Alaska Cruise - Day 5: Haines

The ship wasn't going to be docking until 11 this morning so it gave me a chance to visit the gym. Two gym visits in 4 days is pretty good I think! Proof that if I did one day book one of those 60 day cruises, I might end up in better shape afterwards? Optimism! Here's a shot of the view from the deck in front of the fitness center - not bad:

We had a wildlife canoe excursion booked for the afternoon so the morning would be self-guided walkabout. The highlight of the morning stroll through town was definitely the hammer museum.  This is basically one man's passion project based on a love of all hammers. A fairly non-descript little house that is just filled with hammers.

Outside was this Rube-Goldberg-machine type contraption that the twins had a lot of fun working. 

These were the "prettiest" ones, according to the twins -- the glass hammers. Yeah...unclear what possible utility they would serve besides decoration. But they even have glass nails!

Here's one for the pre-1990s crowd -- real hammers from Tim the Tool Man Taylor! (Yeah, another reminder of how uncool I've become).

More odd contraptions...

Hammers for cancelling checks (apparently in the old days, you use a special hammer to "stamp" the center of the check and the imprint would then indicate that the check was no good.

Downtown Haines was even smaller than Ketchikan. It was basically just two blocks. R wanted to show off the bracelet she made for the bear:

We also visited the Post Office where we mailed off a couple post cards. And then also checked out the "fort." I thought this would be like a real Fort (a la Fort Mackinac)...but in reality it's just a bunch of older style houses surrounding a large grassy area. 

This is a town that has a graduating class of 11 kids each year and that gets all their fruits and vegetables by barge once a week...so let's cut them some slack!

The afternoon wildlife adventure started with a drive out to Chilkoot Lake. We passed some more totems on the way:

And then....a bear sighting! (Credit to R for the initial sighting). This bridge is the salmon weir -- it forces all of the salmon swimming through to pass through a single gate so that they can be counted. How counted? AI hasn't taken over this job yet -- you literally have individuals sitting there counting the salmon manually. Except this kind of man-made funnel for all the fish means it's free food on a platter for the bears! I didn't catch the bear cubs off at the edge of the forest, but as we were driving in, the weir workers were trying to scare the mama bear away so that they could keep counting. 

Nice start to the wildlife tour! We proceeded to the next part in the lake itself -- obligatory family photo here:

The scenery here reminded Ian and I of Milford Sound down in New Zealand. The water was more green than blue though. Apparently this is because the glacier melt is pretty silty from all the ground mountain rocks in it. 

We saw a few bald eagles as we paddled, some were flying around but others were just perched on the branches. 

The lake was very pretty -- with the two canoes that our group was on being the only things there. Our canoe actually ended up being just the four of us and another family of four that we were traveling with -- private tour!

Since of the 8 of us in the canoe, 4 were children...we pretty quickly opted for using the motor instead of our limited upper body strength. 

We were hoping to catch more glimpses of bears -- the Chilkoot Lake is a known salmon spawning spot -- in a single day, they could have thousands of salmon coming through! Here's a shot of the salmon jumping around in one of the spawning sites:

The bright red color is evidence of these sockeye salmon being at the end of their life cycle -- apparently by this point, they've essentially lost all feeding capabilities and are just subsisting off of their own internal organs until they die. 

No bears at the lake...but as we drove back by the weir...the mama bear was still there! Clearly, she won that standoff with the weir workers -- no sight of either of them as far as we could see. Here's an action shot of her bringing the fish back to her cubs:

Pretty good day for wildlife sightings! We made our way back to the ship where I caught a few more shots from our balcony:

Guess where we head to tomorrow? I heard it's the capital of Alaska. Juneau? I'm not sure...we'll find out! (I hope people appreciated the effort that went into that set up!)

Alaska Cruise - Day 4: Ketchikan

First port day of the cruise! When the biggest attraction is a lumberjack show, you know it's going to be a little kitschy...but really, secretly don't we all love a little kitsch? 

The plan for today was to do a little self-tour of Ketchikan downtown. We would be following a route called the "Salmon Walk," which basically just connects together a bunch of attractions in a loop. To give you a sense of how much the local economy is dependent on cruise ship tourism, Royal Caribbean actually put up all the signs for the Salmon Walk. It would include a stop at the salmon ladder, some museums, some totems, and then end with the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. The boat was leaving at 2:30 so it was going to be a fairly short port visit.

Before we got to all the sights though, our priorities were clear -- no trip these days is deemed to be complete with an order of boba. I'm happy to report that this requirement was met in Ketchikan (even though I'm told the quality was a bit lacking).

With that out of the way, we could focus more on culture and learning. Here are some of the impressively preserved totems from the Totem Heritage Center. 

