Tokyo (Day 2) & “Snow” Day near Omaezaki, Japan 2024

Tokyo Day 2

     We awoke on February 29 still docked at the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal.  This new terminal is located on Odaiba island and is much closer to downtown Tokyo than Yokohama, where cruise ships had docked before and many still do.  Yokohama has, actually, been the main port for Tokyo for centuries.  We had to be back on the ship by 5:30 for the sail away, which meant returning to the port in mid-afternoon to be safe.  We have had the experience of having unexpected difficulty getting back to our ship in foreign ports and certainly did not want to chance that in a city as large and complicated as Tokyo.  Everything we read and heard about the Tokyo subway system said that it is well marked in English and easy to navigate, but we decided that a more relaxing day closer to the port was a better choice for us.

    Odaiba is an artificial island in Tokyo bay, connected to the main city by the Rainbow Bridge.  Its origins date back to the 1850’s after Commodore Perry’s first visit.  “Daiba” means fort or battery, and the plan was to build 11 small island batteries in the bay to protect against attacks from the sea.  Only 6 were finished before the project was abandoned and by the 1960’s most of the small islands had been removed and we have read that landfill was used to connect the rest to make the larger island of Odaiba.  After on and off development efforts in the 1980’s and 90’s, full development of the island has occurred rapidly since the second half of the 1990’s and the island is now crowded with hotels, commercial buildings, shopping malls, museums, restaurants and entertainment venues, many with very futuristic architecture.

     Although it was a bit chilly, this was a beautiful morning for a walk.  A shuttle bus was available going around much of the island and, after a leisurely breakfast and the departure of most tours, we boarded the bus and rode it to the Hilton Hotel stop near the waterfront leading to the Rainbow Bridge (which opened in 1993).  We walked along one of the boardwalks paralleling the water.  Quite a view of Tokyo and the bridge from here.

     You may notice in these pictures there are two long and narrow islands in front of the Tokyo skyline.  Numerous trees full of pink blossoms covered these islands when we were there.  It seems we were there well before cherry blossom season, so these are most likely to be plum trees.  No matter, they were quite beautiful, and we got a much closer look at some of them sitting in front of one of the malls on Odaiba.

     Walking along the waterfront we passed colorful flowers and a sea gull on a small sand bar in the water.  There was a reddish brown headed duck swimming nearby and a park with old ship anchors and chains displayed in the sand.

     We walked through a big 80 store mall called Decks and back toward the waterfront on the boardwalk, where we saw a movie being filmed (they tried to shoo people away without much success).  Then a little further we came to the Statue of Liberty.  What, you thought that was in New York?  Yes, but here is a 40 foot tall replica, about one seventh of the size of the original, erected here in 1998.  And why stop at just one?  There are also Statues of Liberty in Shimoda and Osaka.  This was a tribute to Japan’s relationship with France, not the US.

     Further down the waterfront walk we came to a beach with some young people wading in the shallows.  We have read that this is one of only two beaches in Tokyo not obstructed by industrial buildings, but actual swimming is not allowed.  This is also a convenient place to mention vending machines, which are everywhere in Japan.  You can buy a large variety of food and drink from them, cold or hot.  There was a bank of them here and we also saw an even larger row of them at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo yesterday.  Near the beach a sign was posted with a long list of “do nots” . . . it made us think of Singapore.  

     We left the waterfront and walked down a street that was a canyon among large buildings.  On one side was the 27 story Fuji Broadcasting Center. It has two tall buildings, an office building and a media building, connected by three footbridges longer than either building.  At the top just off center is a huge metal sphere containing an observation deck.  The entire building is covered in titanium & was opened in 1996.  At street level is a large transparent tube containing an escalator that goes up several stories.  Nearby is the pink Aqua City, yet another shopping mall.

     The sidewalk next to the Fuji building included an interesting safety feature.  On the left is a lane for walkers and on the right is a lane for bikers, separated by a median strip planted with red flowering bushes. We were told that the narrow yellow path on the left helps blind people with canes negotiate the sidewalk better because it is paved with different shaped stones.  This reminded us a little of the separate lanes for bikes and pedestrians in Amsterdam, and we saw sidewalks laid out like this in other areas of Japan as well.

