Aomori, Japan - Day 9

 Friday, June 20th 2025

This morning we met up at the dining room at 7 AM to get ready for our day in Aomori. Our usual morning wait staff took good care of us, asking if we would like our usual drinks, etc. 

Then we headed down through the Grand Plaza area and off the ship. It was very quick today. No lines. No customs. Since none of the taxis could fit all six of us (and each of them cost about four times as much as the taxis we had used on Korea) we started a fifteen minute walk to the train station. 

About halfway there Dad was having trouble with his shoe, and was experiencing pain up his calf and into his back. He decided to stay behind today and rest up so he will be doing better for Disney later on in our trip. We tried to call him a taxi, but his app wasn’t set up for it. So Dad turned back toward the ship, with many well wishes from the rest of us. 

We continued on to the train station and looked for where to get tickets to the correct stop. We were able to get tickets, round trip, from an attendant in the ticket booth. It was cash only, so Dylan (who has been good about carrying cash) stepped in and paid. When we made it down to the platform, we found we had just missed the train, and would unfortunately have an hour wait for the next one. 

We had not looked closely at the itinerary that ChatGPT had put out (just got the gist of what we wanted to do), nor had we studied the train tables ahead of time. We travel without much stress, but sometimes figuring it out along the way means we encounter inconveniences or don’t do things in the most efficient way possible. Ah well. We all chose various activities on our phones, and Desmond listened to an audiobook, while we waited.  Fortunately, we planned for ample time in this port for the activities we wanted to do (not cramming too much into our plan) so this delay of game doesn’t cost us much. 

We rode the train six stops and then had a very short walk (maybe five minutes or so) to the aquarium. The aquarium was very reasonably priced (only $30-something for the five of us). As such, I was not expecting very many exhibits. But I was pleasantly surprised!  

We were met immediately upon entering with very large swimming turtles, then frogs, fish of all kinds (some I’d never seen before), jelly fish, and then garden eels. 

These little eels were slender, like the size of my pinky. Their tails were buried down in the sand and about six inches or so stood up straight into the water looking for tidbits to eat. I felt that they were most likely the source material for Ursula’s garden of “poor unfortunate souls.” Bryan agreed, and yet thought they were “great.” 

Next up were the seals.  As we were enjoying the seals, groups of preschoolers can running in pointing and exclaiming loudly in Japanese. As we had seen in Yokohama, these children also had all matching hats as part of the group. Children’s entrance to the aquarium is free, so it explains why we saw so many there. For me it was value-added to see them running around enjoying themselves. 

And then there were penguins. Dylan was enthusiastic about each new exhibit, and said he’d forgotten how much he enjoys an aquarium. That he hadn’t been to one since maybe middle school. We all agreed as we were going through that we were having a wonderful time. And way beyond the value of the amount we paid for the tickets. (That’s always a win!) 

Finally, we made it to the dolphin show area. The next show was not for an hour. However, we went to the dolphin exhibit and saw two dolphins playing with yellow plastic rings. It looked like they were probably engaging in play behaviors and tricks that have been reinforced for the show. So we saw them splashing with their tails, throwing water up in the air and catching it in their mouths, transferring the rings around between the two of them using mouth, fins, and tail. It was fun to watch. 

Admittedly, some of the enclosures were smaller than seemed best for the animals. However, we did enjoy ourselves and I think the benefit of young people seeing the animals and becoming interested in them will lead to better outcomes for animals in the future. 

After enjoying the aquarium, we walked back to the train station, and rode it back to where we started.  From there, we set about looking for lunch.  We were able to find a restaurant with rice bowls with meat on top that looked tasty.  We were impressively decisive, and chose after only looking at a few options.

While ordering, we were told that the meal was a set, and the person taking our order pointed to three tiny little pictures of sides for us to choose from.  I couldn’t tell what they were.  I asked in Japanese what they were, and she was able to explain that one was salad, the second was kimchi, and I didn’t know the word for the third option.  We each took turns taking our best guess at what we would want.  She was very patient with us.  

Then she handed us a restaurant-style pager, which would indicate when our meal was ready to pick up from the window.  When it vibrated, we went up and got the trays with our food on it.  After we were done eating, we returned the trays to the kitchen through another window.

The food was tasty and filling.  I had the thinnest slices of beef I’d ever seen sitting on top of my rice.  The sauce on it was really yummy.  The soup it came with was okay.  The salad would have been better if I was confident that I could eat the salad dressing they gave me.  But when we translated the words on the package it mentioned “creamy” and it wasn’t worth the risk.  All in all our meals were filling and pretty good.

I am officially adding “What is it?  to the list of phrases to memorize before visiting a new country.  It has proven quite useful.

We continued down the street.  Dylan paid cash for an apple from a market along the street, and was not disappointed when he tasted it.  We continued on a little ways and visited a gelato place.  I was able to tell the woman at the counter in Japanese that because of an allergy, I cannot eat milk.  She nodded in understanding and used her two index fingers to make an X, and then pointed out three fruit sorbettos that would be safe for me.  I chose to get a double so that I could try both of the apple flavors, because I was intrigued, and there were no tastes available.  It was refreshing and sweet, with little bits of peel proving that it had indeed been made with real apples.

At this point we decided we weren’t really worried about seeing the temple with the big Buddha in it, one way or the other. As such, we walked along the shops on the way back to the ship, and boarded again.  

We enjoyed a low-key afternoon.  Desmond did some swimming with his Nonnie and G.B.  I spent time uploading way too many pictures of cake to the blog from yesterday - ha!  And then we wandered out to the promenade and saw that many people were lined up to watch the sail away.  This surprised me, as I thought that was only something people did for the initial sail away of the cruise.  But sure enough, there were people waving flags and playing music from the shore as we sailed away.

Next it was time for dinner.  I had the duck with a beautiful, rich Madeira sauce to start.  It was delicious.  Next came the land and sea (surf and turf) meal.  Lobster and steak.  And I even got mashed potatoes!  (I think this may be the first time I’ve ever been served mashed potatoes on a cruise, so that was exciting.)

At the end of the meal, the wait staff came over with a special cake for my mom and dad, and a banner wishing them a happy anniversary (it’s technically tomorrow, but they are celebrating today, because we weren’t sure we had dinner in the dining room tomorrow when they booked it).  They sang two rousing rounds of “happy anniversary.”  They are celebrating 45 years of marriage.  

After dinner Bryan, Dylan and I walked the promenade as we sailed through the Tsugaru Strait.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The islands were straight out from the side of the ship on either side, so no matter which side of the boat we were walking on it was scenic.  There was mist at the base of the land, where it met the sea, so it all looked subdued and faintly magical. It made for a beautiful end to a really pleasant day in Aomori. 

This is the last port of call for this cruise. Tomorrow is an at sea day, and then we will disembark back at Yokohama and continue our trip from there.  

It has been interesting some of the changes they have made to this ship to gear it more towards being a truly Japanese cruise. The food is the most obvious difference, but there is also a Japanese bath area, the use of Japanese (in addition to English) all throughout the ship, and some other subtle differences. It has been great cruising around Japan, and I would happily do it again sometime.