In answer to comments, no, no Spam for breakfast (or any other meals). I actually love Spam whereas Elaine despises it. I used to eat fried Spam all the time as a kid. And I loved raw Spam right out of the can, sliced up with mayonnaise and onions. Yum. No Poco Moco either. Sounds good though.

Monday broke bright and sunny and stayed that way all day. We enjoyed a lovely breakfast at the Royal Hawaiian right at beachside. Scrambled eggs with sausage and potatoes for Elaine. Everything omelet with bacon and potatoes for me.

Then we were off on a drive to Oahu’s lesser seen North Coast. We made several stops.

At Beautiful Kualoa Regional Park we stopped and enjoyed the views and the quiet. The beach is as beautiful as Waikiki without the crowds. Birds and chickens everywhere.

We stopped briefly at Turtle Bay but quickly backtracked to Romy’s Shrimp Food Truck for lunch. GIAGANTIC steamed prawns for lunch. They looked more like lobsters. Peel them yourself. Four each with rice and dipping sauces. Delicious!

Then we doubled back again to Turtle Bay and Kawela Bay for some pictures. Turtle Bay Resort, once an independent resort, is now a Ritz Carlton. We didn’t see any turtles although they actually do nest and live here..

Then we started back towards Waikiki, about an hour and a half away. We stopped briefly at Dole Plantation, an outrageous tourist trap. You can take train rides through the pineapple fields at a ridiculous price. We didn’t. There is a huge gift shop. Blah. There was nothing worth photographing. We did enjoy excellent pineapple ice cream waffle cones (that were more expensive than our gold leaf ice cream in Tokyo).

Back at the hotel we walked next store and had pina coladas at the Sheraton Waikiki. Here are some random shots taken on the grounds of the adjoining Sheraton Waikiki and Royal Hawaiian both before, during, and after our pina coladas.

Good day! One more full day before we leave on Wednesday. Oh, when we driving back from the North Coast we saw a horrendous traffic jam on H-2 (a Hawaiian Interstate that of course doesn’t go interstate) caused by a bad accident. Fortunately we were going in the other direction and it didn’t affect us. Traffic was backed up, conservatively, eight miles. Not much on the agenda for tomorrow. Rest and relaxation and packing up.

One more post to go. Bye for now.

Woke up Sunday morning in Tokyo and had a nice breakfast. Then we checked out at 11:00 am. Now we had to kill time until 5:00 pm when our driver to the airport arrived. We walked around a bit. Right outside the hotel is the Ark Hills office complex, Suntory Music Hall and a host of restaurants. In the Ark Hills Plaza, there was a Music Fest of Japanese children performing, mostly for their parents, but today also for us. And we had lunch at the City Bakery, a Japanese chain based on the City Bakery in NYC. Good lunch. We walked a bit and cooled heels in the hotel lobby for awhile.

Finally our driver arrived and we were off to Haneda Airport. Tokyo also has the larger (and further out) Narita Airport. We were at the airport at 5:45 for our 9:45 flight. Check-in, customs, and immigration were a breeze. We spent the rest of the time in the Delta One Club, a very nice facility. We took off roughly on time at 9:55 and began the flight to Honolulu. Shortly after takeoff, we crossed the international dateline and it was Sunday morning all over again.

Aloha!

We landed on schedule in Honolulu at 11:00 am Sunday morning. Yes, still Sunday. We arrived before we left. We picked up our rental car (Kia Sportage SUV) and now had to kill time until we could check in at the Royal Hawaiian at 4:00 pm. We searched out a laundromat and did a load of wash. We had lunch at McDonald’s. (Yes, Micky D’s.) We visited a Whole Foods to pick up some wine. And finally we were able to check in.

We have a great room at the historic Royal Hawaiian overlooking Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head. The first picture is from our balcony and that’s most of Diamond Head on the left. See Elaine with her hotel provided lei? We had pina coladas at the hotel’s Mai Tai Bar (with a nice sunset) followed by a glass of wine on the balcony in the room. Alas, Hawaii has cockroaches and they enjoy the balcony too. So, exhausted we headed inside to bed.

See you tomorrow which, thank God, will be Monday!

First we had a delightful complementary buffet breakfast at ANA Intercontinental. Great view from our table. After breakfast we took a short walk outside in the vicinity of the hotel. It wasn’t raining yet. Unique window cleaning method!

