Japan/TransPacific Cruise Pre Cruise Day 4 Tokyo “Slurp that Ramen” or “Are Pockets on the Inside still Pockets?”

No, not again. I woke up at 1:30 and then I got back to sleep only to have my phone ring. I am not certain who it was but whoever it was in The Netherlands I did not want to talk to you at 4:00 am. I thought that I had turned the alerts/rings off, but I guess I just turned it down. Oh great, I am now awake for the day. We have been battling with the thermostat in the room and it is too warm. I am almost tempted to sit in the hall for a while to cool off. I am reading my latest book, but my tablet died. But I plugged it in yesterday when we were gone. Oh yeah, when we left we took the room card out of the slot so none of the electricity in the room worked which means that my tablet did not charge. Damn, the book was getting to the end. I want to know what is going to happen. In the dark I find my way to the charging block, find the correct cord and plug in my tablet. Hmm, could I read it while it was charging? Nope, I guess not. OK, fake sleeping some more. We have nothing major planned for today, just wandering around the area and hitting a 100 Yen store. Since we do not have to be somewhere by a certain time we are both up and ready to go. Last night for dinner I had a banana and a Kind bar. Last night for dinner Rob had a nap. Neither of us are particularly hungry so no big hurry for breakfast. Rob takes care of some packing and I do some writing. You don’t think that these posts just happen did you? No, it takes time and effort to get my ramblings written down. I have put the SIM card for Japan into my phone but cannot make it work. I take it down to breakfast with me in the hopes that someone knows how this works. Robert gives it a try and yes, I am on the internet. I only have data, no calls or texts unless I am on wifi. I went to slide my phone into my pocket. Damn it, I grabbed a pair of leggings without pockets. GRRR, I hate this. After breakfast we went to the room to rest for a bit and do some exercises. My legs are a little sore from yesterday. My own fault for not stretching enough. Don’t do your PT, you pay. I am feeling the side of my leggings where a pocket should be. Oops. If you put leggings on inside out you still have a pocket, it is just on the inside. We had a good sized breakfast so not really hungry. We took a couple of bananas just in case. Rob wanted to wait to go out because it was going to rain in the morning. We headed down shortly after noon. Our first stop is the front desk. We need a map and find out to where we are heading. We ask about a 100 Yen store. The nice young man circles where one is and explains that it is on the 6th floor, at least we think that is what he told us. Then we asked about ABC Ramen, where we are planning to eat tonight. He asked if we wanted a ramen map. Wait, you have a ramen map? Sure, that sounds good. We see Anne sitting in the lobby and she commented that we were brave for heading out in the rain. Oops, it is raining? We look out the windows and sure enough, there are people walking around with umbrellas. Let us think about this. Wandering around in a strange city on wet pavement with an umbrella while your legs still hurt. Oh, doesn’t that just sound like fun. Back to the room for a bit. I turn on BBC News because it is the only channel in English. Rob falls asleep. I wish I knew how he can do that. When he wakes up I ask him to look out the windows to see if it is still raining. He can’t tell. What do you mean you can’t tell. Oh yeah, when we looked before we were on the 2nd floor, now we are on the 7th floor. Much harder to see the street from here. I stood on the loveseat and looked down. It looks wet but no one is walking with an umbrella. Back out for our adventure. We are to walk two blocks. Is that a street or an alley? Eh, keep going. OK, after two alleys we get to a street. I am not going to try to find a street name on this map. One more block. I have to keep making sure that Rob is following me, I don’t have Mike along keeping track of him. We find the building that has the 100 Yen store in it and enter. Oh, this is a department store, but I know that this is where we were told to go to. For all I know the front desk clerks get a kick out of sending stupid tourists in the wrong direction. We find an escalator and head up. Thank you for arrows and signs. I am surprised at how many signs are in English. For all of those people who complain about things in the US being posted in both English and Spanish, STOP IT, when we travel we almost always have signs in English. Since my only other fluent language is Sarcasm I need all of the help that I can get. We ride the escalator to the 2nd floor. Women’s, 3rd, Men’s, I ask Rob is this just looks like a big department store. He agrees. At least we know how to get back to the hotel. We keep heading up. On the 6th floor is a Daiso store, which is a 100 Yen store. Interesting. We start to wander. I wish that I had taken a video of the robots rolling around trying to sell things. We keep wandering. I actually find a blusher that is the correct color. It is a 100 Yen, I will see how it works. Rob did not bring his cribbage glasses with him. He has different strengths of glasses for different