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 don’t normally get up super early when it’s a sea day, preferring instead to lay in a bit then grab a late breakfast and hunt down various activities on board (usually trivia if we’re on a Princess ship). However, the thing about flying halfway around the world and not being able to sleep on planes is that your body clock can get severely screwed around and despite trying to force ourselves to stay up until a sensible time of night the day before we still found ourselves awake much earlier than we’d planned on the back of only a few hours asleep. In fact, the sun hadn’t quite crawled above the horizon by the time we decided we couldn’t stay in bed any longer.

Breakfast took place early. Very early. Six o’clock in the morning to be precise. And it was surprisingly busy, we discovered, though the excuse of jet lag couldn’t apply to our fellow passengers, most of whom were Japanese. We would discover on this cruise that the Japanese as a general rule went to bed reasonably early, got up early, and took part in a lot of onboard activities.

As we’d hoped and expected breakfast options in the buffet were set out to cater for the mix of cultures on the ship with the more usual options enhanced by the presence of rice, pasta, and potato dishes. Breakfast done, we took an early morning stroll around the top deck because you can never get bored of the sea views when you’re on a cruise ship, starting at the aft.

A very distinctive feature on the aft of Diamond Princess, different from all the other ships in the Princess Cruises fleet, is the Japanese spa area including its gorgeous-looking whirpool. You have to book time to use the baths inside and the whirlpool outside and to get access to the more comfortable recliners in this area and I think we only saw one person using it for the entire duration of the cruise, although that’s obviously based on when we would pass by this photographically-appealing spot. The reason we didn’t try it out was because the spa area is gender-segregated (which we could deal with) and requires mandatory nakedness inside (which we could not). We don’t even like looking at our own bodies unclothed and the thought of inflicting that trauma on the Princess staff and fellow passengers was not something we could countenance. Still, with the wake of the ship behind it and the great design of the whirlpool this proved to be a very popular spot to take pictures from.

Heading forward took us to the middle of the ship’s top deck with a view over the main outdoor swimming pool set beneath the large TV screen used for movies under the stars and various other broadcasts during the day. An important point about the swimming pools on Diamond Princess is that they were not heated at all on this cruise. At the southernmost point of our cruise, off Vietnam and in the shallower Sanctuary pool near the front of the ship, this was okay, but off the coast of Japan as we were on this day and in the deeper main pool this most definitely was not. We took a swim in the early afternoon that consisted of about three minutes trying to catch our breath as the crushingly cold water contracted every muscle on our bodies before giving up. It felt dangerously cold.

This was when we discovered something else on Diamond Princess that we’d not encountered on any of the other Princess ships on which we’d cruised: early morning, gentle, stretching exercises. Now, this isn’t to say that it doesn’t take place on other ships but this was new to us. This was Radio Taiso and consisted of two short routines of a few minutes in length each being played back-to-back for a few hours on the movie screen. There were always people taking part alongside it, mostly Japanese as you’d expect, but as the cruise went on we saw more western passengers joining in. I’m happy to say that we took part on almost every sea day including this first one.

The short video below (temporarily removed) includes some of the Radio Taiso exercise routines on the Diamond Princess on this first sea day.

The indoor pool was no warmer than the outside pool we discovered as we wandered through and shot some photos. “Come on in!” shouted an Australian to us. “It’s bloody freezing!” he smiled through clenched and chattering teeth. We declined.

The Sanctuary at the front of the ship is an area we’ve never paid to make use of and have never seen it highly utilised on any cruise. That was no different on this cruise either.

However, the Sanctuary Pool has been the pool we most use typically as it’s adults only, less likely to have people in it, and more sheltered from sea breezes. As I’ve already mentioned we tried swimming in the main pool on this sea day simply because it was unexpectedly empty; that obviously turned out to be because nobody in their right mind was risking hypothermia. We therefore ended up reverting back to using the Sanctuary Pool on most other days which while it also wasn’t heated benefitted from a shallower depth that better retained the miniscule warmth it picked up under the sunshine. By the time we were off Vietnam this pool was actually very pleasant and quite popular as other passengers realised they could have a dip without fearing a heart attack. Clearly, it’s not ideal for swimming laps because of its small size and we were disappointed to see that the current machine that had been present before had been removed at some point in the last decade but we still enjoyed making use of it.

