Osaka here we come

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Saturday 17^th March 2012:

Just a quick blog today as the Japanese authorities won’t allow the ship to use its satellite communications equipment once it’s in their territorial waters. So no telephone and no internet once we get to within 12 miles of the Japanese coast and that will be later this afternoon – it’s midday here right now.

The temperature continues to drop and it is now 18º but it’s very humid with over 72%!h(MISSING)umidity. I think we’re just about to be glad we packed some British winter clothes as it’s forecast to be down to around 11 or 12 degrees in Osaka. The waves are quite high and there are loads of white horses but as the QM2 was built for the transatlantic route, she copes brilliantly and you are barely aware of any movement on board.

We’ve done 2 lectures this morning; one on the evolution of skyscrapers and one on Japanese history and culture. The skyscraper man was very good with some excellent photographs of many iconic buildings. But the Japanese lecturer missed his mark a bit as he spent some time talking about Osaka (which was good as that’s where we’ll be by bed time tonight). But he also spent a lot of time talking about Tokyo, telling us about lots of different places we should visit … if only we were going there!! A bit like Bulls Eye – here’s what you could have won. But no matter, we shall be in Japan by the time of our next blog. We’re off sightseeing all day tomorrow and then on Monday we’re at sea for the day as we sail on to Nagasaki. As we’ll be more than 12 miles out to sea, we should be able to add a blog then and will do our best to get a photo on to Facebook.

Happy St Patrick’s day to everyone – Richard’s thrilled because they’re discounting the Guinness on board!

PS The ship’s engines have just this second stopped – again – so scrub what I said about us not feeling any movement. With no forward movement, the stabilisers can’t do their job so now we’re rolling. Fingers crossed it won’t be for long!

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Comments

[soo coventry]

hello....
Hope that the engines were back in action very quickly, and that you enjoy your visit to Japan. xx