Konnichiwa - Japan Part I (Tokyo)

Japan, how do I love thee, let me count the ways....

Those of you following my blog have hopefully realized by now that my goal is to be very frank and candid about my experiences visiting different parts of the world. I simply adored Italy, was rather disappointed by Paris, felt at home in the French countryside, enjoyed England very much, was pleasantly surprised by San Francisco and Yosemite, and felt highly taken advantage of in Alaska. After such a let-down in Alaska, my husband and I took an entire year off of traveling by ourselves. We spent two of our vacation weeks in 2011 traveling with our families instead. We traveled to Las Vegas with my husband's parents, brother, and nieces, and then to Disney World in Orlando with my parents, sisters, their future husbands, and some aunts, uncles and cousins. In the fall of 2011, almost full year after Alaska, we started thinking about where else in the world we wanted to visit. Europe fell off the list for the time being as we started considering more exotic destinations like Egypt, Morocco, Fiji, and Asia. Political and social unrest kept us from Northern Africa for the time being, so we started looking more seriously at Asia. Immediately we circled around Japan. We already liked the Japanese things we could experience in America like sushi, Anime, Square Enix video games like the Final Fantasy collection, etc., and I was only too excited to visit historical sites like Hiroshima and all of the ancient Japanese temples. 

Not wasting any time, we started looking at the calendar for the best times of year to visit. One thing that stood out to us immediately was cherry blossom season. Having previously experience the mania that is the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC, we knew that the Japanese cherry trees wouldn't be more beautiful anywhere else than in Japan itself. Now the difficult part: figuring out the timing of the blossoms. Like the USA, Japan had websites that tried to predict the peak bloom dates for their cherry trees, but you can never rely on that completely. We booked our trip around the best dates that we could and hoped for the best. One thing we learned quickly while planning, Japan is expensive! OMG guys, Japan is SOOOOO expensive. I've said before that I always start with a $10,000 budget for any international, 2 week trip. After seeing how expensive the hotels were and the transportation sticker shock, I bumped my budget up to $11,000. I am very pleased to report that, however, that we successfully spent to amazing weeks in Japan for just over $8,000 which is similar to almost all of our 2 week trips.  Here is the breakdown of what we budgeted vs. what we spent.

                          Budget Actuals

Flight $2,500 $2,162.20

Hotel $3,000 $2,437.13

Food $1,500 $484.42

Activities $1,200 $243.14

Souvenirs $500 $450.13

Transportation  $1,300 $1,373.38

Misc. $1,000 $871.29

Total $11,000 $8,021.68

For more details on how I get create my budget in the first place, check out one of my earlier blogs: Planning Your Budget: Domestic vs. Foreign Travel. The long and the short of it is that Japanese hotels and transportation were wildly more expensive than we ever thought, but while there, we unintentionally ate very cheaply. The activities we did also ended up being much cheaper than we planned. But more on that later. 

In advance of our trip, we booked our flights, all of our hotels, and we purchased our Japan Rail (JR) Passes. The Japanese drive on the opposite side of the road than the United States (same as the UK) and many tourist books and websites cautioned us against driving. If we ever go back, we might consider driving to visit the more remote parts of the country, but for our first adventure, we got everywhere we needed to go with the amazing Japanese high speed train system called the Shinkansen. All of our hotels were within walking distance to a major train station, and the JR passes took us everywhere we wanted to go. 

There were several flight options we could have taken. United Airlines and All Nippon Airlines both offered 1 nonstop flight per day from Washington DC to Tokyo/Narita, but they were very pricey. We instead opted for an American Airlines flight with a connection in Dallas/Fort Worth. The flight from Washington to Tokyo is a horrid 13-14 hours (which we ended up doing in 2015 as part of our 20 hour flight from Washington to Bangkok), but from Dallas, it was only about 10 hours. Rest assured, 10 hours on a plane is still pretty lousy, but surprisingly, the time passed quickly. We slept for the first half of the flight in our best attempt to adjust to the time change as early as we could. Our flight from Washington left at 6AM on a Wednesday morning, and we landed at the Tokyo/Narita airport at 1:30PM on Thursday afternoon. It sucks that traveling to the other side of the world makes you lose an entire day. At least you recover that day (sort of) on the way home. 

The Tokyo/Narita airport is a good bit of distance away from Tokyo itself. Our first order of business in the airport after landing and clearing customs was to take our voucher for the JR passes and pick up the cards that would be our lifeline for the next two weeks. I'm not going to lie. The JR passes are crazy expensive, and I mean cra-cra expensive. (We're talking $600/each.) BUT, the ease of travel we got from having them was nothing short of fantastic. The JR passes mean that we could travel on any sort of JR transportation line (city subways, intercity high speed trains, etc) without any sort of additional fees. We didn't have to stand in any lines at a subway station for tickets, and we could go to any ticket counter we wanted, flash our JR passes, and immediately go through. When it came to traveling between cities, we showed them our valid JR passes, and we could get timed tickets for any outbound train with assigned seats. I can't gush enough over how convenient these passes were. Expensive? Yes! Worth it? OMG, yes! Yes! Yes! 1,000 times yes! (And just a quick side note. I intend to talk lots more about how amazingly friendly and honest the Japanese people are. My first example is the fact that one day, we DROPPED one of our precious JR passes. This golden ticket that gave us unlimited transportation for the entire duration of our visit could have been gone in a moment. Had we been in NYC or really any major metropolitan city outside of Japan, we never would have seen it again. Instead, a very kind and honest Japanese person turned it in, and we got it back.)

Yikes!  This blog post has already gotten way too long, and so far we haven't even left the airport. So, after we got our JR passes, we hit the ATM for Yen, and found the Narita Express which is the high speed train that takes you from the airport to Tokyo Station. In just over 50 minutes, we found ourselves in the heart of Tokyo in their famous, historic Tokyo Station. The closest comparison we have in the United States to Tokyo Station would be Grand Central Station in NYC. In terms of sheer size, Tokyo Station is its own little city. With a plethora of restaurants, shops, and platforms for different types of transportation, one could very easily get lost (an we did...often). Our Tokyo hotel: the Hotel Metropolitan Marunouchi, had an entrance just outside Tokyo Station. The problem? There were lots of exits out of Tokyo Station. Which one was ours? After wandering around like a mouse in a maze, we finally found the right exit, and cemented its location into our brains. You can read more about this hotel in my Trip Advisor review. Bottom line, it was expensive, tiny and perfect! We even recommended it to friends who stayed there a few months ago. They praised it highly as well! 