That covered the outside areas of the ship so we had a wander into the piazza, the hub of the ship, in order to pick up the daily crossword, quizzes, and sudoku puzzles, take part in the morning trivia (we did woefully bad), and see if there was anything else of interest taking place. It was still very early so very empty as you can see.

We had hoped to make use of the Wake View Bar accessed from Club Fusion for a spot of quiet reading, a favourite haunt of ours from our first cruise on Diamond Princess, but this was an area roped off from passengers throughout the trip. A shame, although we had got to see its equivalent space on Diamond’s sister ship, Sapphire, earlier in the year so it wasn’t too big a deal.

There’s clearly something about Diamond Princess that sends us to the Princess Theater to attend lectures. We simply haven’t attended lectures on any other ship we’ve cruised on. It happened on our first cruise in 2008 because of the talks given about the history of magic, Houdini, and similar subjects by a guest entertainer on the ship. It also happened on this cruise as the guest speaker was a former Australian detective and his talks interested us too. On this first sea day morning it was the history of forensics.

One of the other lectures on board proved to be very interesting and relevant to a situation that developed during the cruise indeed (and the serious blot on this whole cruise, although not directly the fault of Princess Cruises) but that can wait for another post for an explanation. I’m such a tease.

We’d known before coming aboard Diamond Princess that it was one of two ships in the fleet with a specialty sushi restaurant. Sushi was not something we’d had before and while we knew we’d have a few stops in Japan it seemed more sensible to try out sushi in an environment where we could more easily explain we had absolutely no idea what to order. Wandering past the Kai Sushi restaurant on deck 7 around lunchtime we saw it had only a couple of people eating inside so we ventured in and were seated immediately by the window looking out onto the promenade deck. After a quick discussion with our kimono-clad waitress in the light and airy surroundings we both went for the Nigiri Menu at $17 per person and two sakes, one of which was the Drunken Whale and the other I can’t remember. The drinks were served slightly chilled but were surprisingly pleasant when compared to the last time we’d had the drink many years prior.

The food was prepared expertly by the chef in full view of us just a couple of metres away while a steady stream of bowls and side dishes were brought up. Soups, salad, and a constant supply of green tea were soon joined by the fresh cuts of fish and rice. The quality of the ingredients cannot be faulted, it all looked absolutely fantastic, and it is definitely worth the cover charge if you’re a fan of sushi or just want to try something a little different. Did we like it? No, not really, but that’s a matter of personal taste and don’t let that be a guide for you. The reason we didn’t like it was all down to one magic word: wasabi. We hate wasabi. We hadn’t realised that apparently sushi dishes like to disguise the flavour of whatever it is you’re eating with a horrible burning sensation that sears your taste buds. Well, each to their own and now we know. We also weren’t particularly keen on the soups but at least we gave it all a go. Macha ice cream, though: now you’re talking. That’s gloriously lovely.

So, our first sea day back aboard Diamond Princess after a gap of a decade saw us exploring, trying sushi, going to a lecture, having a (brief) swim, taking part in a few trivia challenges, doing the various daily quizzes, reading, having the odd drink or two and getting to know some of the waiters, and even trying to slip in an afternoon nap in the cabin in an attempt to shift our body clocks into the right timezone (limited success). In short: wonderfully relaxing with just a smidge of education and brainteasing. This is how we like to take it easy at sea inbetween port stops and after a long flight to get out to Asia having a first day at sea on a cruise ship is hard to beat.

The first evening was a formal night so the usual dressing up in tuxedo for me and fancy dress for the wife, some wine and a glass of fizz before dinner, and dinner itself.

If we have one big criticism about formal nights on Princess cruise ships it’s that the fanciness seems to be limited to just one of the formal nights in a two-week cruise. That’s the night where lobster is offered. That’s the night where the champagne fountain is poured. Neither of those two things really matter a great deal to me but it does mean that the other formal nights, such as this first one, don’t really have anything to set them apart from any other night on the menu or going on around the ship. Of course, we know that the main reason for the nights as far as the line is concerned is to sell the photos but it would be nice if there was some kind of incentive or reward to passengers for making an effort.

