April 14 Okinawa
I should note that during the sea day between Kobe and Okinawa a group of us met with Oceania's Director of Marketing, who just happened to be on board. Some of us "worldies" had a long dinner discussion about what we wanted in the 2019 itinerary because we're loving this trip and want to do it again -- but slightly differently. We want to go west, and turn south out of the Panama Canal to see the west coast of South America, Machu Pichu, Galapagos, Easter Island and maybe Pitcairn Island. Through the Suez canal with visits at Luxor and Petra and Jerusalem, then out of the Med and north all the way to Iceland & Greenland.
On a whim I created a Power Point Presentation of our wishes which swept the ship, and the Cruise Director scheduled a meeting for us with Isabel. She was an excellent listener, answered questions, explained things, took notes, but pretty much shot us down when she said the 2019 itinerary would be out in October 2016. We can't see them making major changes in the five months that remain. We'll see what appears and decide whether to do it again.
Okinawa is a well-known WW2 battlefield, so we're going to take advantage of shore excursion that visits some of the highlights. We're only here for 7 hours, so a 4.5 hour tour will take up most of the time. Cynthia has also shared her cold with me, this is day 4 -- one of the worst days, so I'm not ready to go charging off wildly. A nice calm bus trip should be the ticket.
Our arrival in the port of Okinawa, one of the few times I've seen a tugboat actually push on Insignia.
We visited General Ota's HQ, which was in a tunnel fortification dug by picks and hoes.
There are tablets with the name of everyone that died on Okinawa, military or civilian, Japanese or Allied. Four Bradleys on the list.
The museum did not allow photography, but the message was summed up well by William Tecumseh Sherman, "War is hell."
The Mieyuri Monument, dedicated to the female stuents and teachers who died while volunteer nurses.
Lots of origami cranes in all of the sites.
Shinto shrine along the road back to the port
I should note that during the sea day between Kobe and Okinawa a group of us met with Oceania's Director of Marketing, who just happened to be on board. Some of us "worldies" had a long dinner discussion about what we wanted in the 2019 itinerary because we're loving this trip and want to do it again -- but slightly differently. We want to go west, and turn south out of the Panama Canal to see the west coast of South America, Machu Pichu, Galapagos, Easter Island and maybe Pitcairn Island. Through the Suez canal with visits at Luxor and Petra and Jerusalem, then out of the Med and north all the way to Iceland & Greenland.
On a whim I created a Power Point Presentation of our wishes which swept the ship, and the Cruise Director scheduled a meeting for us with Isabel. She was an excellent listener, answered questions, explained things, took notes, but pretty much shot us down when she said the 2019 itinerary would be out in October 2016. We can't see them making major changes in the five months that remain. We'll see what appears and decide whether to do it again.
Okinawa is a well-known WW2 battlefield, so we're going to take advantage of shore excursion that visits some of the highlights. We're only here for 7 hours, so a 4.5 hour tour will take up most of the time. Cynthia has also shared her cold with me, this is day 4 -- one of the worst days, so I'm not ready to go charging off wildly. A nice calm bus trip should be the ticket.
Our arrival in the port of Okinawa, one of the few times I've seen a tugboat actually push on Insignia.
Then to the
Okinawa Prefecture Peace Memorial Museum. This is the tribute to the
civilians that lived in caves to avoid the fighting.
There are tablets with the name of everyone that died on Okinawa, military or civilian, Japanese or Allied. Four Bradleys on the list.
The museum did not allow photography, but the message was summed up well by William Tecumseh Sherman, "War is hell."
The Mieyuri Monument, dedicated to the female stuents and teachers who died while volunteer nurses.
2 comments:
I wasn't so sure about this tour after reading the CC post -- but having seen the photos, I've changed my mind.
Erin Erkun- this was a great tour.
The reason i posted the "history lesson" on CC is that the tour guide we had didn't do a very good job of explaining what we were seeing. Many of the O people said that the guides' English made it difficult to know what we were seeing.
I explained to a couple of people what we were seeing, after they asked, so I decided to post on CC the history lesson. Those people said it really helped them.
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