cute little buggers.

There is a restaurant in Sengan-en garden which was where we headed to next as it was about that time of the day that we were due to have lunch. Upon entry we were offered a choice of beverage: a cola drink or something weird. We chose the something weird. We’d spotted that it said Asahi on it and assumed this meant a nice, cold beer. Well, it was cold but nice and beery… not so much. Was it cold tea? Who knows? The food was a mix of soups, noodles, raw and cooked fish, potato things, herbs for adding flavour, numerous vegetables, and two lumps – one orange, one brown – of something. Everything generated discussions amongst our fellow tourists as to what we were eating with mixed sounds of approval and polite or not-so-polite rejections up and down the table but it was the orange and brown somethings that confused most people. On our table I was the first to try them and would describe them as what you might get if moderately sweet fudge made babies with a pencil eraser. I didn’t mind them and it’s just one of those things that if you’re travelling then you try the local food and drink because otherwise you might just as well have stayed home.

We had a little bit more time after lunch to explore the remainder of the gardens. Towards the garden exit there were a number of souvenir shops and an ice cream stall where we availed ourselves of some odd flavours, only one of which I can remember as that was sake.

Beyond there we came across several examples of the fruit grown locally. Of particular interest were the satsuma oranges, with Kagoshima being in the Satsuma province and this being where the popular fruit originated from.

The final point of interest in Sengan-en Garden prior to us leaving was the site of the Reverbatory Furnace. This was originally a 20-metre high furnace built through a combination of local knowledge and skills, western education and techniques, and diagrams in a Dutch book brought back to the region from overseas. The furnace was used to manufacture armaments to protect Kagoshima from seaborne attacks.

Sake And Shochu Distillery

That concluded our time in Sengan-en so we hopped back on the coach and only had to sit and wait for five minutes for two groups who were late getting back (sigh) before we headed off southwards for our final stop of the day, a sake and shochu distillery and shop which I believe was this one. The distillery was started in 1953 and uses traditional pot-potted and barrel-distilled techniques along with local water and produce for its many products. After a quick look at the pots and barrels we were led into the main shop were numerous free samples of shochu were on offer and that’s definitely an acquired taste based on our own experiences and the grimaces on many faces we looked at.

Shochu and sake and beers were able to be bought but we didn’t fancy any of them. What we did spot, however, was some local gin made with local satsumas. We had to pick that up.

“Ah, you must sign, yes?” said the man behind the counter, bobbing his head in a bow apologetically as I slid my card into the card reader.

I shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fine,” I said.

Suddenly he leaned back, shocked. “Oh, magic number, magic number!” he exclaimed loudly, causing a few heads nearby to turn in puzzlement.

I leant forward and entered my PIN. The look of surprise on his face at what I can only assume is a rarity when a tourist has a Chip and PIN card made my wife and I smile a lot on our way back to the ship.

Departing Kagoshima

For the second time in three days we left a Japanese port as the sun started to dip towards the horizon making for more glorious views. Unlike our departure from Yokohama before there were no crowds to wave us off this time as the location we were berthed at was far enough from the main part of the city to not attract anyone. Instead, as we’d been in one of the lounges having a late-afternoon tipple anyway, we headed out onto the promenade deck at first to look at the passing landscape.

From there we went back to our room in order to get showers out of the way and change for the evening into something a little smarter. The view from our room was lovely but it was, of course, considerably nicer out on the balcony. The peak you can see in the photos is Kaimondake Volcano and we thought it looked spectacularly pyramidal silhouetted against the setting sun.

The short video below (temporarily removed) contains some video from our morning’s visit to Sakurajima as well as footage from Sengan-en and some sunset cruising away from Kagoshima.

Dinner

To round off this lovely day spent in Kagoshima, Japan, a few photos from dinner that evening.

Looking ahead we would have a day at sea before arriving at the next port of Xiamen, China.

