Kagoshima

So excited for today as we are stopping in our first Japanese port.  We were a little apprehensive though as its also the port that we have to do immigration and customs for Japan.  We were told it could take up to 4 hours!!

We woke quite early again, and first looks outside were disappointing.  We've suddenly lost our warm and humid weather, and traded it for rain and fog.  We decided to stick with our usual routine and get off later than the rest.  So we hit the gym just after 6 and the buffet right after for breakfast.

At about 930 we decided to make our move so went down to get a ticket to get in a queue for immigration.  It took about 20 minutes for our group to get called and  off we went.  Should have known better - Japan is super organised.  The whole process was actually quite simple, and in almost no time at all we had cleared both immigration and customs and had a nice new stamp in our passports.  We had pre paid for a shuttle into town, and even the queue for that was pretty quick.

We were dropped into the town, in a carpark near the ferry port.  There was a small information booth there and we were quickly able to establish where we needed to go to get on the city explorer bus.  What we weren't sure about was how to pay for it, but feeling brave we did it anyway.   I think we waited about 15 minutes for the bus and we jumped aboard.  I managed to swipe us with a visa card - it didn't like Mastercard, so I was grateful to have both options.

We were dropped off in the centre of town and given instructions for where we caught the real loop bus - the one we were on was more like a link bus only.  We had a few spare minutes so went to the family mart that was right there to grab a drink and snack.  Woohoo Calpis time.  Tony had a yakult type of drink and grabbed a packet of gummi bears.

We had decided that we were just going to do the loop for a look around and not get on and off.  In the end it was an excellent plan.  When we got on the bus was only about half full - a few stops later and it was jam packed.  We scored seats on the left side which was perfect in the end.  The people that got on a few stops later spent the whole circuit whining as it wasn't at all what they expected, and as they were squashed in like sardines they also had no hope of seeing anything.

The loop took about an hour and that was plenty.  We got off the bus right where we started and caught the ship shuttle bus back to the port.

We were back onboard the ship around about 1230 so grabbed a quick bite to eat from the cafe and  returned to our cabin.  Had a lazy afternoon and a snooze and then hit the buffet for dinner.  The ship left port while we were napping - but napping was neccessary.

After dinner the weather returned to poop - we had actually been quite lucky during the day as the rain stopped when we got off the ship.