Japan - Yokohama

Yokohama is the 2nd largest city in Japan, but it is really part of Tokyo. The trip to Tokyo is only some 30 minutes.  Yokohama has the tallest building in Japan.  You may have noticed that the last two pictures in the Kobe post are not where they are supposed to be.  That is because due to the lack of good capacity on the ship that the pictures bounce around and are VERY hard to move back to their correct position within the text.  Sorry about that.  The same is the case with the Yokohama pictures.



View from the Landmark Tower




Grace and Corinne Law in front of Tall Ship at base of the Landmark Tower

  The 2nd day we went to Mt Fuji and Hakone.  Mt Fuji is the national symbol of Japan.  It is the highest peak in Japan at 12,388 feet with a near-perfect stratovolcano shape and has been dormant since 1707.  One arrives at the visitor station which is known as Step 1.  There are many levels as one drives up to the top step with is Step 5.  There is a temple at this last step.  From the temple hikers climb to the summit, which is said to be a five-hour climb.  Then it is 3 and a half hours back down.  As one can see the top has a large layer of snow around it. There is a Japanese proverb warning which says, "He who climbs Mount Fuji once is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a fool."  We are neither wise nor foolish.  After seeing Mount Fuji we went to the Hakone National Park and from Hakone we rode the famous Komagatake Ropeway up for a big view of Lake Hakone.  

Rainbow on way to Mount Fuji



Mt Fuji through the Clouds

 

The Landmark Tower



Ken and Donna below Mt Fuji at Visitor Center - Step 1



Overlooking the Valley at Step 5



Corinne and Jim Law with Grace at Step 5




Grace and Ken at Step 5




Overlooking the valley from Step 5



Grace in the Red Maples on Lake Hakone

Grace with Duck paddle boats on Dock at Lake Hakone

Corinne and Jim Law with Grace on Ferry on Lake Hakone

Our next stop is back on U. S. soil in Honolulu. 

Japan

In Japan we made two stops – one in Kobe and the other in Yokohama.  Our co-chairman of the Lifelong Learners was Betty Waldron.  Betty and her husband, Milt, had made some 10 trips on SAS, so Betty knew a lot about the workings of Semester at Sea.  Anyhow, we had a party in the Glazer Lounge (where the adults went for refreshments each night) for Betty’s departure.  She was a great help to all us old LLLs.



Betty Waldron

Our first day of two we went on a city orientation.

Our guide took us through an area where we saw several memorials to the 1/17/1995 earthquake in Kobe that saw some 6,000 people die.  It is an important part of Kobe as most of the city was devastated.

Between Shanghai and Kobe we passed north of Kyushu and south of Honshu. The below volcano was on an island before we passed between those two big isllands of Japan. Ken's brother was stationed at Fukuoko (spelling?) Air Force Base on Kyushu in the 1960s. Our guess is that this island was just west of Kyushu and not on that island. But the seas are large so it is hard to tell.

  

Active Island Volcano in the Japanese islands

Seattle, WA is a sister city to Kobe.  Sometime after the earthquake Seattle sent the below totem pole to honor the victims of the earthquake.

Totem Pole Donated by Seattle to Earthquake Victims

 

View from 24th floor of the government building with MV Explorer

Grace in front of our ship - the MV Explorer

 The 2nd day we went to the Kobe Fashion Museum.  No pictures allowed inside. It was very interesting as it included pictures over the centuries of fashion. Much of the exhibit featured pictures of France fashion starting in the early 1900s. We really enjoyed it.

Grace in front of the Kobe Fashion Museum

Corinne Law and Grace on a pretty boulevard in Kobe



Our guide ovelooking the first memorial to the Kobe victims

Another memorial to the earthquake victims

We will post Yokohama separately.

SHANGHAI

Arrival Monday, November 15, at 0800

Until the mid-19th century Shanghai was a small fishing town on the Huangpu River.  Its rise to prominence came as the result of its selection as a treaty port by the British after the Treaty of Nanking.  Since then, its unparalleled locational advantages have sustained it position as one of China's leading cities, if not its leading city.  Certainly it is the financial center of mainland China.  When we came in 2003 the population was 16 million as compared to Beijing's 13 million. In 2010 the population is 22 million.

Shanghai City Orientation - We had already been to Shanghai but decided to take this tour.  We began at Yu Garden, a fully-restored classical

Chinese garden with ingeniously mingling pavilions and corridors, small hills, and carefully selected and placed rocks, lotus ponds, and bridges, winding paths, trees and shrubs.  The various ponds are stocked with coy.  We had been there in 2003 and Grace remembered a picture she had taken with Winx on the walk over the main pond. But it was good to return.

Ken at Yu Garden

Hieu Dovan at Yu Garden

Dragon on Wall in Yu Garden



Yu Garden

 

Rock Sculpture in the Yu Garden

Coy in the Yu Garden

Burl wood furniture in the Yu Garden

The Yu Garden is in the Old Town Bazaar so after the garden we shopped - Grace bought a scarf. Then to lunch in the local area. Next we went to the Bund, a seven-mile-long grand boulevard on the bend of the Huangpu River.

Happy Shopper

From there a visit to the Shanghai Museum of Art.  This is where 7 years ago Grace had bought the accordian sketch books that she has used for many of her recents works over the last few years.  We bought 3 of the large accordian books plus other minor items.

