Two earthquakes, 3 typhoons and 1 gale!!
Two Earthquakes, ThreeTyphoons and a Gale
Yep...it's true! We have had all that and torrential rain.
However:
The earthquakes were very minor tremors, but were definitely felt.
The typhoons were watched throughout their lives with great trepidation as they seemed to be heading our way, but fortunately, as is the way of these storms, they lost impetus when encountering landmasses, and died. It was quite tense for a while though. The absolutely amazing Japanese weather site does not dare say that the typhoon will lose strength and die, in case the one in a hundred does not behave itself and a disaster happens.
The gales came and went without incident.
Japan - Over Regulated?
This is a country of bewildering contrasts and contradictions for foreigners.
Very tidy, clean country. No litter. No animals. In ten days have seen one cat and no dogs.
Officialdom definitely over the top. No visa, no entry.... even for emergency repairs to boat. The damage was life threatening (we thought at the time) but this made no difference at all. Rules are rules..
Coast guard came alongside us on the way into Wakayama to check us out. Very courteous bunch but definitely checking that we were legit.
Customs have not been near us, but we have had to fill in customs forms at every port/marina/boatyard These are then faxed to the local customs office. Bit of a "schlep" as each time you have to list everything on board, food, booze, guns etc, down to the number of kilos of flour, rice, bottles of sauces etc.
To our minds it is over regulated. There are public address systems in place every where, mainly I suspect for tsunami warnings etc but used every day .. e.g...children, time to go home now, lunchtime, etc. Some strange regulations like workers who use an angle grinder have to be licensed!!!
While being repaired at the boatyard we found rubbish disposal virtually Impossible as we did not know the times and cannot speak Japanese. Garbage cannot be left at the dump the day before, there is a two hour window in which garbage can be left. Pickup times are strictly on a schedule for various types of rubbish e.g. 8-00 am Tuesday for plastics and paper, and another day and time for bottles and yet another for aluminium cans etc.so you can only dump from 6-00 am onwards. If you are late you hold on to your rubbish until the next pickup, which depending on the class of rubbish, could be a week or a month's time.
Foreigners cannot buy SIM cards for cell phones as they might be used to set off terrorist bombs.........True! We thought the shopkeeper was joking when we asked where we could buy a simcard and airtime but he was in deadly earnest. The weird thing is that if you arrive by air you can rent a cellphone with a working simcard at the airport. It is only these terrible yachties who cannot get simcards. We are a dangerous lot.
Cherry's Immigration Woes:
The Immigration rules in Japanare very strict in this country. One needs to get a visa BEFORE entering, not on arrival if one comes from any African country. Alec (being a Brit) was allowed a 90 day visa but Cherry was declared Persona non Grata and forbidden to leave the boat! Rules are rules, emergencies notwithstanding! Even The South African Consulate warned me that they do not interfere with the local Immigration authorities.
Tomoko Koura, the lovely young Wakayama marina manager, came to the small boatyard at Osaki bearing gifts of fruit, sweets and cup noodle meals and took us to immigration for Cherry's visa appeal,(40 minute drive each way.) She actually arranged the appeal on Cherry's behalf and got her a 90 day tourist visa. S A Embassy was reluctant to "interfere" with the Japanese Immigration policies.
Entirely thanks to Tomoko's efforts, we were able to appeal the decision and finally got the visa after two weeks being "confined to barracks" O joy! We can do a bit of sight seeing in Japan after all.
Japanese Generosity
The people are very generous and welcoming to almost embarrassing heights. E.g Tomoko, brought breakfast to our boat before we had even woken up when we stayed overnight at Wakayama Marina City waiting to be cleared by Quarantine and before moving on to Tannowa.
The Tannowa Marina manager made all the arrangements for our repairs. So extremely helpful and was so apologetic about the visa refusal. Offered to take us around In his car but we felt it was too risky as the penalties are draconian should we be caught without legal entry papers.
Various reports to Noonsite indicated that Marinas are free for the first week. Not so..far from it...they are very pricey. Wakayama marina city is cheap but NO facilities, access to trains very difficult, no shops for provisioning etc.
Cannot find the tax free fuel as also mentioned in Noonsite.No-one seems to have a clue.
Can you believe that banks do not accept foreign cards? The only place you can use your international card is at a post office ATM.
Definitely more expensive than the other SE Asian countries we have visited but on the whole not too bad for food etc,but repairs are really expensive.We have now decided to make straight for Victoria BC and hopefully will get there in about 6 - 7 weeks. The repairs have totally blown our budget for this year.
The people of Japan are possibly the most generous in the world. They are positively embarrassing. The manager of the Wakayama Marina took us on a sightseeing trip to Kyoto yesterday and refused to let us pay for anything. We were also taken out to a wonderful sashimi restaurant and had a positive feast, once again payment was refused. It seems that they get so few cruisers that they cannot do enough to make them feel welcome. Tonight the marina is hosting a farewell barbecue for us as we leave on the high tide tomorrow.
We will leave Wakayama with very fond memories of the friends we have made here and some not so fond memories of the weather.
Yep...it's true! We have had all that and torrential rain.
However:
The earthquakes were very minor tremors, but were definitely felt.
The typhoons were watched throughout their lives with great trepidation as they seemed to be heading our way, but fortunately, as is the way of these storms, they lost impetus when encountering landmasses, and died. It was quite tense for a while though. The absolutely amazing Japanese weather site does not dare say that the typhoon will lose strength and die, in case the one in a hundred does not behave itself and a disaster happens.
The gales came and went without incident.
Japan - Over Regulated?
This is a country of bewildering contrasts and contradictions for foreigners.