After checking into our hotel, we washed off the airplane scum, and ventured out to enjoy our first evening in Tokyo. We took the Yamanote circle line to the Akihabara station. This place gave us our first taste of the modern/technology side of Japan. This neighborhood was full of electronics stores selling everything from video games and gaming systems to the tiniest electronic parts where you could build/repair your own computer. We got our first authentic Japanese dinner from a ramen restaurant and called it a day.

Akihabara, Tokyo

Our tiny room at the Hotel Metropolitan Marunouchi hotel

Our view from our Tokyo hotel at night! Amazing!

After a good night sleep, we woke up bright and early for our only truly full day in Tokyo. Our first stop was to visit the Imperial Gardens which was just a short walk from our hotel. Unfortunately, the Imperial Gardens are closed on Fridays. Oops. Well this threw a slight wrench in the day because it was only 6:30AM and most things didn't open for quite some time. But we didn't let that get us down. We walked back to Tokyo Station and took the train to Ueno Station. Ueno Park is famous in Tokyo for having a street lined with cherry trees and also being the home of many different sorts of museum (history, science, etc.) in addition to a wildly popular zoo. When we got there, of course, everything was still closed and the park was pretty deserted. Why, you ask? Well, see for yourself....

Ueno Park & Cherry Trees...do you see any blossoms? 

How about now? I see 1 tree in bloom. The others? Nothing...

Looks like we got to Tokyo too early for the cherry blossoms. Unlike Washington DC where the cherry trees bloomed early that year, it was an unseasonably cold winter in Japan, and the trees were all slightly behind schedule. 

Ok, so far we went to the Imperial Gardens that were closed, Ueno Park without cherry blossoms, and its still too early for things to be open. Hmm...not the best start to our first day. But determined not to get discouraged, we looked down our list of things to do and decided to walk for about a mile to the neighborhood of Asakusa to the Senso'ji Temple (free entry). It was opened when we got there, but the pedestrian street that led to the temple lined with shops on either side, were all closed still. Honestly, that didn't bother us. They looked like a bunch of trinket and junk shops which I happily skipped. The temple was lovely and smelled of incense. The morning was cloudy, so my pictures didn't turn out too well. 

Senso'ji Temple - ancient Buddhist Temple

From the Senso'ji Temple, we backtracked to Ueno Park now that things were starting to open up. We went to the Tokyo National Museum (about $15 for 2) for about 1-2 hours and learned a great deal about Japanese history. Both my husband and I commented on the fact that throughout all of our years of schooling, we never studied Japanese or Chinese history. I loved seeing all of the artifacts from the different periods in history and appreciated all of the English translations. 

From Ueno Park, we headed over to one of the most famous historical sites in all of Tokyo: the Meiji Shrine. This Shinto shrine is enormous and the grounds are very extensive. In the court yard in front of the shrine, we saw this traditional wedding processional coming through. It would be the first of several weddings we saw throughout our trip. 

Wedding at Meiji Shrine

After the visiting the shrine, we paid extra money (Y1000 or about $13.00) to visit an Iris and Azalea garden near Meiji, but since neither were in bloom, the garden looked rather barren. If you're not visiting during the right time of year to catch these flowers, you can skip this. Otherwise, I'm sure it would have been lovely. 

From the gardens near Meiji, we hopped back on the Yamanote circle line to Harajuku and home of the Tokyo Tower (aka Japan's version of a mini Eiffel Tower). We took the elevator up to the observation deck for about $10/pp and enjoyed the views of this massive, sprawling city. As the sun reached mid-late afternoon, we set out for Odieba, a small island in Tokyo that can best be likened to Coney Island without the amusement park rides. This fun-house island is filled with shops, restaurants, arcades, and other forms of entertainment. 

Tokyo Tower &  Zojoji Temple

The monorail to Odieba is not on the JR pass, so we had to purchase round trip tickets for that (about $16 for 2). Having somehow gotten ramen for two meals in a row, I was determined to find something else that I liked eating. We found a restaurant with stunning views of the rainbow bridge and the setting sun behind Tokyo. We soon came to realize that most Japanese restaurants had plastic food displays of what they served or pictures of their food in the menus. We found this very handy since we didn't speak any Japanese beyond hello, goodbye, and thank you.  This evening, we enjoyed ourselves some miso soup and shrimp tempura.

Shrimp tempura dinner. Don't ask what the shrimp tails are sitting on!

Odieba - views of the Rainbow Bridge and the miniature Statue of Liberty. 

After dinner, we walked around the boardwalk-type island for a little while, and then headed back to our hotel. 

Up early again the next morning since we had limited time left in Tokyo, we wanted to make sure we were able to visit the Imperial Gardens. This time, they were open, and we really enjoy our time there. Most of trees didn't have blooms or even leaves on them, but the bonsai trees, bamboo groves, and other things were all very beautiful. 

Guard tower near the imperial palace

Imperial Gardens

A single flowering tree in the Imperial Gardens

After the Imperial Gardens, we hopped back on our favorite train line, the green Yamanote circle line and took it to the Shinjuku station. From there we walked about 15 minutes it what must have been the single windiest day I've ever experienced in my life. It wasn't windy in the gardens, but somehow on the train ride from Tokyo Station to Shinjuku, the weather shifted and the winds went nuts. The walk shouldn't have taken us 15 minutes but we had to fight every single step as we walked down the street. Our mission? Find the Square Enix store. Square Enix is the merged video game brand that created the legendary Final Fantasy franchise and the Dragon Warrior/Quest games. The Square Enix store sold games (which we couldn't buy due to USA/Japan console compatibility issues) but we did enjoy seeing all of the memorabilia and figurines that they sold. For anyone who played Dragon Warrior/Quest knows that one of the cutest monsters in the game are slimes. The Square Enix store sold stuff slimes, slime key chains, slime candy, etc. I bought some slime stickers for my photo album, and Justin bought a music CD (surprisingly compatible) of Final Fantasy orchestrations. 