We finished with some people-watching and cocktail-drinking in Skywalkers then retired for the night, looking forward to waking at our first stop on the cruise, Kagoshima.

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.

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.

The next port of call was Xiamen in the Fujian province of China. Xiamen was a city we’d not heard anything about prior to booking the cruise and, indeed, didn’t really find out a whole lot about in the lead-up to it either. Arriving fairly early in the morning but still having trouble sleeping in because our body clocks weren’t adjusting very well to the initial long flight eastwards that had rapidly lost us hours followed by the cruising generally westwards that was now triggering time changes overnight and slowly gaining us hours, we had plenty of time to kill as we cruised towards the port. We had another wander around the ship, taking more photos, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine.

It wasn’t at all surprising to see the main swimming pool devoid of any people braving its frigid temperatures especially once we started to move from the open sea, passing Zhangzhou harbour on the port side and starting to follow the curve of Xiamen island clockwise. This had the effect of funnelling a pretty nippy north wind down the length of the ship which you’ll be able to hear in the video at the end of this post.

The daily Radio Taiso exercises were being shown on the movie screen out on the deck and there were – as usual – people joining in. We made a point to join in on sea days only so contented ourselves with simply observing for a while as Diamond Princess got closer to the Chinese city.

We decided to stay out on deck so that we could see any interesting elements on either the mainland or island rather than limiting ourselves to just what was visible from our balcony and we’re glad we did because there was some very odd-looking architecture on the port side, the Haicang district.

A pair of matching buildings were the most prominent sign of large construction as we cruised past the Xiagang residential district on our starboard side. When we’d been looking at maps of the city prior to our cruise this had been one area of interest on account of some interesting-sounding museums, historical and religious buildings, and even bars in close proximity. No tours or excursions went anywhere near here, though, and it was sufficiently far away and our time in the port was sufficiently limited that we weren’t quite confident enough we could get to it, do it justice, and get back to the ship. Were we to return and have more time in Xiamen this is part of the city that would definitely deserve more of a look around.

One of the most well-known attractions of Xiamen (apparently it’s one of the top attractions in China) is Gulangyu Island, a place with no cars or bikes permitted. Several excursions hit this island but we didn’t feel they offered very good value for money once we’d checked to see how much it cost to just take the ferry across on your own. While the ferry seemed cheap and while we’re always keen to take boat trips to places even when we’re cruising, though, we also didn’t think there was quite enough on the island to warrant a short stop for ourselves. Again, it’s one of those places that looks like it would be good to spend a large chunk of a day on simply because of the difficulty in getting around the place to find all the spots of interest.

After Gulangyu we then carried on through the deeper water of the channel between the island of Dayu on the port side and a smaller island on the starboard where a pylon spanning the channel between the island of Xiamen and the Chinese mainland and a lighthouse were situated.

From there it was a slow but steady approach to Xiamen’s international cruise terminal taking us closer to the bulk of the modern buildings of the city’s Dongdu district.

As Diamond Princess came alongside in Xiamen we spotted reflections of another cruise ship docked ahead of us, one with a yellow funnel. We never did work out which ship it was.

The video below (temporarily removed) covers some of the approach to Xiamen on Diamond Princess and gives you a feel for just how windy it got along that final channel towards the cruise terminal.

In the next post we’ll cover what we saw in Xiamen itself and our thoughts on the city as a cruise ship destination in general as well as what impact it had specifically for this Princess Cruises itinerary.

We’d visited China before back in 2008, at that time hitting Beijing and Shanghai and visiting lots of the historical places of interest. While we’d stayed in Beijing for three days that was mostly as a hotel base and we’d not explored any of the city itself outside its major tourist attractions. In Shanghai we’d visited one of the old water towns on the outskirts of the vast metropolis. The excursions we could find for Xiamen were also non-city-based, hitting the island of Gulangyu or ancient areas or parks, and because we weren’t massively interested in what was on offer and because we’d never really visited a modern Chinese city before we decided that we would do our own thing for a change and check out modern as opposed to ancient culture.

