Yokohama greeted us with a constant heavy rain, when we docked around 2 p.m. in the afternoon of the 12. April. Undaunted I found my way to the affordable hop on/hop off bus and made way way - sogging wet despite umbrella - to Yokohama Station, where not only commerce and transport combine, but where a lot of museums and restaurants are located. A huge metropolitan centre, beautifully designed and intricately interconnected underground. Here one can catch one of the many bullet trains an be whisked to almost anywhere in Japan at record time. The area is almost next door to the trendy waterfront of Yokohama, with Maritime museums, sailing school ships, harbour ferries, reconstructed old brick warehouses (now boutiques and restaurants) and the Japanes Staple: a huge ferries wheel.
I braved wind and rain again to bus to Chinatown, which in Japan usually means interconnected pedestrian alleys, filled end to end with Chinese eateries. Squid and dumplings everywhere, and Peking Ducks hang from hooks like browned three dimensional laundry. By now I was almost wet to the skin, but still trudged on foot back to the ship, not without the obligatory beer stop at a bar/restaurant reminiscent of movies a la James Dean. Quite dilapidated, with black and white tiles even on the walls and incorporated into the ancient fridge and stove design, peeling walls and rickety chairs. The saving grace was, that the ships' doctor (Gisela from Tatamagouche in Nova Scotia) and Charlene, another ship staff member, were already inside busily testing the brew and apparently surviving quite well. I dropped into the dive to dry up on the outside and get wet on the inside, testing the Yokohama nectar of the Gods: Good!
The next day dawned with spring like warmth and sunshine. From the rear deck of the ship one could glimpse Mount Fuji, it's perfect cone and snowy slopes.
I took a trip to Kamakura, just a few miles outside Yokohama and nestled in verdant hills. It is one of the old Imperial Capitals in a series of them during the many Imperial, Sho Gun and Samurai reigns.
A smallish town for Japanese standards, where many of the old habitations had survived and much of the ancient Samurai culture was still evident: Everything is simple but beautiful: Shinto shrines, buddhist temples, masterfully laid out gardens and quiet lakes, museums celebrating old culture and traditions.
I visited a huge Buddha seated inside a lush park, where stone monuments were hidden among trees and beside babbling brooks (yes, babbling...). Finely scripted poems by old masters were chiseled into their mossy surfaces. The Buddha was large enough that for 20 yen (20 cents) one could walk inside and admire the unusual metal work of the statue inside the dim interior.
I climbed long, high and steep stone staircases flanked by pruned ancient pines and blooming cherry trees to enter a sacred Shinto Shrine. At the entrance, an open well with ladles on the rim invited pilgrims to cleanse their hands before entering the Shrine. In front of the sacred interior, worshippers tossed coins into a metal drum, bowed once to the Deity hidden behind a screen, clapped their hands (to get the God's attention), made a fervent wish, then bowed twice again to show respect. Then they would go to read their fortune from little hand written scrolls, which they purchased at a small stand beside the shrine.
Uniformed schoolchildren came and went by the hundred, all on school excursions learning first hand about the history and tradtitions of their country. Apparently the global/Japanese economic downturn had an unexpected but welcome side effect: Japan's Youth is interested again in the ancient traditions, after running amok with the latest electronic gadgetry at the expense of their illustrious past.
The town still had Rikshaw drivers, fit rosy cheeked young men, in the best running shoes imaginable, who would take visitors through the quaint lanes and streets, many lined with cherry trees and festooned with lanterns.
The town harbours many shrines and temples, some buried in caves and one filled with thousands of miniature buddhist statues. There are so many parks and forests, that one could hike for days without leaving them.
There are no supermarkets or malls (how wonderful) and I did not glimpse a Starbucks, McDonald's or KFC - almost authentic Japan.
One could go crazy, though, buying Japanese clothes/fashion - elegant, simple and of outstanding design and quality....and of outstanding expense as well. The local crafts, mainly hand carved wood and very fine ceramics and tea-services, are displayed and sold in small stores, each of which has display windows worthy of an art award by themselves.
Leaving Yokohama late in the afternoon, we were granted another glimpse of Mount Fuji from Amsterdam's decks. The venerable mountain seemed almost washed out by a red and orange sunset. A band of Japanese drummers performed for our departure. A performance that reminded me of a higly disciplined Tai-Chi class with a lot of reverberating bone shaking noise thrown in for good measure.
We are heading north again, to Hokkaido, specifically Hokodate. It is supposed to snow up there, and the Cherry Blossoms may just have started - snow or no snow.
The sea kicked up a fuss again once we were out of Tokyo Bay, helping us to get used to the future crossing to North America, through the Bering Sea and the Aleut Islands. But first - Hokodate and Kamchatka Pensinsular (outer Siberia I suppose).