Shinjuku, Tokyo

We walked back toward Shinjuku station and reluctantly ate lunch at McDonalds. This experience was...different. For as obsessed as we are in the United States with white meat chicken, Asia serves mostly dark meat chicken. It's like the chicken industry ships the white meat to the USA and ships the dark meat to Asia. Haha! At McDonalds, I got chicken selects. Not only were they dark meat, but they still had the skin on them...underneath the breading. Beyond gross! We also ordered an "American Cherry Shake." Is this the Japanese think Americans like? Imagine a cherry popsicle melted and mixed into a vanilla shake. Not terrible, but certainly not something you would find at any McDonalds in America. The whole experience made us chuckle even though we left McDonalds still kinda hungry. 

But we had no time to waste. Our time in Tokyo had come to an end, and we had to make our way to our next destination: Kyoto.

We went back to the hotel who had stored our bags for us since check-out, make our through Tokyo Station to the Shinkansen platform. And using the tickets that we got with our JR pass, we boarded our train for the 3 hour ride to Kyoto. 

Shinkansen Train Platform

Getting to Kyoto was easy. Finding our hotel and navigating Kyoto was a little trickier. More on that next time. If you made it to the end of this blog post, I heartily thank you...and apologize for babbling on so much! After a month hiatus from blogging, I feel it only fitting to hit you all with a doozy of a post. Furthermore, I wanted to thank you all for your kind words of encouragement. I am so touched when I see some of you and one of the first things you mention to me is how much you're enjoying my blog. I appreciate it more than I can say!! 

For the next blog, please click HERE. 

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Alaska Cruising Part IV (Skagway, Glacier Bay, & Anchorage)

Our final shore stop took us to the old Yukon port town of Skagway. We were in this port until 8:30 in the evening, so we made sure to make the best of our time. Instead of being suckered into spending even more time and money in the plethora of jewelry stores, we booked 2 guided excursions that day. Our first activity was at a dogsled and musher's camp. Here a group of racing snow dogs led us around in a golf cart which helps the pups keep active during the summer months when there's no snow for pulling sleds. They told about the training the dogs undergo for racing and how most dogs these days are mixed breeds of both husky and grey hound to produce the fastest cold weather racers.   

Here are the pups leading our cart

They could even point out to us which dogs were related and how long it takes them to move up the doggie race chain. The doggie leaders are at the front and the youngest and newest dogs were at the back. They were such happy and playful dogs. The minute they got harnessed up, they just wanted to start running.

After the ride, they showed us all over the camp. I really appreciated seeing where the dogs lived and how they're cared for. We also got to meet two litters of puppies. They had 6 week old pups and 9 week old pups. So adorable! Then, we loaded back into the van and departed back to the cruise ship. It took us about an hour to drive from the port out to the musher camp. It was a shame that we had to waste a full hour driving all the way back because our afternoon excursion took us right back to the same location. The drive was at least scenic albeit repetitive. 

The musher camp morning excursion went from about 8AM-11AM and cost $250 for the two of us. I still shake my head at the cost of these excursions. Our afternoon activity didn't call for us until 1:00, so after a quick lunch on the boat (can you guess where? Our favorite...the 24 hour buffet) we walked around the town a little bit. Between Ketchikan and Skagway, Skagway seemed more established. We enjoyed learning about the history of the place from our drivers.

"downtown" Skagway

Yukon Express

At 1:00, we met our driver who took us the 1-1.5 hours back out to the wilderness for our afternoon adventure of horseback riding. The last time we went horseback riding was on our trip to Yosemite National Park in California. We had such a great experience, that we were glad they had a horseback riding opportunity on the cruise. For the bargain price of $338 for two people, we enjoyed an hour long trail ride through some beautiful forests and plains.

Meeting our horses and guide

Some of the views we saw on horseback

Like in Juneau where we contacted the actual helicopter company to book our glacier experience directly through them, we tried to do the same thing for our horseback ride. Instead of offering us a lower rate, they flat out told us that the cruise ship business is their livelihood. If they give us a discount and undercut the cruise ship, they would be black listed by the cruise ships and go out of business. It was such a shame to hear this.

On the ride back to the cruise ship after horseback riding, the other folks with us asked to be dropped off at other points in the town. After they did that, my husband and I ended up being alone in the van with our local driver. We started asking her all sorts of questions about the cruising industry and about the local people who lived in Skagway. I said above that Skagway seemed like much more of an established town. We drove through neighborhoods and passed a school. Ketchikan was literally just a single street or two of shops. We never saw any other sign of civilization. Still, Skagway had the same jewelry store lined streets, and we frankly asked our driver what the deal was. She laughed and said, "I could probably get fired for telling you this, but the cruise ships all own the jewelry stores." Of course! Now it made so much sense! The lectures during our first day at sea...it all became clear. Then she went on to say that although all of the cruise ships are operated by different companies, the ships themselves are mostly owned by a single parent company, so between the multiple cruise lines, they all share in the same proceeds from cruisers who shop at these stores. These stores are the same as those in the various Caribbean ports though the island cruisers have more options for spending their time outside of the excursions planned by the ships. I said before that the ships have corned the Alaska cruising market, and now that we knew why, we were pretty disgusted with the whole industry.

The next two days were "scenic" cruising days. Our first scenic cruising day was spent in Glacier Bay, and the second day was spent in the College Fjord. These two days, I was especially glad we had a balcony room. The cruise ship had set up lounge chairs with blankets and binoculars on one of the upper decks, and we could reserve them for the two days of scenic cruising...for a modest fee, of course. Instead, we pulled our comforter off the bed and wrapped it around us as we sat on our balcony watching the glaciers go by.

