Cruising Japan to South Korea: 1007 Miles of Must See Sights

ad – This content was created on a press trip (similar to those travel agents and journalists take). All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’ve just disembarked a cruise where I travelled 1458 miles across Japan.

I saw lots of things I expected, like castles, temples and amazing toilets, but also saw and did things I never could have predicted.

From fizzy milk to orange sandwiches. Hot sauce vending machines to hats for cats. Every single minute of this cruise was unbelievable and had to be seen to be believed. 

I didn’t know if I was being too optimistic with my to-do list and I hoped that doing a mix of cruise line excursions and trips by myself would be the right idea.

As I had travelled over 5000 miles to take this cruise, I really didn’t want anything to go wrong.

I started my journey in Tokyo where I stayed for a couple of nights to try to get used to the time difference.

Tokyo is 9 hours ahead of London so I flew overnight, basically skipped forward a day and arrived in the evening again. I didn’t see the sun for two days, but that didn’t matter, I was so excited. 

Our first port was Shimizu and here I’d booked an excursion called “Scenic Drive with Mount Fuji Views”.

The views weren’t guaranteed, of course, and I’d heard a lot about people who travelled across the world to see the mountain and just ended up seeing a cloud or fog.

I wasn’t holding my breath about the weather – but we were incredibly lucky with the weather, and we had the most beautiful view of Mount Fuji.

Our excursion took us to the perfect viewpoint at what turned out to be the perfect time because a couple of hours later, the clouds came over.

Cruise line excursions do tend to start pretty early in the morning which means that I get up and out, if I was on my own schedule I might have missed it completely!

It’s interesting to note that there wasn’t any snow on top of Mount Fuji, and this was the first time in 130 years that this late in the year there wasn’t any snow. It’s still pretty though I’m sure you’ll agree.

Just like everywhere in Japan, there were plenty of vending machines here. I counted nine just at one viewpoint, all selling different drinks.

I would find what I think is fizzy milk in one later – but at this point, I stuck to water.

Theres a vending machine for every 31 people in Japan, so if you are thirsty at any time, you just have to turn around, and you’ll see a vending machine somewhere.

I absolutely loved it. It was quite warm during our cruise, so keeping hydrated was important.

Another thing that is everywhere in Japan is public toilets that are always free to use. We had lots of toilet stops on our excursions and they were always so clean.

The toilets in Japan do magical things, they’ll wash and dry everything, play you music and many of them even have a heated seat.

Japan really is living in the future when it comes to toilets – what I hope is the future anyway, because I want one of these. 

Our excursion took us next to see a pine tree forest and a beach. It was here that I decided to buy my fortune, like a fortune cookie, but it was just a paper based on my birthdate.

Inside were two pages, the first one just gave me compliments about my personality which was nice and the second gave me some very specific fortunes.

I used google translate to read it of course, I sadly cannot read Japanese, yet anyway, never say never. 

Not reading or speaking Japanese was not a problem at all. Everywhere we went, people spoke English, and all the machines we used had big “English” buttons.

Our tour guide on this excursion did help us to sing a song in Japanese by writing down what the English letters would be, we all gave it a go on the bus and trusted her about what we were singing. 

The next day in Nagoya, we visited the first temple, Osu-Kannon temple. It was originally built in 1333 and moved to this site in 1612. I should say it was moved, it didn’t move itself.

It was very impressive, and after looking at it, we were given free time in town.

We headed first to a shop to pick up some medicine because a cheeky little mosquito had been munching on my leg, and then I found a shop with lots and lots of toy machines. 

I saw a crying banana and decided I needed it. I spent an embarrassing amount of money trying to win it, but I’m sad to say I didn’t manage it.

It’s funny how I really have no interest in gambling in a casino or anything like that, but make the prize a toy banana? I’m in! 

I did try it on him when I got home, and it’s safe to say he wasn’t grateful for his gift.

It was here that I found the most amazing platform boots. A lot of the boots were like this, I bet they’re fun to walk in. 

In the next place we went,we actually had to take our shoes off and we put them into a little locker.

We had the key around our wrists, and it reminded me of when I’ve gone swimming in the past and they give you this kind of waterproof wristband. 

We don’t do many things in the UK with our shoes off, so that was a fun novelty, the temple was very interesting. Afterwards, I bought some snacks from the gift shop, biscuits with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. 

In Osaka, we actually walked to the top of the castle. Because we were on a cruise line excursion, we were able to go as a group right to the front of the line, and that was great because it was very busy. 

When we went into the castle there was a man directing people either left or right, left he said was for the elevator and right was for exercise.

We picked exercise and walked the eight flights of stairs to the top. The castle has been destroyed 4 times, so although it was originally built in 1583, most of it now is from 1931.

Once we left the castle I did stumble upon a show of a monkey that was on a lead doing tricks, I don’t want to show that here, I feel like monkeys should be in trees,not on a lead.

Driving onto our next stop, the Shiteannoji temple, I spent most of the time staring at the cars.

I’ve never seen cars quite like them anywhere else in the world and even their vans look a little unusual.

They do have bigger, regular cars, too, but I just think these are the coolest. Great for city driving and easy to park I imagine.

In Shitennoji Temple, I used Google Translate to instantly translate the signs.

This was so helpful if we wanted to check something quickly, like if we wanted to check what a message on a bench said. I didn’t want to sit down and find out too late it said “wet paint”, but with this, I could see it said “please don’t sit longer than an hour” and then I knew for sure. 

You can download a language on Google Translate for offline use if you don’t have internet access when in Japan.

Most days of this cruise, we visited a new port and only had one day at sea.

