We are up early because we have our proctored COVID test this morning, and to be honest, I didn’t sleep well at all anyway.  We tried not to think about this our entire trip – especially on the Typhoid Mary bus – but my subconscious finally took over last night and I tossed and turned all night long.  Good thing we are up too – because we’ve had a message from the testing service saying we can take the test early – ok – why wait until 7am when we can stick that swab up our noses now at 6:20a?  And that’s what we do!

The process is really easy and smooth, we get to do our tests together so no wasted time there – and thank the Gods – we are negative.  Phew!  Now I can go back to sleep….NOT!  LOL.

After ensuring we get our email confirmations, we have our coffee and sweet bun from Lawsons, then hit the streets to do a little walking to let the stress out!  There isn’t much close here – and we’re going to the big gardens after we check out – but we do find a little Italian garden, that while small, is a lovely little patch of green to walk around and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.

Then back to the hotel to shower and zip up our bags.  We check out a little before 11:00, giving our bags to the reception guy downstairs and asking if he can print out our test results – which he can for 20 Yen.  Perfect.  Done.  Then it is off to the Hama-rikyu gardens again for another nature walk in the brilliant sunshine.  We need to waste time until our 1:30 boarding time, and we figure this place is as good as any – at bargain price of 200 Yen each.  You can’t beat it.

We walked around a part of the park we had missed on our first visit, back behind the tea house and around another pond with more duck blinds. These blinds were easier to see from both the front and the back and you can envision exactly how they worked.  We stalked an egret – as much as one can stalk an egret! Walked past the tea house, and around to the external walkway by the water, found the one cherry tree still in bloom and crossed the interior moat – used for transportation – to a lovely area with an arbor covered in draping lilacs.  We found the last blooming (ok, wilting) peonies and then completed our wanderings with a few other flowering bushes.  Lovely – but we’re antsy and it is time to go!

Back at the hotel, we decided we wanted a beer, so this being an extended stay place without a restaurant, what did we do? We got one from the vending machine!  And shared it in the lobby.  By then we decided the heck with it, we’re going to the pier – asking the hotel to order us a cab, which arrived in no time flat.  Perfect.  Ok, so now we have to talk about taxis in Japan.  They are so amazingly cool and all the drivers are so professional.  First of all, they all wear white gloves and black suits.  They have to open the door for you – electronically from the inside (don’t know why, but they are all equipped that way) – and most are sort of like step vans, except you just step in to one level with the bench seats right there.  This one model which is very prevalent has fantastic grab handles – not that you want to have to try them out, but they are really sturdy and well placed.  And then they are all equipped and tricked out with stuff.  This particular cab had a TV  which ran ads we guess, but who knows, and a charging cable station!  Oh, and they all put the car into neutral or park when sitting at a red light.  Not necessarily the most affordable – it was a lot to the pier – but a great and nice way to travel!

Arriving at the terminal, our bags were checked, and we were ushered right into the check in line.  Yeah, these times are just suggestions because we are 45 minutes early and onboard before you know it, well before our 1:30 time slot.  We have to do a revised sort of muster drill with a limited amount of people, where we have to wait for the next session since we are the last 2 to walk up and the room is full, then we did our norm.    Got our bearings – that took about 5 minutes – although I am totally confused between Quest and Westerdam!  Ran up to Discoveries to make our specialty restaurant and Chef’s table reservations (Asian on this leg – yay!), ate lunch, confirmed our shore excursions (ok, they are free with the package we got on this sailing), hit the gym, unpacked, had our early afternoon wine and beer on the balcony, ate dinner at the seafood buffet, went to the welcome show and that was that!

Accommodations are, well, Azamara accommodations!  It is our normal room, 7060 – we always try to go for this room as it is in a central location and has a bulkhead on one side so you only have to deal with one set of balcony neighbors.  It is a little shocking compared to our huge suite on HAL, but we easily get used to the economic space – it is what we are used to anyway, so it becomes 2^nd nature by dinner time! During our wanderings we found one bartender we sailed with before, but other than that, not so many.  It seems a bit odd we don’t know more crew, but by the time we are done here, we’ll know them all!  All in all a good embarkation day – and tomorrow our first sea day.