Gummer & Jo-Jo's Adventures

18/03/2026

18/03/2026

March 18

Our last morning walk in Shibuya, Tokyo before our afternoon flight home and didn't we see the plum blossoms have come out! Still a bit too early for cherry blossoms 🌸

17/03/2026

March 17

Our last day in Tokyo was spent touring this vast city. We again successfully navigated our way from Shibuya City to Shinjuko City using the subway. Thankfully we allowed extra time simply because their system is so big that for us newbies it is easy to make a wrong turn and not find the correct exit out of the terminal. We ended up walking an extra 10 minutes, but no harm done as we were still early for our tour.

Today's stops were:
Meiji Jingu Shinto Shrine
Imperial Palace
A stop at a Matcha shop for a taste of their green tea products
Asakusa (Senso-ji temple, Kaminari-mon Gate and Nakamise shopping ave)
Tokyo Sky Tree
And a boat cruise across Tokyo Bay to see the Tokyo harbour from a different perspective

This tour was great for allowing us to see so much in one day as we never would have been able to cover this city and see so much on our own in one day

16/03/2026

And now for something completely different...

We successfully navigated the metro subway to another borough for...

Dinner and Sumo wrestling! They gave us dinner almost as soon as we sat down and the presented some slides explaining the history of sumo, Japan's National Sport. Explained some terms regarding training, then demonstrated the moves.

Finally, after much goofing around between the two wrestlers, 3 matches. Wrestler cannot step outside of the ring with ANY part of his body.

15/03/2026

March 16

Time to leave the ship. Cruises are over, but I am ready to come home. We will be spending 2 1/2 days here in Tokyo before our long flight home.

*****

Well isn't this fun...
Finally checked into our hotel and are pleased to find that our room is at least double the size of our Singapore room, with the added bonus of a washer/dryer!! Might have to try it out on the few clothes we've worn since we got our last load of laundry back on the ship!

Also, really diggin' the bidet toilet with heated seat 😆😆

15/03/2026

Cruise 6/day 13 - March 15
Today's seas started out a little choppy so since this is our last day we used the morning to pack up some things. Rather than spend all of our time in the room, we went up to the buffet/pool/spa deck and found a table to sit and play a few games (scrabble, cribbage, rummy/o) before heading up to the bar to say goodbye to our favourite bar tender, Kaseem, and then over to the buffet for dinner. We caught up with Tim whom we met poolside early in the cruise, with his daughter Dani. Dani had to head home early so we didn't get a proper goodbye, but we did have dinner with Tim and got our goodbyes in there.

Then back to the room to finish up. Our bags must be out ready for pickup at 9:30 pm, which is earlier than most cruise lines, but we also have to be out of our rooms by 7:30 am, so early to bed for us.

14/03/2026

And, sail away from a very pretty harbour

14/03/2026

And since it's Saturday, they opened with the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night". 😁

14/03/2026

They have warmed up and are getting into formation

13/03/2026

Cruise 6/day 12 - March 14
Kagoshima, Japan and it's 6 degrees!!!
Start of a cool day.

*****

Kagoshima is just a normal city... restaurants, grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations. No monstrous high skyscrapers. Actual houses as well as apartment buildings.

We had to take a shuttle in to town from the pier. The nearest shopping areas for those who care are about a 20 minute drive from the ship. The shuttle took us to a lot between the aquarium and the ferry terminal, which is exactly where we wanted to go. A 5 minute walk to the ferry and we were on our way to Sakurajima island where we rented e-bikes and rode around the island (34 km!!) to take in different views of the Showa Crater which is an active volcano.

Even with e-bikes the ride was quite a workout. I hobbled back to the ferry station and we were right on time for the next ferry back, walked back to the shuttle drop off point and relaxed during the 25 minute drive back to the ship. I went straight to the ship, but Gummer stayed on the pier to walk.

The pier has a really interesting park space on it with a 1 km walking track. It appears to be really well used as families were there playing with their kids, picnicking, joggers were out on the track, kids flying kites...

Just as we thought that it must be time to go to happy hour a bus pulled up with a bunch of kids in uniform. It was the high school marching band arriving to perform for us during our sail away preparation, so we stayed on our balcony to watch. What fun! We haven't had a musical sail away since our South Pacific cruise. When the kids were done performing they all ran up to the fence with enthusiastic goodbye waves and continued waving until the ship was well away from the pier.

13/03/2026

And now, the Atomic Bomb Museum, Dejima, and Glover Gardens' cherry tree