1109 The entrance to Motomachi Street in Kobe. You can see the effect created by the mirrors spanning the archway.
1112 Diana on Motomachi Street. As you can see they celebrate Halloween in Kobe.
1122 A typical Chinatown food stand. This happens to be the one I chose to get our dim sum snack.
1124 A typical wooden dim sum steam ring. The large ones closest to the camera are bow. These look like pork filled. The steamers are just stacked one on the other, the bottoms are loosely woven wood slats. Put a pot of boiling water under them with a hole in the lid and you can steam large quantities at a time. You can see the result of steaming dough, very white but thoroughly cooked.
1125 This platter has shu mai on the left. Much smaller than bow and more pasta like.
Oct 12 – At Sea. Last night as we left Saipan the ocean was a little rough and the winds were howling. Apparently another tropical storm is forming in the Philippines and is expected to become a typhoon by today. We were supposed to run at about 18 knots to get to Kobe for our 4PM arrival. The captain announced that the home office has approved the trip to be made at full speed which is around 20 knots. Doesn’t seem like much but the extra fuel costs are huge. He’s now scheduling our arrival at 10AM. The reason for the speed is that the typhoon is scheduled to arrive in Japan sometime on the 14th and the captain wants to be safely at the dock before that. We’ll be in the Japan Inland Sea at the pier so the ship’s exposure to the typhoon will be limited. Unfortunately, we passengers will not be that lucky if we choose to leave the ship.
Diana and I were not going to go ashore on the evening of the 14th anyway so that doesn’t present a problem for us. If we arrive ahead of the storm we may hop off for lunch. We do have a tour scheduled on the 15th. The ship is not leaving until 5PM on the 15th but that could be delayed if the storm lingers. We have a sea day in-between Kobe and Naha on Okinawa so he could afford a late departure and still dock in Naha on time.
Besides the extra rattling of some cabinets around the ship is was a normal at sea day.
Our entertainer was Jeff Peterson, a comedy magician. We’d seen him before and his show is always fun and tonight was no exception.
Oct 13 – At Sea. It’s official, the storm is a typhoon and it just finished battering the Philippines and is headed north. It’s quite a way south at the moment but southern Japan is definitely in the predicted path although not at the center. Just like our hurricanes, typhoons can make sudden and somewhat unexpected turns at times so the long range predictions are only fair.
The Captain’s 1PM update said we have been sailing at an average speed of over 21 knots and that’s very close to as fast as this ship can go. I think she can hit a little over 22 knots going downhill. J To average over 21 is really moving.
Jeff Peterson was back again, this time in the Spotlight slot and Mariusz, the cellist, returned as the main performer. This is a very good double bill. Both are good at what they do. Exactly as I thought, both great.
Oct 14 – At Sea & Kobe, Japan. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to send my journal. The Japanese have a new law that satellite communications must be turned off while in port of 12 miles of land. I think it will be the 18th until I can send email. The sail in to Kobe Harbor is great. First you leave the Pacific Ocean and enter the Japan Inland Sea. This long, natural channel is between two of the islands. It’s very wide so you need magnification to see what’s on the shore unless it’s very large. As we approached the harbor it narrows and you start to get a good view of the area. As we approached the pier the Kobe Fire Brigade’s brass band started to play and Miss Kobe was there to wave to us. The band is very good and played American tunes from several genres, marches, pop tunes, big band and a little jazz. The brass band’s jazz numbers had a little more precision than you usually hear in that genre but it was excellent. Sort of a jazz goes Bach feel. People on board were clapping to the beat and cheering and applauding loudly between each number. When the band played Tequila, they paused at the appropriate moment and almost everyone on the ship yelled, “Tequila”. The band director laughed and applauded us for our effort. When some swing music was playing two of the Japanese line handlers, in an unusual display of exuberance for the culture, started dancing together much to the crowd’s delight. It was a fun arrival.
Our full speed run from Saipan was scheduled to get us here at 10am but we were at the dock by 9:15am. We had scheduled Japanese Immigration and Customs for 10:15am and they were not going to start early. So we waited an hour for them to begin operations. Instead of coming on the ship like they did last year we were called by assigned number to head into the terminal to go through the formalities. Our number was 19. They did start promptly at 10:15am and it was Noon before they called our number. I could not figure out what was taking so long because last time they cleared the whole ship in less than 75 minutes.
