Japan Again 4

Finally we approached the huge bridge on the Kanmon, a passage between Kyushu and Honshu. We had been told and read about the ferious tidal currents (7 to 8 knots)., the huge ships and and we were both rather nervous. But we were able to wait until the current was slack and beginning to turn in our direction and we motored through in the company of many ships, which was not a problem and we reached the wide open spaces of the Seto Nakai unscathed and relaxed.

UBE.

We knew nothing about this city other than it was here that we would apply for our cruising permit. Coastguard were extremely helpful, translating into Japanese all our proposed anchorages and we left them with their assurances that they would be able to organise our permit. Next stop was Customs and the many forms to be filled in, then we were free to explore.
The City hall was our first stop and here we found the very helpful International Section, staffed by friendly English speaking Japanese and lots of information in English.
Ube is a city of Sculptures, they are to be found everywhere. Tokiwas Park has a vast area dedicated to works by International artists and was worth the effort to cycle there. There is also a beautiful lake complete with ducks, swans and pelicans.

The next day we decide to devote to retail therapy or in our case window shopping.
We were meandering along when we were accosted by a voluble women who insisted we join her for coffee. This led to us having eight people on board for a look see and coffee. They reciprocated by collecting us in the afternoon and taking us to view a private European style garden and then to a feast....marinated beef, homegrown salad, rice, shrimp rolls (Vietnamese style, chicken on dumpling wrapper, fruit cake, fruit salad, lemon tea made with freshly picked herbs from the garden followed by coffee. Our hosts inundated us with grapefruit, huge huge radish, mandarins, exotic jelly type of sweet and two amazing pot plants.
By now Coast guard had let us know that we had to proceed to Tokuyama to finalise our permit. So once again we waved farewell to friendly people, untied from the pontoon and set off towards an area that had not been on our schedule and so was going to be an unexpected treat.

TOKUYAMA