Go forth to tokyo they said and we did

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Saturday-Day Eight Tokyo for the day and sailing to Nagasaki on the Pacific Ocean
We arrived in Tokyo this morning at 6am so regretfully had to set the alarm this morning to make the most of the day ashore as we had to aboard by 4pm and sailing by 4-30pm.

The port of Tokyo put on information tents with maps & free shuttle buses to take us from Oi Futo (wharf) to Shinagawa train station. This is a major station and an interchange for at least 4 lines. It is light rail above ground, not the subway.

So we blundered into this, found ticket machines by watching other people, looked above the machines at an English map, found Tokyo, worked out how to buy tickets, which train line to take and jumped on board and successfully travelled to Tokyo train station where we then decided on which exit to take.

Japan surely loves maps; they are on each street corner, throughout all the subway and train stations areas with enough English on them to work out things.

We headed out the Marunouchi exits as from there it is a short walk to the Imperial Palace and it's gardens. Apparently they only open the palace on certain days and today was not one of them, so after looking at the walls, moats and some of the surrounding gardens we decided upon shopping as we were hot and thirsty. The weather was humid and hot.

On almost every major street corner are vending machines for soft drinks, juice and other types of canned drinks, ¥150 for a large Coke zero equivalent to $1-50. You do not see one discarded empty cans or bottles, but nor do you see many rubbish bins. Footpaths, roads, and gardens are orderly and tidy. Smoking is even banned on streets.

We walked to the Ginza area which is home to all that is decadence and designer labeled, so think Chanel, Louis Vutton, Tiffany, with massive department stores abounding. These buildings are like David Jones, usually 8 levels of fashion and some home wares, with the basement level selling food both prepared and ready to take home as well as basic ingredients. Cheese and wine are big as are prepared dishes for lunch or tea all neatly packaged; salads, sushi, carefully made and displayed.

We had the best coffee in a tiny coffee bar in the basement of one of these buildings which freshly ground the beans and then filtered it through paper and infusion method, supplying us with iced water continually and impeccable service.

Around this time my camera decided to display an "error camera card" with no pushing of any buttons helping in any way.
We hoped to find a floor in one of the big department stores with a level full of electronics to purchase a new camera card. But no luck at all.

A dumpling bar was our lunch venue, Dumpling Dynasty which had 6 chefs busy preparing them fresh at the street front window. We had the Dynasty lunch which was 8 dumplings, salad, soup, fried rice and desert for ¥1500-, plus a tiger beer, hot and thirsty work this walking all day! There were eight dumplings flavours; original, crab roe, garlic, Szechuan, ginseng, black truffle, cheese, foie gras, with a handy guide as to how to eat them. We also watched the table beside us as to Dumpling eating etiquette.

So you grasp the Dumpling in your chopsticks held in your right hand, dip it in the vinegar/soy and ginger slice sauce, transfer it to your spoon held in your left hand, nibble off the top to release the juices in the spoon, sip the juice, and then consume The Dumpling which has now cooled enough to eat.

Martin was determined to have a sake in Tokyo and I wanted a new camera card so we wound our way back to the train station looking for these. We could purchase a huge sake bottle at one of the bottle shops, but with restrictions on taking these on board, we purchased a 80ml cup in a supermarket for a sip or two on the way back to the ship.
And the camera card, 8GB for $11-50, was found at a great little second hand camera shop.

Station found, tickets bought, right train line selected, correct exit at train station and back on the shuttle bus to The Voyager.

There is a typhoon in the general area with a prediction of 6 metre waves during the night and some "motion on the ocean". So we have sailed out with a marching band to farewell us, a huge bay with a lot of shipping traffic of all kinds, and a quiet drink in The Schooner bar with a couple of bread rolls from the Promenade cafe to allay our hunger until tea at 6-30pm.

As there is no laundromat on the ship you have to either hand wash or use the laundry service. Our state room is already looking like a a chinese laundry with drying socks, jocks and shirts hanging here and there, so tonight there was a fill a bag offer for$25- wash, dry and fold. So 4 TShirts, 6 pairs of shorts, 2 pairs of socks and 2 jocks later we have a very full bag.

Many people departed The Voyager in Tokyo and we have taken many more on board, mostly Korean. So they must do a flight to Tokyo, day or two there, 1 sea day and another Japanese city Nagasaki for a day, and then back to Korea in Busan. Nice little 5 day holiday.

Chatting with an English guy today he was told by the cruise director that this was an experimental route and cruise, certainly Takaoka and Muroran were brand new ports. Hence why it was an extremely cheap offer. We also have many Chinese crew as activity staff as apparently the previous cruise had 2200 Chinese in board.

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Photos

Railway station fast food
Not Maccas, relatively few fat people

Cheers with a Tiger beer
sorry i know its from Singapore