Pulling up a map of Xiamen before the cruise and looking at where the ship would be and how far things that piqued our interest were we reckoned we could do what we wanted on foot. With the benefit of hindsight this was a mistake. To start with, it was a lot warmer than we’d been anticipating so our walking pace was significantly lower than we’d allowed. On top of that when you look at a map you get a feel for distances as the crow flies or as traffic moves but pedestrian routes are sometimes a little more convoluted to navigate especially when you’re somewhere you don’t know. The end result was that our plan to head down to Xiagang, check out some places there, then head back very soon changed to “Let’s just see how far south we can get before X time and then turn around.” We could have gained ourselves some time and possibly stuck to our original plan if we’d taken the free shuttle bus laid on by Princess Cruises that would have taken us halfway to where we wanted to go but, fools that we were, we walked it anyway.

Chinese immigration as we got off the ship was super-easy; a quick flick through to check the visa, glance at the photo, glance at me, stamp the document, and then through. Dear Japan: this is how to do immigration.

We turned right as we came out of the terminal and started heading due southwards soon after.

While we knew we just wanted to hug the shoreline and head south there was a brief moment only about five minutes into our walk off the ship when I pulled my phone out to look at the map quickly as it wasn’t clear which of two roads to head down would be the most direct route. We were standing beside a small bit of parkland in front of some tall buildings and a man was jogging around. He immediately turned and ran to us.

“Hi there! Are you lost? Can I help?” he asked in perfect English. We then spent five minutes talking to him about the city, about the ship (he was fascinated by the ship as he’d never been on a cruise), and about his work (he was actually Taiwanese, had studied in London, and was working in Xiamen). He gave us some advice about places to head to, looked doubtful that we’d make it to Xiagang (he was very right there), and all-in-all that’s the sort of casual, helpful, local experience we love to have when we’re travelling. We thanked him and carried on.

The road we followed took us over an area where water came into the island to form a large lake. The curving, white overpasses of roads were covered with vines that made us think of those post-apocalyptic movie scenes where nature starts to retake control of the land from a devastated population. We found it very attractive.

This then took us to a waterfront path that curved around the side of a large park that our jogger friend told us was one of his favourite places to run around. Looking across the water we could see the Dongyucun area of Xiamen and looking back the way we’d come brought our travelling home, Diamond Princess, back into view at the terminal.

This waterfront path was very popular with Xiamen locals and with families with young children in particular on account of its proximity to the water and a number of sandy play areas. Subsequently, in order not to create any unnecessary trouble I kept photography to a minimum around here. The Bay Park in Xiamen is a lovely spot with occasional interesting pieces of artwork and worth a wander around to get away from the city if you’re staying in the area. Be careful of kite-flyers as this was a popular spot for them too and we just ducked out of the way as one plummeted to the ground and the trailing rope went taut in front of our faces (the flyer waved a worried apology and we laughed it off).

Our gentle amble in the increasing heat along Xiamen’s pretty waterfront area just to the north of the tip of Gulangyu island continued and we passed areas where fishing vessels operated from as well as the island-based location of a pylon connected to one we’d passed beside on our cruise into the city earlier in the day. The clear blue skies and tall, new, gleaming architecture of Xiamen’s city skyline continued to draw the attention of my camera too as the straight lines, reflections, and repetitive patterns of these buildings are very appealing to me.

The area we were walking along now was the picturesque part of the Lujiang residential area. There was a ferry terminal here with a service to Gulangyu but from what we’d read online before this was only for local people and tourists needed a longer ferry from closer to the cruise terminal. Whether that’s accurate or not or whether that remains to be true at some point in the future I obviously can’t say for sure but it’s worth checking out if you’re considering looking at a map of Xiamen and aiming for this as your way to get across to the island. A set of odd sculptures attracted a lot of attention from many people with cameras – myself included – and we spotted what we guess was a school or university group filming and photographing for some reason too.

It was around this part of Xiamen that the free shuttle bus from Princess was dropping off and picking up people. We checked the time and our pace of walking and the fact we’d used up all the water we’d brought with us by this point; rather than carry on we decided we’d head inland a bit to check out the more commercial areas and to see if we could find a shop to get more liquid inside us. As luck would have it we spotted what looked like a much older section of the city with buildings only a couple of storeys high, lots of shops, lots of colour, lots of character. That was the direction we headed.