When we finally got to the terminal I understood what was happening. They have a new automated system for scanning your fingerprints. This time it takes your picture too. The screen at eye level is very clear about what you are to do, it even shows you pictures and diagrams to help you out. Unfortunately the age and mental condition of the great majority of our guests is such that they can’t follow clear directions when they are given both orally and in writing in English on the ship. What chance did they have reading and following directions on a computer screen although they too were in English. When they failed to follow the instructions on the screen the Japanese Immigration official tried to help them but spoke very little English and their accent added to the problem. This is not a derogatory comment about the agents. If you want to travel to other people’s countries you should expect to have difficulty if you don’t learn at least rudimentary vocabulary in the language they speak. I don’t think the world owes it to us to learn English although in many places it is widely spoken.
Here’s what you had to do. The screen showed you two hands, thumbs pointing outward, palms toward your face and fingers spread. Then they highlighted the distal pads of both index fingers and showed the hands turning to thumbs in and the highlighted pads being placed on two sensors one on each side of the screen, just like the real macnines in front of you. After putting your fingers on the sensors the machine beeped and the screen changed to say “We are now taking your picture, please look here.” Right below this instruction, which was shown in huge print, was a red bull’s eye. In about 5 seconds the machine beeped again and your picture was put on the screen. Meanwhile the official was scanning your passport and when everything was approved, stamping you into the country.
Seems simple, no? Apparently not! I saw people who took 5 cycles of the process to finally get it right. No wonder it was taking so long. The officials were showing live examples of what to do and giving, as best they could, oral supplementary comments to the screens instructions. Any comedian watching this activity could have gathered a career’s worth of material for his act. By 12:30pm we were through the process and out on the street.
We decided to take the port’s shuttle bus to Kobe’s Chinatown. It dropped us of right at the end of the Motomachi shopping street. The street is pedestrian only and has a canopy over it like the downtown main drag in Las Vegas does, or at least used to. It’s been a long time since I was there. The cross streets still carry traffic and the area is not completely enclosed. The areas where streets cross are completely open at the sides. It’s really a covered street. It goes on for at least a half mile and maybe more. The entrance on the east end was cool. In a fan-like array above the entrance arch they have three rows of rectangular mirrors arrayed in a rough parabola and angled to reflect the sidewalk below the archway. The angle of each mirror is slightly off compared to the ones next door. The people moving on the sidewalk are reflected in them with a kaleidoscopic effect. The moving colors are a bit mesmerizing, an altogether pleasing result.
The shops lining the street are a great mix of restaurants, bakeries, candy stores, clothing stores and what would have been called Five & Dime stores in the USA when I was growing up. They do have a 100 Yen Store. Since the yen is about 100 to the dollar it would be the equivalent of our Dollar Stores. One restaurant has a huge selection of bento. These Japanese meals in a box are usually a big assortment of small portions of lots of kinds of food. The boxes ranged from fairly small to huge. The mid-size and up had some tempura, some fish (in some boxes two kinds), various salads, pickled vegetables, chicken, seaweed, all manner of things made from soy beans and of course white steamed rice usually sprinkled with some sesame seeds and with a small preserved plum in its center. The looked really good. Only problem was it was all for take-out and there were no tables anywhere in sight for us to eat on. Drat.
After walking at least half a mile down the street we retraced our steps and turned off Motomachi Street into Chinatown. Here the streets are also pedestrian only but are much narrower than Motomachi and more crowded. The streets were also lined with shops but these were mostly in the form of vendor stands not stores proper and most of them were food shops with some candy stands and cafés thrown in for variety. The food looked great. Some of the shops had tall stacks of wooden steam rings full of dim sum. They looked so good I had to have some. We bought a large cha chu bw (pronounced just like it looks but the ‘bow’ sounds like the male version of a curtsy, not like the archery equipment) and a set of 4 shu mai. They are all steamed dumplings but the cha chu bow is more bread like and domed like a round bun but their color is dead white. The shu mai is smaller and the casing is more like pasta in consistency and color (faintly yellow) and is shaped like a drawstring purse. I have to admit that the first time I saw a steamed bow it looked very strange, bread-like but starkly white not the golden color we usually associate with the crust of a roll. After I tasted it, all those years ago, all reservations I had about the color were completely erased. They were both delicious then and now. It’s nice to know that some Chinese restaurants in SoCal faithfully reproduce the real thing. I’m not talking about the chains like Pick Up Stix (although I do like their food), I’m talking about the independent restaurants in Gardena, J-Town and Chinatown in LA and some areas of Orange County.
