April
- around Christchurch and to Japan
I spent April in the van at a holiday park in Christchurch
catching up with friends and on a bunch of life maintenance. At the
end of the month I made the 22 hour plane/plane/train journey to
Kanazawa. I visited Kanazawa several times on my previous contract,
but I needed a leg stretch so walked around a bit including gardens,
the castle, a shrine, a market, and the D.T Suzuki museum dedicated to a famous Zen
Buddhist philosopher.Some scenes from the walk: a fallen cherry blossom in the garden; Kanazawa Castle; the cleansing sink at the shrine; a market stall; the contemplation space at the Suzuki museum - a huge reflecting pool with occasional ripples
May - Japan aboard Heritage Adventurer
May 9 - Osaka and changeover day at the end of the first voyage - which included visits to a number of ports that I visited last year. Mostly, it was fun making return visits to these places as they are interesting, and with the guests in the hands of the local guides I normally get a bit of opportunity to explore on my own.
Some scenes from this period: Kanazawa: maple leaves in the drizzle and perhaps my favorite garden in Japan - the courtyard garden at the Nomura samurai house; Matsue: garden as art at the Adachi museum, floating rafts of peonies and a blossom at Yuushien gardens; Hagi: terraces in the Akiyoshidai cave; Ulsan, South Korea: Buddha at Bulguksa Temple and paper lanterns for the Buddha's birthday; Mijajima: the famous "floating" torii gate at Itsukushima Shrine, wishes placed by visitors to the shrine; some of the 500 small Buddha's at Daisho-in temple; Hiroshima: Cenotaph with eternal flame and dome; A bomb dome, paper cranes left as a peace offering, water lily; Port of Uno - scenes from Okayama Korakuen garden: castle with crane boats, koi, plank bridge, pine tree trimmers at work (note before and after below and above)
May 25 - Back in Osaka for changeover day at the end of Voyage 3. The previous 2 voyages retraced our route through the Inland Sea, out to Ulsan and the west coast, and back. Voyage 3 was a full charter so there are only a few of us aboard to provide logistical and Zodiac support. We didn't get to go along on the excursions, but did get to go out from the post. At Ulsan I made it out of the port but turned back after only 200m or so - thinking that I would be either poisoned or run over by a huge truck if I went further. The place is an amazing beehive of industrial activity. "Hyundai City" with dozens of big ships in port or waiting to get in, a huge refinery and factories just outside the port gate, and a remarkable close-up view of the engine of the world industrial complex. No one very interested in carbon footprints here. I joined our incoming group for their tour of Osaka including the frenetic Dotonburi eating and shopping street and the castle
Some scenes from this period: Port of Uno - public art on the island of Naoshima: funky pumpkin and mesh shell; Hiroshima: a video clip of the taiko drumming farewell (pity about the dodgy sound quality from the camera microphone - we regularly were sent off by various styles of performances on the wharf - always fun, especially the taiko); Hagi: potters at work and the results; Matsue: scenes at Yuushien Gardens (still beautiful even without the peonies); Ulsan: more Buddha's Birthday fun, the busy wharf; Sakaiminato: fish processing at the port; Kanazawa: Kanazawa gave us a rousing dance and flag farewell for Voyage 3; Osaka: street restaurant display, castle
June
- Japan aboard Heritage Adventurer to Svalbard aboard Plancius
June 1 - In Akita on the northwest coast of Honshu. From Osaka the fourth and final voyage of my contract went north along the east coast of Honshu. We made several landings at destinations that were new for me. We had some damp weather and somehow none of the new spots really grabbed my interest - I suspect that it was just me. Then we turned the corner and visited an old favorite at the Namahage Museum - western kids have the reward of a present from Santa if they are good, kids (and wives!) near Akita must not be lazy or the namahage will come down and drag them away to the mountains!
Some scenes from this period: Shinto shrine detail from Osatsu village; Rushing stream in Oirase Gorge; Akita: Namahage masks and a short snippet of terrified children from the video shown at the museum.
June 8 - In Osaka again at the end of the contract. We visited mostly familiar places, but there is always something new to see.
Some scenes from this period: Niigata: porcelain bowl from the Northern Cultural Museum (P.S. I see that I used a photo of the same piece in last year's post - it is beautiful), manga special exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art; Kanazawa: yours truly spreading my wings; Ulsan: orchid at the temple; Shimonoseki: stone lantern and bonsai silhouette from Chofu garden; Miyajima: one of many wonderful sunsets that we had in the land of the rising sun and wish candles at Itsukushima shrine (click it if you can't read the wishes - at only $NZ3.00/$US2.00 you might as well buy the lot!)
Use these links for the logs and slideshows from the Japanese voyages: Voyage 1 Log and Slideshow - Voyage 2 Log and Slideshow - Voyage 4 Log and Slideshow
June 20 - In Longyearbyen, Svalbard on the changeover day after Voyage 1. I had long journey to get here - Osaka to SFO - 2 days in the city - SFO to Longyearbyen with a long stopover in Zurich and an overnight in Oslo and another in Longyearbyen. This combined with previous travel gave me GOLD status on Air New Zealand (yippee). Voyage 1 went to the north making landings and Zodiac cruises at familiar locations and ship cruising the pack ice edge. This was my first contract on Plancius - a smaller vessel than Hondius with ~95 PAX, ~40 crew, and 8 on the expedition team. We had mostly excellent weather (except too much fog), calm seas, and some wonderful excursions.
Some scenes from this period: San Francisco: Cable car (the ride down the Powell St. hill was a thrill); Longyearbyen: View from Mary Ann's hostel window at 2am - daylight, sailboat, sno-mobile, and brown Christmas trees; Svalbard: the always amazing bird cliffs at Alkefjellet - home to ~70,000 nesting pairs of Brunnich Guillemots - video shot from bobbing Zodiac; Arctic terns on ice during a Zodiac cruise; Walrus bull and pile; Alkornet: We had a special afternoon landing at Alkornet lasting almost 4 hours of walking around the tundra below the spectacular peak with its bird cliffs. We saw many friendly reindeer and as we came down the hill an Arctic Fox vixen brought out her whole litter of ~12 kits (or so it seemed). There are few things in life cuter or more endearing and adorable than fox kits at play (sorry for the wind noise and shaky video - it was windy);
Continue to July