March 12
We arrived in Tokyo at 7am to a chilling temperature of 40 degrees and a beautiful sunrise. The ship docked at the Harumi Pier which is right in the city, and we were greeted by a group of Japanese drummers.
We left the ship around 10am and took a bus around the city for a cost of 200 yen. (Tokyo, unlike most cities, does not have signage in English. The lady at the information desk in the terminal was kind enough to write out directions in English and in Japanese so we could just show the bus driver. Although the driver did not speak a word of English, he actually got off the bus and walked us to where we needed to go. The Japanese are extremely polite people, I’ve never been bowed to so many times!) The bus took us through the Ginza district which is very high end shopping, the Sony headquarters, Nishi Shinjuku Skyscrapers, Tokyo Takarazuka Theater, Ginza Brand Street and the Yonchrome Intersection. We were headed to the Tokyo tower but I was having difficulty breathing so we returned to the ship, found some free internet in the Terminal and checked a few things. We got back on board, ate a light dinner, watched a movie and then enjoyed the sail out of Tokyo Bay. It was beautiful, glad we had a balcony to enjoy it and glad it was on our side of the ship.
Upon Leaving Tokyo we set various courses west-south-westerly along the Japanese coast on our way to Hiroshima. While we were in Tokyo our internet service was blocked and as we sail down the coast of Japan it will blocked when we are within a certain range. Also the regulation for entering Japan is a pain in the butt. In Hiroshima we will be required to carry our passports and have a face to face with immigrations when we get back on the ship. Apparently they don’t care who gets into their city, just who tries to leave. Whatever, we just go with the flow. Overall it was a nice visit and a very clean city with nice people. I was shocked to find that there isn’t much English spoken compared to other countries. The children are now required to take four years of English in elementary school and another four years in middle school so that will be changing. However, neither of us can speak Japanese!
Woke up this morning at 4am as the ship sailed thru a very windy area with big waves. The winds peaked at 55 knots, the wind was forced thru our balcony door. A coupe of cabins had the balcony doors blown off the tracks. It remained rough and very cold all day. They had bouillon service on the open decks, but we never went outside. We did trivia with our usual mediocre result. I was still having a hard time breathing so I rested all day. Betty went to a talk by a former American ambassador which she said was rather boring. (I will be sure to bring toothpicks to prop my eyes open for his next talk.) After dinner we skipped the show as it was the Pacific Princess dancers, instead returning to our cabin to watch a movie, The Dilemma.
At midnight tonight we boarded our Seto Naikai Pilot to guide us through the inland waterways on the final part of our passage to Hiroshima. Then one hour after sunrise, we will board a second pilot to assist us with the arrival into Hiroshima.