I will say this about our two scenic cruising days. They were horribly boring. After seeing the Mendenhall glacier in Juneau, all of the other glaciers we saw were less impressive. And we spent the next two days seeing glacier after glacier after glacier. While glaciers are neat, and I've never seen a glacier since then...I was glaciered out by the time we were done. On our last day of scenic cruising, we even went to an art auction on the ship because we were so bored. That's not to say we didn't enjoy some of it. We did spend several hours in our cabin each day watching the scenery go by, but each day we were only in glacier-viewing range for a short amount of time. The rest of the day was just open water. Here are some of the things we saw on those two days.

Glacier

Another glacier

a birdie squabble on a floating iceberg that amused us for a while

Harvard Glacier in the College Fjord

more College Fjord glaciers

Our last day of vacation finally arrived. We sailed from Vancouver up to Anchorage. We disembarked at 9:30AM and had a 5PM flight. The cruise port dropped us off a little bit of a distance from the airport, so we signed up for one last shore excursion that also included our airport transfer.

For $278/for two we signed up for the Portage Glacier Cruise & Wildlife Center. When we signed up for these shore excursions a few months before the trip, how could we have known how sick of glaciers we would be by that point? I'm not even going to bother showing you a picture of the Portage  Glacier. Look up. It looks a lot like those. Haha.

I did thoroughly enjoy the Wildlife Center, however. The Wildlife Center rescues animals who are orphaned or injured. They have a multi-thousand acre reserve where they can still let the animals life without a cage. There were definite barriers protecting us from this brown bear, but I appreciated how well they were cared for.

Rescued grizzly bear who had been orphaned at birth

From the Wildlife Center, we took the scenic route to the airport and passed a migrating bunch of beluga whales. Arriving at the airport in plenty of time for our 5pm flight, we found some over-priced airport food for dinner, and before too long, took off on our red-eye flight back to the East Coast. We landed at 6AM and faced a full day of jet lag. 

Well friends, I hope you enjoyed my Alaskan adventures. Even if cruising wasn't for us, lots of people enjoy this method of traveling. You get to cover a great bit of ground without worrying about transportation. Although after Alaska, I swore I would never take another cruise again, there are cruises out there that sound very appealing to me like a cruise that hops between the islands of Hawaii, or one that goes between Greek Islands and Turkey. Maybe some day I'll take what I've learned from our cruise to Alaska and turn it into more rewarding cruise experience.

This isn't to say that all Alaska cruising is bad or that even Princess Cruising is bad. Princess simply caters to an older crowd, and we felt that the ship lacked many entertaining things to do. My in-laws took my two nieces on a Disney Cruise to Alaska and simply raved about it. They said there were tons of things to do on the ship for both the kids and adults. Understand that the cruise ships have an ulterior motive for taking you to certain ports of call, and as long as you go knowing about their hidden agenda, you're likely to have a better time than we did. 

So, after spending a few weeks in the United States going to San Francisco, Yosemite, Seattle, and Alaska, I'll be heading to the Far East for my next blog segment. In 2012, my husband and I spent two absolutely incredible weeks touring the island of Japan. If you think you're too timid of a traveler for an adventure like Japan, read my posts. If I can do it...so can you!!

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Alaska Cruising III (Juneau)

After a strange day in the tiny port town of Ketchikan, we weren't sure what to expect in Juneau. We thought we knew one thing for certain, being the capital, surely it would be larger. To a certain extent, it was most definitely larger, though calling it a city is not even slightly accurate. In Ketchikan we were only there until 2pm, but in Juneau we had until 9pm.

Our plan for the day was to take an early morning helicopter up to the Mendenhall Glacier and land on it. You're only in Alaska once (or in my husband's case, twice) so we wanted to have really unique experiences. We've taken helicopter rides before (into the Grand Canyon for one which was amazing!) but neither one of us had ever actually landed on a glacier. Unfortunately, to have an experience like this through the cruise ship shore excursions would have costed us $800 for two people. Rather than just accepting this, we had to at least look into other options. In Ketchikan, I can understand not having other things to do because it took you less than 5 minutes to walk the entire town, but Juneau got more tourists than just the cruisers. This was absolutely the right thing to do. We were able to find a helicopter company that offered us the same package as the cruise ship but for only $518 instead of $800.

We were supposed to take the first helicopter of the day up to the glacier around 8AM, but they called us (Juneau is in the USA, so I had normal cell phone reception on shore) to say that the fog was too heavy that morning, and they were bumping us to the 11AM flight. It wasn't a big deal. We were in Juneau all day, and the only other plan we had was to do some hiking up Mt. Roberts. The only problem was that it about 7:30 in the morning, and we had about 3 hours to kill. That's when we looked around and saw lots of "discount" tour guides offering rides out to the glacier for cheap. We should have figured that companies got business from cruisers who didn't book excursions through the ship but still wanted fun things to do.  The white school bus in the middle of the picture below offered to take us to and from Mendenhall Glacier for $8.00/each. SOLD!

Our driver and "guide" out to the glacier

The center bus was our transportation out to the glacier

The helicopter ride would take us to the top and land on the glacier, but other than that, we didn't really have any plans to see the glacier from the ground. So, we hopped on the shady white school bus and rode out to the Mendenhall visitor center. 

Who's that?? ;)

As soon as we arrived at the visitor center, the driver told us our return options. We timed our visit accordingly to make sure we were back in time to catch our ride to the heliport. We browsed the visitor center, walked out to the water, walked over to the waterfall and then back to the bus.

The only problem with the 11:00 helicopter flight was that it didn't really give us any time for lunch. So as soon as we got back from the glacier and before we had to meet the helicopter, we quickly bolted back onto the cruise ship and grabbed some items from our room-service continental breakfast. Then on the bus to the heliport, I munched on some fruit loops.

The helicopter ride and glacier walk was amazing and worth every penny, though I'm glad we were able to save $300 by booking it directly through the helicopter company and not through the cruise ship. Before we took off, they gave us these drawstring black booties that fit on over our own shoes. These had thick staples on the bottom of them that stuck out and make it so we didn't slip while walking on the glacial ice.

