Sailing around Japan on the Celebrity Millennium visiting Yokohama, Shimizu and Kyoto.

Sailing around Japan on the Celebrity Millennium visiting Yokohama, Shimizu and Kyoto.

So, we’re here at the docks. We’re at the docks. Yokohama. So, it is cruise day and we’re about to embark on a 12-day around Japan cruise on the Celebrity Millennium, a ship we have never been on before. True. And we spent the night in Yokohama at the High Regency Yokohama, which is a very short stroll to where I thought the ship would be. I thought the ship would be directly behind us. And you can probably see a ship there, but that’s a princess ship. Whereas our ship is on the other side of the harbor. You can just see it over there under the bridge. Um, looks like a cab ride for us. Yes. So, all the best laid plans can go astray. So, yes, that’s fine. It’s about a 10-minute cab ride away. So, we’ll uh jump in the cab in about an hour’s time. the the lobby of the hotel is just absolutely jam-packed with large groups of people about to embark on the same cruise cruise. So, um well, large groups of large people. Well, much nicer much nicer to be out and about and we’ll walk along here. Yeah. So, we’re going to do a pre cruise pramble down this foreshore. Uh anyway, we’re really looking forward to this cruise. This is an old Japanese cruise ship which was So there be our ship under the bridge. Looks pretty small, doesn’t it? So not a spectacular walk, but a nice enough walk along the waterfront at Yokohama to this uh it’s called Portill Yokohama. Here after our walk along the waterfront, we found this Japanese pancake house in Chinatown where we stopped for lunch. So that vanilla ice cream is So that is green tea ice cream and citrus pancakes with berries. Well, after a lovely pancake lunch, just a quick look at Chinatown before we head back to the hotel, grab our suitcases, and uh get on the ship. [Music] Okay, at the cruise port. Pretty easy pass through chicken. Took about 5 minutes. Yeah. 5 minutes from taxi arriving to getting through security. We come on board. Thank you. Thank you. Just going to our master station on deck four. [Applause] [Music] So, we just need to be checked off by these people over here at our master station. Climbing the stairs to deck 11. Here we are. All right, Stuart, you going to do the honors? Here we are. Here we go. And it works. And it works. That’s on. There we go. It’s on. Now the food and beverage team has a gift. Oh, excellent. It’s nice to have that initial. It’s only been half an hour since you’ve had pancakes. That’s right. Lamington’s for the Australians. All right, so here we are in an Aquaclass stateateroom on the Millennium. It’s really nice, actually. It obviously has been refurbished not too long ago. Oh, James, look. Don’t forget you’ve been given a bottle of wine, too. Is that complimentary? I think so. Oh, I hope so. We’ll find out. Don’t open it before I check the rules. Well, I I rate this cabin pretty highly, really. The one thing I do really like about it is um it’s just nice and refreshed. It’s it’s been redone obviously cuz it’s a 23 year old chip I think or 25 year old chip and uh there’s no sense of it being tatty or worn or No, you know, it feels really fresh and uh and nice. Oh, and another thing I’ll point out, James, yes, they’ve got your beauty treatments in here. So, all my beauty treatments is uh my express colonic irrigation. Fingers crossed. Anyway, yes, we we’ll find out. Okay. Okay. Well, it turns out it wasn’t a colonic irrigation or emergency liposuction. It just is a list of all of the Aquacass benefits. Okay. As an Aquacass guest, your spa inspired experience will include the following amenities and services. And then because we’re elite, even this is only our second celebrity cruise, but really because of our Royal Caribbean status, there’s some benefits there which we found very handy last time. Cocktail hour, the breakfast where you can get proper coffee. probably the the benefit we valued most from this page that at the elite continental breakfast they’ll make you a decent cup of coffee and we have our celebrity today today sheet and Stuart has made himself comfortable let the trip begin and it is uh 