We can’t pretend we’d heard much about the city or its status as capital of the prefecture or its location in the Satsuma province or its role in kickstarting Japan’s industrial revolution prior to our arrival but we would discover all this and much more during the full day’s excursion we had booked with Princess Cruises. That would mostly happen in the late morning and afternoon; first up, though, and the main reason for our selecting this particular excursion, was a visit to the volcano Sakurajima, one of the most active volcanoes in the world with hundreds or thousands of mini-eruptions every year.

We boarded our coach and set off from the port area which looked quite pleasant if a little distant from much of interest if you wanted to walk off on your own. The drive through Kagoshima wasn’t particularly interesting visually or fast. Roads were if not clogged with traffic then at least not that conducive to keeping the vehicles on it moving easily. Still, our guide distracted us from scenes of buildings and traffic jams with a running commentary of the city’s history explaining how it was the home of the Shimazu clan, at one time the richest of the “outsider families” of Japan, helped by the island nature of the territory making it harder for other clans to take it over.

We drove north for a couple of kilometres until we reached the ferry boarding point very close to the Kagoshima Aquarium. We had a short wait as we had arrived just as a ferry was departing but this couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes before another one was in place and our coach could drive onto it.

We were given the option of staying on the coach for the twenty or so minutes it was being ferried across from Kagoshima to Sakurajima or we could wander up to one of the viewing decks. Of course we went to the viewing decks; I think everyone did. While it was a fairly short ride and the weather was bright and sunny and otherwise warm there was quite a bit of wind whipping across the open spaces and as the ferry got past the lighthouse markers on the artificial harbour walls that picked up noticeably and it got a little chilly at times. Should you need their services then the ferry has toilets on it and the sorts of vending machines you see everywhere in Japan.

We were back on the coach shortly before the ferry docked at Sakurajima. Prior to 1914 Sakurajima had been an island and only accessible by boat. In 1914 an eruption filled the bay to the east of the volcano with lava and ash which turned the location into a peninsular with road access but the ferry was still the shortest and quickest route to get from the main city. Our guide informed us that Sakurajima erupted almost constantly, typically puffing up smoke numerous times per day and that the residents had special bags for cleaning up and collecting ash that were taken away and disposed of for free.

Our coach then drove off the ferry and headed towards the Arimura Lava Observatory to the south of the volcano. On the way we passed numerous, wide, deep, concrete channels dug from the various craters and heading down towards the sea in order to offer a way to protect the people who still lived on the peninsular despite the constant ash fall should another big eruption take place.

The Arimurma Lava Observatory was about twenty minutes drive from the ferry dock. It is a free-to-visit lookout open all year around offering views of the volcano from a safe(ish) distance. At the car park area were a number of stalls set up offering souvenirs or local produce and a fairly short, slightly uphill and winding path by the car park entrance circled around to the other side of it: this was the walking and viewing route that included a number of vantage points to observe the volcano to the north, Kagoshima to the west, and the large bay to the south.

The path was an easy walk since it was all laid down with black blocks and steps made from the local lava rock. Along the path at many points were large lava boulders but of course the eye was constantly drawn to the nearby sight of Sakurajima itself and more specifically, Minami-dake, the southern peak (of three) of the volcano that was currently active. During our time at the observatory we saw numerous puffs of steam burping from the top of the volcano.

We learned that the presence of Sakurajima volcano in Kagoshima Bay had an interesting effect on the local fishing because the higher-than-normal water temperatures from the various undersea volcanic vents attracted different sorts of fish than normally found in the colder, surrounding waters. High numbers of amberjack (or yellowtail or hamachi on sushi menus, such as that we’d eaten the day before in the sushi restaurant aboard Diamond Princess (and which had been possibly the nicest of the fish portions if we’re honest)) were farmed in the Kagoshima waters and exported all year round to the rest of Japan.

