Sea day before Shanghai

Monday March 16th - The sea is mirror calm today and we are surrounded by a deep fog, perhaps 100 or 200 yards visibility. It’s eerie looking out the cabin window seeing nothing but the grey mist, it must be the result of the abrupt change in temperatures between Shanghai and Incheon. Yesterday, Incheon varied from 0 to 5 degC and tomorrow the forecast is for a high of 24 degC in Shanghai.


We’ll be leaving on our overland China tour, tomorrow, so I won’t be posting anything to the blog, ‘til about March 21 as I won’t have my laptop with me. I‘ll be taking handwritten notes and will try to catch up on the 4 days when we get back. Not sure how easy that will be as we‘re off again on the 23rd for 5 days.

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Incheon, Korea

Sunday March 15th - The approach to Incheon, this morning, was unusual because the tides here can vary by up to 7 metres (23 feet) difference between high and low, we had to pass through a lock system to enter the harbour. We were more than an hour behind originally scheduled time as we ran into strong headwinds yesterday coming up through the Yellow Sea. I watched the docking procedure from deck 5 and it was bitterly cold, about 1 degC (34 degF), the forecast was for a daytime high of 5 degC (41 degF) with sunny /cloudy periods.



Izzy samples some street food at Walmido island



Walmido island street



Some appetizing street food


We booked a Princess tour, Walmido Island and SinPo market, due to leave at 10am, so we headed dockside and boarded our bus. The guide, a young Korean woman, Joy, was generally upbeat and provided lots of information as we made our way to our first stop, a typical Korean 17th century house and garden area, pretty uninspiring as it appeared to be still under construction. During our stroll through the garden area, we amused ourselves by comparing deformities with several other passengers, I was happy to see that in the bent finger department I was pretty far down in the pecking order (I blame Pat for the previous sentence).

Incheon Chinatown street with Izzy at bottom right


Next stop was the waterfront boardwalk at Walmido, with amusement arcades, rides and food concessions. Izzy tried a hotdog on a stick, wrapped in mashed potatoes with diced potatoes stuck to the outside, all deep fried, from the couple of bites I got, it wasn’t too bad, maybe because it had been 3 hours since I’d eaten and I was starving. Next stop, we walked through Chinatown and Japanese town, visiting the museum of architecture.

Ladies in the fish market



I like a nice piece of fish, with some chips


We then moved on to the most interesting stop of the tour, the fish market. The vendors were quite friendly, even knowing that we probably wouldn’t buy anything, we tried our newly learned few words of Korean, “Al mah eh yo” (how much does it cost?) and “An yong has eh yo” (hello). Last stop was SinPo market, above and below ground shopping, average Korean stuff, nothing in the usual tourist vein (tshirts etc). We realised on the way back that SinPo market was quite close to the ship, so it could be walked to easily enough and in fact, while in Chinatown we met Lucerne (86 years old) single lady who had walked there from the ship. Later we had a late lunch with her and she told us she planned to go back in to town again, while we were ready for a sleep.

Pat & Jim standing on a street corner, close to the fish market


We skipped dinner in the restaurant tonight and instead had a snack in the Panorama buffet, then watched the ship negotiate the locks at the exit to Incheon harbour. On our way out we met Ella, youngest passenger on board, she is visiting her grandmother, with her parents, ’til HongKong, grandmother is on the full world cruise and each segment, a different family member group comes on board and the previous set leaves, great idea, I thought. Later, we closed out the evening taking in the caberet show, an English pub style singer, who was quite good and got the crowd going, singing lots of fifties and sixties songs.

Ella with her new slippers



Me as we pass through the lock system at Incheon port

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Sea day before Korea & captains profile

Saturday March 14th - This morning we rounded the southernmost point of South Korea on our way to our next port, Incheon, 232 miles to the north west of us. The seas are rough, with 30mph winds (50kph) and the current temperature is 7 degC (45 degF) but it’s not all bad, it’s sunny cloudy and it’s not raining. In the morning, we attended a lecture on Korea, history and information on the Incheon area by Maureen O’Crowley, an American married to a Korean, living in Seoul, then we met friends in the Royal Lounge for trivia. After lunch, I watched a lecture by Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, espionage insider and expert, on Russian Intelligence and the coming return to the cold war, very interesting. Later we went to the medical centre and Izzy had some follow up blood tests. The results were good and the doc decided that Warfarin shots were no longer required instead small doses of Aspirin would suffice, we were happy to hear the news. After dinner, since we had just left Japan, we watched the movie ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’.

Captain William Kent


Since tomorrow marks the half way point of our voyage (53 to 54 days) it would be prudent to add a profile of the ships captain. We had met him briefly at a reception some weeks ago, then tonight, we met him once again in the medical centre when Izzy went to get her blood test results. I took the opportunity to ask him about the story of the sack of potatoes and he was kind enough to explain, if you want more details email me. Captain William Kent, born and educated in Boston, England, joined P&O (Princess parent company) in 1974 and has served on many P&O/Princess cruise ships. Married with 2 daughters, his first command position was in 2004, as captain of the Regal Princess.