1:35 we had a 12:30 boarding time we got here at about 1:00 p.m. And we’re on board within five minutes of arriving. Maybe 10 minutes. Well, all theboard time has just passed. Hopefully, we’ve got everybody [Music] All right, we’re sailing away from Yokohama. Right on time. That is so funny. That’s like a pile of hands. It’s like a Japanese centipede. Take a giant cracker somewhere. Yeah. [Music] Way we go. This is the first one we’ve done before. There we go. Lovely. There’s a Here we are. Here we are in blue. [Music] You need you need to shut that is the peach flutus. So, here we are just docking at Shimitsu. Not a great day for Mount Fuji viewing by the looks of things. Doing a little bit of early morning stretching. You can see I’ve just got out of bed. [Music] Hasn’t had my shower yet. Oh, there we go. Perhaps we should make our way forward to the gym. But isn’t that why you’re in your gym clothes? I put on my gym clothes because they’re the easiest thing to put on at 6:00 a.m. in the dark. [Music] This is blue. A blue rose in blue. My blue Stewart both melons for two. [Music] It’s a frittata and Stewart. Stewart has an omelette. An omelette with many things. It was easier to say what shouldn’t go in the omelette than what he did want. Tuscan Grill. Yes, we’re having a second breakfast primarily to get a decent coffee. [Music] So there we have the fruit and berry plate at the elite breakfast which is considerably more piled up. Oh yeah. Than the blue one. Also look, you’ve got some premium fruits there. You’ve got you’ve got your kiwi fruit. Got your kiwi fruit. Some lovely mango. Oh, mango. Mango and grapes. Very good morning, celebrity. So, we’re ashore in Shinitz and we’ve had two breakfasts. Breakfast in blue, breakfast in Tuscan Grill, and all of our bestlaid plans seem to have been foiled. The the fish market is closed on a Wednesday. Mount Fuji is shrouded in fog. So, we’re just going to have a wander around and see what we can see. So Stuart and I are walking through the very not so scenic port of Shimitsu. Oh, I don’t know. Heavy industry has its place, James. Well, it’s all it’s all part of the experience, isn’t it? There’s a nice break in the traffic there. Import, export. Yes. Production of uh production of chemicals, production of cement. Yes. And tuna caneries. It’s got to happen somewhere. So, we’re doing a uh a 1-hour walk to the Blackstone Beach and Pine Pine Beach, I think it’s called. Anyway, and there’s a shrine there, the Pine Shrine. Uh I think I think in many ways the journey will accentuate the appeal of the destination. That’s right. And another reminder that were this a clear day, we would have that lovely view of Mount Fuji on that sign, but it’s not a clear day. So, we got this uh we focus on the industrial landscape and what makes Japan tick. So, we’ve left the industrial zone. Yeah. More into the fishing zone. Works for me. Works for us. Well, much less traffic. Hello, Black Cat. Okay. Found our way to the waterfront. And everywhere we go, there’s constant reminders of tsunami warnings and where evacuation points are. [Music] fungi growing out of a tree stump. So this is the Hagaramo pine, the third, but this one is estimated to be 300 years old. So this this is the gray or the black sand beach of Shimitsu. It’s your volcanic soils for you. All right. Well, Mount Fuji is revealing itself. We’re down here on the Blackstone Beach. And just peeking up behind the pines over there, you can see the conical shape of Mount Fuji. Two bus people leaving. So, we now have the beach to ourselves. Stewart in front of the great Fuji. Fuji. Stewart finding a water fountain. And that’s the path to the beach. Blackstone Beach. More timely reminders. the ubiquitous vending machines. Just following the tour group at a distance, giving them their space. Yep. They do amble very slowly. So, we have found our way to the shrine. Shrine or temple? Shrine. Shrine. Tori gate. It’s a shrine. Mhm. Is it a shrine to the the horse? No. No. It’s not far left, is it? That’s the finest psyched I’ve ever seen. Look at that. [Music] Mount Fuji guiding us straight ahead. So, we’re taking a bit of a gamble and we’re going to keep walking uh along this