Our last full day on Quest starts with an early breakfast – at least it’s a warm day so we can take it on the balcony. We need an early start because we have an organised tour to join at 08:15, earlier than Patio Grill opens.
We’re in two minds about taking ship’s tours, with a lot of experience we know they are not good value for money, and we are usually quite capable of making our own arrangements, The first two we did were very much about not having the confidence in such foreign parts to be able to make our own plans. Today is on a similar theme, becuase we thought we would dock a long way from where we now know we are!!
And so, we are comitted, and we head off to the Miho Kamogasaki pine forest, which is really just a strip along the beach containing 20,000 pines. First we hear about a French ballerina who is buried here, and then another story.
Japanese folklaw has a much-told story about an angel, a mortal man, and how he hid her clothes in order to convince her to marry him – quite apart from the obvious bad dating advice, she did and that’s the story. It took place right in this forest and we are taken to the very tree in the place where it happened!
From here we are supposed to have a fabulous view of Fuji, but unfortunately the clouds do not allow this – our guide AirDrops his recent photo which is very nice.
We then take a walk to a vistor’s centre and onwards to a shrine, but we don’t stop becuse we are going to a better one! As we wander we see a house which has been modified to be a Tsunami shelter for all the local neighbours. And then we pass a large group of schoolchildren, all shouting “hello” to us, I wasn’t expecting this so didn’t capture much.
Some winding roads later and we are 300m above sea-level and queing for a rope-way, which is what they call a cable-car. We descend 100m on this car to visit a shrine on another peak – we’re told it was cut off by a landslide, but we do see there are now 1068 steps available to get back to the coast.
The Kunozan Toshogu Shrine is undoubtedly very beautiful and we enjoy our time exploring with the 100s of others who are here because today is the start of a 10-day public holiday. There is a lot of history here, perhaps most noteworthy is that it is the resting place of Ieyasu Tokugawa a samurai who eventually became shogun in 1603 – he created a way of life which was to define Japan for 265 years until 1868, the Edo period, including moving the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo.
We take the cable-car back and then have 90 minutes to kill, so wander around the observation deck, walk the park, find a tea plantation, get ice cream, and remond ourselves what we hate about organised tours!! At no point did Fuji show unfortuately!
We are returned to the quayside, mindful we’ve only acheived two things in 4.5 hours, no wonder we don’t really like ship’s tours! So we head towards the ferris wheel we noticed earlier to find out what is going on. There is a huge market, all very well organised and calm, selling crafts, food, teas, pottery and lots more.
We return to the ship for lunch and some computer time.
The afternoon vanishes in a few paragraphs, and we have to return to commence packing, well Husband does, I just get in the way! Captain announces that Fuji has shown her face so we all pile onto the forward deck for a peek. Then he announces he will slow down and do a pirouette so we can take our time.
Meanwhile it’s staff salute, so we head to decks eight and nine, still enjoying Fujiyama as we party.
As we dress for dinner we enjoy our last V&T and G&T, observing that the bottles are roughly at the same level of consumption – oh but I did get a replacement half way!!
Dinner is fish cake, coquille St Jaqués, corn chowder, Italian chicken, Dover sole, apple cobbler.
Janine Johnson returns for the fairwell concert and delivers, once again, a fabulous performance.
