This is the second part of a two-part story on a trip to Lake Biwa and its environs in Shiga Prefecture.

Part I: A great escape to Biwako

The beauty is mesmerizing, overwhelming, suffocating. All around me, the world has just turned blue — and it's about to get even more so. It's painfully romantic. I'm not with the one I love, and I almost feel like calling out to new friend Jasmine, a reporter from Hiroshima who's sitting in the dining room below, but that would seem like cheating, so instead I allow the blurred faces of ex-loves to sprinkle memories over me; those women I thought I might spend the rest of my life with but with whom I failed, miserably. Wasted years, but for the salutary benefits of experience. Then my girlfriend comes into focus and stays there gracefully. I'm here on a media cruise with a motley crew of journalists. It's work, but what a cruise like this is all about is romance.