And the salmon ladder! 

The twins actually learned about salmon ladders in school this past year -- apparently they were started because of dam construction -- a manmade way for an salmon to continue their uphill swim when a dam otherwise blocks the river entirely.  The salmon run was just getting started so we actually got to see some salmon jumping out of the water and making their way through the ladder. 

Here is a shot of Creek Street, basically the heart of Ketchikan. Back in the gold rush heydays, this was also the location of the red light district. "Where men and salmon came upstream to spawn," as the saying went...

We also spent a good bit of time at the Ketchikan visitor center. The highlight I thought was actually the hands-on rope tying activity. I generally think of myself as fairly good in terms of following diagram instructions (ie, making art projects). But I had a really hard time with some of the instructions (like the square knot even!).  The twins on the other hand made it through all of the knots with no issues. You might say they are knautically talented...while I was knot. 

There was also what I thought was a pretty good exhibit showing you the size of the infamous "Old Groaner" - the brown bear would make an eerie groaning noise because of injuries to his jaw. 

Another totem, this time displayed outside and with paint intact. 

The kids, thanks to the boba hit, were generally good sports about walking around town catching all these museums. I even convinced them to strike silly poses with the various sculptures. 

I would have appreciated more stops at the various artwork shops...sadly no one was really interested except me. Aren't the carvings pretty cool?

The true highlight of the day was of course the lumberjack show. I hear that lumberjack shows are somewhat of a known tourist thing (ie, they aren't unique to Ketchikan, others exist in Oregon, Washington, other parts of Canada, etc). This one was done competition style, with two teams of two contestants each, trying to be the first to do various athletic/timber-sports activities (like cutting through a log, running across a log, climbing a log, throwing axes at a target, etc).

I thought it was interesting how all of the contestants were a bit on the shorter side. The guy in the center below was the announcer, who wasn't extremely tall himself -- the four contestants around him were noticeably shorter. Perhaps center of gravity being lower gives you an edge on some of these activities?

All in all, don't think I'd go again, but would recommend it as a one time activity for sure. Very entertaining. 

As we walked back to the ship we also caught a really big jellyfish in the water. Only living animal sighting of the day, but still pretty cool!

Today we were also celebrating the twins' birthdays, so we booked a dinner at the speciality Italian restaurant on the ship. Six courses! And no, the twins did NOT pace themselves. I think they had about 7 pieces of bread to begin. In their defense, the bread was quite good, but then the appetizer came...and then the minestrone soup...and the burrata tomato salad..and the truffle fettuccine alfredo...and then the steak/lasagna secondi...and then the huge "rocher" hazelnut dessert...and then a chocolate birthday cake! Suffice it to say they were a bit stuffed by the end. 

Only day 4 out of 11 down -- tomorrow we dock at Haines!

Alaska Cruise - Day 3: Still at Sea

Today is my last work day before I truly go on vacation, which means I again had some 8am calls to kick off the day. Again, impressive video quality! People kept asking me where exactly I was and I truly did not know. I wish the princess app had a feature that would show you where the ship was. I could only answer - somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

There wasn't too much to report on this day -- I spent a good chunk of it on emails and work calls. But one thing I will note -- there was a free pendant giveaway several times a day on sea days and the twins (and their friends) became obsessed with collecting all of the pendants. This meant that I ended up spending a lot more time in the diamond gallery than I had been expecting. Everything was pretty pricey...but I guess it was fun looking?

One benefit of the kids all being in their staterooms is that we weren't afraid of waking them up if we stayed out later. Our paper card mahjong set got a lot of play time!

Tomorrow, it's our first port day -- stepping foot on Alaskan soil. Ketchikan -- here we come!

Alaska Cruise - Day 2: At Sea

We have a lot of travel planned this year so I decided not to take a vacation day for these two sea days at the beginning. Meaning: I get to test how good the Starlink internet actually is. (spoiler alert: quite good!)

Had a great night of sleep (8 hours+) - must be rocking that lulls me. It is definitely a more sway-noticeable cruise compared to the Caribbean ones we've been used to. But I got my scolopamine patches so all good!

Started the day with a bunch of work meetings at 8:30...I think it's amazing what Ian can sleep through.  The first few calls I did with video off, but when I turned it on for the last call, the other folks said the video quality was so good that they had no idea I was floating in the middle of an ocean. For the multiple hours I was in meetings, the internet only cut out once! And only for about 2 minutes. 

In between meetings, I managed to hit up breakfast, lunch, and afternoon tea. As Ian says, he is amazed that all of the crew members aren't obese with all the food available on the ship.

High tea was pretty good! We convinced the kids to come by telling them that tea with a lot of milk and sugar was basically like boba. 

