20241004 One Really Long Day Flying Home

20241004 One Really Long Day Flying Home

Our suitcases were packed and picked up around 8pm last night so we were just living out of our carry-on back packs.  The World Cafe opened at 6am for disembarkation.  We said good byes to some of our favorite staff members including the head waiter at the Chef's Table who snuck us in early so we could make the 9pm shows, and Monica, a head waitress in the World Cafe and other venues who was especially attentive and who fixed our disappearing birthday cake mystery.  We also said fare well to our Team Whateva trivia partners, who we had a very enjoyable time with.  They are all well traveled and we expect to someday run into them again.  

Viking's disembarkation and airport transfers were all very well organized. We didn't have excursion tickets for the transfers. These were managed mostly via color coded luggage tags, and Viking had segregated groups based on flight departure times and departure airport terminals.  Tokyo has two main international airports so it's good they kept everything well organized.  We were to be out of our staterooms by 8am and waited in the Star Theatre until our group was called.  That was at 8:15, so we didn't have long to wait.  

Having nothing to declare to Japanese customs, we breezed through customs and onto our coach, which was only about 2/3 capacity, so we could spread out a bit with or backpacks and carry on bags.  Our checked bags were stowed below in the bus which drove us to the Capital Tower Hotel in downtown Tokyo.  This was adjacent to the Hie Shrine, and between the National Diet Building and Akasaka-Mitsuke neighborhood.  Viking had a large ballroom reserved for guests in transit.  This was equipped with tables and chairs with ample room for everyone. There was hotel wifi available and nice restrooms, coffee, tea and fancy individually wrapped madelines and macaroons of various flavors.  

The outside temperature was in the mid to upper 70's with moderate humidity.  There was moderate to heavy cloud cover helping to keep the temperature down.  We went for a walk to explore the neighborhood.  The Hie Shrine is right behind the hotel and accessible via several entrances.  We explored the shrine and got to stretch our legs and climb some steps.

From the Shrine, we walked through the Akasaka neighborhood which had lots of small shops and restaurants.  One of the more unique sights was an aquarium full of puffer fish or Fugu.  We imagine it was a restaurant that specialized in fresh Fugu, which is highly poisonous if not properly handled and expertly prepared.  Since we were going to be spending the better part of the next day in a metal tube at 30,000ft we had no interest in experimenting with food poisoning.  It did start to rain on us as we walked around the neighborhood and headed back to the hotel.  Fortunately, it was mostly just a sprinkle and not a downpour.  

We reboarded our bus, which held our luggage, and headed to the airport at noon.  It took more than an hour to get to Tokyo Haneda airport from downtown, but we arrived with ample time to get our luggage checked and then find the Air Canada lounge.  We were able to enjoy lunch and beverages there before boarding our flight.  

The business class flight was quite comfortable with individual lay flat pods which allowed for actual sleep, although the padding in the middle of the pods was somewhat lacking.  Air Canada had a decent selection of movies available and noise cancelling headsets.  Ben watched Back to Black, a biographical drama based on Amy WInehouse, and a funky artsy movie called Asteroid City, which was a Wes Anderson comic sci-fi with tons of big name cameo appearances.  Both are worth watching, although in very different ways.  

Through the magic of the international date line, we arrived in Vancouver earlier in the day than when we left Tokyo.  We did have a couple of hour layover in Vancouver before hopping the short flight to Seattle.  We were fortunately able to use the Air Canada lounge there as well for breakfast and lunch.  

Our flight from Vancouver spent more time on taxiways than in the air.  It was only a 25 minute flight, but we spent nearly an hour on the runway and taxiways for various reasons.  We arrived 15 minutes late to the terminal, and missed our 3pm shuttle home, but were able to rebook on the 4:30pm shuttle, which got us back home just before 8pm.  We knew we were truly back home when we stopped at Dairy Queen for dinner.

It will take a few days to get everything unpacked and back into the rhythm of being back home.  

In retrospect, this was quite an adventure starting in the plains of Alberta in Calgary.  Crossing the Canadian Rockies on the Rocky Mountaineer train was a unique experience.  It was about as comfortable as flying domestic business class, but the meal service was better.  The scenery is compelling in some stretches, and not so much in others. But fans of train travel would really enjoy it.  The Fairmont hotels in Calgary and Vancouver were first class, and worthy of the trip, but the Banff and Kamloops hotels were mid tourist class and just adequate at best.  For the price paid, we should have stayed at the Fairmont Hotsprings hotel in Banff, and a better venue in Kamloops, and banquet styled meals should have been included.  Most importantly, we met many like minded travelers who had also booked this as a pre-cruise extension for the Viking Orion North Pacific Crossing and had some terrific shared experiences over the next month.  

