Day 20: Bunged Up and Sailing By

Sunday May 25 - Onboard the Hiryu, en route to Okinawa

My greatest concern when walking up the steps of the Hiryu last night was the weather. In Osaka, the rain persisted down. There was no wind but I wondered if the shelter of the harbour was masking something more ominous out at sea.

My mind was put at rest to an extent when I saw the inside of the ship. It is a much more modern vessel than the MV Rus – launched in 1995, to be precise – so I guessed that it would cope well with the sea conditions around Japan. Navigation systems, weather detection and avoidance and attention to general passenger comfort must surely have improved over the years, I reasoned.

The spacious reception area was akin to an ambitious hotel with a fake polished, checked floor and a huge, amorphous nautical, fibreglass sculpture, like a mis-shaped totem pole, covered with shells and a spiralling sea-serpent, disappearing up a hole in the middle of the room. At the desk, a courteous purser welcomed me, took my boarding card and directed me to cabin 115. ‘First class,’ he said with a smile. ‘Outside cabin, sea view.’

The cabin was fine. The dominant colour was a calming pale green. Plenty of cupboard space (not that any passenger would ever use it all), a large porthole, a small TV, fridge, en suite bathroom, four bunks and a sofa that could also be used as a berth. Wearing shoes in a house is against Japanese domestic protocol, even so I was surprised to see two pairs of slippers. They were not in my style, size or colour so, dumping my bags, I opted to go bare foot.

With so few people in the terminal, I expected to be the only occupant of the cabin. Sure enough, as the boat started to move just before one AM, no one else had joined me. I walked on deck, watched the boat nudge its way around the harbour and said sayonara to mainland Japan.

After a few hours writing, I took to my berth and my fears about a rough voyage began to grow. This was not, after all, a short-hop on a cross Channel ferry, nor a journey across the largely-enclosed Sea of Japan. We were in the far west of the Pacific Ocean.

The cupboards creaked as the ship swayed and bucked, gently at first, but then more convincingly. I consoled myself that it is just like a train’s movement, but a ship’s rocking is much less rhythmic and it can be much more dramatic. My sub-conscious doom-monger pictured images from TV of the Atlantic convoys in WWII battling the massive swell and bow-crashing waves. The movement of the Hiryu was nowhere near as pronounced, nor were we in the sights of U-boats, so I finally fell asleep just as the first morning light began filtering through the curtains.

A few hours later, I awoke and the ship was lurching with greater conviction. I bravely opened the curtains and expected to see a menacing swell in the near distance, several metres higher than the ship. But, rather disappointingly, it was relatively calm and way below the level of the porthole. There were no waves to speak of and only a gentle swell. Feeling rather foolish at having my anxieties disproved for the umpteenth time since leaving the UK, I went back to sleep.

Later, looking at the map, and remembering the route chart at the sea terminal, I guessed that the first part of the journey would be the worst because we were traversing the east coast of Japan, with the full might of the Pacific to the port side. The route would then take us to the west of the Ryukyu Islands and into the East China Sea which, hopefully, means that we are protected from the enormity of the Pacific. But there again, what do I know about the effect of topography on sea travel?

I do know, however, that the view from my porthole will be pretty mundane until the early hours of tomorrow, when we dock at Naha in Okinawa. We stop for twelve hours and, according to the schedule, all passengers are requested to go ashore and pass through customs. I am not sure how this works precisely but when we leave Okinawa at 2000 on Monday, the next port of call is Keelung in Taiwan, so I guess I will have my visa stamped and this will mark my official departure from Japan.

I only spent five days in the country but this was enough time to get a flavour of the place. Flavour is the operative word because the most striking memory is the food. Every meal I had was excellent and I ate many things for the first time. Even so, for the first time on this trip, I have used some medication – my laxatives.

I am not sure exactly why I am bunged up; maybe it is the copious amounts of sticky, white rice that I’ve consumed (as opposed to the brown rice I religiously ate every day in the UK) or maybe it’s the raw fish, or perhaps the relative lack of vegetables and roughage. Whatever the cause, the taste and variety of the food in Japan made up for the mild discomfort of waiting for peristalsis to complete its mission.

While mentally encouraging nature to take its course, this afternoon I spent half an hour on deck taking photos and video footage of the ship and the view to the west of the island of, I think, Kyusyu. This is the southernmost of the large islands of Japan. Whichever island it is, it was difficult to photograph because the haze made it an insipid subject. Still, it was a pleasant afternoon; a gentle breeze, an even gentler sea, high, innocuous clouds, and a very calm atmosphere on the ship.

The Hiryu seems to run on a shoestring. I have only seen four crew members – the head purser; his deputy; a very young, nervous underling who speaks no English at all and keeps nodding and apologising to me; and a guy with a permanent smile who works in the dining room. There is no bar, only drinks machines, and the sparsely stocked shop is looked after by the pursers. Maybe the four of them sail and maintain the vessel, too.

The ship certainly doesn’t have many passengers and I doubt if it makes much of a profit. Earlier, a handful of people were sitting in wicker armchairs looking aimlessly east across the Pacific Ocean. Up on deck I saw a Japanese guy sitting cross legged playing a wooden flute. He had his hair tied in a loose knot on the back of his head, a goatie beard, a blue long-sleeved t-shirt, white shades and the sort of deeply creased face that I associate with old-school hippies. We saw each other, smiled and waved. Maybe he noticed my deeply-creased face as well.