As we wandered the roads mostly devoid of traffic between bright signs, umbrellas, awnings, and lines stretched across with drying clothes we then spotted a narrower section, busier in terms of pedestrians, where market stalls lined the streets. Food stalls were common with lots of choice of shellfish and vegetables, and there were an abundance of smells as we strolled through. Probably the oddest sight was a bag of live starlings (or similar) by one woman sat in a chair next to a stall of household bits and pieces. Were they for food? Were they for pets? Who knows!? We ended up stopping at one place and buying some odd items that were intended to come back as souvenirs. Sadly, only a few survived the trip.

We emerged from the narrow streets, market, and older buildings back into a more modern area of the city and very soon had spent more money in a few convenience stores, stocking up with water, snacks, and lots of odd-looking sweets. We were on a casual look-out for some white jade, something similar to a piece my wife had liked the look of on our first visit to China in 2008 but which we’d not really had the money to afford at the time. Checking out a large department store we found a place specialising in jade inside and there were some very nice pieces there indeed but the only white jade we found had a yellow gold clasp and chain (my wife really wanted white) and was too big; large enough to trigger a gulp reaction in us once we did the conversion of the price tag in our heads. Maybe some other time.

We started tracking roughly northwards now knowing we could take our time and get back to the ship with an hour to spare before we were due aboard. This took us under some more of the foliage-covered overpasses and between the towering blocks of stone and glass that I always find so photogenic.

The walking and heat was tiring us out a bit so when we reached a place where we had to decide whether to carry on towards the ship or to take a bit of a detour and head in the opposite direction to see what Bailuzhou Park had to offer it took us a split second to choose the more direct route. Looking at the map it didn’t seem like it should take us too long to visit the park in the middle of the lake but we’d already been caught out by the deceptive distances in Xiamen so it was probably the right call. We kept the lake on our right-hand side but carried on in the approximate direction of the cruise terminal.

We’d already walked past Bay Park on the walk southwards earlier in the day so as we came alongside its opposite side on our return trip to the ship we crossed the road and walked through it this time around. It was a very attractive, tranquil park with a mix of wide, concrete areas and grassy, tree-lined sections with meandering paths through it.

Emerging from the park we found ourselves in familiar territory having walked the same roads several hours earlier.

We made our way back to the cruise terminal with only a small delay as what was described as the entrance was ringed off by security for some reason who ushered us away without any indication of where we should go instead. We eventually hunted down one of the exits instead and found a way back in through the snaking lines of people coming and going using the distant view of staff in Princess Cruises uniforms as our direction guide.

We missed out on our original plan of places to visit mainly because we skipped using the free shuttle bus, thinking we’d be able to walk at a faster pace than we managed. We regret that but cannot regret that we saw some things as a result that we possibly would have not seen otherwise and we wouldn’t have had that pleasant encounter with the helpful jogger. Every decision leads to positive and negative results. Xiamen is more spread out than perhaps a look at the map might lead you to think so that’s something to bear in mind if you’re visiting for a short period of time such as during a cruise ship stop but it’s certainly a place we wouldn’t mind visiting again and for longer and with a more definite plan of how to get around and check out its sights.

The next post will cover our departure from the city before Diamond Princess would head southwards towards Vietnam.

The heat of the day and spread-out nature of the Chinese city had really surprised us so we were glad to be back on the ship with about an hour before the scheduled departure and checking the Princess Patter we saw that afternoon tea was still available so decided the chance of some sandwiches, rolls, and cakes with a cup of tea or two would be a nice change from what we’d normally do (burger or pizza and a beer, as you’d possibly guessed). Afternoon tea is served in the International Dining Room on the ship and is free of charge.

We then returned to our room so that we could watch the sailaway. Princess do have sailaway parties on the top deck with the resident band usually but even though they’re a bit more relaxed and not as embarrassingly jingoistic as the ones you get on P&O, for example, they’re still not really our sort of thing. Our balcony gave us a good view of the international cruise port in Xiamen.

And we waited. And waited. And waited a bit more. A couple of coaches that had been out on excursions were late getting back due to traffic problems. The good thing about going on a ship-organised tour as opposed to doing things yourself is that the ship will wait for you in those circumstances.

