The Peace Boat

On the southern coast of Uporu Isl. SAMOA. I woke up to voices from out side of bungalow. When I opened the door, I saw an Asian senior couple was taking a picture on the beach.
The husband held a Leica camera, may be over 10,000 USD system, in his hand. The wife in summer dress and straw hat was posing for him.
'Ah, excuse me. Don't you think it's quite impolite to take a picture in the front of photographer's bungalow? With the camera which costs as much as twenty times of the photographer's one, uh?" I was trying to give'em the joke. However before that, the gentleman came up to me. 'Gosh, if he'll ask me for taking their picture? I'm not sure I can handle such an expensive camera ... '
"Are you Chinese?" He asked me in Chinese. "Sorry, I'm Japanese" That's Chinese phrase I only knew. He looked like expecting my answer and showed me the ID card hung from the neck. As he was getting close to me, he repeated a word "Peace boat, Peace boat" I took a look the ID card. 'PEACE BOAT' That's Japanese cruise ship. They were passengers of the ship and stopped by Apia, Samoa's capitol, he said.

At the noon of the day, I was back to Apia. The town looked more lively than usual. "Are you from the Peace Boat?" Street vendors asked me here and there. "Nope. I'm not from the Peace Boat". Then they went away for next customer. When I looked over the port, I saw a white cruising ship was shining in the tropical sunshine.
One Japanese passenger told me that they were on the way of cruising around the globe in the southern hemisphere. After the ship had left from Yokohama, stopped by Amoi China, Singapore and Madagascar. Then it had gone around the Cape of Good Hope, stopped by Rio de Janeiro, Patagonia of Argentine and Easter Island. Apia was the final stop of it's three month cruise. Their free time in Apia was just one day, although two week travel in Samoa was a quite big event. Of course, whether getting off or not was depends on each passenger. As long as stay in the ship meal was guaranteed, the passenger told me.

For our generation, the Peace Boat was a cruise ship for the young. The project was based on 'look around the world spilt'. So they save the money which they got by part time job for the dream cruise. I remember the Peace Boat it self offered the job, like putting their cruise posters in town, to support the young passenger's wallet. Means the Peace Boat used be a relatively reasonable cruise ship.
I checked today's tour price by the ship. Well, near two million JPY (or 20,000USD) for each person in twin bed room. As you can guess, whom I saw were rich Japanese and Chinese elder passenger who had bunch of time and money. Well, I'm not saying the business model sift is bad. Just times have changed.

Recently Japan's Financial Service Agency reported. We cannot survive just with pension. As a sample of "A standard couple in Japan", they need at least twenty million JPY (or 200,000USD) savings in addition to the pension for the rest of life after retirement. Maybe the standard Japanese couple has no chance to get such a cruising after they'll retire. Much less, a poor single like me has a almost zero possibility to get the ship. Or get a part time job for it just like my twenties in my late sixties.