Despite the large amount of lava rock and ash present the area was very green. Our guide had told us that following eruptions in the twentieth century there had been evacuations from the island but some farmers had taken chances by returning to the large amounts of unclaimed land to see if they could grow anything. Many failures, as you’d imagine, but some successes too, including very large radishes, apparently.

At the northernmost point of the path at the observatory there was a wide open viewing platform area with uninterrupted views in all directions, sheltered seating spots, information boards, and one large piece of lava rock that had become the focus point for some luck-based tradition of leaving coins on it.

The trick to never getting left behind or being so rude as to delay an excursion for other people because you’re late back is to keep an eye on your guide if you can so as soon as we saw her head off towards the car park we followed in her wake, stopping only to leave a temporary impression of our visit in the ash, taking a quick look at one of the many lava shelters we’d seen dotted around the area which are apparently used fairly regularly in eruption evacuation drills, and picking up some local sweets from one of the stalls we’d seen earlier. Picking up weird sweets at the places we visited on this Asian cruise would be a regular occurrence for us.

We reboarded our coach, retraced our route northwards past the volcano, then made our way onto the Sakurajima to Kagoshima ferry and headed back across the water to the city.

This concludes the first part of our Princess Cruises excursion while in Kagoshima. In the second part we get to discover more about the Shimazu clan’s history, visit a formal garden, come face-to-face with Japanese spiders, have lunch, and pay a visit to a shochu distillery.

Getting To Japan

Whereas our first cruise had started in China and finished in Thailand, this one would be starting and ending in Japan; Yokohama to be specific. With a late morning flight from Heathrow scheduled we elected to travel up closer to the airport and stay in a hotel overnight to dispense with that stress of an early morning drive. We stayed at the Holiday Inn just off junction 4 of the M4, the main reason being its proximity to a couple of pubs so that we wouldn’t be trapped into dining and drinking at the hotel. The hotel was perfectly fine, the pubs were perfectly fine, the distance from the airport was great; it’s how we’d do it again in all likelihood.

We had the usual problem at Heathrow airport in that the boarding pass printers refused to work for us. We’ve never once got them to work but when we were coming back from this cruise and yet again my passport failed to get me through the automated check-in system I got talking to one of the border guards who explained that my name was flagged on their system so I’d probably always need a manual check in the airport. Someone with my name has been a naughty boy. So, an inconvenience I’ll have to live through whenever we travel. That done, though, it was to the airport pub for breakfast and a pre-flight drink and in hardly any time we were off to Japan. I never sleep on flights so for a trip like this that comes in at around eleven hours or so it does give me a chance to read quite a bit of whatever books I’ve carried on and watch some recent films I’d missed. Between this flight and the one coming back I saw Ready Player One, Solo, Mission Impossible: Fallout, and Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Tokyo Haneda Airport

There are two airports serving Tokyo: Narita and Haneda. Haneda is by far the most convenient airport. It’s closer to Tokyo if that’s somewhere you’re planning to go and is roughly equidistant between Tokyo and the port city of Yokohama. By contrast, Narita is about five times that distance away.

We had two small problems at the airport, both of which, sadly, could have been avoided with some pre-cruise information supplied by Princess.

Firstly, there was immigration. As we would discover on this cruise, the Japanese take immigration really, really seriously. Stupidly seriously. The Chinese and the Russians have a more trusting and open policy than Japan in our experience and that’s just all types of wrong. You get a card to fill in on the plane (side note to British Airways here: one per person in future, please; not one per couple as the Japanese don’t like that). What you don’t get is any idea what to fill in for the bits like where you’re staying, name of your contact, phone number of local representative, etc. Once you’re on the ship and about to hit a Japanese port or disembark at the end this information is supplied in your cabin but none of it is before you get to Japan. You can probably get through that if your border security person speaks English. Mine did not. Cue fifteen minutes of fun trying to play charades to explain what a cruise ship was, why I didn’t have an address or hotel in Japan, and pointing at various emails with numbers and addresses in an attempt to satisfy whatever security system was in place.