We waited long enough that the moon started to make an appearance behind one of the nearby buildings.

And then without really realising it the ship was edging away from the port, making its 180 degree turn once we were sufficiently far enough way from the dock, and starting its slow run out towards the sea. With Diamond Princess now facing southwards our balcony on the starboard side of the ship gave us a pleasant view of the sunset over the Chinese mainland and spread of Xiamen there.

We passed between the pylons connecting the island of Xiamen to the mainland again.

As the sun finally vanished in the murk of the horizon we glanced back to see something we hadn’t expected: a Xiamen light show. We knew Hong Kong put on a light show as we’d seen it before (Hong Kong Harbour Light Show) and were expecting to see some of it again on this cruise but hadn’t realised Xiamen had its own version. While the buildings may not have had the grand scale of Hong Kong and there seemed to be less in the way of coordination in the lights we could see, they were, nevertheless, arguably far more impressive than Hong Kong. Some buildings had stylised, color-changing waves; others Chinese writing; others had pirate ships animated in the lighting. If you’re ever in Xiamen after the sun goes down then it looks like the light show along the waterfront of the city is something that should be seen.

All-too-soon we left the attractive lights of Xiamen behind and passed some of the industrialised areas that marked the boundary of the city before hitting the sea and starting the run south towards Vietnam.

For us, then, the evening followed pretty much the standard pattern: showered, changed, off for a pre-dinner drink or two, then dinner itself followed by a quick nose around the various lounges to see what was going on before heading up to Skywalkers nightclub to people-watch, drink some more, and dance as much as our tired bodies would allow us.

Our body clocks were still not fully adjusted to the timezone difference from the UK which meant waking at ridiculous o’clock was still the norm so breakfast was eaten nice and early and we followed that – as we’d gotten into the habit of doing so on sea days aboard Diamond Princess – with a quick walk around the top deck to see if there was anything of interest happening aboard or visible out to sea and to take part in the Radio Taiso exercises that were displayed daily on the large movie screen on the cruise ship. The overcast conditions were the visual clue to the increasing humidity.

After that it was inside and down to the piazza to pick up the daily puzzles from the library before picking an activity (or not, depending on the mood and offerings) to occupy our minds and bodies. The source of information for choosing what to do around the ship with Princess Cruises is the Princess Patter and here are scans of this particular sea day’s programme:

We are creatures of habit for the most part, typically limiting ourselves to trivia and seeing if we can get some swimming in around reading, drinking, and relaxing. Prior to this cruise we’ve also tended to pop along to art auctions but over the first few days on Diamond Princess we’d had a nasty run-in with the people of Park West Gallery who manage the art on Princess ships (and many others). I’ve alluded to this in previous posts and do intend to fully write up just what happened at some point but to drop a rather massive hint as to what that might entail our eyes lit up when looking at the Princess Patter and spotting a lecture on the psychology of scammers and scam victims. This lecture didn’t just appeal because it had a direct bearing on what we’d experienced but also because I’ve been a long-time member and supporter (and for a while, organiser) of sceptical organisations in the UK and I wanted to see what a police officer might bring to bear on a subject I knew a little about anyway.

It was a good lecture and a good one for a cruise line to put on where there are a lot of elderly people who tend to be far more vulnerable to scams. We did find the slides describing how scam artists work to be most amusing when comparing how the Park West Gallery salespeople had behaved towards us and mentioned as much when we filed our post-cruise complaint to Princess.

The rest of the day went pretty much as expected, though: a long swim in the Sanctuary Pool led to the pair of us burning various bits we’d missed when applying our Factor 50; burgers and fries were eaten by the pool at lunch; trivia contests were entered and lost in crushing style; the odd drink or two might have passed our lips while reading or playing cards.

As we got ready for dinner in the early evening we had a lovely view of the setting sun on the South China Sea from our stateroom balcony.

Dinner was perfectly fine again with fabulously quick service from our waiter, Alexander. Skywalkers at the end of the evening was practically empty and we ended up back in our cabin earlier than we’d expected, looking forward to the first of two new ports in Vietnam for us in the morning.

First off, though, there was the approach to the port.

