We take it slow this morning, letting the majority of the disembarking passengers leave before we head out for our shopping day in Yokohama.  Out in the park, we wander along the waterfront, watching as some sort of event is being set up and passing by cute little dogs all dressed up in their bonnets.

Arriving at the Daiso, we find it is inside one of those big massive single store with a Lowes type store that spans half of the first level, with the rest divided into different stores, just by tape on the floor and signage!  Daiso is in the back of the facility, where we pick up our last supplies – socks, clothes pins, the corn sealed in plastic (we could NOT resist that!).

Then we wander – into the pet section where there is an entire wall filled with little puppies in window boxes.  Oh so, so cute! And oh so, so expensive!  Geez, no wonder they need a Daiso here.  Those dogs started at about $3,000 USD.  Phew.  And then there is also the aisles and aisles of everything pet related.  Clothes – of course – food (they even have plastic models for the pet food!!), buggies, grooming stuff. You name it, you got it….for your pet.  Craziness.

Walking back toward Don Quixote, we stopped at a Lawsons and Family Mart on the off chance they’d have Coffee Jelly.  Nope.  Nada.  We are losing hope of ever finding those delicious little treats.  Sigh.  Then it is off to Uruuruma, a sweet little Izakaya that specializes in Okinawa dishes, particularly Champuru a stir fry dish known in the region.

I order the Nabera Chanpuru Set meal which has squash, spam and tofu that comes with salad, vegetables, soba noodles and a lemon jello type dessert; Ed has the Sanmaikuso, a soba noodle dish with pork belly, side veggies and the same lemon jello –  along with 2 big Okinawan Orion beers – meal complete. And all served by a sweet little grandma in a cozy little dining area.

Then it is off to our last Don Quixote to stock up for the crossing and try to use up all the cash left on our Suica cards.  Remember, this place is absolutely huge with a cacophony sounds bombarding you. In addition to salty snacks, which we have in our baskets, we are, for the last time searching for the Coffee Jellys.  And even though we pretty much know where all the candies are, it is still just so packed with things, it is like finding a needle in a haystack.  I took a picture of the package and found a store clerk stocking, showed her the picture and asked her if they had any.  She led me right to the shelf that held the last supplies of the Coffee Jelly packages.  I mean, how in the world did she know exactly where they were in all that mess?  Amazing. And amazingly wonderful.  We literally bought them out of the last bags.  Also, another phone charger for $2 USD!  Yep, $2 USD!  It isn’t the best, but that isn’t the point.  It works and it was only $2 USD!!!

On the way out of the store, we stopped to watch a little show with a guy and a monkey.  Yeah.  Monkey.  Cute, but….who knows what they were doing, or why!  And the translation of the sign in front of the roped off area where they are performing does not enlighten us one bit, but it does give us a good laugh.

Then it is off to the park, passing by the restaurant in the mall that has a Dog Menu….officially dog crazy these people are.  Officially.  In the park, we wandered past beautiful flowers all along the path, and then through a large display of different gardens – all based on different scenes:  A stream in the Satoyama mountain area, Riding the waves of flower, Dawn of Departure, a representation of Mt. Fuji, etc. Lovely.

Even though it was early, we went back to the ship to unload our goods – adding all our haul together!  Big haul – but hey – when in Japan….

…And then decided, what the heck, we don’t leave until late, so we’re going back out to the Fruhlingsfest at the Red Brick Warehouse.  The 12^th annual German Beer Festival!  Seriously – a huge German beer festival, and it was so wonderfully fun.  Inside a huge tent/beer garden, tons of different vendors had great varieties of beers – and tons and tons of long tables filled with tons and tons of Japanese drinking beer and singing along and cheers-ing with the German band (whose band leader is from Brisbane btw) playing all sorts of great drinking music.  Oh my God!  Never in a million years would we have ever thought a German beer festival would be this packed and crazy in Japan.  But it is and we’re happy to have stumbled upon it.

After reviewing our drinking options (and there are many!) we ended up with a sampler from SanktGallen – Brown Porter, Watermelon wheat, Strawberry sour ale, Japanese orange ale – served in a great cardboard tray we could carry with us to a corner of the beer garden to stand and watch the band, while we sip all these excellent beers.  The Strawberry sour ale was the best of the bunch.  We happily sipped our beers, while watching a circle dance around the stage, more cheers-ing to the band, and then the congo line that wrapped around the entire beer garden tent twice!

Too much fun!  After the band finished, we wandered outside, depositing our trash in the well marked and manned recycle trash station (those Japanese!  They are serious about their trash and recycling!) then perused all the different food and beer stalls out in the courtyard of the Red Brick Warehouse.  Even though we weren’t really hungry, we couldn’t resist ordering a cheese pretzel.  I mean really!  We couldn’t get a pretzel in the Munich airport, but we can get the real deal here in Yokohama!

At the end of the courtyard was a big fenced off area with a bunch of camper vans, each with their own picnic table and grill equipment.  Apparently this is a thing here in Japan, where you can rent a camper van out for 24 hours for 20,000+ Yen (about $125 USD).  And they must have been having demonstrations, or letting you rent them here, because a couple were being occupied by people lounging inside or starting their BBQ picnic.  Welcome to Japan!

On our way back to the ship, we stop at the Perfect Beer booth – a real brewery with franchise locations available if you are interested! – only because they have bears on their merchandise, and well, you know us and bears.  We both got great t-shirts and I got socks in a can!  There were 5 or 6 different colors and versions of the socks, I wanted the maroon socks with a cute bear.  But turns out you just buy the can – and you get what you get.  The girl checking us out told us it was a Blind Box.  Blind box?  Think that means surprise!  So it will be a big surprise when we get home and I can open them up.

Weaving and bobbing our way back to the ship on the more crowded streets, we pass a pet bunny out for a walk, and a pram with a cat in it (hard to tell from the photo, but that’s a cat in there). I missed getting a picture of the guy pulling a dog on a wheeled platform.  The crowd swallowed him up before I could get a good snap. 

Back to the cruise terminal, back through the security line and we are safely aboard, awaiting our muster drill (a real muster drill this time, outside even) and then begin our standard activities, all the while trying to get a bead on this new crop of passengers.  Should be an interesting voyage….but aren’t they all!

A little different tonight, we go to the Mariner’s Welcome aboard party which is on the Poolside Lido deck.  This is the same thing they had last embarkation day, but we weren’t invited then.  Hmmmm…..guess the invitation got lost somewhere.  No biggie.  It’s just a place to sit around and drink, and I had to go get my own wine anyway – told the guy at the entrance it was a BYOB party!  A little while later, after nothing really happens, we left for dinner and an evening on our own.

And we’re off to the Western Hemisphere!  Sea days, here we come.