The scones with clotted cream and jelly and mini tuna sandwiches were also a big hit though!

We also managed to catch the champagne tower toast.

We also joined a bingo game (as expected, did not win, not even close), caught a stand up comedian show, and tried to win some diamond jewelry.  I was only two numbers off in that raffle - so tantalizingly close! 

The musical show tonight was not super impressive. Maybe I've just become a very critical critic for singing over the years, but I think the Disney shows generally had more talented people. Also being able to use the full song repertoire probably also helps. Case in point: Ian's favorite part of the show was the Colors of the Wind segment. 

Tonight the ship crosses the Pacific time zone boundary so our clocks go back an hour. Wouldn't be so bad except that I have a 9am Pacific call tomorrow -- guess I better head to bed on the earlier side tonight too. Adios folks!
 

Alaska Cruise - Day 1: Hello Ruby Princess!

Time for the next installment of our travel adventures. Alaska has been on my bucket list for quite some time now, so an Alaskan cruise -- especially one that left from San Francisco -- seemed like a no-brainer. No hotels, no flights, no weight limits, so freeing! Well...except that we ended up with gargantuan suitcases that each weighed a ton. When there are no restrictions in place, I apparently pack a LOT. 😆 

Because I'm all about optimizing schedules, I actually had a choir performance this morning still, so we didn't make it Pier 27 until a little before 2pm. Downside: four very hungry people. Upside: no lines for anything! 

This is our first time cruising with Princess, so a few immediate impressions compared to Disney -- more bars, more older folks, food variety very strong, but as for food quality...not overly impressive thus far. I'm kind of regretting the upgrade to the Princess Plus package because there really isn't that much for the twins to enjoy (soft serve is free, there are no smoothies, it's not like they drink coffee), but I guess Ian appreciates the freedom of being able to drink 15 cocktails a day for free. I think he's taking it as a personal challenge. He needed to drown his sorrows after he found out that the poker table on the Ruby Princess was literally taken out on the previous cruise right before ours. He JUST missed it. 

Balcony size is much larger than Disney staterooms -- wait staff much less entertaining, but still very friendly and competent. Ship overall feels more blah in terms of theming (ie, there really isn't any), but a lot more going on -- including all day mahjong, daily taichi, lots of performers of all sorts -- and even a cruise passenger choir that we can join! 

But since it was our first day, we took it fairly easy, basically just unpacked, had dinner, and walked around a little to get our bearings (signed kids up for kids club, picked up some bingo tickets at the casino, took a spin through the library to see what games they had). 

Did NOT take enough photos this first day, but here's one of the wind surfers under the Golden Gate Bridge as we were passing through. These guys were super impressive -- wind surfing seems like an extremely difficult and potentially painful sport.

It was very cold out on deck all day -- but I braved the elements to catch us passing under the Golden Gate bridge!

I went to bed early (twins stayed up late than I did -- the aging milestone has been crossed!). Still working these next couple sea days so limited on having TOO much fun for now -- will try to take more photos though!

Japan - Day 10: Farewell Tokyo!

Our flight wasn't until 9:30pm, so even though it was technically a "travel day," we figured we still had time to enjoy. Starting off with another lovely breakfast buffet. This time with berry smoothies!

I think Baba was really hoping for a curry lunch today. In fact he went out searching for a spot even ... but...he underestimated the endurance levels of tween girls for shopping. By the time we returned, it was already 2pm. Luckily margarita pizzas at the lounge were quite good. I think we probably ate two whole pieces between the four of us. 

I then spent a good hour or more strategically packing all of our items to stay within the 7 kg per person weight limit. The twins chose to spend that time on the hotel scavenger hunt instead. Here's their victory shot with the prizes. 

We had to check out by 4, but luckily we could stay at the pool/spa even longer, so off we went for some pool/relaxation time before the flight. 

Baba wasn't so keen on the traditional onsen portion of the spa, so he took the girls over to the bar while I enjoyed the steam rooms and saunas. Last drink of the trip!

And just like that, we were on the plane and in the air. Thoughts on zipair: very satisfied customers. Definitely would fly with them again. I actually appreciated the fact that no food or drink was included because it meant there weren't "services" happening all flight and disrupting those of us trying to sleep. It also meant the bathrooms never had a line (and maybe this is true of all Japanese airlines, but they actually had heated seats, smelled not bad and were pretty clean the whole flight!). Once again the inflatable cushion was a BIG thumbs up from me. I managed to sleep about 4-5 hours, I do NOT think that would have happened without the foot rest! I tried watching a drama with the twins but fell asleep less than one episode in. This cool nighttime sky photo was taken by the twins while I was asleep. 