We actually spent two days in Osaka, which was fantastic. As we’d taken an excursion on our first day, we decided to do our own thing on day two. Having an overnight in a port is great, and I wish more cruises would do them. 

Japan’s train system is very easy and efficient. As soon as we left the cruise ship there were signs to the metro, and from here we bought our tickets on the machines.

Cards are accepted in Japan but we only used them in the bigger stores and for general things like buying drinks from the vending machine or train tickets we would use cash, that’s definitely the easiest way.

The train system is organised by numbers, colours and letters and it was really clear to us which way we were going. It’s much easier to understand than the London Underground.

We were at number 11 and wanted to go to 14, so we got on the train with the numbers going upwards. It’s much easier to understand than the London Underground, that is for sure. 

When we got off the train, we found a 7-11. There are 7-11s everywhere in Japan, and they are incredible. I could spend hours in here just looking at the magazines or the sandwiches.

 You can clearly see on the screen how much you need to pay. It’s pretty much 200 Japanese won to one UK pound so it was easy to lose touch with how much things really cost, having said that though things were much cheaper than I expected.

The staff in the shops were always so friendly and so welcoming of tourists. We had lots of ports where we had performances as we sailed away which was always so sweet.

I tried on some trousers in a shop and had to take off my shoes before going into the changing room which now I think about it, it makes perfect sense, we should do that.

Right next to the cruise terminal in Osaka is a massive Ferris wheel. It’s only £4, and we didn’t have to wait at all. The main thing I wanted to see was of course, the ship.

It’s so strange to see a ship from above like this but it was so worth it. I could also see the school kids walking around with their matching hats on, which was so cute. 

The next place that we visited definitely couldn’t be described as fun, but it was well worth it. We went to Hiroshima, so we of course, went to the Peace Park Memorial. It was here that we learnt about what happened in 1945 when at atomic bomb was dropped on the city. 

We learnt about how many deaths and injuries there were and how Hiroshima has been rebuilt since.

The Peace Park memorials are all about a peaceful future and it was something I’m glad I experienced. This building has been left as a reminder as this was the only thing left standing there. The latest figures suggest 78,000 people died here. 

For the next couple of days we decided not to do cruise line excursions and instead to just wander around the ports. I’d looked at the maps pre-cruise, and it looked as though there were interesting things we could walk to.

It didn’t take me even five minutes to walk past a hot sauce vending machine in Naha. I have no idea who needs hot sauce this regularly, but if there was one of these for ketchup, that would be absolutely fantastic. 

We found a shopping centre and in there I found loads and loads of toy machines, these are everywhere. 

The dogs in Japan are another reason to come, they always have the cutest clothes, they’re often in prams and have haircuts that we don’t give our dogs in the UK.

My favourite haircut was the one that made the dogs look like they had big bums and boots on. It was the best. 

We wandered back along the beach and it was really getting quite toasty. I’d expected it to be a bit chilly and perhaps raining, given that we cruised in November, but we had glorious sunshine pretty much every day.

Do keep in mind my warm isn’t everybody’s warm. The locals were often wearing hats and even ear muffs when I would be walking around in just a t-shirt!

It was the same when we visited a shrine in Naze and wandered through the residential streets. It was here that I found incredible dragon taps that I’d love to have in my house. It was lovely to get a bit further away from the touristy crowds because if you are going to visit castles and temples, you of course do find big groups of people. 

When we visited the Atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki, it was really quite busy. There were lots of school trips, cruise line excursions and other people visiting because it is a must-visit. We learnt about what was actually in the atomic bomb.

We saw items that were kilometres away that had been damaged by the blast, including this clock that had frozen at the time it went off, 11:02.

Hearing about the stories of entire families wiped out was really upsetting, but it is important that we always remember things like this. The modern atomic weapons section was probably the scariest of all. 

After visiting, we went to the peace park and saw ground zero, where the bomb went off. Our guide was great and she would chat with us when we were on the bus and wandering around.

She told us about how a girl was inside a cave area here when the bomb went off, she survived, but when she came out, she found the entire city incinerated. It’s hard to comprehend something like that. 

While wandering around the park, we again had some free time and I found a vending machine which had in it what I can only guess is some kind of fizzy milk. It said “a carbonated dairy beverage”.

Have a closer look at that, and other places I visited in the video below:

Our next port of Jeju was all about nature. It’s an island owned by South Korea and we boarded the most extravagantly decorated bus, it had been decorated like a cake.

We were taken to the Natural History Museum, which was very interesting, and saw skeletons, models of boats that I definitely wouldn’t want to be on, and mannequins demonstrating life here throughout the ages. 

The downside for me about being on a group trip is that you are of course on everybody else’s schedule, I am somebody who rushes through museums an 100 miles at hour then goes home and watches documentaries or listens to audio books on the subject. I certainly don’t read everything in every display. 

That wasn’t a problem here though because the museum was set in some lovely gardens so we wandered around waiting for the “back on the bus” time. I’m happy to say we never lost or left anybody behind on this cruise and that has happened on cruise excursions I’ve taken in the past.

Next up was a visit to a place called Dragon Rock, where I bought a whale with a tangerine on her head and some mango sweets.

One thing I love about the way they sell biscuits, chocolates and sweets. They usually have a preview box on the top so you can see what you are actually buying. It makes so much sense! 

The places that we visited were fantastic but only a tiny part of our cruise experience, to find out what we got up to the rest of the time, including the ship I sailed on and what entertainment there was onboard, check out this video next: 

Before You Go

Find out where to book your cabin if you are worried about getting seasick here:

The Best and Worst Cruises for Seasick-Prone People

What’s the perfect length of cruise for a first-time cruiser? I will tell you what I think in the article below:

The Best Cruise Length for First-Timers (And Why It Matters)