Day 12&13 at sea and Okinawa

Day 12&13 at sea and Okinawa .

We started the day with breakfast in the Oceanview cafe we shared a table with a couple from Grimsby UK which is near Hull, their names were Nick and Mandy, they had enjoyed the Cruise so far and had also Cruised on a high end Cruise line to the Monaco GrandPrix being F1 fans. We then went and checked on some shore excursions and departure options with the people at customer relations.

After lunch we met up with Lee, Maureen and Stella for a game of five crowns which killed a few hours, James was lucky enough to win that round. We then killed a few hours before having tea with Lee and Maureen before taking in the 9.00 pm show in the theatre which on the occasion was a Aussie hypnotist name Matt Hale who performs a good show, he had ten people on stage in a trance and doing some weird stuff all good natured. After the show Jenny had a go on the Poker machines while James had a nightcap in Cafe Bacio.

Okinawa

We had to adjust our clock again and in the morning we were allotted time slots to leave the Ship and clear immigration, we had not finished breakfast when our turn came around so we waited until the last group was called as we had no tours booked. We left the Ship around 9 am and shared a cab into the city with a Canadian couple from Calgary as the free Shuttle Bus was taking a while to do the loop. It was actually only a twenty minute walk into the city from the Terminal. While we were waiting fighter jets were flying overhead, the airport which is quite close to the cruise terminals is home to the 204th and 304th Tactical Fighter Squadron of Japan plus the US airforce presence.

We really didn’t feel like doing too much exploring so we just walked up the main drag and checked out the tourists shops, there is also a overhead monorail service in the city which is quite accessible and as always being a prefecture of Japan the people in Okinawa treat you with courtesy and respect. We purchased a pottery lucky charm for the house of local Shiha Lion Dogs which are sold in pairs male and female with Gender is variously assigned to the shisa. Some Okinawans believe the male has his mouth closed to keep bad out of the home, while the female has her mouth open to share goodness. We did not stay to long in town the weather was a bit patchy with a few showers creeping in but the temperature was still quite warm. We ended up walking back to the Ship having lunch of course and then having a spa and a dip in the pool before James hit up the gym. We had tea in the Oceanview cafe with Lee and Maureen.

Tuesday we were meeting Marcia’s Uncle Robert in Taipei we had given him a call during the afternoon to arrange a suitable meeting time.