Thursday, October 26, 2017; Yokohama, Diamond Princess Embarkation

Thursday, October 26, 2017: Yokohama and Embarkation for the Diamond Princess

We didn’t need our alarm clock because with the jet lag, our bodies were awake at 4:30am. The sun came up at 6:15, so we hung out in bed, posting pictures and updating our travel blog.  We headed out the hotel lobby at 7:00AM to scout out the route to the Osanbashi Passenger Terminal where our ship was docked.  

Our first stop was a 7-Eleven store between the Rose Hotel and Minatomirai Chukagai Station to get some cash Yen to replace those lent to us by George.  It’s funny that in Japan, a key financial resource is the 7-Eleven chain because most ATM machines in Japan do not accept US credit or debit cards.  Only 7-Eleven and the Japanese Post offices have ATM’s that accept US credit and debit cards.  The post office ATM’s are subject to limited business hours.  It was interesting to see all the different kinds of Japanese convenience foods, and in addition to corn dogs, they have katsu and a variety of steamed buns.  

We then went down into the Minatomirai Chukagai station to find a PASMO machine to put some cash into our PASMO cards.  Audley Travel gave us cards with 1500 Yen on them.  500 Yen is a refundable deposit.  We put an additional 5000 on each, which should allow us to use the PASMO cards to get around Tokyo after our cruise is over.  We saw a number of young Japanese men and women heading off to work all dressed formally.  There were a few people wearing surgical masks, but not a lot. 

We then headed towards the waterfront, and walked right past the New Hotel Grand, which is just across the street from Yamashita park.  It was easy to spot the Diamond Princess at the Osanbashi Pier from the park.  The Diamond Princess looked like it might be a bit larger than some of the other Princess ships we have sailed on.  The weather had turned lovely with blue sky and temperature around 60 degrees.  

We walked through Yamashita Park, seeing the statue of the little girl with red shoes.  This relates to a famous Japanese poem describing a somewhat sad story about a little girl who is taken away from Yokohama by missionaries, never to return to her home.  There are other statues in the park from San Diego, which is Yokohama’s sister city in the US.  There were lots of Japanese people with quite a variety of dogs walking in the park.  

It was an easy walk out onto the Osanbashi Pier to the hall where Princess passengers were being herded off the ship and into awaiting transfer buses.  It only took about 20 minutes to walk back to the hotel.  

Most of the restaurants around the hotel and in Chinatown were not opening until after 11:30AM, so we decided to just eat at the Hotel’s breakfast buffet.  The Cafe Brasserie Molly La Foret ended up having a very nice buffet with western and Asian items, including steamed dumplings and buns, congee, miso soup, bacon, eggs, grilled fish, and pastries.  It ended up being 4200 Yen for the both of us with a 20% discount for being hotel guests.  It was easy, relaxing, and we met a Kiwi couple who were going to be boarding the Diamond Princess later in the day as well.  They had originally been booked at the New Grand Hotel, but had to be moved to the Rose Hotel for some reason, and they had to scurry through the rain last night from the New Grand Hotel to the Rose Hotel.  

We checked out at 10:55AM and walked down to the Osanbashi Pier with our luggage by 11:15AM. We dropped off our luggage and then walked around the park on top of the Pier, which had nice views of the harbor and the Diamond Princess. We also learned that because of tropical storm Saola, forming in the Philippine sea, our Kagoshima port of call is being cancelled.  We will receive a $50 refundable onboard credit for compensation.  We won’t be charged for the Kagoshima shore excursion we had booked.  However, including today, this will make 6 consecutive days at sea, which will be the longest stretch of blue water we have cruised to date.

Tuesday-Wednesday, October 24-25, 2017- We’re Off Again!

Tuesday-Wednesday, October 24-25, 2017; Oak Harbor to Yokohama Japan

We’re at it again.  Today, we’ll spend all day getting from Oak Harbor to Yokohama Japan.  We are flying non-stop from Sea-Tac to Narita on Delta airlines.  We’re scheduled to fly on a 767-300.  We narrowly missed super-typhoon LAN, which blew through downtown Tokyo just 24 hours ago.  Fortunately, the efficient Japanese only had to cancel a few domestic flights because of the storm, and operations at Narita were minimally disrupted.