Forecast called for clouds. What we got was a steady light rain. We had a walking tour scheduled with Kyoko Kitagawa of Chris Rowthorn Tours. Rain be damned, we went ahead as scheduled. Kyoko met us at our hotel. We set off for a subway ride on Tokyo’s Metro which has 14 different lines. Riding the Metro was fun. Our first stop was at Ueno Park where we had a nice walkabout. See the famous moon pine?

The highlight in Ueno Park is the Ueno Toshogu, which is the Tokugawas Shogunate‘s Golden Mausoleum, a Shinto shrine. The Sacred Tree is over 600 years old.

After another Metro ride, we stopped for lunch at a very small family run restaurant. Maybe eight tables. We all had some sort of ramen or noodles accompanied by draft Asahi beer. Yummy. Here’s mine:

Next we visited the Asakura Museum in the Yanaka District, an area of Tokyo undamaged during WWII. Fumio Asakura was famous for his sculptures of cats. From the museum there was a view of the Sky Tree tower through the rain and fog. You could barely see it. The museum is where he used to live. No shoes allowed in the museum. And there were only certain round blue mats from which you were allowed to take photographs. There was an excellent (long) video that showed the tedious process of how the cat sculptures were created. The one created in the video is the actual one in the next to last photo in the gallery below.

Then we had a walkabout in the traditional Yanaka District with its small food markets and shops. By now it was raining pretty steadily. Time to call it a day.

Then it was back on the Metro to return to the hotel to say goodbye to Kyoko (who was delightful). Uncharacteristically, we decided to stay in tonight and skip dinner. We did share a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread.

Tomorrow will be a long day. Checkout at 11:00 am. Then we have to kill time until our ride to Haneda Airport and our 9:55 pm Delta One flight to Honolulu. Then we have the red eye night flight – business class with lay flat seat, thank God (or maybe Buddha) – that arrives in Honolulu around 10 am the same day that we leave (the dreaded International Date Line again). So the next post will not be until we are comfortably checked in at the Royal Hawaiian.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures. By the way, the pictures look much better on a tablet or a computer than they do on your phone. Just saying.

A busy, busy day. Last breakfast on the ship. By 9:30 we were off the Orion and on an all day bus tour of Tokyo. Our bags went directly to the hotel. Orion will continue on its 92-day Grand Pacific Cruise to more of Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Viet Nam, Australia, and New Zealand. 92 days on ship would be WAY too much.

To start, here are some random shots from during the day, mostly from the bus tour, including one of the National Stadium and one of the Tokyo Sky Tree.

First stop on the tour was the Meiji Jingu Shrine. Shrines are Shinto. Temples are Buddhist. Buddhist comes later today. We had a long walk around and took lots of pictures (including the last two looking inside the main building which was clearly labelled “no cameras”, but I didn’t see the sign. I was not arrested.)

Then it was off to lunch at Happo-En Garden. What a beautiful site! Lots of functions are held here including a wedding today. And they have a beautiful Japanese Garden. Lunch was excellent – a beautiful Bento Box selection. They provide a fork for Americans who can’t use chopsticks. I’ve been practicing chopsticks and managed the whole meal without using the fork. Only one person at our table for eight used the fork.

Then it was a return visit to the gates of the Imperial Palace. We did that yesterday, so we stayed near the bus and sucked down another gold leaf ice cream cone.

Next stop was the Buddhist Sensō-ji Temple. Tokyo has 14 million people. I think 10 million of them were at the temple site. Lots of women dressed up in kimonos. You can rent a kimono for the day – about $30. Lots of kids. Lots of tour groups. Rickshaw rides. Frankly, it was a madhouse, but it was certainly worth a visit.

Next it was off to our hotel for tonight and tomorrow night, the ANA Intercontinental. It’s an older Tokyo luxury hotel undergoing a big refurbishment. We lucked out with one of their newly refurbished rooms on the 17th Floor. Very nice.

Tired and not wanting to go searching for a restaurant, we opted to try the hotel’s Unkai Japanese Restaurant. We had the set Sashimi and Tempura menu with Sake pairing. Yum. It was dark out, so we couldn’t see the beautiful garden, but the food and service was extraordinary. We added single glasses of New Zealand Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir, one of our favorites, to supplement the sake. Sake is a taste I (we) have not acquired.

Here’s a night shot from our hotel window.

And then B E D. Worn out.

