Where to Next?: October 3 – Aomori, (was supposed to be Kushiro) Japan

Weather

– 18º, overcast, tiny bit of rain

Steps –

11 hours 40 min of daylight

Latitude – Calgary 51º, Kushiro 43º

5:30AM and I’m wide awake…this time change thing continues to blow my mind. The sun wasn’t quite up, but I was.

Aomori by night

Now that we’re in Japan, it’s time to turn on our eSIMS. We both got 2Gig for 9USD, and I had a bit of credit, so 2 gig I think cost me about $4 – WOW!

Aomori by day

They tell us Aomori means blue water – the water’s blue, but no more blue than anywhere else.

Nebuta Museum float

Today, being the first Japanese stop we need to do a face-to-face customs and immigration check. Depending on the country, the cruise often takes care of the immigration for us. They keep our passports, and country officials get on and do it all without having to see anyone. Not Japan. I actually don’t remember doing
this last time. I’m sure we did, but it mustn’t have been a gong show like some face-to-faces can be. This one wasn’t at all a gong show, but did take some time. Somehow these things always take longer than I think they should.

Nebuta Museum float

The immigration/customs process was delayed because there were a few medical evacuations. As we came into port, I saw no less than 4 emergency vehicles. This is never a good sign, I guess a mostly elderly crowd + 5 days at sea = a few medical issues unfortunately. A few days ago, we heard a ‘code mike’ which is the

Nebuta Museum float

ship’s code for medical emergency and then later a call for ‘stretcher team’. None of this is good, but we’ve heard nothing but great things about the medical facilities – great, but not inexpensive.

In addition to the medical vehicles, there was a welcoming committee of drummers and dancers…neat!

Aomori cidre

According to the interwebs, Aomori’s pop is

me next to the big Buddah

264,945 – didn’t think Japanese cities could be this small. As we travel around, we can see it is like a small town, with little in the way of traditional Japanese architecture.

Our tour didn’t depart until 12:15, so we had a leisurely morning in the room (started at 530!) and finished at the pool like yesterday.

Japan’s tallest seated Buddha at the Seiryu-ji Temple (or Temple of the Blue-Green Dragon) complex was one of our 2 stops today. The 70-foot Buddah (the

Seiryu-ji Temple

tallest in Japan) is made of copper so after being

Seiryu-ji Temple thru trees

weathered looks green. The entrance to the temple is made of cypress wood making the interior smell delightful. This place is as you might expect a Japanese temple in a Japanese garden…quiet and serene…lovely. The light mist of rain only added to the atmosphere.

We walked a bit at the beginning of our visit with Togo our guide as she explained this and that. Then we were on our own to wander the grounds and go inside the Buddha and temple.

temple complex entrance

Excursions are a good way to experience things we might not necessarily choose for ourselves. Aomori’s Nebuta Museum Warasse is an example of this. Parade

another Buddha

museums aren’t exactly up our street, but this is actually the second parade/festival museum we’ve visited on a ship excursion – the first was 2

today's entry tix

years ago in Brazil. Every summer Aomori has a Nebuta summer festival which is showcased in this museum. There are 4 example of parade floats. These floats are all made from paper and lit on the inside by light bulbs.

We also learned that the area of Aomori is the apple capital of Japan. Where there’s apples there’s…

tiny Buddhas lining the walls in the Buddah

CIDRE!!! We had a bit of time at the end of our museum visit for a quick cidre. We each had a 200mL, 3% bottle of sweet, bubbly
Japanese cidre…yum! $7CAD each.

Sea days gives me a change to read. I typically spend a lot of my free time on vacation blogging rather than reading. Today I finished Jodi Picault’s Small, Great, Things, I found it in the ship’s library, so I thought I’d give it a try. I really