Welcome to Japan...! March 27, 2024
This is a long overdue post, not written at the peak of my form but written nonetheless. We arrived in Japan late last evening, Tuesday March 26 after 18 hours of flights, delayed flights and washing-machine turbulence from Toronto to Osaka via Tokyo. This trip, one to which we have excitedly looked forward, was preceded by 2 1/2 weeks in Portugal. We returned from that trip last Wednesday, unpacked, did our laundry and prepared to leave on Monday for this trip to Japan. In the interval I celebrated my 80th birthday with a fabulous dinner with family and recovered from my over-exuberent wine consumption just in time to make our flight.
We first travelled to Japan over 25 years ago and I subsequently returned there on a couple of occasions for business but we had always talked about returning and seeing more of the country than we had on our first visit. The opportunity arose when good friends Chuck and Eileen with whom we had sailed to the Arctic from Svalbard 7 or 8 years ago and then with whom we explored Bhutan 4 years ago, mentioned that they were sailing on a small French boat chartered by Abercrombie & Kent, on a cherry blossom tour around Japan. We immediately signed on. Ponant is a French sailing line and those of you who remember my trip to the Antarctic last February/March will also remember that it too was on the same Ponant line. Additionally it was an Abercrombie & Kent charter of a Ponant boat on which we sailed to the Arctic with Chuck & Eileen, so it seemed fated.
Ponant’s boats are small as these things go, on this trip there will be about 150 passengers, and due to their limited size they are able to get into smaller ports that would be inaccesable to larger ships. The boats are irredeemably French which extends to the food, wine and crew so not exactly a hardship posting and I know that my liver will pay the price. The itinerary will take us from Osaka south through the Inland Sea and then north up the eastern side of Honshu, the main island of Japan, to Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido. We will be stopping at ports along our route and will therefore have the opportunity to visit locations that would otherwise be difficult to access in any other way. The intent is that we will be following the cherry blossom season as it moves north through the country’s islands.
Accordingly we arrived in Osaka on a domestic connection from Tokyo after our Air Canada flight from Toronto. We were among a very few non-Japanese on a packed commuter flight that arrived very late into Osaka, when we learned a graphic lesson on the competing aspects of the Japanese character. The ultra-polite and gracious side of our fellow passengers’ personalities while we waited to board was replaced with a take-no-prisioners, steely-eyed intensity when disembarking, as everyone determined to be the first one off the plane. No pity for widows or orphans.
Our first night was spent in a hotel in the airport terminal which immediately took us back to our first trip to Japan 25 years earlier. Our ship’s rallying-point hotel in Osaka is the Ritz Carlton Hotel but we expected to be so tired when we arrived in Osaka late in the evening, that rather than struggle to get into town to our hotel, we decided we would stay in the hotel in the airport and go on to the Ritz Carlton the following day. Unfortunately, when we checked in we flashed back to our first trip when our Tokyo hotel’s rooms were so small that one of us had to go into the corridor if the other one wanted to unpack their suitcase, small just does not do it justice. This one was slightly larger, we could both stay in the room to unpack, but we had to take turns breathing.
Our grand first night dinner in Osaka!
Our next adventure arose when we decided to try and find some dinner, but the hotel had no food service and at this point all the airport restaurants had closed for the evening. I threw myself on the mercy of a restaurant owner who was trying to lock up for the night and neither of us sharing a language, I tried to convey our plight to him. After determinedly gesturing that he couldn’t serve us, he signed that we should follow him. He led us down escalators, through the terminal, past the airport bus station and across the street to a mini-mart that was still open. Excitedly we saw that they sold pre-packaged food; I had gyoza soup with fresh vegetables and we each had a ginger beef and sticky rice all microwaved for us by the store. A couple of cans of cold beer and we are now ready to fight another day.
More to come