A few other people are milling around but there were only three of us at lunch. Meals operate under a rather bizarre system by which the purser calls people to the desk over the PA at 1000 precisely with reminders every 15 minutes until 1100. You choose one of eight dishes from the menu – typically priced around 800 yen (£4) – receive a meal voucher marked with your choice and then go to the dining room between 1200 and 1230. The smiling man – the fourth crew member - takes your voucher and, minutes later, brings a tray to your table.

I ordered beef curry today. It came with an iced tea, a small bowl of lettuce, tomato and shredded cabbage with a vinegary dressing. The curry itself had a sizeable portion of sticky rice and tasted fine. The chunks were, however, ninety percent potato and I could only find four tiny pieces of beef.

I am certainly the only Westerner on board and the other passengers, who all look Japanese rather than Taiwanese/Chinese, either nod and smile when I walk by or just ignore me. Before I came to Asia, people back home said that I would be stared at, or natives would approach me in the hope that I would help them practice their English. In Japan and on board, neither has happened. I am simply accepted as just another person, which suits me fine.

With air travel so cheap and fast these days, it makes sense that the Hiryu is quiet. It is marketed as a ‘cruise ferry’ so I wonder if it is busier in the summer. There are several function rooms on board – all of which are locked – which suggest that it is (or perhaps was) a proper cruise ship. On the aft deck, there are about twenty vehicles so maybe – like the MV Rus – it earns its keep as a cargo ship.

Whatever the reason for the quietness, it is a very enjoyable voyage so far. Last night’s choppy ocean has given way to gentle undulation and the benign weather is comforting. That said, conditions at sea can change with alarming rapidity so I am not counting any nautical chickens until we dock at Keelung in two days’ time.

After dinner this evening – a very large meal of miso soup, beef and vegetable stir-fry, sticky rice, a tiny bowl of slimy, stringy seaweed and an even smaller pot of ice cream, all for 900 yen (£4.50) - I joined four other photographers on the upper deck for the sunset. We were passing between two islands and the sun was very obligingly falling behind the one in the west.

Three of us snapped away incessantly. A third man – young with a white hoody tight against his head, wearing glasses and a focused scowl – squatted, camera in hand and waited for the perfect moment. I am not sure if it arrived because he only lifted the camera to his eye once, didn’t click the shutter and quickly returned to his scowl.

One of the men was the guy with large ears and bald patch whom I saw in the terminal. After the sun had set, I saw him tracing our route with his finger on the nautical chart near the dining room. His head was tilted back and he was mumbling to himself as he read through the bottom half of his glasses.

I asked him if he could tell me where we were. I used sign language – pointing at the floor to denote ‘here’, for example – but I needn’t have worried about his comprehension; he spoke excellent English and pointed to the two islands that we had just bisected. At midnight, he said, we will pass another large island, then bisect two more at 0400 and then arrive at Okinawa at 0800 tomorrow. I thanked him for his help, using one of my limited number of Japanese words, and he bowed slightly.

Until I came to Japan, the idea of bowing really offended me. But now, I see it in a different light. I guess I’d seen it in an English context; it is what commoners – like me – are expected to do to show deference to royalty and other noble people. I have never met a lord or a knight of the realm but if I did, I would be determined not to bow, curtsey, avoid eye contact or walk out of the room backwards, or whatever else protocol demands. I was brought up to believe that we are all equals and I intend to stick to that principle, even if it means offending a supposedly superior being.

In Japan, however, the bow seems to have a subtly different role. No doubt people would bend lower to the emperor, prime minister or the chief executive of Toyota, but it is amazing how many people bow to others. The security guards at Jim’s apartment; the police outside government buildings; and office workers bidding goodnight to their drinking partners, all bowed to some extent. On the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka, the blue uniformed carriage attendants bowed as soon as they entered and just before they left the carriage, even if no one was watching.

And on Friday evening on our way to dinner, I experienced bowing for myself. Jim and Miwa were in the bookshop at the foot of their apartment building. I had bought a phrase book and was waiting for them outside, leaning on a wall, smoking and watching people meander in the still, warm evening. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a diminutive, shuffling white haired man with a carelessly trimmed short beard and a blue plastic carrier bag. He was wearing flip flops, rolled up jeans, a white V-neck sweater and a pained expression. He edged toward me with hopeful eyes.

He stopped and then very deliberately bowed, so low that I could see his balding crown. He returned to his normal position and said something pitiful in Japanese. Then, with pleading eyes and a rub of his tummy, he said: ‘Hungry. Please. Hungry.’ Something about his approach really touched me. Maybe it was his manners, or the bow, or perhaps his attempt to speak English, but I smiled and dug in my pocket.

I gave him a 500 yen piece (£2.50) and he thanked me, bowing repetitively. I felt a little mean so I then gave him a handful of smaller change. More shallow bowing followed and I began to feel uneasy; I dislike being the object of deference as much as I loathe being deferential. He might be down on his luck and hungry but we are still equals. So I told him it was OK. He asked if I was American. ‘No, English,’ I replied. He smiled and, after more gentle bowing, he shuffled away, counting his money.