The second issue was our transfer to Yokohama from the airport. You can, of course, do your own thing when you reach the airport and make your own way to Yokohama cruise port but we looked into it and there wasn’t a direct way of doing so without spending an awful lot of money. On top of that we’d be in a country where the western alphabet wouldn’t be prominent if used at all. It’s one thing to try to work out names of places or foreign words written in an alphabet you understand; it’s another thing to look at characters like those used in Japan and hope you or your phone gets things right. We elected instead to use the Princess Cruises shared transfer as we’ve done it before and found it to be reasonable value for money and with less chance of getting lost. This did not go quite as well as we’d hoped.

When we’ve had Princess transfers in the past we’ve arrived at the airport, got our luggage, wandered through security, found our Princess representative, headed off to a coach, and been on our way in – at most – 20 minutes. Now, it turns out that the reason that happened that way before for us was because we’d either been on flights packed with fellow cruise passengers or there had been a few flights arrive close to one another with enough passengers on to allow us to get out of the airport quickly. But for this cruise we’d landed a little after 7 in the morning. We were told by our representative that the coach would not arrive until about 11 as there were more flights due to come in over the following hours. This was disappointing solely because we weren’t prepared for it. I really wish Princess had communicated that the transfer might involve a wait of three hours but it is what it is. We got talking to an American couple who’d been in the terminal since just after 4 in the morning so it could have been worse.

Yokohama Cruise Port

Once the coaches arrived we were on our way to Yokohama Cruise Port, a journey of around 45 minutes. The outskirts of Yokohama that we passed through looked compact and quite industrialised but as we crossed the bridge over the city’s harbour (where we caught our first glimpse of the Diamond Princess) we passed into a greener, cleaner district on our approach to Osanbashi terminal, the modern, international cruise terminal in the city and probably the nicest cruise terminal we’ve been through with lots of glass, lots of curving, dark wood, lots of open space.

As Platinum level Princess cruisers we then got to walk past the several hundred people waiting in seats in two large sections of the terminal building to join the priority queue and within 5 minutes we were boarding the ship. This is a fabulous way to start any cruise.

Diamond Princess

We’ve got more than a passing familiarity with Grand-class cruise ships now so even though we hadn’t been on this particular one for a month shy of ten years we knew our way around and headed straight to our cabin. We tend to book a room in roughly the same location every time, Caribe deck on Princess ships if we can because of the extra large balconies, towards the front to get some decent motion from the ship as it hits swells, on the starboard side so that we know the direction of our room is to the right whenever we exit an elevator (except for the ones around the atrium).

Our cabin was C235 for this cruise. This was quite different from our last cruise on Diamond Princess where we had an inside room but otherwise exactly what we’ve come to expect from more frequent cruising over the past few years.

Even though we’d come through the cruise port just minutes earlier we had to step out onto our balcony and take a look at the view. The top of Osanbashi is covered in grass and you can see the wave-form, undulating lines of the building. Docked alongside us in Yokohama was the Holland America cruise ship Amsterdam.

Two features in the room were quite distinctive and both due to the fact that Diamond Princess cruises target both the Japanese and Western markets. We’re not fans of kettles in state room because to us that feels like something you’d get in a hotel and a cruise is so much more than that. However, the Japanese like their tea and so you’ll find kettles and green tea are in every room. The second feature is a special bonus for UK passengers because, in case you didn’t know, Japan uses the same plug socket as us. For this reason a universal plug socket is in each cabin. We would love to see this on all cruise ships.

The television in the room carried six TV channels for most of the cruise, only one of which was of interest to us, that being the Australian feed of ESPN. This meant we could watch some live American Football on a few sea days early in the morning. A decent selection of movies, all free to view, are also available and we watched The Shape of Water in our room one day while we tried and failed to get through A Wrinkle in Time on another.

