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Published: October 14th 2008
October 1
Miyako, Japan is the port for today and we were up at 7:45 to get the day started. Our tour today was a combination bus/train ride to/from Kuji City. We headed north along the coast by bus first, through the Rikuchu Coastline National Park. Very mountainous and heavily wooded with huge pine trees. There are many tunnels along the road going through the mountains. We made two stops along the way at scenic overlooks. Unfortunately, it's tough to figure out what the locations are called as there is very little English to be seen. Of course, I didn't remember to ask the guide! At any rate, the view was great with cliffs and the rocky coast in view.
As we continued, we passed through many small fishing villages. Along the road in these villages we would see signs that said "Tsunami mitigation area". At least those signs have English on them along with Japanese! The villages, being by the shore, are in Tsunami zones and everything is very well organized for safety.
There are alarm stations all through the villages and each family has their designated location to go in the event of a Tsunami. The villages also have flood walls/gates surrounding them that can be closed. These are pretty substantial and we know of somewhere in the States where the officials could learn something from these people!
Our second stop on the way to Kuji was at Kita Yamazaki in the park.
There are several shops here, primarily selling seaweed. There was seaweed drying on racks and also on the pavement.
I asked this lady if I could take her picture. She was bundling up the dried seaweed.
That is one thing that I won't be buying as I really don't like seaweed! Seaweed candy anyone? I'm not kidding, they actually had that! Who knows what else was seaweed in those shops! More great scenery at this location.
Lunch was at a hotel in Kuji City and was another great meal. We had soup, salmon and scallop appetizer, salad, beef, dessert and coffee.
Next stop was definitely too short and was at the Amber Museum. Now, pretty much everyone was not interested in the museum part at all, oh no....we wanted the store!
We were given 10 minutes here! What? By the time we even found the store it was too late. Grumble, grumble.....back on the bus....
Return to Miyako was on a narrow guage train in an old, elegant coach.
Very nice ride with some fabulous scenery on the way back. There were 43 tunnels on the 90 minute ride back, one of which was just over 4 miles long. Getting off the train in Miyako, we went through a little shop where Dave looked for some caffeine. I found a tiny Coke for him; it's so cute!!
We were scheduled to leave at 5PM and lots of the locals were at the dock to see us off. Also, there was a drumming group from the local school to send us off. These towns set up all this stuff on their own, we are not asking or paying for it. Also, there were a group of official looking people there and we found out who they were when they stepped up to microphones set up on the dock. The Mayor of the city and other officials had come to thank us and say goodbye. Apparently, this is the Amsterdams first visit to Miyako. I have really been impressed with the people of Japan. They are very gracious people! The streets are very clean and there is no graffitti anywhere! The Mayor gave his speech thanking us for our visit, saying goodbye and wishing us a safe and healthy journey for the rest of our cruise. The drummers started up as we pulled away from the dock. It had been raining lightly and just then the sun started to come out with a beautiful sunset. The drummers ended and the music of Auld Lang Syn floated across the sunset lit waters......
Dinner was rib eye for Dave and pork tenderloin for me. We skipped the show tonight and went to a Jackie Chan movie instead. Before bed we went to the Lido for some cheese to go along with the very tasty Asian Pear that we picked up on our travels yesterday.
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Naomi B
non-member comment
Naaahce pics
Loved the sunset shot, Linda! I'm so enjoying YOUR trip! Thanks and hugs, N