Short and sweet today. Busy packing. Bags have to be out by 8 pm tonight for transport to the hotel in Tokyo tomorrow while we are on another tour. It was mostly cloudy but no rain while we were out and about.

At 12:15 today we had a two hour bus tour of Tokyo with only one stop at the Imperial Palace, home of the Emperor of Japan. Here’s a photo recap.

Pictures from the Bus

Walking to the Imperial Palace

That’s a statue of Statue of Kusunoki Masashige near the palace. Great trees.

At the Imperial Palace

The Emperor lives here at the Imperial Palace.. You cannot go into his 250+ acre domain. He doesn’t want visiting tourists wandering around. His loss. At a nearby kiosk we had ¥1,300 ($10) gold ice creams. – green tea flavor with real gold leaf. Apparently gold is good for you.

Back on the Bus Going Through the Ginza Area

I remember the Ginza area from when my mother and I visited Tokyo in 1973. No one here or anywhere in Tokyo seems to remember me from that trip.

And back to the ship. The first two pictures are from the Cruise Terminal, a huge facility. We were the only ship in port. Then quick drinks and dinner, get the bags out, and final nightcaps. The group pictures (including a selfie) were taken by Alden, the Explorer bartender. And finally some night shots from the bow (taken by Elaine).

The rain predicted never materialized and we spent our last day at sea sailing the Sea of Japan, the Tsugaru Straight and the Pacific Ocean. It was a bright, sunny, warm day. We didn’t do much except start to get ready to disembark on Friday. Otaru is on the west side of Hokkaido Island while Tokyo is on the east side of Honshu Island. The Tsugaru Straight is the narrow passageway between Hokkaido and Honshu.

Today we had more swells than any day of the trip. It wasn’t really rough, but we could tell we were at sea. We have had amazingly good luck with good weather and calm seas for our whole voyage. The week before we were in Alaska, the seas were rough and some port calls for cruise ships were cancelled. This week the seas in Alaska are really rough and some cruise lines have cancelled ALL their port calls. Bummer for people on those cruises

No pictures today. Taking it easy and starting to get ready to repack everything. Tomorrow we will be in Tokyo for an excursion and then spend our last night on the ship. It will be sad goodbyes to passengers we have met and crew that we have come to know. Then it will be two nights in a Tokyo hotel. But more on all that later.

Yet another brilliant weather day although rain is supposedly in the picture for later tonight. 75º and sunny for today. We overnighted at the Otaru cruise dock, and this morning we decided to cancel our excursion back into Sapporo so that we could spend the day walking around Otaru. I’m glad we did. We walked for 2.5 miles. (Not so bad except for my Achilles tendon strain which still hurts and slows me down – but I soldier on.) By the way, very few local people we encountered in shops spoke any English at all. Google Translate app can be a life saver, although we didn’t need it. Tourist signs are all in English and Japanese, but go into a store and nothing is labelled in English. Here is the day in a series of galleries. Beware! Lots of pictures.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures. By the way, the pictures look much better on a tablet or a computer than they do on your phone. Just saying.

From the Ship straight up past the Otaru Canal

Bob P: Note the barber shop. Everyone: Note the Pachinko Casino in the last picture. Pachinko is a famous Japanese gambling pastime. See the bird in the picture that I am pointing to? It’s not real but part of the sculpture. Note the old railway line converted into a walking path. The Otaru Canal, once a working canal, is now host to just tourist boats.

Down the Mostly Deserted Miyakodori Shopping Street

Miyakodori Street is mostly deserted because it’s 8:00 am. Some stores are just starting to open. It was very quiet. Bob P: Note the basketball net. Those are fish the woman is laying out for sale when the store opens.

Heading to the Main Shopping Street

Almost every building in town has a sign telling the history of the building. The Bank of Japan building is now an art museum. We were going to go back later and check it out, but we never did.

The Main Shopping Street

It’s Sakaimachidoro Street. Bustling with tourists, shoppers, tour groups, and just people. We stopped in a couple of stores and bought some souvenirs. See the cellophane wrapped fish head at the fish market? See the man arranging shells for sale at his store? See Halloween themes twice? How many times can you spot Elaine? In one picture she is buying a fortune origami for ¥100 (70¢). Lots of glass stores. Lots of chocolate stores including the Snoopy Chocolate Company. Lots of fish markets. Lots of jewelry stores. And at the end, back to the Orion.