The North Pacific Crossing was by far the most scenic and intimate Alaska cruise we have done to date.  Both Princess and Norwegian cruise lines sprint to get to international waters as soon as they can so they can open their casinos.  The Viking Orion could take the inside passages that one would take on a private mega yacht, which were by far more scenic and adventuresome.  The excursions in Ketchikan were a bit less crowded and the use of the Voxbox devices to keep us connected by audio to our guides is a big step up from Princess and Norwegian excursions which are more like trying to herd cats through busy tourist sites.  This was our first call to Sitka, as well as Seward, Valdez and Dutch Harbor.  Each was unique and offered different cultural and historical perspectives.  It took some time, but we did ultimately end up seeing whales, seals and otters in the wild.  We probably could have seen bears on an optional excursion, but on a prior trip to Wrangell Alaska we took a jet boat ride to the Anan Wildlife observatory and saw enough brown and black bears to last a lifetime.

We were a bit surprised by how easy the North Pacific crossing ended up being, even with 8 consecutive sea days.  The Captain said this was one of the calmest crossings of the Bering Sea that he can remember, and it literally looked like a big duck pond at times.  As we worked our way down the east coast of Japan, we managed to dodge another low pressure system that just left us with some residual swells to plow through in our final stretch to Tokyo.  The inclusive excursion in Otaru/Sapporo was interesting and worthwhile, and getting to do it a second time was a bit of a bonus.  The Tokyo included excursion wasn't nearly as engaging as we spent most of it stuck in a bus in traffic around Tokyo seeing things through the windows.  You really do need to see Tokyo from the ground level and explore the neighborhoods on foot and via subway over several days.  We had the good fortune of having done that in 2017 in conjunction with a cruise on the Diamond Princess. We had spent 2 days before the cruise and 5 days after the cruise, and that worked out very well.  Because October is a high season for Tokyo tourism, we were unable to do the Viking post cruise Tokyo extension because it had sold out, so it was a good thing we extended in 2017.

So now we'll put our roots down for a bit until we rendezvous with two of our three adult children in the Caribbean for a Christmas cruise on the Enchanted Princess.

20241003 Tokyo Arrival

20241003 Tokyo Arrival

The ship had to blare its horn to shoo a couple of small Japanese fishing boats out of its way as we approached the Tokyo International Cruise Ship Terminal.  This is our first time at this terminal which opened in 2020.  The last time we arrived in Tokyo via cruise ship, it was at the Yokohama cruise ship terminal.  This new Tokyo terminal is on the manmade Odaiba neighborhood, built on landfill.  The Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation is just a short walk from the pier.  We had spent the better part of a day there on our last visit to Tokyo in 2017.  Also very near by is a large building in the shape of a naval vessel that is currently under renovation.  This houses the Museum of Maritime Science.  

We watched the sail into Tokyo harbor while having breakfast, and after a quick lunch, we walked through the modern cruise terminal and boarded our included tour bus.  It is a good thing we had previously toured Tokyo because the bus tour was mostly sightseeing through the bus windows in very heavy Tokyo traffic.  

We had decent weather with overcast skies and a light breeze.  The temperature would otherwise been a bit warm.  We drove over the Rainbow Bridge, and caught views of the Tokyo Sky Tree and Tokyo Tower.  We also drove around the Japanese parliament which is called a Diet.  Then we drove around the perimeter of the Imperial palace to admire its stone walls and moat before parking near the main ceremonial entrance to the Imperial Palace entrance called the double bridge entrance.  

Japanese Diet

Rainbow Bridge is actually Grey

Tokyo Skytree at 2080' is the 3rd tallest manmade structure 

in the world.  It is a broadcast and observation tower.

Tokyo Tower is taller than the Eiffel Tower

but just a little more than half the weight at 4000 tons

Tokyo Lamborghini Showroom

There is a large park with beautiful black pine trees and large bronze Samurai statue in the park.  The bridges include a stone one with double arches, and a steel bridge.  At one point in time, the steel bridge had been a wooden one that had two decks to support its weight, which was the original reason this was called the double bridge entrance.  

Japanese Black Pines

Samurai in the park

Modern day Samurai

Japanese Imperial Palace Double Bridge

Japanese Imperial Palace Double Bridge

Our guide was quite proficient in English and had spent several years both hosting American exchange students and studying in Utah, and then living in California and Texas when her husband, who worked in the microchip field, was assigned in the US.  It’s interesting that she remembers her household transitioning from the traditional squat hole Asian toilet to a western style toilet when she was a little girl.  She had never seen a western toilet before, and the first time she used it, she got in trouble because she left dirty foot prints on the toilet seat where she squatted above it.  It’s funny that we now see signs in many places with sign language for Do Not Stand on the Toilet Seat where travelers from Asia may encounter their first western styled toilets.  It’s also funny that because her household had a western styled toilet, they were chosen to host western students in the foreign exchange programs.  