Very tidy, clean country. No litter. No animals. In ten days have seen one cat and no dogs.
Officialdom definitely over the top. No visa, no entry.... even for emergency repairs to boat. The damage was life threatening (we thought at the time) but this made no difference at all. Rules are rules..
Coast guard came alongside us on the way into Wakayama to check us out. Very courteous bunch but definitely checking that we were legit.
Customs have not been near us, but we have had to fill in customs forms at every port/marina/boatyard These are then faxed to the local customs office. Bit of a "schlep" as each time you have to list everything on board, food, booze, guns etc, down to the number of kilos of flour, rice, bottles of sauces etc.
To our minds it is over regulated. There are public address systems in place every where, mainly I suspect for tsunami warnings etc but used every day .. e.g...children, time to go home now, lunchtime, etc. Some strange regulations like workers who use an angle grinder have to be licensed!!!
While being repaired at the boatyard we found rubbish disposal virtually Impossible as we did not know the times and cannot speak Japanese. Garbage cannot be left at the dump the day before, there is a two hour window in which garbage can be left. Pickup times are strictly on a schedule for various types of rubbish e.g. 8-00 am Tuesday for plastics and paper, and another day and time for bottles and yet another for aluminium cans etc.so you can only dump from 6-00 am onwards. If you are late you hold on to your rubbish until the next pickup, which depending on the class of rubbish, could be a week or a month's time.
Foreigners cannot buy SIM cards for cell phones as they might be used to set off terrorist bombs.........True! We thought the shopkeeper was joking when we asked where we could buy a simcard and airtime but he was in deadly earnest. The weird thing is that if you arrive by air you can rent a cellphone with a working simcard at the airport. It is only these terrible yachties who cannot get simcards. We are a dangerous lot.
Cherry's Immigration Woes:
The Immigration rules in Japanare very strict in this country. One needs to get a visa BEFORE entering, not on arrival if one comes from any African country. Alec (being a Brit) was allowed a 90 day visa but Cherry was declared Persona non Grata and forbidden to leave the boat! Rules are rules, emergencies notwithstanding! Even The South African Consulate warned me that they do not interfere with the local Immigration authorities.
Tomoko Koura, the lovely young Wakayama marina manager, came to the small boatyard at Osaki bearing gifts of fruit, sweets and cup noodle meals and took us to immigration for Cherry's visa appeal,(40 minute drive each way.) She actually arranged the appeal on Cherry's behalf and got her a 90 day tourist visa. S A Embassy was reluctant to "interfere" with the Japanese Immigration policies.
Entirely thanks to Tomoko's efforts, we were able to appeal the decision and finally got the visa after two weeks being "confined to barracks" O joy! We can do a bit of sight seeing in Japan after all.
Japanese Generosity
The people are very generous and welcoming to almost embarrassing heights. E.g Tomoko, brought breakfast to our boat before we had even woken up when we stayed overnight at Wakayama Marina City waiting to be cleared by Quarantine and before moving on to Tannowa.
The Tannowa Marina manager made all the arrangements for our repairs. So extremely helpful and was so apologetic about the visa refusal. Offered to take us around In his car but we felt it was too risky as the penalties are draconian should we be caught without legal entry papers.
Various reports to Noonsite indicated that Marinas are free for the first week. Not so..far from it...they are very pricey. Wakayama marina city is cheap but NO facilities, access to trains very difficult, no shops for provisioning etc.
Cannot find the tax free fuel as also mentioned in Noonsite.No-one seems to have a clue.
Can you believe that banks do not accept foreign cards? The only place you can use your international card is at a post office ATM.
Definitely more expensive than the other SE Asian countries we have visited but on the whole not too bad for food etc,but repairs are really expensive.We have now decided to make straight for Victoria BC and hopefully will get there in about 6 - 7 weeks. The repairs have totally blown our budget for this year.
The people of Japan are possibly the most generous in the world. They are positively embarrassing. The manager of the Wakayama Marina took us on a sightseeing trip to Kyoto yesterday and refused to let us pay for anything. We were also taken out to a wonderful sashimi restaurant and had a positive feast, once again payment was refused. It seems that they get so few cruisers that they cannot do enough to make them feel welcome. Tonight the marina is hosting a farewell barbecue for us as we leave on the high tide tomorrow.
We will leave Wakayama with very fond memories of the friends we have made here and some not so fond memories of the weather.
Entrance to a lovely little tea garden in old Kyoto
|
Steps up to Kiyomizu-dera, a wonderful temple in Kyoto
|
Street scene outside Kyomizu-dera, Kyoto
Some unexpected guests popped in to say Welcome to Japan.
One entrance to Kyomizu-dera
What could be more Japanese?
She is scrubbing the stone fountain with a toothbrush!
Everything here in Japan is so clean and well maintained.
Much washing of hands in the Dragon Water before going inside the temple at Kiyomizu-dera
Solid gold eaves decoration on a shogun's palace roof.
Beautiful Japanese garden at a Shogun's palace in Kyoto
Torii gate leading up to "Good Luck" Shrine
Waking the gods for good luck.
Beautiful Kiyomizu-dera
Yes they do still wear their lovely kimonos. We were surprised at the numbers we saw, both men and women, young and old.
Our wonderful friend Tomoko who made our stay in Japan so enjoyable.
This entire pavilion is papered with gold leaf, both inside and out! The most visited shrine in Kyoto.
Some more kimonos
Enormous moat walls at the Shogun's palace. Amazing precision cutting and fitting.
Another view of the moat.
And to end a perfect day.... tea in a Japanese Teahouse.
What's known as being "Fed Up in Japan"
What a feast we had.. thanks once again to Tomoko and the Management and Staff of the Wakayama Marina City.