peninsula and hopefully get the water bus or the water taxi which goes back pretty pretty close to the cruiseport. Failing that, we either retrace our steps, which will take about an hour and a half probably to get back to the port, or there is a bus, but we can just get the local bus on the bus. I’m just defeated by the water taxi [Applause] down their way back. Okay, so this is our sashimi lunch. Lots of mystery types of fish in there. And Stewart has a whole prawn. And unexpectedly, it’s a raw prawn. A raw prawn. There you So you come the raw prawn with me. There we go. A raw prawn, Stewart. Raw skull. And you’re expected to eat the head, too. No doubt. Excellent. Well, it’s 10 1. We’re heading back to the ship. Had a good day of walking and I think we walked about 12 or 13k. It’s quite an early sail. All aboard times 3:00 p.m. So, better to be safe than sorry. Angry. Drinks on the helipad. Sail away on the helipad. Do we get another blow of the horn? [Music] Well, that was a good day in Shimitsu. Good day. 21,000 steps. Lovely sashimi lunch. And then I went to drinks on the helipad sail away, which is I’ve never done that before. The the locals set up some fireworks, but it was so bright and gray you couldn’t really see them. Dinner at blue. Oh, it’s busier. It’s busier tonight from there, but then like the odd get the odd menu shot in excited about it. No, just a plate of tomato. The lamb. The lamb. Is that the cake? Chocolate cake with after eight ice cream. And what do we got here? Apple crumb ball with tahesian vanilla ice cream. State room attendant does a lovely job in the evening. Two chocolates. [Music] Early morning coffee on the rear deck. We had an overnight stop in Asaka, but we didn’t arrive until 11:00 a.m. the first day and left at 400 p.m. the second day. We decided to go to Kyoto on the afternoon of the first day so that there’ll be no pressure getting back to the ship on time. On our way to Kyoto with a troop with a troop in tow. Hello. This is the special rapid service. We will be stopping at Osaka Taki. Okay, so we left left the ship at 11:00 a.m. Got into Kyoto at exactly 12 p.m. We decided to focus on the temples on the east side of Kyoto and caught a cab from the station to the Silver Pavilion. Okay, 20-minute cab ride, get us to Kinkajul Silver Pavilion. My merry band of travelers. [Music] [Music] well worth the climb. [Music] [Laughter] It is hot and steamy here in Kyoto. These misters are gratefully received. [Music] Glutenfree bento box and mango juice. Do you remember which platform it’s on? No. That’s all right. I’ll keep an eye out. Oh, well done. Our knights our knights in plastic armor plastic umbrella. Thank you very much. $6 each, right? All right. Well, no. 600. Yeah, we’ll resolve that later. Actually, actually, actually, it’s going to stop raining in about 1 minute. Yeah. Okay. This is the philosoph philosophers walk. Away we go. Philosophers walk in the rain. Guess the rain makes you more reflective [Music] like a vision. Oh, sorry. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] And this is the Geian district, the old heart of Kyoto. [Music] on the train. Here we are. [Music] [Applause] [Music] How many have I got with me? Oh, I think you have all six of us, James. Yeah, we haven’t yet. No, we haven’t fractured yet and gone our own ways. Into the darkness we go. [Music] Look at that fish. [Music] Very [Applause] [Music] good. [Music] Well done, fellas. So, so hot. Yeah. [Music] Okay. So, at 10 8 we found our way back to the cruise terminal. What did that? So, that’s an 8h hour shore excursion that we did selfguided. Yeah. 9 because we left the ship at 11:00 a.m. Yeah. 11:00 a.m. Three chains. Three trains on the outbound, four on the back. got back at 10 8 and pretty much ticked off everything we planned to do in Kyoto. It was great apart from the rain storm. In our next video, we will spend the day on Osaka, visit Hashima, and cross the Sea of Japan to Basan in South Korea. [Music] [Applause] [Music]

We did a 12 day cruise around Japan on the Celebrity Millennium.
00:00 Yokohama
02:00 Boarding and cabin
05:30 Sail away
06:54 Shimizu
14:20 Kyoto

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