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...

To our disappointment, we learned that the early blooming of the Sakura ten days ago....stopped, with cold weather.  Thus, the chances were that we would not see anything.  But we took the JR Yamanote Line to Shinjuku Station and walked to Shinjuku Park.  There is a small charge, but the guards said that we should come back in two weeks, so we did not even enter.  This photo was from  four years ago when on April 4 there were a lot of blossoms . We then took the Marunouchi Red Line Tokyo Metro to Ginza Station, and transferred to the Hibiya Line to Ueno Park.  Incidentally we this time had no Japan Rail Pass, and paid for these rides using a Suica card which we added around $50.  This amount should cover several days of riding about in Tokyo. At Ueno Park, we were met by my Blue Bar Pigeon.  Looked up the walk path where in the past it was all white and pink.  This time, nothing.  The season officially starts here tomorrow, March 22 with...