Greetings to All of You ,

See here a small selection of our last months in Fukuoka and our bye-bye parties….eh bye-bye pictures …eh bye-bye party-pictures.

Wow! Were those last few weeks tough, but we enjoyed every minute.

It all started in early July with the Hakata Yamakasa, Fukuoka’s biggest and most exciting festival, where teams run around the streets half naked, carrying huge floats depicting all sorts of caricatures from Japan’s recent and not so recent history at 5:00 in the morning. (See Q3 2005) Like last year Jaap took part again, knowing it might be for the last time….

Our sweetest kids. Aren’t they cute!!

Okay, okay so far not much cruising related topics, but we made so many, many friends in Fukuoka. After all we were there for over 11 years. It’s our “furusato”.

The Food Specialists…eh Marathon team.

From now on we will have to make those road miles without you; that’s gonna be tough. (topic food is no problem ;-))

There were many happy faces and plenty of food.

Thanks Party support team. We had a super time, and we’ll miss you all.

Hiking and Hita

Anyway what did we do afterwards?

Of course.

We also made a pit-stop in Hita.

Right between climbing Mt. Kuju and Mt. Kurodake Nobuko Kakoh came over with daughter Shiho, son Keisuke and friend Kenji Murao. We stayed in a place along the river in Hita, a small hotspring town in Oita prefecture. The hotel let us use their summer kimono selection and the girls had a real dress-up party that took hours, because choosing the right one cannot possibly be done in one minute.

The evening meal was served on a river boat. Part of the attraction was a show of cormorant fishing. A few boats came by with the birds swimming alongside or sitting on the bow, all neatly leished up. A basket in the boat with some small fish showed what should have been their catch, but this time it was just for show. Some cruelty against animals law has made a stop to this kind of fishing and the birds are now just kept as pets.

The next day we drove around in this beautiful mountainous area, found lots of good spots, and good food and just enjoyed each other’s company.

Thank you for such a wonderful memory of Kyushu! And the Kakohs.

getting Alishan ready

Getting Alishan ready

It was not only play and party.

Prep-work had to be done before D-day…. 

Marijke found another 100 kg of goodies to be sent to the islands.

 Oops, some, no, most of this had to go on board.

I don’t know how, but somehow we did empty that storage place. The garbage collectors got a good share though.

And then it was time for the ever returning stress of hauling out. We decided to do it again at Marinoa, just across the river. Under the watchful eye of the world’s number 2 Ferris wheel we cleaned, waxed and painted the hull. This time we had decided to do most of the work ourselves, despite the heat, still somehow thinking in Jan Haring terms and measurements. Well, we found out that 43 feet is a lot of boat!

3 days later we could see the shining result of our hard work

Alishan was ready to start making the miles.

Then followed the radar installation project…it’s always handy, while out at sea to have an extra watchman up the in the mast ;-)). We scored the radar via Westmarine. They had a 12 hour online discount run…just by chance happened to notice it. Including the shipping, we saved ourselves heaps. (Furuno, “made” in Japan, shipped to USA, sold to us online, back to Japan in the same box and still $500 cheaper than bought locally)

Marijke found some zebra camouflage stuff for the dinghy cover…now we only have to look out for those penguins…are they still in Madagascar?

Some food prep. At this moment of writing we haven’t had the opportunity yet to open and try one as we are given fresh fish left and right by the Japanese fishermen.

Now that’s okay with us, after all we Love Sashimi.

Another prep item was the medical care for Wakame and Nori.

And did we get the change to learn and practice. Nori was so silly to get into a serious cat-fight and ended up in the pet hospital for 3 weeks. The bill made us almost broke.

Hmmm, and doctor Noriko went to Bali for a well earned surf-holiday afterwards…

Here is Marijke visiting Nori in his capsul-hospital bed.

Hands-on training in giving Nori his injections, under the watchful eyes of doctor Noriko.

What a team work.

Bye Bye Meinohama

Bye-bye Meinohama

A few nights before our departure there was a superb fireworks show and this was the final bang! We enjoyed our stay in Fukuoka till the last moment.

Picture taken from the big Ferris Wheel when our cabin was right at the top…Not Marijke’s favorite location. We were lucky with this great bird eye view of Fukuoka.

Down there is the harbor where we lived for 11 years. One day we will be back but now the islands and oceans are calling us.

 This beautifull flag was given to us by Miyoko and Kunitoshi. Alishan will show the colors!

Here Miyoko, Fukuyo and Hitomi & Marijke.

 Due to a 3 day delay in our PETD because of that typhoon Shanshan, there was a small but fine Byebye team. Thanks Nobuko, Miyoko, Chigeko, Yoshino and Tomoyo. (the men where out fishing).

(Oops, that’s a Half Marathon worth of calories)