Tomorrow we land at Muroran and will take a 1-2 hour bus ride to Sapporo. We are going to Odori Park (gardens, shops, restaurants, underground mall, ski jump at one end, tv tower at the other, about 3 miles long). More on that later.
Today, our highlight was a tour of the Bridge! Brian's Goddaughter surprised us with this. Thanks KT! A group of 10 of us got a personal tour led by the Captain (the charming, Italian). It was fascinating and a fabulous view. I took lots of photos of various computers, gizmos and flags. Actually I learned too much to relate in this blog but it was super cool.
We are seeing land now and then which is exciting after nothing but water for several days. It has been overcast and cool (around 50) but now and then it clears and we see clouds and sunsets. The seas are still calm and we have been very lucky. We are going to get a few bumps in the night as we round Hokkaido. The Captain explained that he is going faster to avoid the typhon off of China so we will miss most of the effects of that and will arrive in port early. I love him. The smoother the better for me!!
Today there was a German buffet set up at lunch which was popular with the many Germans on board. We've had different specialty lunches: Japanese, Mexican, English, Indian, etc.
I went to a lecture on Russia and the Pacific which was very interesting. I learned about the history of where we are headed and that the population is greatly diminishing. If it is as dreary as it sounds, then it's no wonder everyone is packing it up. I've also been going to great talks about the upcoming ports. Today I popped into Easy Japanesy but after about 5 minutes I decided to rely on what Michael taught me. (Michael, some of it did stick with me.) We went through Japanese immigration where we had both index fingers printed and a photo of our retina done. We will need to do this again when we get to Nagasaki which seems a little redundant. There's a different routine to entering every country but we have been told to be zen about it.
By the way, konnichiwa means good afternoon. Sayonara. Betty
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