Today we were in Omaezaki!! We docked about 6:30 AM and the port had a welcome ceremony. Drummers and other musicians were out in the port area. It was a fun welcome. I was told this is the first cruise ship to visit this port so it seems like they want to make a good first impression and have more ships come here.
We ordered room service breakfast and it wasn't memorable. This was the hanger card we put out last night. We kept our order simple and asked for hot tea, vanilla Greek yogurt, granola, banana and fresh fruit. All seemed fine and then we realized they had brought us decaffeinated English Breakfast Tea. That wasn't going to work. Also, the yogurt was a bit lumpy. The granola had odd bits of puffed rice and what looked like chopped Cheerios plus bits of strawberries and pineapples. The banana was ready to be made into banana bread. The watermelon on the fruit plate was oddly orange in color. Things weren't looking good. I ran upstairs to the buffet to at least find us some caffeinated tea. Not sure if we'll order room service breakfast again.
Our guide was meeting us at 7:30 so we finished watching the welcome ceremony and drinking our tea while we waited for clearance to go ashore. He had texted me to let me know he was at the port. About 7:20, we got the clearance to debark and met our guide and taxi driver. We were going to visit the Kuno-xan Tosho-gu Shrine.
It was about a 90 minute drive from the port. First we visited an observation area where you could (barely) see Mount Fuji in the distance.
Unfortunately it was just too cloudy. After that we headed across the street to get a gondola to the shrine. The trams or gondolas are referred to as ropeways here in Japan. It was about a five minute tram ride to the shrine.
This shrine honored the first shogun in Japan. Shoguns were the lead samurais and appointed by the Emperor. "Shogun" was also a mini series from 1980 starring Richard Chamberlain, if you are old enough to remember. A remake is in production for FX. But I am getting sidetracked. The shrine was built in the early 1600's and is in remarkable shape for being over 400 years old. It's been refreshed over the years but the original buildings remain. We climbed up so many steps to get to the top where the shogun is buried. Probably over 150. Our Fit Bits and Garmin Watches were very active.
We headed back to the port and took a stroll around the Green Tea market that the port had setup. They had food booths, retailers selling their wares and a kimono experience. We also saw someone making Okonomiyaki which is the dish we had on Dotonbori Street in Osaka at the Chibe restaurant.
We headed back to the ship and went to the buffet for lunch. I had a great salad with tuna and Asian dressing as well as some shrimp pasta in a spicy Diablo sauce. Angie also has a salad and some thick crust pizza We headed back to the cabin and decided to put on our swim suits and spend some time in the hot tub on deck 9. I also went into the main pool. A bit cool but was refreshing after being in the hot tub.
We then headed back to the cabin to rest before getting ready for dinner. Tonight was "dressy" night. Since we've packed for six weeks of travel and some different climates, I didn't have my usual dressier clothes so wore a collared golf shirt instead. Angie looked fabulous in her long black dress!! We spent some time with our bartender friends Freddie and Alfred at the Pinnacle Grill Bar before heading to dinner. Dinner was very good. We had shrimp cocktail, artichoke dip, seared duck and broiled sole. All very good especially the well cooked sole. No dessert.
After dinner we played some Lightning Trivia. There were thirty questions. You only had 30 seconds to write down your answer. And then they would reveal the answer and it would be scored. We ended up with 19 points. The winner had 24. After that we were both tired from a long excursion and headed to the cabin.
Tomorrow we will be in Kobe and have a ship excursion with another ropeway (tram) and a visit to a sake museum.
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