CREAMS (Circulation Research of the East Asian Marginal Seas) is an international research program, which began in 1993 in order to understand the water mass structure and circulation in the East Sea. Since the beginning of CREAMS, there have been four cruises in the summer and two in the winter, covering most parts of the East Sea for the first time in more than 60 years since the historical survey reported by Uda (1934). CREAMS investigations have provided many new insights into the various aspects of oceanographic problems in the East Sea such as water masses, deep sea currents and circulation, eddies, particle fluxes and so on. In this paper, we briefly review understandings before CREAMS and summarize initial new findings from CREAMS expeditions in terms of water masses and currents.