We’d forgotten just how staggeringly beautiful Vietnam is and just how much of an impact it had on us on our first visit. Vietnam is a country that really shouldn’t appeal to us at all because if there’s one thing we don’t deal with very well then it’s humidity. We’re not great with high heat either but when you add in the humidity it gets very uncomfortable for us very quickly. On our first trip to Vietnam back in 2008 we remembered the night before hitting the country and how stepping out from the air conditioned inside of the ship onto the promenade deck was like walking into a sauna; the following day was even more of a shock as we’d found ourselves sweating from every pore within seconds, drenching the clothing we’d been wearing. I’m happy to say that it wasn’t quite that extreme this time around and we seemed to cope better with the Vietnamese environmental conditions. The conditions were very still, very calm, and you could see the humidity before you even felt it in the form of the gorgeous clouds over the verdant landscape of the Asian country partly hidden in an early morning heat haze and evaporating mist of the preceding night.

Chân Mây ranks right up there as one of the smaller ports we’ve ever docked at while cruising around the world. Most ports that we’ve cruised into have been either commercial or dedicated for cruise passengers and it’s been a rare event to hit one whose prime purpose is industrial. A number of piers and wharfs extended out from the Vietnamese shoreline allowing Diamond Princess to come alongside.

With no building ashore for passengers to head through everyone had to wait until immigration officers came aboard and had set up near the exit of the ship in order to get a landing card stamped by the authorities. This didn’t take very long, though, and the process of getting the landing card was a perfunctory one that barely added a few seconds to the departure process for those leaving the ship.

As already mentioned, we had booked a full day’s excursion through Princess Cruises for our first day in Vietnam to visit the city of Huế and a number of historical sites in the area. We got our landing cards and left the coolness of the ship for a walk of around one hundred metres to where the coaches had parked up waiting to take passengers to their destinations.

We were immensely pleased to discover that the coach we were on had air conditioning, something notably missing when we’d taken a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels ten years earlier. We then had the equally welcome pleasure of experiencing a drive through the Vietnamese countryside once more. Blue skies dotted with billowing clouds accompanied our journey first inland then turning northwards towards the city that was our destination. The landscape was overwhelmingly green with large swathes of fields rolling smoothly up the hills both nearby and in the distance.

As we got further away from the port area and closed in on Huế there were far more signs of human life with more buildings, plenty of roadside shrines and temples, cemeteries, and shops.

With restroom facilities being limited at the first place we were scheduled to visit our coach made a brief stop in the city near a jewellery store with public toilets. We had a quick look at the jewellery on offer but the prices were far beyond what we wanted to spend on anything; more than that, the behaviour of the sales staff was not something we were comfortable with. If you’ve never been to this part of the world before then it’s worth noting that how you might like to browse a store – you look around, you find something of interest, you find someone to ask questions about it perhaps – is not how it works out there. Instead, you have to be prepared to have someone shadow you from counter to counter, from shelf to shelf, picking up absolutely anything your eyes glance at and trying to push it onto you. There’s likely to be a commission aspect to this pushiness but we find it off-putting and counterproductive and it’s an area where we’d like to see the cruise companies perhaps approaching these trusted partner shopping stops and maybe suggesting they ease off with the sales tactic a bit.

Escaping from the store we hung around outside to snap a few shots and wait for the rest of our tour group to emerge and get back on the coach.

From that rest stop it was just a very short drive across the Perfume River and to a parking lot within a few hundred metres of the walls of the Imperial City.

In the next post I’ll cover our visit to the Imperial City in Huế.

Even though I’m going to be mostly referring to this Vietnamese historical site as the Imperial City it’s really three structures, one inside another. The outermost structure is the Citadel comprising the thick walls and moat. Inside that and through ornate gateways is the actual Imperial City. Within the city is another, originally walled off area called the Purple Forbidden City, reserved for the Emperor and family.

Unlike its counterpart in Beijing the Imperial City is not aligned to face north-south but rather on a northwest-southeast direction in order to make use of the Perfume River‘s natural course as the first layer of defence. The city has a number of entrances and our tour would take us in through the main one in the centre of the southeast wall. The first thing we saw was the clearly defensive fortifications of the Citadel across the moat fed by sluice gates from the nearby river.

