April 2 - Shimizu, Japan

 Our scheduled tour departure was 11:45, but the same tour was also departing at 9:00 am.  We tried to get a standby place but weren't able to, so we had a leisurely morning.  Coffee at Coffee Connection, chatted with passengers, some new and some that we've sailed with before, like Mark and Arlene.  And the General Manager, Alessandro, saw us at CC and came over to say hello.  We were with him on the Grand Arctic cruise in 2022.  And later we ran into Cruise Director Paul who also remembered us.  I swear the crew must review the upcoming passenger list for passengers that they've sailed with before and study our pictures so they can greet us.  Alessandro lives in Tokyo so he was quite happy to be sailing in Japan lately.  He and the Captain get off when we are back to Tokyo on April 13.  We haven't seen Captain Luksa yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if he remembers us too.

I've been meaning to mention how clean we've found Japan to be.  You never see any litter blowing around, and that's even though there are almost no public trash containers on the streets.  We were told that after the 1995 subway terrorist attacks where bombs were placed in trash cans, they have all been removed.  If you have trash from your lunch or whatever, you carry it around with you until you get home or find a trash can.  And for a city of nearly 14 million people, I heard one car use its horn.  They are a remarkably polite people.  

Our tour today was OK, but a little too long.  We were laughing that it was just the opposite problem of the tours during the pre-cruise stay.  We visited a pine park near a beach that had great views of Mt. Fuji.  We saw it, but unfortunately, there is sand blowing in from the Gobi Desert in China so the air wasn't very clean.  There were also some amazing pine trees with very interesting trunks and many were so large and knarled that they needed support poles.

The white thing in the middle is Mt. Fuji.

One of the many very interesting trees

Even this old tree trunk looks like it had an interesting past.

It was a very long walk back to the bus which had to move to the parking lot.  Along the way, this manhole cover caught my attention.  And the second one is from Tokyo.

The second stop was at an art museum with a tea ceremony.  The ceremony took 25 minutes and only half of us could fit at a time, so while waiting we could wander the small museum.  After both groups had seen the ceremony, our guide, Fumie, gave us another hour to explore.  But there wasn't much to see, so we ended up just hanging around waiting to leave.  We were all ready except for one woman who was making a block art print at the art museum so we had to wait for her.  Finally, we left just a few minutes before 4 and were back on the ship within 20 minutes.  We played Trivia and with only 8/15 we made a respectable 3rd place.

The Captain had his welcome party where he introduces his senior staff and there are drinks and canapes passed around.  Then it was up to meet with Steve and Leona in the Observation Lounge before going on to dinner at Prime 7.

I took a few more photos of our cabin and the ship.

Lots of fancy lotions and soaps

Love the double sink

The shower with the wall spray hose, the rainfall shower head in the ceiling and the six side sprays (can only see 3 of them on the wall)

The floor on Deck 4

Our butler, Naveen, returned our laundry around 5:30 and asked if he might escort us to the Observation Lounge when we meet Steve and Leona.  How could we say no to that?  So off we went, and I was a little amused to see that he turned the wrong way once - I thought it was only me that gets turned around!  We had a lovely dinner at Prime 7 with Jan/Tom and Steve/Leona and since our reservation was for 7:30, we finished in time for me to actually make it to the show!  Elaine Gray is a Scottish soprano and she has a lovely voice and put on a great show.