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Hiroshima

The port area at Hiroshima, dont know what the big silver monument was, but it was pretty cool


Even though Hiroshima is only about 175 miles from Osaka, our ship took 13 hours to make the journey as we had to thread our way through islands and under bridges. We docked in Hiroshima about 09.10am, it was raining steadily, the temperature was around 10 deg C (50 deg F) and Izzy was feeling good after her previous few stressful days. Our tour was scheduled to depart at 09.30am, so we headed down to the dockside and boarded our allocated bus A3.


Two pictures from Shukkeien Garden


The bus left a few minutes late and drove toward town and our first stop, Shukkeien Garden, dating from the early 17th century. The garden was completely destroyed, by the atomic bomb in 1945 and it wasn’t ‘til 1974 that restoration was completed, we spent about 45 minutes strolling around enjoying the scenery.

Me with the A-Bomb dome across the river



Izzy rings the Peace Bell



Two kids at the Childrens Peace Monument


Next stop was Peace Memorial park and A-Bomb dome, the park was created in remembrance of the lives lost in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The A-Bomb dome is the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, it stands as it was, immediately after the bombing, as a lasting symbol of the horrors of war. We rang the peace bell, then walked down toward the Childrens Peace Monument where thousands of folded paper cranes were displayed. The crane symbolizes long life and it’s believed that if you fold a thousand origami cranes, it leads to a long life. Next stop was the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, displaying many artefacts left by the victims, photos, re-creations and other material, it was a moving and thought provoking visit.

The kids who asked us some questions


As we exited the museum, we were approached by some school children, it seems that their school project was to interview visitors. They wanted to know where we came from, why we had come, what kind of Japanese food we liked etc. and it was fun talking to them as their command of English was pretty limited and our Japanese language skills were limited to 4 or 5 words. They were very interested that we had come from the ship and we managed some communication with hand signals and animal noises, as Izzy spoke to them I went back to the bus, got our copy of the ships itinerary and gave it to them.

Izzy samples some Saki


We returned to the ship around 01.30pm and decided to walk the 20 minutes to a local supermarket. By 03.00pm we were back at the dock, the local tourism board had set up a display of Saki production and we had a few samples, they permitted us to keep the neat square cups used to drink the Saki. I grabbed a quick sandwich and had an hours sleep back in the cabin while Izzy went to the medical centre for her shot and around 05.00pm we sailed away, the weather was drizzling rain as it had been all day, but we still enjoyed our visit and were sad to be departing Japan as we moved off on our way to the next port, Incheon, Korea. I went to the show in the evening, comedian Milt Abel, he was dreadful, but I stuck it out ’til the end, don’t know why as plenty of other people didn’t. I found Izzy and we decided to have an early night as we were both tired, all things considered, Izzy did well today, there was a lot of walking and she held up quite well.
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Osaka

I haven’t posted for a few days as we had a bit of a medical scare.


Continuing on Tuesday - Izzy had chest pains on and off all day, so when she complained of feeling ill as we were getting ready for dinner, I decided it was time to see the doctor. As soon as we explained the symptoms to the nurse, we were immediately rushed into the examination room, an ecg was started and blood was withdrawn for tests. A few minutes later, as I filled out her past medical history, the doctor arrived and made an examination. Heart problems were all but eliminated, the most likely diagnosis was a lung embolism. A chest xray was unsuccessful as the ships motion affected the machine (the sea was fairly rough, causing lots of rocking and rolling). We spoke to the doctor and he informed us that to be certain of the diagnosis, Izzy needed to have a catscan which would confirm his diagnosis with 100% certainty, so within 15 minutes, he had contacted Osaka University hospital to arrange for her to be examined. Izzy had an injection of Warfarin, to thin her blood, a process that will be repeated daily. We left the medical centre, Izzy still had the catheter in her arm, in case it was needed later, she was feeling weak and decided to spend the rest of the evening in bed. Around 08.00pm we had some food delivered by room service, Izzy had some chicken soup and a bread roll which she promptly threw up again 10 minutes later. She took a seasickness pill and soon fell into a restless sleep. Realising that we would be unable to meet our private guide, I emailed him and cancelled our arrangements. We were very disappointed that we couldn’t go through with the tour, our guide, Ichiro, was a volunteer, part of a government supported organisation whose aim is to provide help to visitors at no cost and after we had exchanged several emails, we were particularly looking forward to meeting him in person.

