Our final port of Kushiro appeared through morning fog, its city market offering a final opportunity to indulge in the ocean’s bounty – mounds of uni, buttery toro, and sweet crab arranged with gastro-porn precision. Along one of the main thoroughfares, we discovered a traditional artisan workshop where calligraphic seals are still made to order, each one a miniature work of art pressed into vermilion stamp ink to create distinctive personal signatures
As the Quest finally glided back into Yokohama harbour, I found myself silently thanking the ship for its gentle companionship on a voyage cocooned by airy pink clouds of cherry blossoms that had seemed to follow us from port to port.
In two perfect weeks, suspended between sea and sky, we had traced Japan’s coastline during its most magical season, experiencing moments both profound and simple. The bent tree in Hiroshima that survived an apocalypse, the languid sea days spent watching the ever-changing face of the ocean, the taste of just-caught fish in Sakaiminato.
What remained, though, was a perspective rarely granted to those who visit by conventional means – Japan seen from the sea. It was how Japan had first revealed itself to the world, and how I will always remember it: Islands emerging from the mist, mountains descending to meet the water’s edge, and everywhere the quiet dignity of a culture that understands better than most the beauty of moments that cannot last.
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