The Great Circle of Japan & Korea III, 20 August 2029

Cruise overview

Depart on a roundtrip voyage out of Tokyo, where Senso-ji’s incense-filled lanes sit near teamLab’s mirrored digital rooms and a sushi counter where the chef works right in front of you, then sail north for Hakodate, its sweeping panorama ranking with Naples and Hong Kong above the star-shaped ramparts of Goryokaku. Continue to Aomori, where towering illuminated Nebuta floats fill a walk-through hall beside the mossy, water-carved calm of Oirase Gorge, in a corner of Tohoku touched by UNESCO. Akita’s Kakunodate follows, its samurai quarter ringed by original earthen walls beneath a tunnel of weeping cherry. Kanazawa pairs Kenroku-en, one of Japan’s three great gardens, with a private tea ceremony in Higashi Chaya’s working wooden teahouses, while Sakaiminato opens onto Izumo Taisha, where Japan’s gods are said to gather each autumn, and the Adachi Museum’s gardens, framed like living paintings. An overnight stay in Busan brings Gamcheon’s painted hillside, the calls of Jagalchi fish market, and time to feast at a local barbecue counter on the city’s own rhythm, and Hakata, on a UNESCO-touched coast, pairs riverside yatai stalls with Dazaifu Tenmangu, shrine of the god of learning. Hiroshima weighs the solemn Genbaku Dome against Miyajima’s UNESCO-listed Itsukushima torii, said to float on the tide. Kobe offers Nada’s sake breweries and certified Kobe beef from a berth in the city’s center, and Toba pairs a pilgrimage to Ise Jingu, Shinto’s most sacred site, with Mikimoto Pearl Island’s ama free-divers, working these waters for two thousand years. Tagonoura brings Mount Fuji, a UNESCO World Heritage icon, filling the sky straight from the bay, before your voyage concludes back in Tokyo, the city picking up exactly where you left it.