After we returned to the ship, we finished up packing and had tea.  We had earlier considered walking around on our own, but the clouds opened up and it began raining in earnest.  Again, it was a good thing we had already spent a considerable amount of time exploring Tokyo 7 years ago.

Tokyo Tower, Rainbow Bridge in Evening

We had our final dinner in the World Cafe.  They had another seafood and sushi set up in addition to roast leg of lamb so we indulged ourselves one last time.  

We wrapped up our cruise with a cultural show in the theater. A local dance troupe came aboard with their musicians and did a demonstration of Awa odori dancing.  This is something we had never heard of before, but the troupe consisted of both men and women doing a cultural dance as part of festivities welcoming one’s ancestors back to this world for a few days each August.  It was an immersive and fascinating demonstration full of colorful costumes, rhythmic and expressive dancing, music and drumming.  We were fascinated to see the women dancing in the platform sandals, tipping them onto their toes like ballerinas, and the men performing aggressively reminiscent of some South Pacific Islanders’ dancing.  It was a fantastic show, and a great way to wind up our 22 day North Pacific Crossing on the Viking Orion.

Tomorrow morning, we disembark and will transfer to the airport via a Viking provided hotel hospitality lounge, although since we are flying business class, we could also hang out at the Canada Air lounge as well.  

The time as gone by so quickly.  It seems like the Rocky Mountaineer trip was such a long time ago.  We have made some good friends with our trivia partners who we had met on the Rocky Mountaineer excursion.  Even though there was only one trivia game per day on the many sea days, we had an enjoyable and relaxing trip.  

Since our last Viking Ocean cruise on the Viking Star in 2018, Viking has made great progress on improving the quality of their entertainment offerings.  The vocalists and instrumentalists for the most part were top notch talent.  While the production shows were few and far between, and lacked dancers and the production values possible with much larger ships, like on Princess, the vocal talent and quality of the shows made them very enjoyable.  Also, the lack of crowds and ease in finding seating for most shows (port of call talks being a marked exception- those were always standing room only), compensates to a large degree for the simpler shows.  We also did get to know the vocalists and Arianna on a much more close level than we would ever have on a much larger ship.  

We tend to do a lot of trivia on our cruises and it was nice to achieve a solid win on the progressive with our fellow Rocky Mountaineer travelers.  Arianna’s trivia were very well done with good questions that were well vetted.  There were no questions with demonstrably wrong answers, and we could tell she had taken time to weed out questions that could have ambiguous or multiple correct answers.  Our only complaint was that there was only a single trivia each sea day, and aside from the general trivia quizzes, there were only 2 music trivia during the 22 days.  But Viking does still put a premium on being a “thinking person’s” cruise, providing several different lecturers who each did multiple presentations.  You could easily attend 3 or 4 lectures each sea day.  

So in the end, we feel a lot better about Viking Ocean cruises’ entertainment offerings, and won’t hesitate to book longer Viking Ocean cruises in the future.  
We have a Viking Nile River cruise coming up in February 2025, and just booked a Viking Ocean China, Tibet and Mongolia adventure for fall 2025.

20241002 At Sea

20241002 At Sea

As the ship heads south along the east coast of Honshu Island, the temperature outside has risen into the mid to upper 70’s.  The seas have appeared fairly calm, but there has been a very noticeable swell that has caused the ship to rock and roll.  There was apparently a low pressure storm that came through the area east of Honshu while we were tied up on the west side of Hokkaido island yesterday, which caused the residual swells.  

Our last sea day was a relaxed affair.  After breakfast, there was ample time for exercise and naps before a music trivia which was a Broadway Musical’s name that tune and show.  We thought we did pretty well, scoring 28/30, but we did get beat by one team that had 29.  

We pulled out our suitcases and packed the largest suitcase with all our cold weather and Alaska gear, and also did laundry.  We’ll pack up the small suitcases after our Tokyo excursions tomorrow.

We had dinner in the Restaurant and then attended the final theater show.  This opened with the Torshavn band and singers, who proved to be very talented in their own right.  We have been impressed with the vocal and instrumental talent of the musicians on the ship with the exception of one of the pianists, who is just OK.  The guitar player in the band is particularly talented with the electric guitar.  The Captain spoke briefly and invited a lot of crew up on stage, and champagne was free flowing for the audience.  

Waldorf Wedge Salad

Seared Sablefish

Cod and Seafood Pie

Mississippi Mud Pie

Synchrony Viking Band

The evening concluded with a medley of Beatles tunes put on by the band and vocalists.  They put on a great show.  The vocalists Rachael, Eleanor, Henry and Andrew are all from the UK and right at home with the material of the Beatles.  