We decided to take the elevated tram back to the pier. We walked across town to the tracks passing quite a few up-scale outdoor stores on the way, L. L. Bean, Eddie Bauer, Patagonia and Colombia. Diana went in each one but the prices here are outrageous. A regular T-shirt was $11 if it was clearance priced. And the sizing was definitely Japanese. She didn’t buy a thing.
We walked through Higashi Yuenchi, a nice little park that had quite a few water features, ponds, sculptural waterfalls and fountains. Between these very pleasant water items were open grassy areas with some sandy areas for kids.
Two blocks down from the park we ran into, or rather under, the tram’s tracks. That’s one advantage elevated trains have over subways, it’s easy to tell when you cross them and simple to find a way to the platform. Just keep looking up. The tram cost 200 yen, about $2 for the ride directly to the pier where the Amsterdam is docked.
We have to get up early tomorrow for a tour to Osaka so Diana decided to have room service and get to bed early. I went to the dining room and was the only one to show up at our table. Diane, Steve, Kathy and Dan were going to try to get a ride on the Bullet Train, maybe to Kyoto. If they did that I’m sure they weren’t back on the ship by 5:30pm to make dinner.
They’re having a one only 9:30pm show this evening. The ship and the port officials are going to exchange gifts and make presentations after which there will be a traditional Japanese drum show
The presentation was nice. The Director of the Port of Kobe gave the main speech. He gave Holland America the credit for the increase in cruise ships calling at Kobe. He was particularly proud that HAL had used Kobe as the home port of the Veendam for several cruises in Asia this summer. The port reps presented the captain, represented by the staff captain, with a fancy cask of sake, which he immediately passed to the cruise director. I guess he didn’t want too many photos with booze in his hands. It seems like the cruise industry has finally adopted the practice of upgrading titles rather than giving pay raises. The first industry I remember seeing that in was banking just after I graduated from college. Everybody became a Vice-president. Now on HAL the First Officer has been promoted to Staff Captain, the Assistant Cruise Director is now the Show Host. In cruising, this practice started a couple of years ago. After 28 years of cruising with consistent titles all of a sudden titles started changing. The maître‘d became the Dining Room Manager and off they went. He presented the hotel manager, Henk Wensick, with a photo of the Amsterdam that was taken this morning as we were tying up and a proclamation from the mayor. From the position of the camera it was probably taken from the tug that accompanied us into the pier. This was followed by Port of Kobe baseball caps for each of the three officers.
The highlight of the presentations was when Miss Kobe presented huge bouquets of flowers to the staff captain Gerard Teensma, the hotel manager Henk Wensick and the cruise director Gene Young. Men always look a little sheepish holding large bunches of flowers.
Presentations completed the officials yielded the stage to the Katsue Yoshida Baton School dance squad. I had never seen this art form before. It sounds a bit odd but I have to tell you that it was thoroughly enjoyable. I can only describe it as ballet meets majorette. These girls spin their batons at speeds I’ve rarely seen before. They also performed tosses, gravity spins and other tricks I can’t really describe. While they were busy with the batons, they also danced and struck poses reminiscent of ballet. No toe work however. Their synchronization was excellent when they performed as a group. I have no way to judge exactly how good they were because I haven’t seen it before. Except for performing more difficult tricks and I have no idea what they would be, I don’t see how it could be done much better.
As much as I enjoyed the dancers, the taiko drummers that follow them were the hit of the evening, the Daichi-no-kai Drummers. Yuichi Kimura was the main performer and he was outstanding, the two men playing with him were also among the best I’ve ever seen as well. I’ve been a fan of taiko drumming since I was following sumo. The first time I saw it live was at UCLA in about 1982 (That’s both sumo and taiko drumming). Taiko drumming is better thought of as a martial art. Not only do you have to strike the drums in exactly the right place, with exactly the right force and at exactly the right time but your stance, attitude and the motion of your swing are also critical. Conditioning is an important part of training because the songs are long and the action constant. At one point Yuichi loosened his tunic and let it drape behind him because he had a very long and energetic solo near the end of the performance. I’m pretty sure he also wanted to show the physique of his upper body. Apparently I’m not the only one who appreciated the performance. The crowd gave them two standing ovations longer than any I’ve seen on a ship in a long time. I think the Texas Tenors might have been longer but that was years ago.
Tomorrow’s an early call so I headed straight to the room after the show.
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