activities. We keep going and going. There is so much to see, a lot of it I do not know what it is. I was hoping to find Kit-Kats, but no go. If I do not know what the food is I am not buying it. I was fascinated by the vacuum sealed cooked corn on the cob. I found some fish kites for Danielle and Henry. I found glasses, but oops, they are pollen glasses. I did not know that there was such a thing. They do not fit tightly so I do not know how they protect your eyes. We run into Martha, Page and Barry. Martha found this cute chair socks that look like cat’s paws. We have wheels on our chairs. Keep wandering and we finally find the reading glasses. They do have +1.0 and +1.5, but no +1.25 or +1.75. He tries a pair of +1.0 and declares that this will work. Now we head to a register. Ooh, I spy Coke Zero, it is caffeine o’clock. Rob can do the conversions, this is like 80 cents. There are only self check outs. This could be interesting. I find an English option and we scan away. You have to select a bag. No, we do not need a bag, this is all going to fit into the backpack. Now I can scan. They take plastic, good, I do not know if I can handle doing currency in this. We are able to check out. I am relieved. I really did not want to have to ask for assistance. Time to leave the store. I swear that I could spend 2 hours wandering here, but Rob’s patience is only so long. He wants to go in search of ABC Ramen. On the internet I have seen several references that this place is permanently closed. Rob is determined to find it. We search and search. We did not bring the ramen map with us, which in hindsight would have been a smart thing to do. We find some benches, not real common in Tokyo. Unfortunately since it recently rained the benches are wet. The stone walls around the benches are not wet so we each find a spot and start on our soda. It is turning out to be a nice day and it is kind of nice to just relax and people watch. In Tokyo men wear suits, actually in Tokyo men wear black suits with white shirts. They do have different ties but not loud or flashy or any fish ties. The streets here are clean, which is amazing because I cannot find a trash can anywhere. I do not see many people walking dogs. I see some clusters of school children, all wearing uniforms. Back to the ABC Ramen hunt. Rob thinks that he has found it. What he found was a restaurant in a basement. Nothing on the sign says “ABC Ramen” but we have to go down the stairs. My IT bands are kicking up again but I still head down, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. Yeah, this is fun. No, this is not ABC Ramen. I show them the map, but they cannot tell me where it is. I am told something about go left, go right under bridge. Back up the stairs, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, turn left then right. We see two different overpasses but no ABC Ramen. We go back past where we thought that it should be. I see ticket offices, or at least I think that they are ticket offices I have no idea for what show it would be selling tickets. No sign, not even a smell of a restaurant. Time to call the hunt off Ahab. At the hotel we search for ramen places. There is one two blocks away that is rated 4.5/5. Two others nearby are 3.8/5 and 3.6/5. Yeah, we will go with the first one. Two blocks away and a good rating. They do not take plastic though. We have Yens so we can do it. I message, Mike, Mary and Anne. It sounds good, Mary will stay back, rough day for her. We meet at 5:30 and head down the street. I walk past it then we back up. OK, we can do this. There is someone to help us manage the machine. This seems to be pretty common. You pay at a machine then wait for your ramen. We have different options and decide to go for one that is 14,000 Yen, about $10.00. We tell the hostess that we are a party of 5. We sit on the bench in front and wait. It is nice to be sitting and we enjoy chatting. The hostess comes and in limited English plus gestures we are told that they can seat 3 & 2. Mike goes with us. Luckily we remember that we are each having a #8 and Mike is having a #3. We are sitting at a counter facing the kitchen. It is very interesting watching the food preparation. I watch someone nearby eat. Ah, you dip your noodles in the broth with chopsticks then swirl them onto the spoon. Cool. Mike’s dinner comes in one bowl, ours come in two bowls. One bowl has the broth, vegies and meat, the other bowl has the ramen. I manage the dip and swirl. Rob goes with just the spoon. We do wear bibs and slurp. A waitress tried to offer Rob a fork, but he said that he had it. His food is going down so whatever method he is using is working. Back to the hotel. We are very happy with our decision to go to the ramen house instead of the group dinner. We see the group leaving the hotel as we are coming back. Sue gives me back the bottle of Pepto pills, Mark thanks me for the Pepto pills and Martha gives me tags for my ducks. I hide ducks on cruises, it is a fun thing. We are adding “Sail with Seth” tags to the ducks. We can do this, Seth cannot. We have time to settle in and to get most of the packing done. I work on my photos and writing. I am getting tired. I keep trying to stay up to adjust to the time but it is difficult. Oh please let me sleep tonight.