I stopped in a drug store along the way and bought some Ibuprofen. I never would have found it on my own. And the store attendant spoke no English, but she did understand Ibuprofen. So she showed me where it was. Or maybe I am now taking birth control pills.

We had to be back on the ship by 1 pm. We sailed at 2:00 pm. Rain expected tonight and tomorrow. Tomorrow is a sea day before arriving at our disembarkation port – Tokyo.

Sailing Away from Hokkaido Island

Dinner tonight was in the specialty restaurant Chef’s Table. Set menu. Different wines paired to each course. Theme: Korea. The five courses described and pictures of four of them. (I missed taking the amuse bouche.)

A cocktail in Explorer’s Lounge and off to bed. Oh, and it turns out it’s not Don and Donna. It’s John and Donna. We traded contact information.

The internet on the ship has been pretty darn good. They use Elon Musk’s Starlink. Getting all those pictures uploaded everyday would have been impossible on cruise ships five or ten years ago.

See you on the morrow.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures. By the way, the pictures look much better on a tablet or a computer than they do on your phone. Just saying.

Warning: Lightly proof read, so excuse mistakes!

Land At Last

Approaching Otaru (Sapporo)

Ah, land at last. We landed at Otaru, the port city for and suburb of Sapporo. It’s a 45 minute drive from Otaru (population 110,000) to Sapporo (population 2,000,000).

And we are docked right near the Otaru city center as the only cruise ship in town. Some pictures from the ship once we docked and before we got off. With beautiful weather, the retractable roof at the pool area was open.

When we got off to go on our tour, we had to clear Japanese Immigration and Customs. Immigration was time consuming. Each passenger individually had to meet face to face with an immigration officer. There was no verbal questioning; in fact, they didn’t speak much if any English. It was all biometrics. But you were digitally finger printed and your eyes were scanned. I don’t know what that told them, but they intently watched the results on a computer screen. Then you were given a stamp in your passport and sent on your way to Customs. We were waved right through Customs, but we saw one or two passengers who were body searched, patted down, and who had all there possessions (pocket books, knapsacks, and camera bags) religiously searched.

Today’s tour was about five hours long – Highlights of Hokkaido, the island on which Otaru and Sapporo are located. It’s Japan’s northernmost island and Sapporo is where the 1972 Winter Olympics were held. Pictures from the bus:

Our first stop was for lunch at a Mongolian BBQ. It was an efficient assembly line production held at the Asahi Beer Hall. Very well done, especially considering there were four busses of cruisers there at the same time. The Asahi Brewery was next door. We all sat, four to a table, where each table had its own gas grill in the middle and one plate full of noodles and vegetables and another plate full of meat (beef, pork, lamb, and bacon). Then you just threw stuff on the grill (with tongs), stirred as it cooked, and helped yourself with the tongs onto your own plates. Everyone got a separate dish of rice and there was plenty of soy sauce. Asahi beer (or another beverage of choice) was handed out too. Good food. Good beer (and as much as you wanted). Alas, we shared a table with one of our least favorite passengers, but we persevered. There was an interesting vending machine at the entrance. See me chowing down at the shot of the long table (Elaine took the picture)?

After lunch we drove around Sapporo to see the city before stopping at Odori Park where we had an hour to wander on our own. The park runs east to west through the whole city. Sapporo is a beautiful modern city. Very clean. The park is beautiful with lots of flowers. Here are lots of pictures. We loved the two little Japanese boys were were playing in the park with their mothers (or nannies). Note the smoking kiosk. Weird. No smoking allowed in the Park. The city was planning on allowing smoking, but apparently the ban is still in effect. The most noticeable landmark in the park is the Sapporo TV Tower. The picture of the Aurora Town entrance is especially for Cindy. Aurora Town is Sapporo’s underground shopping center (which I’m sure is much appreciated in winter when Sapporo gets lots of snow).

When our hour’s wandering was up, we regathered as Viking Tour #17 and we all ascended the tower for viewing the city. There were two elevators to get the viewing platform. The views were grand. There were gift shops at the base, at level one, and at the top. Also at level one there was an expensive looking restaurant. The picture of Elaine is in the elevator on the way down. The next-to-last picture is looking straight down.

Then it was back on the bus for the ride back to the ship in Otaru, just in time for 5 pm cocktails. Dinner was in the World Cafe, and we were early to bed. We don’t sail tonight and tomorrow we will most of the day to explore Otaru on our own. It looks like a nice little town.