Room checked out and with quite a while before our luggage would turn up we set off for a quick wander around the ship.

A place we thought we might end up spending a lot of time was the Wheelhouse Bar. We had fond memories of this space on our first cruise on Diamond Princess where it quite often had traditional Chinese musicians entertaining us. However, we ended up visiting here far less than expected partly because we weren’t massively keen on the music which was your more typical cruise ship performer covering tracks with a bit of a latin leaning. That said, we would have one drink at least in here on most sea days and we got very friendly with the staff. While we didn’t have any major staff service issues on this cruise at all it was the staff in the Wheelhouse who still managed to stand out with their general friendliness and willingness to chat and memory for names and drinks ordered.

We were on the ship early so it was still mostly empty. Nevertheless, there was some music welcoming people aboard at the bottom of the ship’s atrium (piazza on Princess ships).

The next venue you encounter as you continue along deck seven towards the aft of the ship is the Explorers Lounge. As near as we could tell this was identical to any other Explorers Lounge on a Princess ship and may well have been unchanged from our first visit.

The main difference between Diamond Princess and most of the rest of the Princess Cruises fleet (with the exception of Sun Princess) is the presence of a sushi and sashimi specialty restaurant called Kai Sushi. Being used to seeing Princess ships over the last few years we know the look and feel of their venues on board but Kai Sushi was notably brighter, airier, fresher-feeling, and we liked the look of it very much. We’d already decided we were going to try the place out one day because you’ve got to take advantage of experiences when they present themselves (we’ve never eaten sushi before) and this sealed the deal.

Club Fusion and Crooners completed the drinking locations on this deck and we had to have our first drink on board in Crooners while we were there. It’s the law. One thing we didn’t like were the nibbles that often accompanied drinks. On other ships these tend to be quite tasty but on Diamond everything had wasabi in it. Wasabi is just all types of horrible.

We had a quick nose at what was off the piazza staircase on the two decks below. Again, nothing we weren’t already completely familiar with and already described elsewhere on this site and linked in this post. We did pop our heads into Churchill’s which is promoted as a sports and cigar bar. We don’t smoke but we could stand a little bit of cigar smoke if we were watching a game as it’s often quite sweet and can enhance an atmosphere. Sadly, Churchill’s smells exactly like what it really is which is an inside haunt for every chain-smoker of cigarettes on board. The smell for a non-smoker is beyond repulsive which is a shame as it’s a lovely-looking lounge.

A need to clear the smell from our nostrils and potentially in all our clothes sent us scurrying to the top deck for a quick nose around there too.

Forward and to the starboard side of the ship we had plenty of views of the city of Yokohama. As is pretty common when you’re cruising around the world these days a large and colourful ferris wheel was present along the water’s edge.

Alongside us on the starboard side, as we’d already seen from our balcony, was the cruise port terminal. It was interesting to see how many local people were walking around it, almost treating the place like a public park. Obviously, the ships were a big draw for people here too with many taking photos of us or the HAL ship nearby and even a few making sketches.

From the port side we spotted an interesting and obviously old-looking ship not too far from where the Diamond Princess was berthed. This turned out to be the Hikawa Maru, a museum ship these days and a vessel that was launched in 1929.

We returned to our room where we didn’t have to wait too long before our suitcases arrived and we were able to unpack everything. That’s still one of the big plus points for cruising as far as we’re concerned: you unpack just once at the start of the cruise and you pack just once at the end while your hotel accommodation takes you around the world and brings its wonderful sights to your eyes.

Yokohama Departure

Muster on Princess Cruises is always a good opportunity to see who’s not read the instructions or been on a Princess ship in a while as despite you no longer needing to bring your life jacket with you (which means you don’t have to lug the thing back to your room after) a lot of people still do.

With muster done we set ourselves up on our balcony to watch the sailaway from Yokohama as the light started to fade from the overcast but mild day. More local people started to pack out the dockside area, glowsticks started to make an appearance, and tannoy announcements from the port in Japanese started to gee the crowd up.

