A cool and partly cloudy day greets us as we sail into Omaezaki and watch the welcoming ceremony on the pier.  We are here really early – 7am – and the first shuttle into town isn’t until 9am.  We are debating whether to just walk into town – which was our plan originally – or wait for the shuttle.  After a quick breakfast and coffee, we decide to take the shuttle, but of course we are too antsy to just stay on the ship for another hour and a half.  So, once we are ready, we hit the dock, figuring we’ll walk around and see what all the vendors have to offer. 

Well, that takes about 5 minutes – nothing much of interest, meaning we still have 45 minutes until the shuttle.  Ugh.  One of the myriads of “Helpers” on the dock comes up and talks to us, telling us we can walk into town, it only takes an hour -and it is good exercise!  Hmmm….did she read our minds?  Or is she telling us we need to exercise????  Either way, she sort of forces the point with us – we aren’t going to stand here for 45 more minutes when we could basically be in town by then.  So, off we go!

It is a great day for a walk anyway, partly cloudy, a nice cool breeze.  We make the easy trek in 45 minutes, arriving at the Nabula Fish market moments after the shuttle arrives.  Perfect morning exercise.  The market is nice, but nothing much we can buy – tons of fresh Bonita as Omaezaki is the leading port for fresh, raw Bonita fishing. There are bonita flakes though, bags and bags of them, plus the machine that makes them.  Other than that, we just sort of wander, then go across to the restaurants on the other side of the breezeway to check out the fare for our lunch later.  One place has Katsuo no Tataki!  That fab straw smoked/fired Bonita we love in Kochi.  Sold.  We’ll come back after the lighthouse!

Crossing the street, we head up into the main “town” area via the Tsunami escape route stairs, marked with increasing meters to mark how high above the water you are. (FYI – this the route Google Maps says is “mostly flat,” uh huh, yeah, sure right!)  Leg work done, we crest the top of the hill for a good view back down to the Marine Park, which isn’t much of anything really, and then continue on into the residential area of Omaezaki.

A cute little area of traditional Japanese homes and what appears to be a community garden, we wander the quiet little streets until we exit the other side of the community at the Omaezaki lighthouse, built in 1874.  It’s Meiji period architectural style has remained largely unchanged throughout the years, even though the original French light lenses were destroyed in WWII and later replaced with locally made lights. 

Arriving at the lighthouse, we are met by more of the local “helpers” who are everywhere and so very helpful.  We pay our 300 yen entry fees and up we go, climbing the 81 circular stairsteps and the 11 ladder steps, popping up through a little hatch to reach the light mechanism at the top of the lighthouse.  More legwork! 

The view on the exterior walkway is the reward for all the exertion – a fantastic 360 degree view around the peninsula.  Beautiful, if not windy and quite chilly up here on the point between the Suruga Bay and the Enshu Sea.

After getting our fill of the scenery, we reverse course down the winding staircase and out into the cloudy, chilly day to walk a bit down the path along the ridgeline, then doubling back to visit the sweet little museum which chronicles the history of the lighthouse (in Japanese but with helpful “helpers” here as well who can translate for us).  We learn that there are over 3,100 lighthouses around Japan, 50 of which are famous and 16 of which you can climb to the top.  Quite interesting. 

Back down to sea level we go, to a cute little park with more of the ubiquitous Tsunami/Earthquake warning signs along with a great longitude/latitude almost totem pole-ish statue. 

Walking back along the coast, we pass a huge hotel that looks abandoned, various restaurants (none open yet), a “Fish store” that ends up being a huge almost wholesale like club for all things fish, and a Loggerhead Sea Turtle Hatchery with the cutest turtle family sign!  (The small print says “Let’s spread the message! The importance of life!”)  Wish it had been open, that would have been a great visit.

Back at the market, we are still a few minutes too early for the 11am opening of the Katsuo no Tataki restaurant, so we hit the 7-11 across the street for toothpaste.  Yes, toothpaste. Embarrassingly, I forgot to pack toothpaste of all things! That chore accomplished, we head back over to the restaurant to put our name on the list and wait for the opening.

Fortunately, we are able to get a seat in the first round of customers and sit down at the Pole-and-Line Fishing, Nikko restaurant, digging into a fabulous set meal of Katsuo no Tataki, pickles, salad (which we think was cabbage – very good), rice and dessert.  All for the low, low cost of $6.89 each.  Seriously.  Less than $7 each for a massive, and massively good meal.  Fabulous.

As we were eating lunch, we made an executive decision to hurry it along so we could catch the 11:45 shuttle back to the ship. While we do love our exercise, we figured we could miss the walk back to the ship without regrets – and since this was the last shuttle until 1:15, we snarfed down as much of our side dishes as we could (we had of course focused on the Bonita first – so that was all gone fortunately!) and headed out to get in line for the shuttle.  Good move too, as there are way more people in line than can fit in the bus and we are fortunate to be able to get a seat.

Then it is quickly back to the ship with the rest of the day to hang out and blog (of course!).  Before heading to Ian’s Asia Up Close lecture at 4, we stop on the Promenade Deck to watch the cute anime characters and the great band farewell celebration.  Then it is the normal evening activities, gym, dinner and the welcome aboard show – which is a great showcase of the all new (to us) production show cast.