Aomori Japan - Diamond Princess Cruise Day 10

Aomori Japan – Diamond Princess Cruise Day 10

Well, if it seems like I’m really on the hustle, it’s because I am. With only having so much time, you know, I’m trying to sprint basically up and down this street to find exactly what I’m looking for. Uh, a lot of anxiety. It’s our final port of call on our 11-day cruise around Japan, and unfortunately, the weather has been less than great the last day and a half. And so with that being said, it turned our second to last port day into a rough sea day. With most excursions so far on this cruise, we had to ride a bus for about like an hour and a half. And today we are learning a little bit about the parade and celebrations they do in Japan in the late summer. Our tickets into the museum space were included in the price of our tour today. And so we were able to explore the grounds a little bit at our leisure and try some food even though we kind of skipped the food cuz the restaurants and the stores here weren’t fully open. But it was super cool to be able to come inside and get a little bit of culture today. Sure. Ready? [Music] [Music] Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] I couldn’t figure it. Thanks so much. I don’t I don’t play the drum so well. I guess y’all you’re a little drummer boy now. All right, everybody. Taylor and I have made it to this place as I put the title up next to my hand. Uh we’re going to be visiting a castle today and we’re doing some exploring in this museum which as you can see already has all of these floats that they use I believe in like kind of maybe parades or something. It was a little hard to hear as we were coming in because a lot of people were talking so you couldn’t really quite hear everything that they were saying. But um it’s really cool. These are very elaborate. Um they’re hand painted. Yeah. And uh really beautiful over here. [Music] Yeah. They parade about 60 large lanterns down their streets. You want to take a picture? Oh, sure. Thank you. Yeah. So during the week of the Hiroaki Neptua Matsuri is a celebration held each year from August 1st to August 7th. And the town folk of Hiroaki, which is where we’re at, prayed about 60 large lanterns down their streets. And the festivals of the Amorei prefecture can be broadly categorized into two different types. And one is like a more stately type where they walk really calmly and then another one is like they skip about uh kind of more fun and light-hearted. But it’s really cool. Um you know and they carry these by hand and they’re all lit up. So it’s pretty awesome. This is pretty cool. So you can kind of see what the layout looks like. And I guess they must have people inside that that spin the big one. That’s one that we could see. And then here, this is where I was at drumming incorrectly on the drums. Wow, look at these super old books. Exit through the gift shop. [Music] I’d say we just get the goldfish cuz it’s the most relevant one. Yeah. You want to get out the money for me? So, one thing we did end up buying here was a goldfish. These are like the little lanterns that from what we were told, I think the kids really carry around a lot uh during the festival and in the parades, but it’s basically, you know, this goldfish uh that’s revered for bringing good luck. And it’s from way back in like the 1700s. So, it was kind of like relevant to where we were at. We kind of felt like it just made sense. So, we picked one up. It was only eight bucks and it’s a great little souvenir that we can take back with us. We can hang it up somewhere, hang it on our Christmas tree, leave it on our shelf, you know, do whatever. [Music] Fish. [Music] Well, it’s a little tight here on the bus, but Taylor wanted water. And the other day I got a water. What I thought was that and a Coca-Cola machine. I thought it was water, but it wasn’t. It was like tasted like liquid IV. It was almost lemonadey. Yeah. Almost kind of Gatoradey like. But I got it the right water today. And they also had Fanta grape. And I thought I’d give it a try because I just thought, what the heck, why not? Comes in this nice little aluminum can. [Music] It’s pretty good. It tastes a little bit different, but still has a good grape flavor. Like, it tastes more grapy. So, doing our tour today, one of the biggest disadvantages sometimes to doing a tour with a cruise line in a large group is the fact that you can’t hear everything that’s being said or you have to stay really close to the tour guide to hear what’s happening. So, it is kind of unfortunate, but it is something that should that you should think of and uh keep in mind um that you know when you do some of these larger tours, you’re just not going to get all of the information all the time. Also, um, these tend to move a little bit slower than I think most of the ones we’ve always done in the past with other tour companies. So, um, we’re going to go check out the council, though, which looks really great. We’re going to get some tickets and then we’re going to head head on in. You can’t walk your dog in here, but you can carry them or have them in a carrier. That’s why when they start to the, you know, samurai wall is enough and to All right. Ran one is enough. