Around In Osaka and Then The Wait!

At The Castle

Today proved to be long and tiring. We went ashore around 9:30 and did not get back on the ship until 7:30. We toured Osaka with 2 Canadian women who we met at the airport.

Our first stop was Osaka Castle which dates back to the 15^th century. To get there we needed to take the subway and we did have some help buying the ticket. Because Osaka is a large city, you pay for the distance that you actually travel. The castle is the centrepiece of a large park in the middle of Osaka. The castle itself is surrounded by a wide moat. Being Sunday it was very crowded. The inside presented a history of the castle and the various rulers but what was missing were the rooms decorated in period furnishings.

Downtown

After wandering for a few hours, we headed by subway for the center of Osaka. The downtown area was very alive with large crowds. More wandering until we finally stopped for lunch and a beer. We did not order the octopus balls this time although we did see them being made. Instead we found a Japanese restaurant where we could sit and enjoy the lunch. After that we navigated the 2 subway lines back to the ship where we stopped to ride the “world's largest wheel”. The wait was nearly an hour for the 20 minute.

     The worse part of the day was getting back on ship. Because we are leaving Japan, we needed to clear immigration. This time it had to be done face to face. However they would not do that until every single passenger was off the ship. You can imaging what it must be like to get every single person to do something like that. It was suppose to start at 4 but apparently not every one left on time. The result was that 2600 people had to wait for the few and that took until after 5 because not everyone left “on time”. The backup was very long, worse that the lines at Disneyland! The few who were tardy got back on the ship immediately but we waited an hour for immigration. In addition the ship only had 1 gangway in operation and everyone needed to be checked back into the ship and have their goods scanned. Princess could have opened a second gangway. They had 2 working in the morning. In all it took about 2 hours from start to finish. Needless to say there were many unhappy campers. We did not finally get onboard until about 7:30 which made for a very long day. It was another very tiring day. On this trip we need to do the same in Busan, then again in Japan when back into Japan and finally another face to face to leave Japan. I hope that the next 3 times we do this it moves a bit better. Tomorrow is a sea day and we are both looking forward to that! ride.