Tokyo - Yokohama

After packing and a quick breakfast we checked out of our wonderful hotel, would highly recommend both places we stayed, Richmond Hotel in Narita and Hotel Ryumeikan by Tokyo station. After one last journey through the packed train station we boarded a train to Yokohama with our carry on bags in a packed, smashed in, standing room only 30 minute ride to Yokohama where we then caught a cab to the cruise pier. The cab drivers wear white gloves and open doors for you, you are never to open your own door in cabs in Japan. We were lucky though that during our 4 days in Tokyo we rarely had to come and go through Tokyo station, seemed the best routes always took us to and ended in other metro entrances close to our hotel. Have never seen so many metro entrances and exits in a city. We also noted that there is way less automobile traffic than other large cities we have visited, makes sense, and also why metros are packed.

Boarding the ship was easiest ever, we wondered where all the passengers were then I remembered that probably 1/2 of the passengers had gotten on in Seattle and were continuing on this cruise so they were off exploring Tokyo for the day. We had a nice surprise at check in, we were given a little room upgrade, from a partial ocean view room to full ocean view.

We got to our room and a notice was left that ship was not leaving port tonight as planned due to a typhoon, will leave tomorrow and we will miss the first port. We enjoyed a huge salad for lunch, vegetables and fruits have been a bit hard to come by for us in Tokyo.

So we decided to get off ship and explore Yokohama. There was a Harvest Festival going on and it seemed everyone had a dog and most were riding in strollers! We saw no dogs in Tokyo, read since everyone works long hours and live in small apartments they favor cats. I guess not so in Yokohama.

We checked out the bustling China Town before walking back to the ship.

We had a lovely first night dinner on board and enjoyed chatting with the couple at the next table from Calgary. We both decided to put a request in to have the same tables tomorrow.