Muroran

Today is a sea day, but yesterday was Muroran, on Hokkaido, the northernmost Japanese island.

There was the (sadly and frustratingly) usual customs and immigration and health scanning kerfuffles before we were able to get off the ship. The Japanese people are wonderful, but I regretfully report that their official procedures are not up to snuff.

The town had a circular shuttle bus laid on for the day, so we took it! The first stop was at the tourist center. Laurel was guided through arranging flowers and conducting a Japanese tea ceremony. There ceremony was exacting and the tea, well, it is an acquired taste--it is a green, frothy, seaweed tasting, thick, hot drink. They also had a bunch of schoolkids--the youngest about 3--who sang a few Japanese songs for us--very cute, and they did a great job. Then, we climbed up 289 steps to a Shinto shrine--which was exquisite. Peaceful, beautiful landscape with traditional buildings. Laurel got to pound on a traditional Taiko drum in the shrine.

We hopped on the bus and went to the next stop, which had a couple of department stores--so we wandered around. Then, we went into a shop selling Bento boxes--box lunches--got a couple and went to a park area beside a canal to eat them. No idea what some of the items were, but they were tasty! Got some Mothers Day flowers and walked around a bit.

Went to another stop along the way and got an example of Japanese calligraphy, done in front of us by an older gentleman. Wonderful.

A great ceremony by the townsfolk as we were leaving port.

Today, we had a DISASTER. Laurel was trying to view the little camera pictures on the Coby viewer when the viewer erased--without asking!--all the pictures on the SD card--about 400 or so. We have the card in the photo shop now in the hopes that they can recover them. And, they are making a DVD of the 1300 pictures on the big camera. We will know tomorrow if we have lost the pictures--we are keeping fingers crossed that they can recover them.

For the next few days, as we sail east, we lose an hour each night--and a day tomorrow! There will be Monday-1 and Monday-2 for us--but each one will only be 23 hours long. This will put us eventually on Alaska time, but it will make for strange sleeping and many adjustments of the watches and clocks. Although we have been over the International Date Line before, each time is a new and strange--incomprehensible?--experience.

Smooth sailing across the Pacific so far--the Captain has the throttle open so he can get a bit ahead of schedule in case the weather slows us down later on during the crossing. He has 3000 miles to cover over the week.

We're doing fine, and they assure us that the Internet will be available the whole crossing, so we will do email, but will probably only post on the blog if something interesting happens. A sea day is relaxing, with reading and lazing about and participating in shipboard events. So, they are great, but usually there is little to blog about. We will let you know about the pictures...