See you then!

Another beautiful calm day at sea. Seven straight is a record for us. We have done five days before when crossing the Atlantic. (We have done a bunch of those – NYC to Southampton on the Queen Mary, Montreal to Southampton, Southampton to NYC, Fort Lauderdale to Marseilles, and Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale) This Pacific Ocean has not been like the one we see raging when we stay in Trinidad, California or Depoe Bay, Oregon. From the pictures from our balcony early this morning (7 am), you can see the sun raising behind the boat as we sail almost due west at the moment. And there is increasingly other marine traffic visible – commercial tankers and container ships. Last night was the last night that we turned the clocks back to gain an hour. We will be on Japan time now until we fly out of Haneda Airport in Tokyo next Sunday night.

The good weather and calm seas continued all day. The temperature was around 70º. Great for sitting on the balcony. And we did see some actual volcanos. Dormant ones, I think.. Japan is the most volcano dense country in the world and sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire.. It has more than 100 active ones. More pics from the balcony.

Dinner was in the World Cafe with Don and Donna.

Then we four were off to the Explorer’s Lounge for nightcaps. It was more crowded than usual because instead of the usual piano music, the ventriloquist (and his dummy) were entertaining. We caught the end of the show and his Q&A session. He was pretty good. Elaine had a chance to chat with him. Nice guy.

Tomorrow morning we dock in Otaru, a city near Sapporo, Japan on Hokkaido Island. Every guest on board has to personally clear customs with a Japanese border agent. Then we will be off on an excursion to see the Highlights of Hokkaido. We stay docked in Otaru for another night and see more of Sapporo the following day. Then it’s a another sea day as we sail south to Honshu Island and Tokyo.

History update: For those who wondered and may not have seen the reply to a comment: Of the Aleuts that were taken off Attu and imprisoned in Japan, half died in Japan of malnutrition or disease. When the survivors returned from Japan at the end of the war, they were not allowed to go back to Attu, but were taken to the village of Atka in the Aleutian Islands.

Still sailing open ocean, but we are now in the Sea of Okhotsk. We are getting closer to Japan. Looks the same. Feels the same. It was mostly cloudy today but much warmer. Seas still relatively calm. Elaine did see a whale swim right by the ship while she was on the balcony. (The whale is not in the picture, so don’t go searching for it.) She also saw a pod of porpoises.

Want to see some rough seas on a Viking Ship? Watch this video. It’s the Viking Star in 2019, mostly taken in the Explorer’s Lounge. The ship, identical to the Orion that we are on, totally lost power and came within feet of running aground off the coast of Norway. Passengers were being helicoptered off the ship 15-20 at a time when power was partially restored and the ship limped into port. Not a good cruise to have been on. 450 or so passengers were taken off by helicopter before the rest arrived at port. The story is told here.

History time.

Attu Island is the westernmost island in the Aleutians and the westernmost point in the fifty US states (Yes, further west than Hawaii). The closest we came was our stop in Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. It has historically been home to 200-400 Aleuts. And it (along with nearby Kiska Island) became the only places in the USA ever occupied by a foreign force. Six months after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded and occupied the two islands. The Aleuts were imprisoned and transferred to Japan. Eventually the US counterattacked and retook the island in the deadly Battle of Attu. It remained a military base and/or a coast guard station until 2010 when Casco Bay Coast Guard Station was closed. The island is now uninhabited although the Coast Guard does periodic maintenance of the airfield there for use in possible emergencies. (End of History Lesson)

Today was Viking’s special Brunch served in the enclosed pool area from 12:00-2:00. It was mobbed! We walked by and you couldn’t even get close enough to take a photo of the elaborate food displays. The band played on. We skipped the whole thing and had a delightful quiet lunch in the World Cafe.

Moving on to dinner, we dined in the Restaurant. Here’s the whole meal in pictures. Elaine: Cream of Celeriac Soup (what the hell is celeriac? – Martha Stewart knows – see link) followed by delicious Scallops. I had Tiger Prawns followed by a Duo of Lamb (roast leg and chops). We both had the Berry Cobbler for dessert. We had a wine from Sicily. All good!

Last sea day tomorrow before we run aground at Sapporo, Japan. There is one more sea day after we leave Sapporo for our disembarkation in Tokyo. The temperature prediction for Tokyo on our last day there is 94º.