Kobe 18th April

 Breakfast in our room this morning. This was a source of some confusion as they rang us the other day to confirm our champagne breakfast, and Lynn said she didn't know what they were talking about, we'd not ordered anything. They rang back later and said it was part of the package - which was news to us, and Lynn remains suspicious we'll be charged. Anyway, as they keep insisting, we scheduled it for today as it's our 25th wedding anniversary. Which is not the reason we booked the cruise, but one of the reasons we picked these dates. Fortunately, our booked tour didn't start until 10am so we had time for breakfast.

I would have to describe today’s excursion as underwhelming. Wed booked ít just to make sure we got out and saw a bit of the city. It started with a funicular railway ride up Mount Rokko. This was pleasant, but it ascends up a narrow fold or ravine. At any rate you couldn’t see very much, as the mountain and foliage was close on either side. Still, just being in a forest was pleasant. At the top, the view was partly obscured by haze. We could make out some of the town and bay, but it doesn’t really come out on photos.

Next we got back on the bus and descended the other side of the mountain to Amira Onsen. It’s a small town tucked into a river valley in the mountains, famous for its hot springs. The river flowing through the middle of town was pleasant, though there are a lot of grey cement buildings. We took photos along the river and browsed some shops, buying a snack that seemed to be a hot fish stick with bits of lotus root.

Our final stop took us to a sake distillery. We were more interested in the other parts of the tour, to be honest, and even with beer and wine, which I like, I’m not particularly interested in the manufacturing process. So we were even less interested in the process and tasting of a drink we don’t enjoy. Actually the sake we tried was kind of neutral, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, and the yuzu sake was actually quite nice. 


This all got us back to the ship mid-afternoon. This made Lynn happy as she could then do a couple of loads of washing. This is quite a process on a cruise, as it involves visiting several floors until you find a free machine (a long walk from our cabin) then frequent trips to monitor the cycle and move things to a drier. So that took much of our remaining time. The theory was that it would be easier because many people had just boarded and most would be out for the day. That was presumably the case, so I’d hate to try it on a bad day.

We finished the day with a dinner in the Verandah Restaurant. This is an alternative, extra charge, steak restaurant we’d booked for our anniversary and as a change of scene. We shared a steak platter and ate too much generally.


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