The gardens themselves are beautifully landscaped and meant to be able to truly show four different seasons based on all the plants and flowers. There was a water fountain that was completely powered by gravity since the pond that feeds it is at a much higher level.
There was also an onsite craft museum that showcased many artisan skills including paper making and gold leaf.
I should point out that even though rain was predicted we had the most glorious weather day. Only partly cloudy. No rain. A slight breeze at times but just perfect for walking around the gardens.
Before we left the gardens, we had one of the signature treats: Matcha Soft Serve with Gold Leaf. It was sort of a splurge at 1000 JPY (~$7.70 USD). Very delicious matcha!!
I was fascinated by the many lanterns that were found around the gardens. For any fans of the Legend of Zelda series, these looked to be the inspiration for many of the lanterns you find in the video games. The ones you light with your torch to open a gate. Or get a new tool. Or get a key. Makes sense since Japan is the home to Nintendo.
After the gardens we visited the local Omicho Market. This had a lot of similarities with the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo except it was a bit more organized. It was set up in a pretty straight forward grid pattern. All different kinds of vendors selling mostly fish, fruits and vegetables.
There were several restaurants as well and we stopped in one for a quick bite to eat. This was one of those times where we took a risk in ordering something and it wasn't exactly what we expected. We thought we were ordering an eight piece fish sampler of sushi and/or sashimi. What came to the table was a steaming bowl of various types of seafood. At least we thought it was all seafood. Most had been boiled quite extensively.
We tried our guesses at what we were eating. The creature in the shell was like a periwinkle, just a lot larger. The texture was like a tale.of two cities. Part of it was like the neck of a steamed clam. Pretty tasty. The rest was like a terriblly overcooked oyster. Not pleasant in taste or texture. The orange "pinwheels" were also interesting. They just tasted salty. What were they? Same for the tubular item. It seemed like some kind of octopus. But was it? And there was a circular item that had the texture of a mushroom. The egg, cooked rashish and noodles were the only obvious items. We also ordered a more traditional rice bowl that had several kinds of raw fish including yellowtail, snapper and tuna. That was both familiar and very tasty.
So what had we been eating? We showed the picture to our tour guide and she told us. The orange pinwheels and the "tube" were both variations of cooked fish paste. They dye the pinwheels for decoration. And the "tube" is shaped, boiled and then baked to give it the chewy quality. I don't think I will deliberately order this dish again. Nothing tasted terrible. It just didn't have much flavor at all except when you added some spicy mustard to each bite. But ordering something like that is part of the excitement of travelling to a new place.
After the market we headed back to the ship. We rested a bit in the cabin and are now headed to immigration. Because we are now leaving Japan and our next port is in Busan, we have to go through a formal exit process with Japanese immigration. That will take place in the terminal. We will have a similar entrance process when we get to our first port after Busan.
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