Dr Tagg, Izzy and Nurse Kelly

Next day, the pain was gone and Izzy felt a lot better, it was another sea day so we took it easy, it was much colder outside, down to about 15 degrees. After another Warfarin shot, we went to dinner at night, watched the show then went to the cabin.
This morning, Thursday 12th March, we had to clear Japanese immigration. We were scheduled to go at 07.45am, but the doctor had asked us to meet at the medical centre at 08.00am so that he could escort us to the dockside and introduce/transfer us to a medical interpreter, who would accompany us to the hospital. We arrived at the immigration inspection point at 07.15am to find a line up, literally from one end of the ship to the other. Knowing we wouldn’t meet our 08.00am meeting if we joined the end of the line, with help from friends, Mary and Andy, we skipped the line and managed to clear inspection by 07.40am. The inspection process was interesting in that everyone was photographed and fingerprinted, then provided with a stamped document to be used ashore, instead of a passport. We met the ships doctor and he accompanied us as planned to the dockside where he introduced us to, who he called, the medical interpreter. The doctor went back on board the ship and after a few seconds, it became clear that the gentleman he had introduced was actually our volunteer guide, Ichiro. Anyway we eventually found the interpreter and were soon on our way to the hospital, with Ichiro accompanying us, a situation that we were very happy about, Ichiro was easy to talk to and turned out to be an excellent help during the time we spent in the hospital.

Mr Hyushi (interpreter), Izzy and Ichiro.

We arrived at the hospital (Osaka Seamans Insurance Hospital not University Hospital) in about 10 minutes, stepped inside, and the kaleidoscope began to turn. Nothing was familiar, all signs in Japanese of course, all people looked Japanese, nurses in colourful uniforms, doctors in crisp whites, adolescent schoolboy patients in military style uniforms and all the sounds completely unrecognisable to us. Thank goodness for our medical interpreter and most of all thank goodness for Ichiro, who was contributing his time and friendship for no personal gain. Over the next 5 hours, Izzy had a CT scan, 2 xrays, a sonogram, several blood tests and consultations with 5 different doctors. The consensus, as far as we could understand from the interpreter was that the heart was OK but we should follow up with a cardiologist when we return to Canada, there was evidence of an embolism, but the Warfarin should resolve the problem. The last process in our hospital time was paying the bill which fortunately was possible thanks to Visa and surprisingly was less expensive than we thought 9covered by Princess travel insurance). The Japanese people, everywhere we went, were absolutely amazingly helpful, efficient and polite, they made our time as easy as possible. By 01.30pm we were back at the ship to leave our copies of tests, xrays and ct scan films before going back ashore to meet Ichiro. Ichiro refused to allow us to pay his travel expenses so we were determined to at least provide lunch and, in fact, I had been looking forward to trying some traditional Japanese food.

Izzy tries some of my lunch, Misoshiru & Dombu Ri to the left and Gyo Za to the right.

We stayed close to the ship and after surveying a few possibilities, we decide on a small ‘fast food’ place whose advertised meal pictures looked appetizing. Ichiro and I each had the 3 course special and Izzy had a bowl of rice and pork. Our 3 courses consisted of Misoshiru (seaweed soup), Gyo Za (fried pork and garlic fingers) and Dombu Ri (rice, egg noodles, chunks of chicken and vegetable topping). The latter was particularily good and I thoroughly enjoyed it, the soup and pork fingers were palatable but not really to my taste, nevertheless we enjoyed the experience, eating with chopsticks and it was even more special that there were no other tourists around and it felt as if we were eating genuine Japanese everyday fare, Gochisosama Ichiro. I can’t say enough about how happy we were to have the company of Ichiro, he made our time in Osaka so much better and it was with some sadness that we said our goodbyes, I hope he will visit us some day in Canada. Back on the ship, Izzy had an afternoon nap as she was worn out, mostly with the stress of the morning’s events, I took a walk into the streets of Osaka, not with any other intention than to absorb the moment and observe the everyday events. During my walk, I was surprised to be approached on the street by an old guy who spoke fairly good English and just wanted to talk, he asked where I was from and I enjoyed talking to him for about 10 minutes, telling him where we had come from and where we were going. Later in the afternoon we met with the ships doctor again, (a Scotsman named Andrew Tagg) and he confirmed most of what we had understood, though he will get the final report from the hospital in the next two days.
At 05.00pm we attended a ‘welcome ceremony‘ marking the inaugural visit of Royal Princess to Osaka, local dignitaries and our captain exchanged plaques of commemoration, followed by a demonstration by pseudo ninjas. We were overwhelmed by the good wishes and prayers accorded to Izzy by so many people, Bill & Shell (thanks for the flowers), Pat & Jim, Mary & Andy, Jim & June, Doreen & Bob, Lucy & Jim, Alice & Catherine, Harry & Bob, Sue & Jim, Dave & Jo, John & Irene, Martha, Mirza (dishwasher) and Montano (our steward) plus others that we can‘t even name.

Osaka as we sailed away, with giant ferris wheel on the left.

After dinner, we watched the sail-away, a poignant experience as many shore side watchers waved and called goodbye, we said a sad sayonara to Osaka a surprisingly friendly city of memorable people.
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