Helicopter landing on Mendenhall Glacier

When we got to the top of the glacier we immediately noticed a sharp temperature drop. We knew to pack hats and gloves and were now very glad for that. A guide met us right away and explained some interesting facts about the glacier. We then embarked on a short glacier trek seeing deep glacial crevasses and other unique ice formations.

Walking around on the glacier

You can note the difference in the weather from when the day started. In the picture at the top the ground was wet and the sky cloudy. Here, you can see how the fog went away, and the day was clearing up nicely. One of the coolest things on top of the glacier were the rivers. The guide said that there was no water more pure, so we all took our hands out of our warm gloves and dipped them into the icy water for a cool sip. (Have you ever eaten snow? Same taste. Haha!)

Pure glacial river that runs through the middle of the ice

After we got back from the helicopter adventure, we found our way to the Mt. Roberts tram. The tram takes you up to the top of Mt. Roberts where you can then hike around on different trails. Fortunately, no dangerous wildlife threatened our visit and we enjoyed hiking for a couple of hours. The only animals we saw were a wolves in a pack off in the distance. We could only see specks with our naked eyes, but we packed binoculars and my camera with a 12x zoom lens, so we were able to see them a little better with some eye enhancement.

Hiking on the trail at Mt. Roberts

We walked through the town of Juneau a bit after descending the mountain on the tram, and recognized many of the same "Tanzanite International" stores that we saw in Ketchikan. We rolled our eyes and realized that anytime crooks can scam tourists, they'll do it. Although we were in the Juneau port until 9PM that evening, we were pretty tired from a long, active day. We enjoyed a lovely dinner in the dining room, whatever entertainment happened to be playing that night, and then into bed for us.

The last port of call Skagway was the next day. It's a shame that all three ports of call were bing, bang, boom. It would have been nice to have a day in-between Juneau and Skagway instead of two scenic cruising days at the end, but the geography of the region is not the fault of the cruise line.

Read about the end of my trip HERE.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Alaska Cruising Part II (Day at Sea & Ketchikan)

The Island Princess cruise ship apart from being a relatively boring ship as cruise ships go (no water slides or movies under the stars or really anything fun), certainly never let anyone go hungry. In the cruise pack that we got before our departure, they instructed us to determine if we wanted to do "traditional" dining or "flexible" dining. Traditional dining is the experience everyone thinks of when cruising. You're seated at a table with 8 or 10 others with the same dining time, the same dining companions and the same wait staff each evening. With flexible dining, you used the other dining room on a first come, first served basis at the timing and party size of your choosing. In addition to the two dining rooms, they had the 24-hour buffet, 24-hour complimentary room service (which was great for breakfast), and 3 specialty restaurants that weren't complementary. There were two pools side by side; one was supposedly indoor while the other was outdoor. They both had glass enclosures around them, but the "outdoor" pool had no glass ceiling. Toward the upper decks they had shuffleboard, a gym, a spa and basketball with a casino, reading room, lecture rooms, and shops down below. Spa treatments were extremely overpriced and the exercise classes at the gym were also extra. Outdoor activities on the ship were out because it was Alaska...and it was cold...really really cold! You would think that in August, the temperatures would be mild, and I suppose they were. The daily temps were in the upper 50s or lower 60s, but coming from hot and humid summer temps along the mid-Atlantic seaboard, the sudden shock of 40-60 degree weather was too chilly for us. 

The ship had more activities in the evening. Twice during the week they had a pretty good comedian, and twice during the week they had performers do a pop/broadway medley show. Other evenings one could enjoy some karaoke or night club-like dancing. I even tried my hand at Princess Idol, though I sadly didn't make it past the first round. Haha! 

Our first day on the ship was a full day at sea. The waters were a little choppy, so I was glad to have taken bonine immediately upon waking. My husband and I tried to have a plan for the day so that we wouldn't be bored, though the daily activities didn't really sound all that exciting. For breakfast, you had 3 options: the traditional or flexible dining rooms with a fancier, sit down breakfast, the 24 hour buffet which had a good assortment of hot and cold breakfast options, and an in-room continental breakfast delivery. When we first arrived we gave a breakfast card to our room "attendant" who was to be our personal "guy" the whole week. The card had our selection of juices, bagels, cereals, fruit, etc. Then every morning, the breakfast would be delivered to our room. This came in so handy. In many cases we still went to the 24-hour buffet for breakfast, but I enjoyed having some food options in our room throughout the day. 

After breakfast on our day at sea, we went to the gym for a run. There were a lot of people there (the gym got less and less crowded throughout the week) on that first day, but we were still able to get 2 side by side treadmills with a view of the ocean. We ran for 45-60 minutes and then made our way to the "indoor" pool for a refreshing swim. I noted above that it was cold. And cold it most certainly was, but the pools were heated and the glass enclosure radiated heat from the sun, so it was plenty warm enough for a dip. We ate lunch at the 24-hour buffet (we ate there a lot!) and then looked at the different afternoon activities. One activity that stood out to me was a lecture about the different precious stones that are native to Alaska. I always enjoy buying jewelry when we travel as a souvenir, so this lecture was right up my alley. Little did I know that the entire thing would be sales pitch for diamonds and investment tanzanite more so than stones native to Alaska, and the next day I would learn why. 

We then walked around the ship for a while, shopped a bit in the shops below deck, and made a reservation for dinner in the dining room. The food in the dining room was amazing! We were able to get a table for 2, but the "flexible" dining room was so crowded and cramped that although we were at a table for 2, there was barely enough room to walk between our table and the other tables for 2 surrounding us. That night we enjoyed one of the evening performances, and walked around the ship some more. I was glad we only had one day at sea. I would get very bored on the ship if we had more than one day. The two days of scenic cruising at the end would be much more exciting, right? Oh gosh...I really hope so!! 

The next morning would be the day of our first port of call: Ketchikan. We approached the port right at dawn, and I was able to capture this picture. 

Our arrival at Ketchikan

Before setting sail, we had pre-registered for all of our shore excursions. This is where we suffered from severe sticker shock. The activities, were all obscenely expensive, beyond the point of reason. Had we not been on a cruise with limited options for how to spend our time in the ports, I would have (and still did to some extent) balked at the prices.

