OCEANIA RIVIERA: Sendai to Hakodate

The Shinkansen takes around 3 hours to get from Sendai to Shin-Hakodate.  A car, perhaps 8.5 hours.  Our cruise ship leaves Sendai at 3PM and is expected to arrive in the Port of Hakodate at 7AM, or 16 hours later.  Our ship would need to cruise at 22 MPH.  The Riviera's top speed is 23 MPH.

The largest cruise ship today is the Icon of the Seas.  She has a top speed of 28 MPH.  The Titanic could just about reach that speed.

The Oceania Riviera was supposed to depart at 3PM, but instead left at 2:50.  So this is the only photo I took.

Sendai is a special place for me.  I have stayed at the Sendai Westin at least ten times.  Photo to the left, sunset from the Executive Club.  The room price now is around $350/night.  I remember a few months after the 11March2011 Great Tohoku cataclysm, with the Fukushima damaged nuclear reactors only 50 miles away, I only paid $45/night.

• 2012:  In April, 13 months after the Great Tohoku disaster.

• 2014:  Beef tongue.  I thought I had ordered steak.  This meat was crunchy.  Then I realized what happened.  I still feel the tongue in my intestinal track.  Sendai is especially noted for beef tongue.

• 2016:  Sakura and Snow in Sendai.

• 2017:  Here am I in the lobby of the Westin Sendai.

• 2017:  Later in the fall, I returned, went walking, shopped at Daiso, and bought all those items below...for a grand total of $7.56.

• 2018:  Sakura.

• 2019:  Iseya, a restaurant that specializes in wagyu beef, is a spot I always have lunch.  Is located in the Sendai Station.  They sizzle the wagyu close by so you can smell and hear it all.

• 2023:  Here is the Westin Sendai below.

I have made around a dozen Japan Rail Pass trips, and almost every time I go north, I stop in Sendai.

But back to the Oceania Riviera, Adam Tanner gave his second lecture on Japan, featuring the reign of General MacArthur from 1945 to 1952.  All totally new to me.

• Tanner shared facts few know about the reign of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur.  For example, how dedicated he was, and yet so isolated.  It would take me too long to list everything.

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  One key point was that he went against popular American opinion, and maintained the role of Emperor Hirohito for a more peaceful and successful occupation, and for the overall stability of Japan.  Many felt that Hirohito was complicit with leaders like General Hideki Tojo, and should have been executed.
• You can read all the details about MacArthur's seven years in Japan.

Here are some facts you might not have known about General MacArthur.

• His mother came from a Confederate family.
• Only Robert E. Lee, leader of the Confederate, surpassed MacArthur in West Point performance.
• He was president of the American Olympic Committee for the 1928 Summer Games in Amsterdam.
• During 1933, he was tasked by FDR to mobilize 300,000 in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
• He promoted a nomination as a Republican nominee to run against FDR in 1944.

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  Was fired by President Harry Truman on April 11, 1951.  On April 19 he gave a speech to a joint session Congress, where he was interrupted by 50 ovations, and closed with:  Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.  MacArthur was more popular than the president, and received a ticker tape parade the next day.

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  The MacArthur Bowl awarded to the top college football team?  Named after him, and the 25-pound trophy is shaped like a football stadium, featuring his quote:  There is no substitute for victory.

Went to Terrace Cafe, a buffet, for dinner.  They had a sushi/sashimi bar.

We just arrived in Hakodate.  It's raining.  

We are getting ready for our first tour from this ship.  Tomorrow, our visit to this city on Hokkaido.

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