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Look at this tree. That’s crazy. That’s like fascinating. So, just some interesting like little tidbit of history here that we were learning about is that the castle here is not very big because it didn’t need to ever be very big because it was kind of constructed I guess maybe like during peace times, but it was also burned down from lightning and I think then it was rebuilt not that long ago. Uh well, it was rebuilt not long after it burnt down which was back in like maybe the 1800s. [Music] Oh, I’m not going up. Okay, really cool though. So, it is I think I’ve said this a few times in the videos, but you know, this was the spring flowers kind of itinerary and cruise for us to be able to check out all the Sakura. And unfortunately, because we’re just so far north, it’s still too early in the season. We’re missing all of the flowers here. Probably by about a week, I would say. They have some buds on them. Some of the trees do have a few flowers that we saw back out towards the entrance, but as you can see, um most of them just have the buds on them, so they haven’t begun to pop yet. And here is another view of um the mountain out here, which they say is kind of like uh our tour guide was saying it’s like similar to Mount Fuji in its shape because it’s, you know, it’s just so tall and it’s distinct. It’s this this one cone, but can’t see it. Clouds are blocking it on this side. [Music] Okay, well the adventure continues. There’s a little bit of an abrupt ending over there at the castle and stuff, but uh essentially I’m out all by myself today. You can see Princess uh the Diamond Princess is here in the background behind me. I’m actually going to head out and see if I can find anything as far as uh some good lunch or maybe some shopping. So, might be wondering, why isn’t Taylor with you? Well, it’s raining. It’s cold. It’s only probably like 50°, so temperatures really not the greatest. So, today’s our last day in Japan with the cruise. Now, we are going to be going to Tokyo Disneyland after this. There are still a few things that I really had on my bucket list that I wanted to pick up. So, I’m going to walk out here, see if I can find them at some of the shops to go. You know, it’s kind of a time of reflection, I think, for me because it’s been a wild trip so far. It’s been really great. You know, the weather for the most part has cooperated, I would say, most of the time while we’ve been out in port. Today’s probably been like the cruddiest day that you could say, you know, with the rain and the weather. All in all, it’s been a great trip and I really did not want to get back on the ship today knowing that I still have about 3 and 1/2 hours to go walk around. I knew that I would have at least a little bit of regret. So, at least I can say now that I’ve come out. I checked out some of the shopping, seeing if there’s anything here. It’s a very empty. This is probably been the emptiest that I’ve seen a place. All right. It is really loud in here cuz it’s kind of like a tunnel and everything echoes. But I found a store that has everything that I’m looking for. But as always, you never kind of want to like buy at the first place that you go to. They’re open till 5:30. I still have lots of time. Now, while I’m walking around, I’m also looking for a place that I can buy some postcards. There should be a post office down here, not that far. Says it’s about 8 minutes away. So, if I can also find a place where I can get some postcards or I might be able to buy them in the post office. anything. Nice. Uh, can I get the that one over? Yes, please. Mission success. I got a teapot and a set, actually. So, I’m pretty excited. It’s really cool. It’ll be a nice uh it’ll be something very nice to have back home that we can put on our uh display case of our stuff that we bought for Japan. And again, this is probably the one place where we have bought the most amount of things. I don’t know that we’ve ever bought this much stuff before. So, um yeah, but it’s cool. Thank you. Sorry. Okay, please. Okay. Well, we are back on the ship and it is almost 4:00 which means it is the daily trivia where Taylor and I go just so that we can lose or on the one actually it’s less than that. It’s probably like it’s probably like 0.00001% chance that nobody shows up and all the questions are really easy and somehow we win. Well, it’s another fancy night here on the ship. It’s your dress your best. So, they don’t technically call it a formal night, but they do call they do encourage you to dress nicely. Uh, not that I think that they’re going to turn you away at the dining room, but we just got some really unfortunate news to to finish off this cruise. So, today we are, you know, um, so we’re in port right now. Now it’s our last port and tomorrow is a sea day. So our last full day on the ship is a sea day and then we get back to Yokohama. We were just informed that we’re going to have 4 m swells which is like 12t and like 50 mph 50 m per hour gusts or sustained winds or something like that uh while we’re sailing basically tonight once we leave the port um until we get to back to Yokohama. So there’s a low pressure system and unfortunately we just can’t avoid it. So, uh, Taylor’s really nervous, but you know, uh, we’re going to see what happens. It might make for a very, very interesting day tomorrow. [Music] It’s calling me.

Aomori Japan – Diamond Princess Cruise Day 10

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