Japan/TransPacific Cruise Day 2 Omaezaki, Japan “The Required Cat Photo” or “Mount Fuji is there Somewhere”

We have docked. We head up for our morning latte. With the drink package we get free, OK, not really free we paid for it, lattes every day. I have put address labels on the bottom of our mugs so in case we leave them somewhere they can get back to us. I also put on different labels so that we can tell ours apart. Mine does have a dent on the bottom from hitting a pool deck but we need to tell them apart. I certainly do not want any coffee taste getting into my chai latte. We are going to work out before we get our lattes. It is important to keep our conditioning up and you do have to burn off those extra calories. It is fairly crowded in there but we each get a bike and settle in. There is a yoga class going on. The guy teaching it has a German accent. I am used to people teaching yoga having a soft soothing voice. Imagine yoga being taught by Arnold. Yeah, that is what it sounds like. We get our lattes and back to the cabin. We do not have an excursion here but there are three places that you can visit on a free shuttle. After three circuits of the Lido we locate a bran muffin, every ship makes them a little different looking and V-8 juice. We ate late last night so will take it easy. Back in the cabin we pull ourselves together and get ready to face the world. When you enter any port in Japan you must show your passport. I had to show my passport to get on the ship, how do you think I got here? This means that you have to carry your passport around with you in a port. This makes me nervous. I prefer to walk around with a photocopy of my passport and keep the original in the safe in the cabin. There are three different shuttle busses. Shuttle bus one goes to the fish market and back to the port. Shuttle bus two goes from the fish market to the lighthouse and back to the fish market. Shuttle bus three goes from the port to the green tea factory/plantation and back to the port. We want to see the lighthouse and the fish market, starting with the fish market. This means that we board shuttle one to the fish market then board shuttle two to the lighthouse. OK, got it. We approach the people holding signs and are directed to the line for the fish market shuttle. I see the end of it but do not see where to enter the line. Yeah, I have long legs I just step over the barrier. Rob tries and gets his foot caught. I lift part of the barricade off and let him and three other people through. I joke that I need to put it back on before I get into trouble. The busses run every ten minutes, we will be the first on and will not have to wait that long. They want these busses full. When all of the seats are taken they are still putting people on. Oh, there is a fold down seat for the aisle. Um, I do not know how safe that is. Also these are mainly old people, these fold down seats are low, this could be interesting. We go to the fish market then get in line for the lighthouse shuttle. The lighthouse is not huge and in fact was built as a tourist attraction. Our ticket is $2.00 each and we set off to climb. The last part is a little bit snug to get through. I do it with the backpack on. This is the stuff of my nightmares, trying to get into somewhere that I have to squeeze through a narrow opening. It is a nice view. Somewhere there is a Mt Fuji, I took photos in that direction but am not hopeful. We had a beautiful day in Tokyo but other than that it is cloudy a lot here. When we get up to the top of the lighthouse we turn right to go around. Westerners walk on the right side of the sidewalk. Asians walk on the left side. When the group following us got to the top they turned left. Yeah, slight problem when we met on the opposite side, but we worked it out. Down the lighthouse and back to the shuttle. We pass a café and there is a cat on a table in the sun. I have to take a cat photo.

The shuttle bus sticks to the time schedule and now we do not have to play sardines. The fish market is interesting. I got a kick out of the “plane” pound cake. Does it fly? I do not know what some of the vegetables are. The snacks look interesting but I do not think that a bag of chips would make it home with us. There was supposed to be some sort of turtle bread but I did not see it. I was hoping for the many flavors of Kit-Kats, maybe another day. I do not want green tea ice cream. I do not like green tea and even ice cream cannot save it.

Back at the port they have some experience tents. I try the calligraphy. Not great but it was fun. We could have tried on a kimono, I passed, but I did admire the fabric. We looked at booths but nothing that I wanted to buy. We go for Dive In for lunch with a milk shake. Ahh, that is a nice reward for climbing the lighthouse.

We play trivia and tie for first place. The tie breaker was “What are the big five animals of Africa?” We answer; lions, elephants, rhinos, hippos and giraffes. Nope, it is lions, elephants, cape buffalo, leopard and rhinos. The guy who won came over to congratulate us. He said that he only knew that because he reads an author that talks about them. Good try. We eat dinner with Anne and Robert for their anniversary. This is dressy night and Seth has the vest that Nancy made and I designed the fabric with his logo. He is so excited. I do need to get a photo of this. The waiters bring a cake to Robert and Anne and sing for them. That is a nice touch.