A Day at the Port

First things first... before we head down to Nagoya Port, we need to get some ice cream!  These ladies working at Cold Stone Creamery even posed for the picture :)

Mom and Kerri in front of some silly penguins topiaries.

Talk about a sweet mailbox!

Mom and Dad in front of Port Bridge.

A cruise ship is in port!  I wonder where they cruise to?!  Hmm... I could really go for a vacation!!

Kerri sits in a sad little park.  But it did have an English sign that says that Nagoya's sister port is Baltimore, Maryland in the USA!!  Small world... I've been there many times :)

Kerri with the cool penguin lights.

A restaurant called "Cats Garden".  Not surprisingly, we didn't eat there. 

Mom said as a rule "cat" and "restaurant" should never be associated together!

Umm... sure... this billboard makes purrfect cents...

Windy day but beautiful flowers.

Dinner at Red Lobster.  We were running out of Western restaurant choices, and this place unfortunately had a very Asian menu.  They didn't even serve those awesome cheddar biscuits :( 

However, Dad and I thought this was the best meal all week.  Of course, the fish was very fresh!

Fujitrans visit

This week I was able to see Nagoya Port in all of its glory! I went on a tour of Fujitrans, a company which does domestic sea shipments.

First off, welcome to Fujitrans... what Japanese company would be complete without a life-sized wooden tiger in their lobby?! (Remember 2010 is Year of the Tiger!)

Here is an aerial view of Fujitrans property. The green swirly things are highways, so just ignore them. The tiny green arrow indicates the office, and I put a red box around part of their parking lot and drew arrows to show how the cars load onto the vessel docked at sea! Here's a pic of the Fujitrans vessel. It's huge like an aircraft carrier or cruise ship. Length is 167 meters, and width is 30 meters. This particular vessel holds 846 vehicles and 150 trailers.

As a rule of thumb, 1 hour by plane is equal to 1 day by sea. So it takes 90 minutes to fly to Tokyo, and it takes 36 hours on the vessel.

Inside the vessel, here is the radar screen... sure, it makes perfect sense to me.

So much sense that they elected me "Captain Kerri".

Here's the control area where they dock the vessel. There are windows on the floor to see how close the are. This particular ship does not need to be guided by tugboats (as you will see later). They can do everything on their own.

If you're still not sure where to park the ship, you can just hang out the window and check it out this way!!

A vessel this size has a staff of 11 when out to sea! That's unbelievably small for such a large ship, and that includes a full-time chef. Here is his kitchen!

Bunking area for one staff member. This is plush accommodations!! Larger than a Japanese hotel room, and almost as big as my entire apartment!!

The tables are chained to the floor in case they find some rough water.

On to the good stuff... Here's the inside of the vessel. It looks a lot like a parking garage. There are 6 levels of parking.

Here are some trailers that are secured nice and tight. Majority of freight northbound is cars (given the proximity to Toyota City), and southbound is generally food products or auto parts.

The cars are loading! (Check out the video at the bottom to see this in action!)

Up the ramp they go. (Check out the video at the bottom to see this in action!)

After 28 new vehicles zoom by, they are followed by 2 Fujitrans vans to go pick up the drivers and they do it all over again. It takes about 6 hours to load all of the vehicles.

Group photo outside the ship. Thank goodness the Japanese like taking pictures so much!! I'm in the middle in case you can't pick me out.

Here's an overseas vessel that is being pushed/pulled by two tugboats and taken out to the ocean. This one is not a Fujitrans ship, but it holds 4,000 new cars, takes 2 full days to load, and usually takes 6-9 days to reach it's destination. Generally overseas vessels like this return empty because there are few cars imported to Japan.

The Ferrari I ordered has finally arrived. I guess my bicycle is going to get a break for a while...

Here's a cool "wing" trailer that they use all over Asia. It's convenient for Japan because they have few docks, so the fork lift drivers just come outside and unload it from the side. It's also nice for milkruns because you can pick and choose which freight to unload. Not like a rear-load 53' footer where you have to unload the entire trailer.

Here's a quick video of the cars loading. (You must go directly to the blog to view it.)

Port Envy

Ever since I went to the Nagoya airport on the man made island, I decided I wanted to see more of the ocean! It's just so expansive and beautiful. I love the Great Lakes, but seriously, this is the Pacific! But first, a geography lesson because people aren't really that familiar with this side of the world as I am quickly finding out.

Below is a map of Japan. Basically a series of islands (which are not all featured), but Nagoya is marked by the "A". You can see Tokyo to the right, which is also a port city.

Here's a close up of Nagoya. I live at the spot marked by the "A". The ocean is south, but there are so many little inlets. I didn't know where the cool, touristy stuff was. So I hopped on a train Saturday morning, rode it until the end, and got off to see where I landed. It was, of course, the ocean, but not really the part I wanted. This was more of the industrial import/export area. Still cool, but not that exciting for an afternoon.

After about an hour of exploring, I got back on the train, rode for 2 stops, and got off where I could see a faint ferris wheel in the background. I figured there must be something cool by the ferris wheel!

I walked and walked, and finally the ferris wheel was in full view along with some other cool looking buildings. I would have bet money the one of the right with the funky roof was the aquarium, and I'd be a rich girl right now because I was correct!

I knew I was headed in the right direction, so I stopped for a quick snack (of cashews and water) and the obligatory cheesy photo here.

I finally made it to the cool part of the port. It seemed like paradise with palm trees all around!

Oddly enough, I bought something at this store. I hope it doesn't make me smell since it's a pair of earrings!

A cool bridge I'm about to walk over.

View from the bridge. Way in the distance is the industrial area that I went to first. The train station was right next to that huge bridge.

I think I'll vacation here in the summer!

The Japanese love cartoons... Here's Mr. Nagoya and Miss Nagoya as proof.

I took this pic for Rene. Maybe I'll get certified while I'm here!

Giant inflatable Santa peeking over a building!! Almost as cool as Santa rappelling from a skyscraper in downtown Cinci!

I found a subway station close by (rather than that train and long walk to get here!) since I was pretty worn out. I went home for dinner and a rest, and then took my bike out at night for some shopping!! BTW my flashing bike light flew off when I hit a bump and smashed into a million pieces :( So I had to be really careful the rest of the way. Time to buy a new light!