In Ketchikan, we signed up for the Bear Country & Wildlife Expedition. It was only a 3.5 hour tour (which still left us some time for exploring the town after we were done) and for two people, it cost $400. I still have to pick up my jaw off the floor when I think about how we spent that for a hike in the woods basically. Still, we saw some pretty amazing things.

We had our tickets for the tour, and they were numbered. As soon as we got off the boat, we saw a huge sign with our number on it, so we knew exactly where to go. We hopped in a 15 seater van and were on our way. Along the 30ish minute drive, we saw this guy just hanging out. That's right, it's a bald eagle. I thought it was really cool to see one of those in the wild.

Bald Eagle in Ketchikan

We got to the place for our hike through "bear country". The guide gave us some important instructions about what to do if we actually encountered any bears. But the layout of the adventure was very well designed. Most of the time, we were on these ropeways which were above the ground.

I think this sign speaks for itself! :)

Rope bridge system that kept us off the ground

We had been walking for about 45 minutes with no sign of any bears when suddenly someone saw this little guy in a tree near us.

Young black bear just out for a morning climb

Sadly, he was the only bear we saw that day. We would see grizzly bears off the coast a few days later playing in the water...and I was glad to be on a giant cruise ship.

After the hike through black bear country we went to a wildlife preserve to see where they rescue animals who are hurt. Here are just a few friends we met.

Where's Santa?

A Who from Whoville

Since our day began at 7AM and only lasted a little over 3 hours, we were back to our ship around 11AM. We went on board and ate lunch at the buffet. Ketchikan certainly had some eateries, but we had the mentality that we already paid for our meals on the ship, so we made a point to take advantage of being able to hop on and off the boat at our leisure.

As soon as we got off the boat after lunch, it became very clear to us why the person during yesterday's lecture pushed diamonds and investment tanzanite so much. The streets (all 2 or 3 of them) were positively lined with one jewelry store after another. Every once in a while there would be the souvenir junk shop with every magnet, shot glass, key chain, and tshirt you could ask for, but the overwhelming majority of stores sold precious and semi-precious gemstones.

I certainly enjoy looking at jewelry, so I indulged a little bit. I got myself a pretty pair of topaz (inexpensive) earrings and a ring. The cruise ship staff told us that it was almost the end of the season, and soon the shopkeepers would close the shops here and take their wears down to their Caribbean shops. I should have realized that Ketchikan wouldn't be my only opportunity for shopping of this nature. It wasn't until Skagway when we had a chat with a local that the truth unfolded.

One jewelry store after another...

Our day in Ketchikan was shorter than the others, and we had to be back on the boat by 2pm in order to sail up to Juneau. Back on the boat, tonight was one of the 2 "formal" nights. Since we are light packers, we decided that we would skip the formal nights. We ate dinner at the buffet, enjoyed the evening show, and hung out in our itsy bitsy cabin the rest of the night. Neither of us were interested in going to the headache inducing night club, so we turned in early, excited for our big day in Juneau.

Read all about my exciting Juneau adventures HERE.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Alaska Cruising Part I (Seattle & Vancouver)

In 2009, we took on the challenge of planning a two week adventure all over France and England (read about that trip here: France/England). As fun as that trip was, it was also pretty exhausting. Every teensy tiny detail had been meticulously planned which takes a lot of time and research. For our next trip, I was happy to let someone else take on that burden for me, while I just sat back and enjoyed the ride (or should I say, the boat ride). Alaska cruises have become wildly popular. Having never been on a cruise before, we decided that there was no better way to experience our first cruise than while checking another destination off of our bucket list.

Before I get into the specifics, I should mention several things right off the bat. Alaska cruising is expensive. It is far more expensive than any other cruise destination out there. The cruise ship companies have really cornered the Alaska cruising market driving up the prices (especially for shore excursions) to the point of ridiculousness. In some cases we were able to circumvent the cruise line and get better deals, but other times we couldn't. To just give you an idea of the cost (which I'll break down into more detail throughout the four part Alaska blog series), our 15 day trip to France/England cost us around $8.5k (or about $560/day). For only 10 days on this vacation, which included 7 days on the boat, we spent about $7.4k (or $740/day). I'm not saying that it's not worth doing, but it is very important to have a full understanding of the cost before signing up. We originally had the idea to do a cruise to Alaska because it would be less expensive than planning another trip abroad. And while, yes, overall the trip was over $1,000 cheaper than most of our trips abroad, the daily value was, in our opinion, excessive.

I think our experience also had to do with our choice of cruise line. We chose Princess Cruise Line mostly because it had the itinerary we liked the best on the dates that worked for us. We soon came to realize that we were some of the youngest people on the ship, and that the entire experience caters to an older crowd. And while we avoided "party" cruise lines (yet cheaper) like Carnival (because we often behave like senior citizens when we travel), we should have looked for something with at least a few more exciting things to do on the ship itself instead of bingo, art auctions, and precious gem seminars. In conclusion, cruising probably isn't for us, but we left Alaska with a ton of memories and experiences to share. I hope you enjoy reading about my Alaskan adventures!

Our 7-day cruise went from Monday to Monday in August 2010. The Island Princess cruise ship departed from Vancouver, BC and arrived a week later in Anchorage, Alaska with stops in Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway. We've heard so many horror stories about people not getting to the ship in time due to flight delays or other problems, so we wanted to make sure we got there with plenty of time. We also saw this as an opportunity to see Vancouver for more than a minute. Upon closer examination of flights, however, we were sticker shocked by the cost of a multi-city flight from Washington, DC to Vancouver and then from Anchorage back to Washington. Instead of just accepting our plight and paying the overpriced airfare (which you should NEVER do unless you're booking last minute), we started looking at alternate dates and alternate options. (Quick note: some cruise packages included a small airfare credit or gave you the option of purchasing airfare through the cruise line with the guarantee that if you get delayed, they'll hold the cruise ship for you. They offered us airfare for the bargain price of $1,000/pp, so we said thanks but no thanks.)

