Location: Osaka, Japan

I’ve come to view this cruise as a sampler pack to help me decide where I want to return to for a more extended vacation. But that is not fair with respect to Japan, as I already know I want to spend some serious time here.

In college I participated in medieval re-enactment, and while we mostly focused on European history, there was a significant number who focused on Japanese history. So, I spent time studying with them. Then about 15 years ago I had a chance to work in Japan, so I took language classes (I went to England instead).

Silversea is the only cruise line that went as far north as Japan in their 2019 world cruise. This probably was the main reason I chose Silversea, for if I was going to take a world cruise, I wanted to visit Japan. Even tho it’s winter.

Osaka

Osaka is a major industrial and port city on the south west of the main island of Honshu. Our ship docked right next to the aquarium, but we had bigger plans. After a crazy long line and delay going thru immigration (I think they were using the ship’s internet – HA!), we boarded the bus and visited Osaka Castle.

Wow, attacking this castle would have sucked. Here is a model of how things would have looked back when.

At the bus parking lot there were borders to keep vehicles from driving on the pedestrian areas. To stop you from sitting on them, or maybe skateboarding on them, there were metal birds welded on top.

However, it seemed that the Castle is a major school field trip location. The walls and moats could not keep out these savage kinder gardeners. Just look at the rage in their eyes!

As you got closer things were even more imposing. Some points:

• At the end of each roof point there is a fish statue. Fish=water in Japanese lore, so these are placed there as a charm to protect against fire. Historical Japan had a lot of wooden buildings, and many, many city fires.
• There are round flowers below the fish, which were the crests of the ruling family.

While we visited some street performers started their show. Their mascot was a stuffed toy cat (“neko” in Japanese).

As we returned to the bus, I grabbed some street food.

• The skewer of steak was awful – It was like thick, chewy, gristly bacon
• However, the taiko-manju was excellent. It is a stuffed pancake, with adzuki paste and custard. Think of like how a calzone is compared to a pizza.

Next we visited the Sumiyoshi-taisha Shinto shrine. I rapidly discovered stone lanterns. They are donated by families, businesses or towns seeking blessings. Candles are placed within on special occasions.

The gate at the end of the sidewalk is a Torii, which separates the mundane and sacred area. The walk from the parking area to the shine was lovely.

As you enter you visit the fountain pavilion to purify yourself. You use the provided ladle to draw water and use it to clean (in order) your left hand, right hand, mouth and the ladle’s handle.

Across from this fountain was a tree with a rope on it, which also indicated it was sacred and as a ward against evil. The paper strips are “shide“, which represent lightning.

There are several specific shrines on the grounds.

Here you write your prayer/request of the spirits on a wooden planks (after providing a “donation” to the shrine).

For another donation you can have your fortune told. If you don’t like the fortune leave it at the shrine to ask the spirits to help stop it.

We are too early for cherry blossoms, but I think we found the first plum blossoms.

Philippines Dance Special

I am now in a Kyoto hotel, which literally has WIFI that is 200x faster than the ship. Here are some videos of the Philippines cultural dancers (I finally remembered my camera also takes video).

• Dance 1
• Dance 2
• Dance 3

I free-handed all of them, so they are shaky and poorly framed. It wasn’t until later that I noticed the main female dancer dropped her fan a few seconds into Video 3.

Next: Teppanyaki!