A walk through the 1930 passenger-cargo ship Hikawa Maru, docked in Yokohama, Japan. 氷川丸の中を歩く

Hikawa Maru is a cargo-passenger liner that was built in 1930 for the Japan-Seattle line by NYK line. Around the 1920s, there were growing calls in Japan for building its own high-grade ships in order to compete with the large ships introduced by Europe and the United States. Hikawa Maru was a state of the art ship at the time it was built. During World War II, Hikawa Maru was set up as a navy hospital ship. The ship struck mines on three separate occasions before the war ended but avoided being sunk. After the war, it was re-fitted as a cargo-passenger ship and resumed service on the Seattle Line in 1953. Having been in service for 30 years, Hikawa Maru Made 254 voyages across the Pacific Ocean and carried more than 25,000 passengers in total during its lifetime, including Charlie Chaplin, and Japanese Prince and Princess Chichibu. Since 1961, the ship has been kept at Yamashita Park in Yokohama where it has become a popular attraction visited by many people over many years. Hikawa Maru was temporarily closed for refurbishing in 2006 and re-opened to the public in 2008 as in NYK Hikawa Maru. Being the only surviving cargo passenger liner build in Japan before World War II and having earned a high reputation as a valuable industrial heritage that preserves shipbuilding technology and inboard interior decoration, the ship was designated as a nationally important cultural property in 2016.