Since we had until Monday to get there, we started looking at other major airports that were within driving distance of Vancouver. Seattle is just a short 2.5 hour drive from Vancouver. We'd have to rent a car to get from Seattle to Vancouver, but getting there a full day early would allow us some time to see both cities before embarking on our cruise. For just under $500/pp we were able to book nonstop flights from Washington DC to Seattle, and then from Anchorage back to Washington. I considered this a WIN!

We flew United to Seattle on Sunday morning. Thanks to a 3 hour time difference, after a 5-6 hour flight, it was still Sunday morning when we arrived. We had precious few hours in Seattle before driving up to Vancouver, so we didn't waste any time. We hopped over to the "budget" car rental counter, picked up our Hyundai Sonata (pretty nice for a cheap-o rental car) and parked in the Westin parking garage, a pretty central location in the city.

Our first stop was a little pizza place called Bambino's pizza. We shared a meat lovers pizza pie and kept going on our way to the famous Seattle Space Needle. We got tickets for this ahead of time online. What we didn't realize is that the needle is not actually the tallest structure in the city. Many postcards and city views show the city skyline from a vantage point that makes it seem like the space needle is taller, but they're deceiving. I still enjoyed the visit and the views from the top. The guide was very informative and my pictures turned out great!

Space Needle, Seattle

View from the Space Needle

After the space needle, we took a stroll through Pike Place market. We got there in the afternoon, so we didn't catch any fish mongers tossing seafood around, but it was still a neat place to walk around. I wish we could stay longer because the bouquets of flowers were so ridiculously cheap. If I lived there (and didn't have 2 furry kitty cats who think plants are their own personal chew toys), I would always buy fresh flowers from there.

We still had a little bit of time before we had to get on the road, so we took a stroll and found ourselves in a unique sculpture garden. It was rather pleasant at first until we found ourselves smack in the middle of a hemp festival. Yes, that's right. A hemp festival. (For any who doesn't know what hemp is...it's pot, marijuana, weed, etc.) Now keep in mind, this was back in 2010 before marijuana became legalized in Washington, though that didn't seem matter. You could buy anything from pot leaf mardi gras beads (nevermind that it was August), all manner of "food" items, bongs, etc. We just had to throw up our hands and laugh. How could two of the most "goody goody" kids in the world find themselves in the middle of hempfest, I'll never know. But it's certainly one of those things you never forget.

So, after getting a good chuckle, we found our car, and drove 2.5 hours up to Canada. Crossing the border was no problem. There was a bit of a line, but after a quick passport check and a peek in our trunk (glad we didn't do any shopping at hempfest), we were on our way again.

Our hotel/motel for the evening, North Vancouver Hotel, was kind of a dive, but it was very clean and suited our needs just fine for one night. I wouldn't recommend it for a week long holiday, but we slept their comfortably and the $120/night price was right! We booked it through Travelocity and had no issues.

We arrived at our hotel in time for dinner and were please to find a Denny's right across the street. Neither of us could remember the last time we ate at a Denny's. The whole area was a bit run down and slightly lower class, so the Denny's was a hot spot for Sunday dinner. The hotel had breakfast in the morning, so luckily we didn't have to worry about a breakfast rush at Denny's the next morning. :)

We picked this hotel in particular because we wanted to be close to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. (The bridge is featured in the TV show Psych which is a comedy crime show. It's on netflix now and is super hilarious!) Anyway, the bridge isn't far from Vancouver, so we planned on seeing that in the morning and then spending a few hours in Vancouver before embarking on our cruise in mid-afternoon.

When we got our cruise documents a few days/weeks before the trip, they said that we could board the ship within a certain time frame, but encouraged us to wait until the afternoon to avoid crowds. So, our plan was to do just that.

Entrance to the Capilano Suspension Bridge

At the bridge, there are a few options for how to spend your time. The admission price gets you access to the entire park. You can cross the bridge and be done or you can cross the bridge and hike along one of the many paths. From the paths, you also get better views of the bridge.

Just before crossing the suspension bridge

After a healthy mix of woods hiking and urban street hiking, we returned our rental car, and found our way to the Canada Place port. We actually scoped it out earlier in the day to make sure we knew where we were going, but it was finally time to get this party started.

That's our ship!

My husband accused me a being a little too camera happy while we were walking through the giant terminal to get to the ship. It was a weird place. I wasn't sure what to expect. Imagine an airport terminal, but then make the whole thing very industrial. Or take an airport terminal and put it in a parking garage; that's what it was like. (How are those mental pictures?)

Following the signs!

It was very straightforward, and we had no trouble. Since we waited until the afternoon to get on the ship, we had no lines at all. It was almost weird how empty it was. We walked right up, walked right through, went right on, etc. It was a little weird to go through customs. The cruise ship is considered US soil, so we had to cross from Canada back into the US. There was also a place where we could have dropped off our luggage to be delivered to our cabin, but since we each only had a suitcase and backpack, we didn't bother. The staff looked at how little luggage we had and laughed us through. Should we have been offended by that? Did we not pack enough? As cruise virgins, we had a lot to learn apparently.

I wasn't sure what our accommodations would look like. We decided to "splurge" for a balcony room because 3 full days of the cruise (out of 7) were on the boat either at sea or doing "scenic" cruising. Sure, there were decks with chairs for that sort of thing, but I was glad we opted for the balcony (minus all of our smoking neighbors). One nice thing happened when we booked our cabin; we chose the absolute cheapest balcony room we could find. Of course we were offered to pay for an upgraded deck at every step of the way, but we kept refusing. About a week after we booked our cruise, we got an email from Princess Cruise congratulating us that we had been selected for a complimentary upgrade. After calling Princess to confirm, sure enough, we had just been bumped from the cheapest balcony room to a more expensive balcony room on a much higher deck.

See how <<insert sarcasm>> luxurious our accommodations were!? You had a bed, a small desk, and just enough room for one person to walk around. When my husband wanted to move, he had to crawl across the bed. It wouldn't be until our trip to Japan two years later that we would see rooms this small again. It's not even worth showing you the bathroom. Talk about claustrophobic.