As Diamond Princess began to push itself away from the port to start our Asian cruise for real the clouds on the horizon thinned enough for the setting sun to ignite the sky in an orange glow. I’d like to think Princess timed it just so. At the cruise terminal the Japanese crowd waved and cheered and we could hear people from balconies all around us and on the deck obviously cheering and waving back at them in the brief moments of relative quiet when the ship’s horn wasn’t blasting out its departure roar. As sailaways go this was by far the most fun and engaging group we’ve ever left a port to and as the cruise would go on we’d come to suspect this was just something in the Japanese nature; a tendency to simply take part.

In order to get out to sea from Yokohama it’s necessary to cruise under the Yokohama Bay Bridge. This was the second time on a cruise we’d been awake and outside as our ship slipped under a bridge, the first time occurring in 2017 aboard Crown Princess when we got up close and personal with the Great Belt Bridge.

The short video below (temporarily removed) covers the view from our balcony of Yokohama, the sailaway from the cruise terminal along with its ebullient crowd, and the ship’s cruise under the bridge.

Obviously, drinks were imbibed that evening and we went to Skywalkers to listen to music and maybe have a little dance because these things are constants for us on any Princess cruise although we tried to be a little bit sensible because our body clocks were very much out of sync with the local time.

Main Dining Room

The only thing that was different for us for this first day was the evening dining arrangements. Because Diamond Princess has a mix of passengers with a mix of language needs it wasn’t possible for us to book the Any Time dining that we normally go for as not every member of staff would be bilingual. To cater for that it was necessary for us to go Fixed Dining for the first time which we initially weren’t too pleased about so we made sure to request the late sitting (we’re more European in our dining preferences and always eat late) and a table for two so we wouldn’t be stuck with the same people for two weeks. As it turned out we had a fantastic dining experience on Diamond, mostly down to some incredibly good service from our waiter Alexander from Macedonia (I know). Friendly, funny, and fast, this was arguably the best main dining room experience we’ve had on any ship and we’d certainly not have any qualms with fixed dining in the future based on this although we still like the idea of wandering in when we like.

In terms of food variety over the course of the cruise this was a little bit disappointing but only slightly so and it is understandable. The kitchens need to cater for two very different palates with the western and eastern passengers aboard. Things repeated fairly often with only slight differences and even if you’re prepared to try “the other culture”‘s dishes you’d probably run out of different meals reasonably quickly. We had no real complaints here and the quality of the food couldn’t be faulted. We did hear some people moan about the portion sizes which in fairness were a little smaller than we’ve become accustomed to but, again, is something that’s easily explainable because of the dual-culture nature of this cruise and, let’s be honest, doesn’t really do anyone any harm.

To finish off this first post describing our Asian cruise aboard Diamond Princess starting in Yokohama here’s what we ate that first night while the ship headed roughly southwest on its way to our first port of call, Kagoshima.

We’d already chatted with another couple who had become our regular quiz partners on this cruise and decided that we wouldn’t take an organised excursion on this port stop. The choices didn’t really appeal to us and we thought it might be nice just to wander around with them with no set plan. This also meant we could leave the ship at a time of our own choosing and wouldn’t have to worry about getting to the tour meeting spot at a set hour.

After waiting for most of the booked trips to take their groups ashore we made use of the free shuttle bus service that would take us from where Diamond Princess had docked at Naha into the city itself. We were dropped off at a fairly busy intersection at one end of Kokusaidori Street, handed a map, reminded when the shuttle buses would return to the ship, and left to our own devices.

Architecturally, there was nothing really to set Naha apart from any modern city which was a shame, but the typically Japanese posters, electronic signs, and advertising everywhere was great to see and still brought home the cultural experience of being somewhere distinctly foreign even if instantly familiar at the same time. Even the traffic drove on the left-hand side of the road so there was no terror of looking the wrong way when crossing roads to contend with.