After the show, we had drinks relaxing conversation with our Trivia group in Explorer’s lounge.  

We arrive in Tokyo tomorrow morning and we have our last included excursion tomorrow.

20241001- Otaru and Sapporo day 2

Our second day in Otaru and Sapporo began with a second helping of the included Viking tour.  It had been offered both days because some people who did optional additional pay excursions yesterday could do the included one today.  For us, we felt it would be worthwhile to do it again to get another guide’s perspectives, and to be able to wander a bit more than yesterday. 

Since we didn’t have to clear customs, we got off to a much earlier start.  We also had only 22 in our tour group so it was much less crowded on the bus.  We each had a row to ourselves.  Our guide guide yesterday day was good, and so was today’s guide.  Both had an excellent grasp of the English language, and emphasized different things on their tours. Having done the same tour route yesterday, we had some idea of when we needed to prepare to see things and on which side of the bus to look.

Arriving much earlier at the Hokkaido Shrine was also beneficial.  It was much less crowded, the gravel inside the shrine was freshly raked, and we saw a red squirrel and costumed shrine staff scurrying about.  

This sweetshop must be a victim of 

Instagram popularity

Today’s weather was a repeat of yesterday’s perfect weather for outdoors exploring.  

Sapporo Clock Tower

Sapporo TV Tower

The Historic Village Museum had school groups touring, and the horse-drawn trolley seemed to be much more active today.  We got a better understanding of how the buildings on the site got to be there.  Most are actual historic structures that were donated to the museum.  These were moved to the site and restored to as close to their original conditions as possible, rather than reconstructions or simulations.  

We had the opportunity to poke our heads into buildings that we had skipped yesterday, and Ben even took his shoes off to explore the Herring Mansion in more detail today.  It is interesting how the Japanese managed to keep their homes warm in Hokkaido’s cold winters through the use of moving partitions and windows to create the effect of double paned windows with single pane glass and thin wood and paper walls by arranging them concentrically around the perimeter of their living spaces.  A hallway circling the building was in effect a 3’ thick insulating wall of air.  

The Otaru Shimbun Building was a newspaper building made of stone.  Instead of sandstone, they use something called Sapporo nanseki, or soft stone, which has a grey color and interesting texture.  It is the result of pyroclastic flows that cool and harden.  It is relatively soft and workable, resistant to fire and retains warmth well.  There are several other prominent soft stone buildings still in Otaru and Sapporo today.  

Cute Japanese subcompact RV

The ship was scheduled to depart shortly after our excursion returned to the ship so we didn’t get a chance to get back into Otaru on foot.  Instead, we had to run a gauntlet of red Viking Umbrellas to the sounds of 80’s music to motivate everyone back on the ship on time.  

A local dance troupe of young women in costumes more reminiscent of South Pacific Islanders than Japanese Geisha performers saw us off with a spirited performance from the wharf as the ship shoved back and headed out.  

We disembarked our pilot just outside the Otaru jetty with pair of whistle blasts like salutes between the pilot tug and the Viking Orion.  

Ben took advantage of the weather to take a dip in the aft infinity pool and hot tub as the ship sailed out of Otaru.  

We sampled some of the ship’s Japanese cuisine special in the buffet early.  They had some really good tempura prawns in addition to miso soup and a repeat spread of seafood and sushi.  We had our real dinner at 8pm in the Chef’s Table where they featured Korean cuisine.  The amuse busche was an egg Custer with barbecued ell and salmon roe which was tasty and interesting.  The salad course featured cold soba noodles which were good.  This featured a Korean bean paste soup which was quite different from Japanese miso. This had small cubes of char Sui pork that were a bit off the mark for their texture and a problem with constructing a soup on the table is the broth is not hot enough to thoroughly heat the meat.  The main was braised beef, which while tender and flavorful, was made with a cut of beef that had a lot of fat and tendons.  Dessert featured matcha cheesecake and mango sorbet.  

Now On Board. Sapporo Beer!

BBQ Eel Egg Custard 

Soba Noodles with crab salad

Korean Bean Paste soup with Pork Belly Bits

Braised Korean Beef with Kimchi

It's not a meal without rice.

We had to rush through the dinner to make it to the theater in time to catch the production team’s ABBA tribute.  The singers that Viking has hired for this segment are very vocally talented and put on a great entertaining and energetic show.  Unlike on Princess, where we would have had to camped out in the theater a half hour before showtime, the Viking Orion’s theater seems to be able to accommodate a larger percentage of passengers.  So we managed to get great seats.  

We have one more day at sea tomorrow before we arrive in Tokyo.  Now that the progressive trivia is all wrapped up, there will be a music trivia tomorrow.