After a quick cruise ship safety drill, we got ourselves oriented and spent the evening exploring the ship and sampling the cuisine.

Check out Alaska Cruising Part II which covers cruising days 1 & 2, our day at sea and the port at Ketchikan. 

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

San Francisco & Yosemite - Part IV

Well, we've finally arrived at the last day of our short adventure to California. With a full day ahead of us, we ate a nice big breakfast at the Embassy Suites, and headed into the city of San Francisco. As I mentioned before, our hotel was about 20 minutes outside the city (near the airport), so keep that in mind when you're planning. For us, it worked out well because we wanted a car at our disposal to drive to places like Yosemite without paying a fortune for parking each night.

Today, our mission was to see all of the classic San Fran sites that we missed earlier in the week. Our first stop was to find the street where the Painted Ladies were. I am admitted a huge Full House fan, and while I know that the Full House "house" is actually in Los Angeles, the view of these colorful homes pans across during the opening credits, so it was still fun to find them. We stopped at the nice park across the street for a photo op and went along our way.

Painted Ladies

Our next stop was to find a good place to park our car for the remainder of the day and walk around instead of driving. As we looked, we passed this crazy looking place: Lombard Street. I saw it on the map and told my husband that we weren't truly experiencing San Francisco until we drove down this windy, crooked street. As we drove passed the bottom of it and saw some cars attempting the drive, I concluded that they were crazy. I was content with walking up the side like a tourist and getting a picture at the bottom of all the flowers.

Lombard Street

From the painted ladies and lombard street we headed toward the bay. For the rest of the day we spent out time browsing the trinket shops and stopping to appreciate some iconic places. The first one that we came to was the classic sign at Fisherman's Wharf.

I remember being slightly disappointed by this. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but I felt like this area is where all tourist shops go to die. It was such a bizarre street to walk down. As we went from pier to pier, the shops were junky, the people were shady, and it wasn't anything like I thought it would be. Perhaps I couldn't shake the disney-esq Full House scenes that always showed this area full of sunshine and flowers, but it wasn't that way for me. Sure the day was sunny enough, but the atmosphere made me go into timid traveler mode.

We finally made our way to Pier 39 and everything changed. Depending on the time of year you go, you should stop and see the sea lions that gather there. My sister said that when she visited San Francisco in the summertime that they weren't there. When we visited in October, they were everywhere. See for yourself.

There were soooooo many of them. Some were sleeping, lots of them were just barking. It was quite a site to see. I probably stood there and just watched them for 30 minutes. I found them absolutely fascinating.

The rest of Pier 39 was pretty fun. As opposed to another city street like the rest of the San Fran, Pier 39 was a cross between an outdoor shopping mall and a carnival. I thoroughly enjoyed myself shopping in the different boutiques. I bought souvenirs for myself and others, fell victim to the Hawaiian pearl jewelry stand, and ate a scrumptious seafood dinner.

Hawaiian pearl jewelry stand you ask? Ha! It was my own fault. At the time, I had it in my mind that I wanted to buy jewelry from everywhere I traveled that was unique to the place. I had already picked up a jade pendant in Chinatown, so I had no interest in getting anything else. Then I saw a sign on the pearl booth where I could pick a pearl out of an oyster for just $15.00. It was vacation, and I thought it sounded fun. So, I tapped on the oyster with the magic spoon, said "ALOHA" and then they cut open the oyster and found the pearl. I should have stopped there because that was all I intended to do. But then they started showing me different settings that the pearl could fit into, and they sucked me in. I ended up getting a white gold flower with the pearl in the center. I do still wear and love the necklace, but it certainly wasn't worth the price they overcharged me for it. Hey! I was on vacation. And I was young and naive. Oh well. Live and learn.

The last thing on our itinerary for the trip was something I'd been excited about all week: touring Alcatraz Island. Since it was October and about a week or so before Halloween, I thought what spooky fun would it be to take the "Alcatraz at Night" tour. This was both good and bad. It was good because we took the ferry from San Francisco over to "The Rock" during sunset. The sunset behind the city was absolutely beautiful and well worth it.

Approaching Alcatraz Island

Although the idea of visiting Alcatraz at night was "frightfully" fun (like my pun?) there were several downsides. The first being the fact that your ticket was good for a specifically timed ferry ride over but your choice of a ferry ride back. If we would have taken a ferry over earlier in the day, we could have taken any number of ferries back. Instead, we took the last ferry over and caught the last ferry back thus limiting out time on the island. Not that we needed much time because after sunset, it got dark very quickly. Y'know, like it usually does at night.

The other negative part about seeing Alcatraz at night was the fact that it was too dark to explore the island outside of the main prison block. They give you a map of the entire island when you arrive, and had it been daylight, we could have really had some fun exploring other parts of the island.

That being said, the rest of Alcatraz is amazing! I mention the two negative things because the island was so fascinating, I wish we had spent more time there. When we traveled to Italy, we took a lot of audio tours of different places. Most of them weren't so great. My sister assured me that the Alcatraz audio tour was worthwhile, and she was right. It is one of the most interactive and well done audio tours I've ever been on. They have prisoner excerpts and stories in addition to the basic historical facts. It is thoroughly entertaining and very memorable. No trip to San Francisco is complete without a tour of the Rock. Make sure you get your tickets in advance if you go during a busy season. Tickets sell out quickly, but they're easily obtainable online.

From Alcatraz, we stopped for some cinnamon-y churros at a food stand in Pier 39 before heading back to our car and ultimately our hotel. Our trip to California was nearing its end and it was time to head home.

I hope you've enjoyed my adventures in San Francisco and Yosemite National Park. For any of you timid travelers like me out there, this is a very easy and low anxiety adventure. You don't have any of the worries you have with foreign travel like language and currency yet you can still have a wonderful time. (It's cheaper too!) But not all domestic travel is cheap. For my next blog segment, I'll stay stateside once more and tell you all about my cruise to Alaska. After that, I'll change gears and take you with me to the Far East island of Japan.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler