Land Ho!!!!  Yay!  We can see it, it is really happening!  LOL.  After a lovely sleep without thrashing around the ocean, we are up at our normal time and in the now quiet buffet.  All that craziness?  It was definitely the time change!  Geez.  What a joke!  We’re happy as it is blissful up here now.  No complaints.

Same with the gym – oh, maybe next cruise will be like this?  Please, oh please.  Quick bite in the Lido, then back to the balcony where it is sunny and warm – we’re in shorts and capris thank you!  A quick stop at GR for our On Deck for a Cause donation and t-shirts, then to the Geomythology lecture with Dr. Sutherland.  It’s the only thing on the schedule today – so why not.  And it is actually pretty interesting – how myths inform geologists theories on earthquakes and volcano eruptions. 

Afterward we hit the Alaskan “Brunch” in the dining room for the halibut sandwich – oh yeah!  Very good – the bread bowl chowder and the goat cheese spread as starters. So artfully done I actually take a picture of the starters – not normal, unless we are at a Chef’s table on Azamara.  But these 2 dishes were works of art!  And combined with that halibut sandwich a very big lunch!  Then we spend the next couple of hours watching the sail in from various places about the ship.

Finally!  Yokohama!  Phew.  It takes about an hour after we are cleared for our immigration group to be called.  Once out in the terminal, the process is pretty easy – maybe another 20 minutes before we are out the door and wandering down the familiar streets of Yokohama.  Since it is already pushing on 4pm, we decide to just do some shopping and wandering today, with our full exploring tomorrow.  Heading out through Yakashita park, we realize there is some huge festival going on.  The normally busy Saturday afternoon is even crazier with tons and tons of people all over the park, and various tents and stalls with we don’t know what.  Lots of music and entertainment though.  Check out the cute girl singing – or lip-syncing – we can’t decide and those shoes!!!

Our goal is Don Quixote, the mega store that is reputed to sell everything.  We are in need of a few essentials (yeah, the non-suite life!  I forgot they don’t give you q-tips if you are simply hoi polio – and I definitely didn’t pack enough for the entire trip) and snacks of course, so we figure it was a good destination for our first landfall since Juneau!  Once through the crowds – phew – we find the store easily enough, and begin wandering through the overwhelming selection of, well everything!  From toilet seats to air conditioners to electronics to watches to fresh food (the sushi!!!) to candy to medicine to household products…you get the idea!  Everything.  And the noise!  OMG!  Everywhere you walk, there is some pre-recorded music or promo recording or who knows what!  It is a cacophony of sounds and people. 

Amazing.  We spend a good hour just wandering around. We find everything we need though – a new little alarm clock since ours has decided to literally fade away, aforementioned q-tips, kit kats!  Yes!  Expensive? Yes!  But there are apple kit kats, lime kit kats, matcha and sake versions.  How can we resist?

Done with shopping, we head back to the ship, stopping on the way to listen to another fabulous singer outside the park.  Since we will be eating outside for the next 2 ½ weeks, we figure we’ll just come back to the ship because the main dining menu looks great – Asian with spring rolls and poke and a Teriyaki salmon bowl that sounds great.  Why not?  So back we go, managing to miss the signs to enter the pier along the shoreside, and wandering through the cruise terminal until we finally figure it out and manage to make it back to the ship.  Amazing Race moment!

Back aboard we do our normal evening stuff, hitting the dining room for our Asian meal which is all good except that salmon.  First time this has happened – it was hammered. Haven’t had a poorly prepared fish meal yet – oh well – one out of however many isn’t too bad I suppose.  Then its Ocean’s bar for a while and back to our balcony in the nice warm evening to sit and read and hang out for the night.  Japan! At last!