Sunrise on the Sea

Upon entering Japan:

Last night Dad was tired and loving the third book he was reading and wanted to go back to his room to read. Kriss and Ed went to the show, I went walking and a bit of ship window shopping of very expensive items and listened to the band in the lounge for a few minutes.

I don’t know if this will ever get to you as we have entered Japanese waters and the ship is “still in negotiations” to see if they are going to allow us internet. And even if we do, as we are down to just 7 minutes on our second expensive internet purchase plan so we may lose it as it in transit to you. We have a 20 minute credit coming so we didn’t want to purchase more but the internet specialist hasn’t been able to access her own internet to fix our credit.

In addition, due to “pig flu” outbreak in Mexico and US we are all required, all 1500 passengers to fill out a 2 page health questionnaire and attend a Health Inspection and possible quarantine this morning, if we pass we will be allowed a Temporary Landing Permit for Kagoshima. (Questions like: Have you been in or around anyone from the US or Mexico in the past 10 days? Well we have all been on board for past 12 days so I think we are all safe.) The government will bring all equipment onboard, then we will pass through a thermo camera, which will register our body temperature BEFORE even meeting with the official. At the inspection a facial photograph will be taken then index fingers of both hands on a digital fingerprint reader. They will confirm our health answers on the two pages, of which if we lie we are liable to 6 months arrest and 500,000 Yen (about $5,000). Then they will stamp our temporary permit so we can go ashore. Glad it is a shorter planned day in Kagoshima. If we aren’t quarantined or arrested then we will be visiting Sengan’en Gardens, city bus tour, and ferry ride to Mt Sakurajima, which is an active volcano that is still smoking, but last eruption was in 1960 but continues to smolder. But they tell us to be prepared as “ash” rains down constantly. Maybe that is why a regular image of Japanese women is that they carry beautiful parasols. Maybe it’s a good day to take along my unused umbrella.

As we look out at the beautiful sunrise over the miles of islands as we head to port we are passing along the southern tip of Japan. Dad looks out and says, “This is the part I bombed. “ This is why we came on this trip. So that Dad/Gpa could see they are OK. Every day Dad stares at something and says what an amazing trip this is and how he thought he would never get here, and how greatful we are to have made the trip.

If this is our last contact with the outside world we will be on ship most of Friday getting to Kobe, Japan. Then we will sleep on board, getting off ship early Saturday with all our bags and head one hour north by train to Kyoto for the day, then back on train for 3 hours to Tokyo.

Stay tuned for more whenever we next find an internet connection.

We love you all.

Pam, Dad, Kriss and Ed