Ken and Grace outside the Shanghai Museum of Art

We went from there to visit the Jade Buddha Temple, an active temple with some 50 monks. The temple has bright saffron walls and its centerpiece is a 1.9-meter high jade Buddha encrusted with jewels.



Large Buddhas in the Jade Buddha Temple

No pictures are allowed of the Jade Buddha or the female Jade Buddha



We had a reservation for dinner about 20 minutes away but as we tried to go there we saw clouds of smoke coming from a fire. It seems an apartment building had experience a huge fire. It was near our restaurant and there was no electricity in the restaurant. So the tour guide, after much ado, arranged for another restaurant. As of our leaving there were 42 confirmed deaths in the fire.

After dinner we saw an acrobatics show at the Shanghai Theater. It was good but had too few women acrobats and too much slap stick. It was also the only thing we had not seen on our trip years ago.

The next day was the Urban Planning Museum tour. There was also a drive through the old French Concession area, but that wasn't very interesting.

The Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre is an architectural joy. The Centre condenses the planning stages of yesterday, today and tomorrow, showing the construction of the Shanghai metropolitan are based on themes of City, Humanity, Environment and Development. It is a tour de force. The pictures below don't do it justice.

Part of the Shanghai layout in the Urban Planning Museum

More of the Layout - includes the 2010 Exposition in the bottom

Near where our ship was docked was a very unusual building.  The architecture included 3 large "drops" or whatever.  You can decide.  We think it was called the "Water Building".

Water Building

Before leaving we took a picture of the Pearl Tower which was a very new building when we visited before. There were few other buildings across the Huangpu River from the Bund. As some may remember about half of the world's tower cranes were in Shanghai then. There aren't as many now but one can really see the change across the river as there are a multitude of new buildings. And a lot of new highways and elevated roadways. What a change?

We all had dinner in the top pearl of the Pearl Tower seven years ago.

Pearl Tower



HONG KONG

Hong Kong arrival was Thursday, November 11th, at 0800.

Although Hong Kong was governed by Great Britain for decades, it has retained many traditional Chinese features.

We immediately went to the tailor to have the material we had bought in India to be made into a jacket for Grace.  It would be ready on the next day.

Then we rushed back to the ship to take our city orientation tour.  There were several trips into mainland China but we opted to stay in Hong Kong and stay on the ship to our next stop, which was Shanghai.  Since we had done a lot of the mainland in 2003 on our trip to China with many friends, we decided we would like to spend two days in Hong Kong.  The orientation tour was really a must for us as first time visitors.  We took a bus that made many stops.  The weather was beautiful.  A tram took us up to Victoria Peak where the view of the city skyline and Victoria Harbor, Kowloon and the surrounding islands was great. 

ARRIVAL PHOTOS BELOW

Breakfast with Craig Irving and Thomas Shelton on arrival

Grace, Ken with Don Kimmel and Jim Law

Betty Waldron, Sue Weitz, Grace, Hieu Dovan

Grace, Alexandra "Cookie" Echsner and Thomas Shelton

ON THE ORIENTATION TOUR


Inside St John's Cathedral

 

Lunch in a pocket park in the middle of the financial district

Colorful Ferry Boat

Salle Stemmons and Ken at Victoria Peak

View of Hong Kong from the tram

We walked to many historical buildings including St. John's Cathedral, the Court of Final Appeal (Old French Mission Building), the Legislative Council Building (Old Supreme Court) and the Museum of Tea Ware.  We took a ride on a sampan in the harbor by Aberdeen which is home to hundreds of people living on fishing junks.  Lastly we went to the Man Ho Temple and ended up in the market.  And, of course, we shopped - there is always shopping for tourists in every country.

View from Sampan

Junks from Sampan contrasting with modern high-rise buildings

That night Salle Stemmons took 20 people for dinner at the American Club. We were so lucky to have become friendly with Salle. We sat in the Presidents' dinning room. To get there we took the ferry across the harbor from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. Wow! What a dinner - place cards and all.

Salle's dinner group on the ferry to Hong Kong from Kowloon

Carlos and Salle with Obama's picture between in the President's room

Picture of Grace's end of the table

Picture of Ken's end of the table - note that Ken Kurica is wearing one of Grace's ties as he could not afford one of his own

The next day was our tour of the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Actually we had signed up for the Buddhist Monastery/Lantau Island tour but that tour ended up being cancelled. The Museum is managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. It was established in 1962 and was moved to the Hong Kong Cultural Center in 1991. The center is located a short walk from where we were docked. The Museum's collections now number over 15,000 art objects, including Chinese paintings and calligraphy works, antique Chinese treasures and paintings of historical significance - such as paintings about the Boer Wars. We saw a special exhibit of various art including beautiful accessories - purses, earrings, hair pieces, etc. Grace loved it and, of course, bought a book in the museum shop.

Antique Headdress

Grace in front of the Landscape Journey Exhibit

Then we went an picked up Grace's jacket, got back on the ship and went on to Shanghai.  We may have made a mistake staying in Hong Kong because we missed one of the trips which everyone who went said was spectacular - Guilin/Yangshuo for 4 days and 3 nights.  However, we loved Hong Kong and got Grace's new jacket and had 2 full days and nights on the ship with only 166 passengers.  Both nights were sit down dinners with excellent food as the chefs did not have to cook cafeteria style for 700 passengers.