Our journey began with boarding the Whidbey Sea-Tac shuttle in Coupeville at 7:20am.  They had ran out of parking spaces at the Oak Harbor 7-Eleven, and had sold out the 8:00am shuttle, so we had to take an earlier shuttle, and leave the car parked at Coupe’s Village. The shuttle doesn’t have any parking in Coupeville, but Ben can park his car by his old office since he is still a partner in the Coupe’s Village development. The shuttle has gotten busier, and has gone from trips every two hours to every hour during the day, and the van we boarded was pretty much at full capacity.  Still it’s nice to let someone else do the driving.  

We checked in all our suitcases.  For international flights, Delta allows two checked bags for free!  We breezed through security with our TSA Pre-check status.  The regular security screening was moderately backed up.  We were at the gates by 10:30, and since our flight didn’t begin boarding until 12:30pm, we made our way to the food court.  They quit serving breakfast items at 10:30, so we ended up having Wendy’s hamburgers and fries for our breakfast.  

We passed a Delta customer service desk, where they had a basket on the counter with in-flight snacks, so we grabbed a couple of cookies and packets of almonds to serve as emergency snacks.  We do love getting things for free!

The flight departed on time. The 767-300ER has ridiculously tiny overhead baggage bins over the center seats so roller bags can only be placed in the outer bins. It’s a good thing we checked all our bags. In addition to the usual flight pillow, blanket, sleep mask and earplugs, they also handed out disposable slippers for use during the flight.  The flight took a little over 10 hours. We didn’t encounter too much turbulence despite the disturbance in the jet stream caused by Typhoon LAN. We stayed up most of the flight watching movies on the seatback screens. There is also a USB port on the seatback for charging devices. 

We had a hot dinner, mid flight ice cream snack, and breakfast about an hour before landing. Beer and wine were complimentary. 

We crossed the international date line so while we started our trip on Tuesday, October 24th, we skipped ahead and finished our flight on Wednesday, October 25th. 

It was raining pretty hard in Tokyo on our arrival. We had no trouble getting through customs, but each traveler has to fill out an arrival card. The flight attendants during the flight mistakenly said just one was needed per family, but that was just for the customs declaration cards. There were a lot of people pulled out of the line in customs to fill out arrivals cards.  They fingerprint and photograph everyone coming through customs. 

Our Audley greeter met us just outside the customs exit. He recommended that we take an Airport Limosine Bus to Yokohama Air Terminal and then a taxi to the hotel, rather than the train. It was less expensive (¥3600ea) and we wouldn’t have to deal with lugging suitcases through the train stations since there are a lot of stairs to deal with. The cab fare was ¥1540. As a bonus, we could use our credit cards to pay for the bus fare and taxi fare. Our Audley greeter wrote out the address of the Rose Hotel in Yokohama in Japanese on a piece of paper for us to show the taxi driver since most don’t speak English.

The plane landed at 3:50PM, and we were at the curb waiting for our bus at 4:30PM. 

It gets dark early, so there wasn’t much to see on our bus ride into Yokohama.  We arrived at the hotel at about 6:30PM and had a smooth check in at the front desk.  The staff spoke adequate English to get the job done.  We were surprised to see a Halloween display in the lobby.  

A hotel staffer actually took us upstairs to our room, pushing the luggage cart, and she gave us a good recommendation for a Chinese restaurant for dinner.  It was just a short block from the hotel lobby, called the Saikoh-Shinkan.  It is a Cantonese restaurant.  They did have an English menu, and one of the waiters did speak English.  They also accepted VISA for payment. We were able to order a couple trays of dumplings including Xiao-long-Bao, and Beef Chow Fun.  It was all quite delicious.  With tea, it ran ¥3450 for the two of us.  

We then walked through Chinatown and found that it is packed full of restaurants, including many advertising fixed multi course meals for under ¥2000.  There are also lots of dumpling only shops.  There were several shops selling huge Hum bow directly out of the steamer for ¥500 ea.  We may have to check one out for breakfast in the morning.  The rain had finally quit as we walked around Chinatown around 9:00PM. We then retired to our room for the night.

The room is actually pretty sizable with a queen sized bed and a sofa.  The toilet has the Japanese Bidet/Bottom washer installed.  There is a card attached to the wall nearby with both Japanese and English instructions, so we weren’t stuck there too long trying to figure out all the buttons.  

The window in the room opens only 6” onto a French Balcony.  We discovered that our room had a heater control, but no AC, so we opened the window for cooling.  It’s a good thing it’s not in the peak hot season.  They probably have whole building AC, but no individual room controls, so if it’s too cold, you can heat it up a bit, but not vice versa.  

We’ll set an alarm to get us up in time to wander a bit through Chinatown to find breakfast before checkout time at 11:00am.