Noon Report:

• Location: N 35° 40.34′, E 139° 45.53′
• Speed: None
• Course: None
• Weather: Overcast
• Sea: What sea?

We were up at the normal time and spent a few minutes packing our backpacks and clearing out the cabin.
After the final drawer check we left for the last time and headed to breakfast by 7:30. (REMEMBER to get your passport out of the room’s safe!)
Since we didn’t need to be down to the ship’s Atrium until 8:45, and we weren’t in the mood for the bustle of the Cafe – Mamsen’s is always quieter, and then there are those waffles…

After lingering over another cuppa we headed down to join at least 600 of our 900 closest friends who were leaving (the rest are headed on to Sapporo and then to the final destination of Vancouver, Canada, by way of the Aleutian islands and several ports in Alaska).

Eventually they called our group (Red 1) and we claimed our luggage and went thru customs before boarding our bus for the drive to the Imperial Hotel, the staging area for transfer to the airport. We arrived there about 9:30 and weren’t scheduled to go to the airport until 12:30. We looked at the ballroom full of bored people having a cup of free coffee and working on their computers, looked at the downtown map the hotel provided – and left for 3 hours of free time exploration.

The first stop was the 7-11 about 3 blocks away. We had a request from David (Cheryl’s brother who is going to Japan next year) to pick up some Yen and the ATMs in the 7-11 stores are supposed to have the best deal. Somehow we had rarely had the opportunity to get close to a 7-11 (which is surprising because they are _everywhere_ in Japan) but this was a perfect opportunity. It also gave us a chance to restock our own much depleted Yen supply.

Next, we wandered. We were at the northern edge of the Ginza district so there was some interesting window shopping to be had (mostly expensive stuff).

At one point we found ourselves at the Sukiyabashi Crossing – which is not the famous Shibuya Scramble (some distance away in the Shibuya district). This one is a lot less crowded, especially on a Tuesday morning, but still it was interesting to cross at an intersection where all the traffic stops and everyone goes whichever way they want.

A little later we were feeling a bit peckish and began looking for someplace for some noodles.

Note: Cheryl took that photo of me with the noodles to show that their spoons are notched so they hang on the edge of the bowl. Pretty handy!

Sated with noodles, we wandered around the district before we returned to the hotel to hang for a bit before the bus whisked us off to the airport (about 90 minutes away).
There it was the normal madness of international travel. Patience, Patience, Patience.
The downside: my TSA compliant pocket knife (no blade – just scissors, bottle opener, toothpick, tweezers) didn’t impress the security people. Cheryl is glad that it’s gone because we have to explain it every time we go through airport security – in Japan they even measured the length of the blades on his (separate pair) of hair scissors.
The upside: when they were eventually able to print our boarding passes, they included access to the Business Class lounge. So we were could relax in quiet comfort for several hours before heading to our gate.

We were flying on Japan Airlines so our meals were local cuisine:

Our 4 hour layover in Seattle provided an opportunity to crash for a bit. (Cheryl has a “Trtl” brand neck brace so you can sleep sitting upright)

I was blogging away when Cheryl woke up and asked why nobody was at our gate since it was time to board our flight. A quick check revealed that our gate had changed – we moved and avoided disaster by mere minutes. We made it though and, another nap later, we were home!

So that’s the adventure.
We’re home now, getting our bodies re-adjusted to Mountain time, restocking the fridge, doing laundry, catching up on these posts, and getting ready to get back into the normal (such as it is) flow of life.

Till next time,
Bon Voyage, R

Randy’s impression:
You may remember back in Hong Kong I commented about the square holes in high rise buildings – put there to allow dragons to pass thru when they traveled from their caves in the mountain to the water.

On the bus rides thru Tokyo these past few days I’ve been noticing several of the buildings with a common architectural feature:

While not actual openings, they do seem like a nod to the ancient tradition of providing passage for dragons.
Interesting.

Cheryl’s factoids:

• Japan is REALLY strict about what they allow through customs – absolutely no fresh food or proscribed materials. On all our expeditions we had to carry our passports and go through customs every time we left the ship, and they only allow you to carry a commercially-prepared bottle of water (no snacks unless they were commercially packaged). As always, there’s a crew member handing out bottles of water as you leave the ship.
• It’s polite to eat all your meal. Mother’s tell their children “Each grain of rice is the sweat of a farmer”.
• Girls’ Day is March 3rd each year and is a festival to pray for peace, beauty, and happiness of girls. Many families celebrate by displaying dolls (usually of the royal family, their musicians, and their subordinates), giving gifts, and eating special foods. Girls are given their first doll and may grow a collection.
• Boys’ Day is May 5th each year. It is a festival to pray for the health, courage, and happiness of boys. Families with boys fly huge carp-shaped streamer kites outside the house (remember the folklore that carp can go up a waterfall and turn into dragons-so it’s also a wish for a good future) and display dolls of famous warriors and other heroes inside the house (or what we saw were displays of samurai armor and fish kites). Special food is also prepared.
• While crossing Tokyo’s Rainbow Bridge (at night it lights up with rainbow colors) we could see the “Odaiba” (battery Islands).  The Tokugawa Government had several of these fortress islands built in Tokyo Bay to protect Tokyo from foreign ships – namely after Commodore Perry’s 1853 visit (his black smoking ships with cannon and thrashing paddles-not moving by sails was pretty scary). In just over a year, 6 battery islands were completed, but after WWII most of these islands were destroyed or absorbed by fill-in reclamation projects. Only islands #3 and #6 remain today.

• I am so impressed with how CLEAN everything is in Japan (even the huge bays in Hong Kong and Taiwan are clean looking with no floating trash – a great contrast to the ports we saw in Vietnam, Thailand, and India). There is NO graffiti anywhere! There are also very few trashcans, so you must carry your trash with you until you can find a bathroom or restaurant. The toilets (never ask for a “restroom” because some Japanese hear this as “restaurant” and will direct you accordingly) often have both the older squat kind and the modern bidet kind (with optional music to accompany you). If you can’t find a lever to flush, there is often the picture of a “hand over a swirl” button that you press. They supply a cleaning liquid dispenser in each stall and you are expected to clean off the toilet seat before you leave. Bathrooms have sinks with liquid soap but usually NO paper towels (or even hand dryers) – which also means no trash – it’s a REALLY clean country.
• The Pacific Ocean is almost 3 times larger than the Atlantic. As I looked out at the restless waves of the ocean from our cabin’s balcony, the ocean seems to go on forever – endlessly flowing over the curve of the entire planet. How amazing to realize that the granite rock (made from cooled magma of volcanic action) that underlays all the earth’s land plates just happen to be lighter than the oceanic plates so that they ride OVER the oceanic plates – otherwise there would be no land/ no land life would ever have evolved.
• Japan has wonderful historical places with a unique culture and an attitude of politeness to other people (so feels very safe). With their reverence for nature, it’s a beautiful country that I would like visit again!