We went up to the top deck to watch our sail into Yokohama. The captain did an amazing job spinning us around to dock. We were heading straight for a bridge which we were thinking 'we're not going fit under this' we didn't that's why we had to spin around before it and park just in front of it. Welcome to Yokohama. There were lots of buses waiting so lots of people where doing ship tours. As this port was a working port and not near anything we had to get a shuttle to the main part of Yokohama.
Originally we hadn't planned to go to Tokyo but then decided as we were so close we should. I hadn't research Tokyo, thinking we weren't going there, so didn't know what to do or where to go. We'll just have to wing it!
After getting off the ship and catching the shuttle we made our way to the station. It wasn't far from where the bus dropped us. Unfortunately we had run out of Yen so needed to get some out. I had read that 7 Eleven atms accept OS cards but we didn't know where one was. I did try using the train ticket machine and bank atm but no luck. A lovely Japanese lady came up to us and asked if she could help (obviously we looked a bit lost). She took us around the the money exchange place (we had been here but couldn't get any money) and she kindly asked the lady where a 7 eleven was. It was pretty much just on the otherside of the street! It was slightly hidden but we did feel a little silly but very grateful!
Finally with some Yen we managed to get our train ticket and sort of work out which train to catch. We had to change trains so we were a little worried about if we'd actually make it to Tokyo!
We jumped on a train we thought was heading in the right direction and then jumped off when we got to the station we thought we needed to change to get a train to Tokyo.
While standing on the platform we thought was the right one but weren't 100 % mum asked a young guy if we were on the right platform. A train pulled in on the otherside and he pointed to it to. We jumped on and hoped for the best. It ended up being the right train but the whole trip we weren't sure. Even the lady on the train didn't look sure.
Tokyo station, unsurprisingly, was busy. Not knowing where to go we found an information desk and mum asked a few questions and got a map.
We headed out of the station, walked around for a couple of hours and then headed back to the station and back to Yokohama. Tokyo wasn't anything like I had expected. It was quiet and not busy or quirky or weird at all. I said to mum we must be on the wrong side of the station for the 'real' Tokyo. As it turned out we were, oh well. Maybe next time.
The train to Yokohama was an express train, thankfully, as it got very full! They just kept on getting on. Two people would get off and about 30 would get on. Squishy!
Back at Yokohama our mission, well my mission, was to find the Cup Noodle Museum. This was somewhere I had really wanted to get to while we were here. Things don't always go to plan though. When we did finally find it, quite by accident in the end, it was already closed. Bugger.
Another place I had wanted to get to was the Ramen museum, we didn't get to this but we did find Ramen food hall. We had dinner here. So many choices and thankfully they had a menu in English which was helpful. To order you did it yourself using a machine, we just watched what everyone else was doing first and then followed them. When our order was ready I went over to get it and was told, in Japanese, to get some boiled eggs. It looked like you could have as many as you wanted. I just took one. So odd.
We had a delicious meal and even managed to order a glass of white wine. They're not really big on wine so the choice was pretty simple. White or red? You have to order from one place and then collect it from another spot and then dropped your empty glasses at another spot. Very organised.
After our yummy dinner we walked back towards the ship but first I had some shopping to do! I just wanted to get a few weird treats before we left Japan. I managed to get some :-)
We caught the shuttle back to the ship. We were back on board at about 8.30pm. We had tickets for the 9.30pm show in the Two70 theatre so had just enough time to freshen up a bit and have a relaxing glass of wine on our balcony.
The show was awesome. So much going on we didn't know where to look. They were coming down from the ceiling and up from the floor and out from the side of the stage. Silk Road was the name of the show and it was based around the trade route on the silk road in a very arty way. The acrobatics were amazing. This was the only show we ended up seeing on the ship. We had wanted to see Showgirls but missed out on that one.
Tomorrow: Sea day
No comments:
Post a Comment