Tuesday, November 7, 2017; Okinawa

Tuesday, November 7, 2017; Okinawa

Our clocks got turned forward overnight, making it a bit harder to get up,  but as we parted the curtains, we were greeted with brilliant sunshine and partly cloudy skies.  We grabbed a quick breakfast in the buffet and then headed to the morning trivia.  We reunited with our usual team, and won this round of general trivia.  The host, Ken gave us magnetic clips, but Ben wanted a lanyard to use with his scrap heap boat racer, so Ken offered to drop off the lanyard in our room later in the day.  

We had an early lunch at the buffet and attended the brunch time trivia at noon.  We didn’t win that round, missing the lead by just 1 point.  

The ship pulled into Okinawa at 2PM.  It was interesting to watch the approach as the ship passed directly under the flight path for Okinawa’s International Airport.  One large plane passed within several hundred feet in altitude above the ship’s bridge.  

We had an appointment to clear Japanese immigration at 3:20PM, but perhaps because there were two ships arriving the same day (Sapphire Princess beat us into port), the immigrations process was running late.  People who were lucky enough to book the one ship’s Okinawa excursion were processed off the ship first.  We didn’t end up getting on shore until nearly 5PM.

We walked into Naha’s main shopping street, Kokusai Dori street, which was a modern retail core with all manner of shops and restaurants.  We walked all the way down to the Makishi Public Market, which was a large fish market with lots of live snails, lobsters, shrimp, and all manner of other seafood.  Upstairs there are restaurants that will cook what you buy in the market downstairs.  

Round trip from the boat was 3.6 miles, and it was mostly flat.  It was quite dark when we left the fish market, and the temperature was a very comfortable 72 degrees.  

After dinner, we walked in on the Variety show which featured a local Okinawa band “Ryuchim” that fused traditional instruments and melodies with modern pop elements for a fantastic show.  It was the most energetic and enjoyable of the shows yet.  Too bad it was their one and only show- they got off the ship before it cast off.  

We have two days at sea and will end up back in Yokohama in time to swap places with Jack and Sharon, who will take the next segment of the Diamond Princess’ itinerary.