After a very leisurely overnight sailing, we arrived in a wet Otaru around 8am. The Japanese immigration authorities would not flex on their timetable of arriving at 9am and setting up their equipment for a full face to passport inspection of all passengers starting at just before 10am. We were assigned group two so we started a group two line before group one was finished. But HAL held our line until 10:20 and we were done by 11:00.
We gathered our day packs and left the ship and walked to the north end of the Otaru Canal (where we ate a Lawson Convenience store lunch last segment) which is a half mile long remaining fragment of a former commercial canal used to move goods from the main harbor to warehouses adjoining the canal. Now the whole area is a tourist with canal boats taking rides plus many local vendors plying their wares from 10x10 pop up tents.
From the north end of the canal we walked one block west to Ironaiodori Street which at its southern portion becomes a major shopping and tourist street. There are many shops, restaurants, cafes, hotels & historical buildings. Numerous stores provide samples and glass shops are a significant shopping opportunity.
At south end of Ironaiodori Street, there's a nice music box store and free museum which we enjoyed before eating a late noodle lunch at the Snoopy Cafe. The Japanese definitely have a fetish for Snoopy as well as Hello Kitty. The lunch was so filling we didn't bother to go to the final Gala dinner after returning to the ship.
We walked back to our ship with a couple from Puyallup and the drummers were set up alongside the ship to perform at the sailaway. About 4:30pm, about 9 HAL tour buses arrived nearly simultaneously and the line to reboard the ship stretched across the parking lot! It was the longest last minute port call line I've seen for a HAL ship. We listened to the drummers and let the line dissipate before reboarding just before 5pm. Passengers continued to board until after the on board time of 5. At 5:10pm the gangway was stowed and by 5:15 the Maasdam silently slipped away from the dock to the accompaniment of the Japanese Hula dancers and the drum corps. Shortly after departure (usually it's given before departure), the Captain gave his departure message indicating we'd sail at a brisk 18 knots to reach Hakodate by 9am tomorrow.
The Jersey Tenors performed their final shows tonight and we attended both performances. Their theme was Broadway and More and it was really good and different from the same show on the last segment. Tonight was the Indonesian crew show, but it was a bit late for us plus we've seen it many times. It was also the chocolate surprize night on deck 8.
The promised $100 per person credit was posted to our shipboard account today along with refunds of the 3 missed ports port charges. We're currently sitting on an over $1100 credit balance in our shipboard account. We'll likely use it for an internet package, some nice dinners, and maybe a shore excursion. We have prepaid gratuities so that won't be a way to reduce the credit balance.
Tomorrow is our last port of call on this segment before our sea day on the way to Yokohama and the start of our final month on the ship this cruise. Stay tuned.
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