     We walked up through a mall (can’t remember which one) to find a large mostly brick open patio like space.  There were sculptures, benches, many decorative pillars, vending machines (of course) and quite a view.  Families and other groups were spending time in this pleasant space in the sky above the streets of the city.

     On the sidewalk in the street below we encountered a life size Lego giraffe.  There is a Legoland in the Decks mall, but this was in a different location.  After this it was time to go home, so we walked back to the Hilton and boarded another shuttle.  We passed the Rainbow Bridge (which looks great from any angle) and, back on the ship, we had a view from our balcony of the cranes lining one side of the port looking nice in the late afternoon sun.

Sea Day Near Omaezaki

     Our itinerary was supposed to take us to Omaezaki, Japan on March 1.  When we researched this port we didn’t find anything we were really anxious to see, so we signed up for an excursion that would (among other places) take us to a temple on the side of a mountain that was supposed to have a great view of Mt Fuji, if we got lucky and the weather was clear.  But we were given a heads up on the evening of February 29 that sea conditions around Omaezaki weren’t looking good and we might not be able to stop there.  It is always disappointing to miss a scheduled port, but if one had to be missed this one would be better than most others we were scheduled to visit.

     Well, as our friend Pete commented, having an unscheduled sea day added in the middle of a long series of port days is like having a snow day when you are working or in school, an unexpected opportunity to rest up and recharge your batteries.  So that’s how we looked at it when, in late morning, it was announced that the sea was still too turbulent for us to stop here.  Sometimes it seems to passengers that the sea isn’t really bad enough to skip a port, but not this time.  The roiling of the water was enough that we could sometimes see rainbows in the mist that was thrown up by the waves, even from our deck 5 veranda.

     After the Captain’s announcement Rick went outside to try at least to get a picture of Omaezaki from the ship since we weren’t stopping there.  He took a number of pictures along the shore, but on later inspection none of them looked like Omaezaki, whose shoreline is dominated by a white lighthouse with beaches and few other buildings near the water (according to pictures we have seen).  We are pretty sure we were somewhere in Suruga Bay, but the area was too heavily overcast to identify.  I think I have identified in one picture (the last one below) the Fujikawa water pipe bridge across the Fuji river near the shore of Suruga Bay, which has a series of metal arches like this.  If so, Mt Fuji would be visible right behind it but hidden by the heavy cloud cover (as it apparently often is), but that would put us far from Omaezaki.  So, who knows?   Other shore pictures include industrial smokestacks and impressive mountains.

      Later Kimberly (cruise director) announced that the iconic Mt Fuji was visible to the aft of the ship.  This mountain is almost 12,389 ft tall, the tallest in Japan.  It is a volcano, last erupting in 1704, and has a snow covered top (at least when we were there) and an almost perfect cone shape.  While many people try to climb it in summer the Japanese government is trying to cut back on this by charging admission and limiting when and how many climbers are permitted.  We have read that an old Japanese proverb says “a wise person will climb Mt. Fuji once in their lifetime, but only a fool would climb it twice.”

      After the Captain’s announcement Rick, along with a crowd of other passengers, hurried up to the deck by the aft pool and, sure enough, there it was emerging from the clouds far in the distance.  It took a while to get to the front of the crowd, but the mountain was still quite visible and, like everyone else, Rick got a picture of himself with the mountain (not a selfie, Robert took it).

     Afterwards Rick returned to the cabin and stepped out onto the veranda.  The mountain was still there, more clearly visible than before.  It was really quite a sight.  He encountered our room stewards, busily cleaning a cabin down the hall and having no idea that this special mountain could be seen outside.  If Rick hadn’t told them about it they would have missed it completely, even though they were only a few steps away from the view.  The best known woodprint series by Japanese artist Hokusai is called “36 views of Mount Fuji.”  We won’t go that far, but here are two more, taken from our veranda.

     So we didn’t get to visit Omaezaki but in the end we did get to see Mt Fuji so it wasn’t a lost day.  We sailed out of the bay and headed for our next port.