So a late breakfast at around 09.30 and then back to the suite to sort our our walking stuff. On the tannoy was an announcement that there would be a fire drill on deck 5 in a few minutes, but this was not for guests. However when leaving the suite we noticed that there were a number of hoses down the corridor and the first fire/water tight door was closed and I though we should go back to the room. Jennifer suggested that we open the fire door which we did and there was corridor full of people, possibly 50 , in fire masks and others with more hoses etc and we felt a little embarrassed and when we got to the main reception area there were another 30 or more staff ready to heal passengers in the event of a real emergency. Its good that they do this and in this case the Captain was still on the ship not on a small lifeboat directing operation whilst people may be drowning.We left the ship around 10.30 and to save time and Noels knees we took a taxi down to the main shopping street (Shinmachi) where we checked out several stores including a large supermarket where we roamed the ground floor food store and we looked at the choice of meat and also vegetables and not expensive either. We continued our walk and saw several new, or appeared new, Toyota cars with an odd shape but were quite interesting in design but not sold in Europe. We found the City very quiet and most unlike Tokyo and with a greater preponderance of Older people.
This town is well known for its annual Nebuta Matsuri Festival which is held in August and people come from miles away to see the highly illuminated floats of gigantic Samurai figures which are paraded around the streets. As the festival is about winning the war its designed to be a very noisy event and people are encouraged to join in and make lots of noise.
Fishing is still important here and particularly for Tuna and also Garlic is grown and also this place is famous for its apple’s which command a high price in the rest of Japan and of course they are packed to safeguard there transport but they largely used as presents between family’s etc.
We visited the Aomori (The A shaped tower) and just missed a local musician concert and then walked around the building and then Jennifer tried a locally baked apple pie which she really enjoyed and then we walked back to the ship for a buffet lunch which was also most enjoyable. We did consider having a local Japanese lunch but actually we have plenty of time over the next few weeks until we leave Japan on the 19th of October for Hong Kong.
The afternoon was spent doing some blogging and Jennifer did some washing and to start planning what to wear for tonight's formal night. The sun is shining and the temperature has risen to 21 degrees Centigrade, the warmest for the last ten days.
At around 17.00 we watched the tug boat pull and push us away from the dock before we headed out of this very good natural harbour following a ferry which no doubt was going to Hakodate which is the well established means of getting from Honshu to Hokkaido before the recently completed tunnel. The tunnel is the longest tunnel in the world and is about 33.5 miles long is and used by trains only and it has cut the time from Sapporo and Hakodate to Tokyo by a considerable amount of time.
Have continued to watch the fun and games in Washington DC over the Kavanagh Affair, its crazy that you have all these congress people who are supposed to working on behalf of the American Public but are wasting huge amounts of time trying to gain and advantage as the mid term elections are drawing closer. Its going to be very interesting to find out what happens and of course there is now the matter of the deputy AG being accused, along with others, of planning to undermine Trump in 2017, which is not what you would expect from a senior Government legal guy.
Anyway a dressy night for most people on the ship .
We hit the bar for a pre-dinner drink and then on to dinner with Jerry & Muira where we had a great evening. And so to bed and tomorrow is a day at sea before we arrive in Tokyo on Friday morning the 28th.
