Noon Report:

• Location: N 34° 21.70′, E 137° 57.79′
• Speed: 13.3 Knots
• Course: 67º
• Weather: Clear
• Temperature: 18º C; 64º F
• Wind: WNW 16 knots; 18 mph
• Sea: Rolling swells

So…Today wasn’t a formal sea day. That’s because we arrived at Shimizu port at 6:00 pm.
But since we didn’t have anything scheduled this evening we were able to treat it like a full sea day.

Second…This being the Friday after the third Thursday (back home) I was in a meeting from 1:00-3:30 pm (back home). That’s 4:00-6:30 am here.

So after getting back to the cabin and waking my lovely wife we went to breakfast, then she retired to the warmth of the pool deck to read and relax while I went back to bed.

About 10:00 I joined her for reading and relaxation and at 11:00 we decided that we could catch the lecture on exploring Mars later in our cabin. So we finally rousted ourselves at noon to head down to the final Trivia. The topic was “Thank You” – identifying the language for each of 15 Thank You’s. We got nine.

After lunch we headed back down for the lecture on Mt. Fuiji and a bunch of other volcanoes.

After that I stayed and blogged while Cheryl went back to the cabin to nap.
She returned for the next lecture on poisonous plants and all the creative ways to die from them.

Then it was dinner and a performance of Geisha.

So that’s our last sea day.
Tomorrow we head out to see if Mt. Fuji will show herself.

NOTE: The cruise is coming to an end. I’m publishing this Monday evening (early Monday morning in the US). We’ve spent a day in Shimizu and a day in Tokyo and tomorrow morning we leave the ship and begin our journey home. I’m not sure how much of this blog will be posted before we leave but this may be the last you hear from me until later in the week. Thanks for tagging along. Hope you enjoyed our adventure. R

Cheryl’s Factoids:

• Mt Fuji is considered a goddess – very beautiful but very shy. If you see Fuji wearing a cloud cap then the next day it will rain. Mr Fuji is 12,388 feet high and takes 7-9 hours to climb up but most people start at the 2,000 meter level. From there the climb is 5 hours up and 3 hours down. You can only climb in mid spring and mid autumn – it’s too hot to climb it in the summer. In the 1600s the Japanese people started building shrines to the pacify this goddess of fire.
• William Adams was an English navigator who sailed with a Dutch trading fleet to the far East and landed in Japan in 1600. Resisting pressure from the Portuguese Jesuits who wanted the men put to death as pirates, the surviving crew were imprisoned in Osaka Castle on the order of the Shogun, Ieyasu Tokugawa. Adams became a advisor on international affairs under this Shogun, was bestowed with a title, land, and swords, and became the first Samurai from England. In his advisory capacity, Adams was instrumental in establishing a Dutch and English trading post at Hirado – effectively breaking the Portuguese monopoly. With the help of the other survivors from his ship, he built two small galleons for Ieyasu which showed them Western shipbuilding techniques. He also acted as a broker for Ieyasu in the purchase of Western cannon, lead cannonballs, and iron sand for superior swords which allowed Ieyasu to defeat his enemies and establish the Tokugawa Shogunate supremacy which lasted 250 years. Adams was not allowed to leave and is buried in Japan.