Over the moat and inside the Citadel walls via the Ngan Gate we then stopped by the Holy Cannons. There are nine of these in total set up in two lines of four and five where the group of four (nearest the gate we came in through) represent the seasons and group of five represent the elements (fire, water, earth, wood, and metal). Made of brass and about five metres in length the cannons are ceremonial and have never been fired.

We then walked towards the beautiful Cửa Ngọ Môn (or Noon Gate) to enter the Imperial City. Opposite the gate was the imposing presence of the Flag Tower.

The Trung Dào bridge passed over the Thai Dich lake and took us to the first building, Điện Thái Hoà (the Palace of Supreme Harmony). This palace was built in 1806 for the coronation of Emperor Gia Long and houses the throne that was the seat of power for thirteen emperors in Vietnam.

Beyond the Palace of Supreme Harmony we were effectively in the Purple Forbidden City. A large courtyard area that we first entered was flanked on either side by two buildings called Ta Vu and Huu Vu. While the buildings looked identical from the exterior they both served different purposes with Ta Vu dedicated to art and Huu Vu dedicated to military matters.

We then headed roughly northwards passing through two large courtyard areas known as the Can Chanh and Can Thanh palaces. The Imperial City at Huế attracted a decent number of visitors other than just our tour group but the wide openness of this area lent everything a quiet, peaceful look and feel right up until you looked more closely at the walls and ground where signs of past warfare – bullet holes for the main part – still lingered. It had a transformative effect, taking the tranquility and fashioning it into ghostliness.

It’s also worth noting – although it should be obvious from the photos – but there was very little shade in this area. Whereas we’d been hiding in the shadows of tree canopies or behind walls when we could this clearly wasn’t possible out in the open courtyards when our guide was pointing out interesting buildings he was describing. Just before we’d entered the Citadel at the start of the tour we’d been standing beside our local guide when he pulled out a handkerchief to mop his own brow and turned to us mentioning it was surprisingly hot and humid during our visit on that day. We replied that we’d noticed with a smile but if it’s hot for a local then you know it’s really hot.

Turning roughly westwards we then proceeded down the Long Corridor, a covered walkway in bright red that reminded us of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, albeit without any singers and musicians.

This brought us to Cung Diên Thọ, a couple of buildings used as residence and dining locations for the Emperor’s mother. Just beyond them was the western moat and the area had some well-tended gardens too. A very attractive spot indeed with some very nice decorative stonework on the buildings and walls. The main building housed some artifacts of historical note and there was also a small souvenir shop located here where we picked up a few bits and pieces. I can’t remember for sure because we had some and didn’t check but it was a small enough location that I think you need local currency here; I might be wrong, though.

After giving everyone time to pick up souvenirs and use the nearby toilets if they had need of them (and hadn’t simply sweated out any bodily fluids already like we had) our guide then led us on a roughly clockwise walk around the northern end of the Imperial City then back down towards the palace courtyards and into another walled-off area just to the southeast of them which was the location of the Royal Theatre. This is the oldest working theatre in Vietnam and was originally just for the Emperor’s family (as you could probably have guessed) though it’s possible these days to watch plays inside. The interior was restored in 2004 to be a faithful reproduction of the original design from 1826. We had enough time to look inside had we wanted to but it was a little crowded in this area and required us to take off our shoes and, quite frankly, we weren’t sure we’d be able to get them back on again thanks to the heat of the day if we’d tried.

This concluded our visit to Huế Imperial City so we left by the nearest exit which was the East Bastion Gateway, a gorgeously ornate piece of architecture as I’m sure you can see from the photos below.

Crossing the moat surrounding the Citadel we turned right and headed back towards the main road roughly to the south of the Imperial City and towards where our coach had parked up to wait for us. One final point of interest along this stretch of road – although we didn’t have any time to take a look at it on this organised excursion – was the Huế Historical Museum, an open air display of military machines: tanks, guns, helicopters, planes. If you’re at all interested in the Vietnam War aspects of history as they apply to Huế then this looked well worth a quick visit although it was possible to see quite a lot of it just from the roadside where we were.

In the next post I’ll cover the second historical site we viewed on this cruise excursion, that of the Thien Mu Pagoda (Pagoda of the Celestial Lady).