There’s that moment in a cruise when you contemplate the odds of a reenactment of the titanic (minus the iceberg). Two days of rough seas was a good trigger for thoughts of the likelihood of my husband doing a ‘Di Caprio’ and letting me float on a door in the middle of a freezing ocean. Deciding a ‘Di Caprio’ was very unlikely, I was forced to ponder the likelihood of one of the ‘survival crafts’ (wishful thinking when they named them) surviving 6 metre swells. Two days of high winds and rough seas has brought two sea days of closed decks, an increase in vomit bags and rummaging through the medicine pack for seasick tablets. Regardless of the rough seas, the fun still goes on and we have had plenty of time to relax, soak up the increasing Xmas spirit and enjoy the crew entertainment show. We have even managed to win trivia three times and score two bottles of ‘sparkling wine’ (conveniently given to other suckers who enjoy vinegar) and two classy Princess drink bottles.
Rough seas also resulted in a 6 hour delay in arriving back into Yokohama. Not a problem for us, but I am sure that tonight’s dinner will bring a barrage of complaints from the newly embarking passengers who believe that the captain can control Mother Nature. We headed straight to Chinatown. An easy 15 minute walk from the cruise terminal, we made our way to one of the gazillion (possibly a slight exaggeration) pork bun stores that line Chinatown’s streets. Initially the ¥500 price tag seemed excessive, but we were handed buns the size of your face that could have possibly fed a small town.
Our next stop was the German Christmas Markets. These are always an interesting experience in Japan, given they don’t actually celebrate Christmas. We contemplated trying the ice skating but decided that, since we are still suffering from the ‘Westaway disaster travel disease’, the risk of a broken arm or leg was just too high. Rather than participate in physical activity we decided that calorie consumption was safer. You’ve got to love a market that sells glasses of Mumm, Veuve or Tattinger with their bratwurst and pretzels. Given we were still full from the small village feeding pork bun, we shared a hot mulled red wine and continued on our exploration. Given this is our fourth time cruising out of Yokohama, there wasn’t a lot to see that we hadn’t already seen.
We did have a brief stroll through the bayside park before making our way back to the ship. We didn’t happen to see any pet elephants as permitted on the sign. Maybe next time! Speaking of the absurd, we decided to go to the restaurant for breakfast this morning. We got chatting with another Aussie couple who started talking about their dinner table waiter who had moved them onto another table after noticing they were ready to deck a fellow on their table. As they described him we had visions of an ignorant, racist douche bag who made everyone feel uncomfortable at the table. Low and behold, they were talking about our solo, ignorant, racist kiwi friend (yes throwing that word around very inaccurately), which brought a laugh to us all!