Day 17 - 29 July - Kushiro, Japan

For today's blog I'd like to write a little bit differently. While our port stop here was very nice, what was really special was the community's involvement in our visit and particularly their departure celebration. When my wife and I returned from our walking tour of the city, we went through the EGG which is a glass egg shaped building that is sort of a greenhouse, but today contained volunteers that were interacting with cruise ship passengers with drawing exercises, Calligraphy, paper folding, and present wrapping. Angela chose to do paper folding and ended up with a nice souvenir. In the next building which is called the MOO there was an extensive collection of little shops selling souvenirs, candy, seafoods, and they had the fastest free WIFI we have ever used in the entire world. I was able to update 76 apps on my iPhone in under 30 minutes. But the real gem was ahead of us!

It seems that the people wanted to show their appreciation for the Maasdam's visit that they staged a huge farewell. There were probably 750 to a thousand people on the dock. Included in the group was a brass band of Jr. High age kids who played for at least 45 minutes. Other people were dressed in traditional Japanese dress. There were 'thanks for visiting' signs of various kinds and as the Maasdam slipped its mooring lines off the bollards and moved away from the dock promptly at 6pm, the large crowd waved its goodbyes to the hundreds of passengers who were lining the rail on deck 6. For me it was a very emotional sendoff to see the quantity of local people show their appreciation for our visit. The epitome of this was captured in the following picture of a young girl waving goodbye with her mother Both are dressed in matching fabric dresses. I couldn't help but shed a tear at the sight of all of this.

We previous visited this port in 2017 while on the Volendam. During the voyage, we elected to visit the cranes and historic village. So for this visit we changed our approach and planned to visit the city on foot independently. But first we had to clear immigration.  

All passengers had to go through the immigration process which included filling out a customs form (one per family) and individual arrival cards, get your key card scanned and punched, and then present yourself to the immigration officer in the Explorations Cafe. In order to bring some order to the process, passengers were divided up into groups and assigned a number from 1 to x. We were given number 4. While the ship arrived promptly at 8am, the immigration process didn't start until 9:30am ish. Each group took approximately 1/2 hour and our number was called at 10:50am and we were through the process by 11:20am and off the ship by 11:30am. There was a local official at the gangway with a sign indicating no fruits or vegetables could be taken off the ship.  

On shore there was a produce vendor and a few other local vendors along with an information booth with maps. We walked along the Kushiro River waterfront and turn left walking by city hall, a bowling alley, Saiwaicho Park with a steam locomotive on display, toured the Kushiro Tancho Market with its extensive display of live crabs and other seafood for sale along with a ramen bar. But the gem was the Kushiro WASHOU Market. It's a large covered primarily seafood market known for the Kattedon or rice bowls that one purchases and then purchases raw fish or veggies or other items to go with the rice. A typical bowl was around $9US. We found that to not be filling enough so we purchased 2 Bento boxes for $3 each. Besides cold rice, these boxes include other cold ingredients such as noodles, a meat item (we had grilled salmon and mackerel), egg, and potato salad.  

From the market we walked to the train station and by Grace Church. From a he station we strolled along Kita-odori Avenue and across the Nusami bridge with its beautiful 4 bronze and naked maiden sculptures. Here we found a pretty sculpture for the city and the Castle hotel which is in the shape of a castle. Walking downriver we 'chatted' with a local couple who were walking their Shiva Enu. They spoke and understood a little English but we were focused on their dog as our daughter has one.

After walking back across the bridge, we visited the EGG (Ever Green Garden) which houses a permanent display of trees and this day had volunteers doing activities I noted earlier. Next door was the MOO which I also described.

Following our emotional departure, we ate in the Lido which had a Japanese theme with lanterns and traditional dress by the wait staff. Our evening entertainment was a variety show with Ryan Ahern, pianist, and Jennifer Singer, vocalist. Both were excellent. Dr. Kam gave his Evening Insight lecture on the four principal religions of Japan. He focused on Buddhism and Shintoism which are the predominant religions there.

Tomorrow is our last sea day this segment. It'll be a full day I'm sure. I leave you with this picture.