The large Maneki-Neko on the side of one building was a joy to see.

The four of us – my wife and I, and the other couple, Sandra and Ian – contented ourselves to just wandering along Kokusaidori Street and stopping whenever something caught our interest. Snakes in jars of alcohol certainly caught our interest but we figured there might be problems with getting them back on board the ship and even more flying them back home to the UK afterwards. I would eventually take a chance on getting something similar back home but that’s a story for another port in this cruise travelogue series.

Japan is famous for its vending machines and Sandra and Ian couldn’t resist buying some Pocari Sweat from one because of the name. We all had some afterwards and it was actually okay and not at all sweaty. A bit of a relief, naturally.

We came very close to buying a frog purse just because, well, it’s a frog purse.

Frog purses!

Okay, they look pretty effing cool.

We should get one. Nobody back home is going to have a frog purse.

Probably for good reasons. Are they real?

Not sure. But they are froggy.

I mean, I like frogs, but I don’t think I want to stick money down one’s mouth.

Plus you couldn’t really put one in your pocket, and those legs look like they’ll take up a lot of room in a bag.

And if they are real then we shouldn’t encourage the Japanese to kill frogs thanks to our tourist demand for them in purse-form.

They might have died naturally.

Yes, this feels like the sort of country where that would just happen and purse entrepreneurs would be close by to seize an opportunity.

As we couldn’t work out was whether the frog purses were real or not – the texture was very plastic-like and we were keen to have real ones just for the novelty and shock value, but not so keen to simply be getting a funny-shaped item made from modern materials – we decided in the end not to buy one.

Once we’d gone up one side of Kokusaidori and seen that most of the interesting-looking shops were starting to thin out we crossed over to the other side of the street to have a gentle amble back down that side. That was when we found a large, indoor market area, filled with shops and stalls. For the most part it was just like any low-cost, high-volume market place anywhere else in the world with plenty of places to buy cheap clothing or food or household items, but there were a few places that were a little bit different. Not having much Japanese currency on me I decided to try to spend it anyway and found a place with a range of small bottles of sake for sale. I found one that would eat up most of my money and tried to buy it. The shop owner smiled and bowed; I smiled and bowed back; he bowed again; I bowed again; he bowed once more; I had the sudden fear that he was obliged to bow after me and I was prolonging an activity that would only end when one of us died if I didn’t stop things so thrust the money his way. Transaction concluded. We still have the bottle, never having opened it. It might be wonderful, but we suspect we’ve waited too long now and it will have to remain a souvenir.

Outside and heading back to where the shuttle bus would stop to pick us up for the return trip, I decided to shoot from the hip somewhat at random as we continued back down Kokusaidori. That’s the explanation for heads being cut off, mystery focus points, and the Dutch Angle in many of the pictures. They present a sense of strolling down the street with little interest paid by the locals. The video amongst the selection of photos below includes some thrilling sounds of Japanese pedestrian crossing signals.

An odd thing we spotted and which I managed to capture a single shot of was that some young men wore one trouser leg rolled-up. We had no idea why they were doing it. Thoughts of gang memberships or local fashion statements crossed our minds but none of us felt like asking, and I really regret that now.

It didn’t take us too long to reach the spot for the bus and we didn’t have to wait too long for it to arrive and take us back to the ship. A few photographs and a little bit of video footage of the drive back to port follows.

As you can tell, we didn’t really see very much of Naha City on Okinawa at all, and certainly not enough to do it any real justice or present an accurate review of this cruise port stop. We enjoyed our walk and our first cultural interaction with Japan but we didn’t really think Okinawa as a whole was a good representation of the country. There was far more western influence in the city than we’d expected and we’d have liked to see a bit more local interest but none of the organised options from Princess Cruises seemed to offer much in the way of variety or value for money.