 

I woke up about an hour before we were supposed to land. This time it was the twins' turn to sleep. 

Timing wise I think we really lucked out on both flights. We got back to SFO at 3:30, basically first in line at customs (tried to do the twins global entry upon arrival, somehow R's application was cancelled, so we only succeeded in getting L's done. Slow and steady I guess? At least there was no line!).  It's 11pm now and I'm still feeling fairly alert, but Baba has been asleep for a few hours now. Crossed fingers for the jetlag transition back to go not too painfully!

Japan was a LOT of fun for us, if you haven't been able to tell from the blog posts. I suspect it makes the twins new top trip spot or a close second to China. They said they liked the food better in China (hilariously, they said not only the duck restaurants but because there are so many "lao laos" around so the homemade food is always good) but the shopping better in Japan -- not because it was cheaper per se, but China has gone so far into online shopping that you really don't have that in store try on things experience anymore. It's just not the same! We didn't get a ton of "cultural educational learning" in this time...but hoping a return trip to Kyoto/Hiroshima would have more of that. The biggest surprise was how easy the jet lag and plane travel seemed to go. Maybe I just have had bad luck in China lately, but these flights felt SO much easier, even though it was only a few hours shorter. 

Back to school and work for us now...but already counting down the days until the next vacation! (Alaska cruise time!)

Japan - Day 9: Teamlabs & Shopping

The Tokyo Grand Hyatt has a number of positive qualities: close to various subway lines, lovely breakfast buffet, tea time & happy hour in the club lounge...but have to say, the beds are a bit on the small side. We shouldn't have been surprised, I've known this is normal for Japan and Asia generally, but I guess we just had such good luck with all of the other hotels so far this trip that it was a bit of a jarring surprise when we saw the two truly "double" sized beds. 

But! As mentioned, the breakfast somewhat made up for the beds. I sadly forgot to take any photos, but it was a nice mix of Japanese and Western options. Though no sashimi courses -- that must only be at ryokans! 

Today our only itinerary item was checking out Teamlabs: Planets. I've heard of these immersive digital art exhibits in lots of cities -- I think DC has some, Vegas has a few, but Japan, and Teamlabs in particular, seems to be the leader.  I will say the experience was less than ideal because it was SO crowded. Next time, if we check out one of the other Teamlabs exhibits elsewhere, we will be sure to pick a weekday. 

Was I impressed? Yes, the rooms were definitely impressive. Some of the more interactive exhibits included a trampoline that created sound and colorful image based on how accurately you jumped on the digital ball. Here's a more passive exhibit...just lots of strands of light and endless mirrored reflections.  (I took this shot pointing up to the ceiling). 

Some of the other exhibits were just kind of...odd. Like this one with huge balloons. 

This was one of my favorite rooms because all the orchids were 100% real. The kids liked ducking down and finding hidden spaces behind the "curtains" of orchids. 

Me pretending to be lost in the flowers...there were too many people to actually get too tranquil. 😆 

This exhibit has a bunch of eerie eggs in a field which would make unique noises if you pushed them...leading eggs around them to them also echo those noises. 

This was one of the more educational spaces -- you walked around the rooms using your phone to "capture" various extinct species and learning about them. We managed to snag the saber toothed tiger at this waterfall!

This is an obstacle course where the balls and walls changed based on which ones you jumped on for the trek across the room. 

The photo below is from a room where you drew animals which immediately become digitized and animated, running around the entire room interacting with other animals (ie, butterflies multiplying around flowers, getting eaten by frogs, etc. This is R snatching a shot with her snake before it darted off in search of more frogs to eat). 

All in all, glad we experienced it, and probably would give another exhibit a try next trip. But I suspect this might be one of those things where it starts feeling like variations on the same theme pretty quickly. 

We grabbed our first bowl of Tokyo ramen at the Teamlabs cafe -- very tasty...would never have guessed what it was vegan!

After recharging our energy, we went off to Ginza for some dedicated shopping time. We hit Gu (big hit for all the women in the family), Ginza 6, Itoya (R was the big shopper here), and Muji (wish I had more time to spend there, but as is, it was getting late so I mainly just loaded up on snacks to bring home). 

Amidst of all the shopping, we managed to avoid a complete rebellion from Baba by bribing him with a traditional unagi meal. Consider it second lunch. 

Proof that the eels were fresh?

We arrived back at the hotel around 7:30, laden with shopping bags and exhausted (physically and mentally). Good thing happy hour went until 8:15. The kids left pretty quickly (no mango puddings today) but Ian and I sat there with our wine and tea until they forced us out at 9. 

Tomorrow, we tackle the daunting task of packing everything we've bought...