Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Five

[irvington]

I'm so excited about my Silversea cruise this fall I keep checking this board. No one has replied in my roll call. So just wanting to say I'm excited to get back on board here!

[jpalbny]

Silversea roll calls on this site can be hit or miss. A lot of the latter, IME. I've had a few roll calls meet the minimum for a M&G but not many.

[drron29]

 

 

 

[drron29]

For the cat lovers. A little unusual art.

[drron29]

 

 

 

[drron29]

So today was moving day to Osaka. We were to catch the 1320 shuttle to Kyoto Station. As there were 7 of us we got there early and just as well. All the extra seats in the aisle of the bus were in use and quite a few missed out.

We caught a semi rapid train from Kyoto to Osaka station. Crowded. One younger woman gave Mrsdrron a seat but I stood until Shin Osaka. not very comfortable.
Not far from the Station to the Hilton. We had an executive room and the family standard rooms. I had booked interconnecting rooms for the family but at checkin said non available as they couldn't find a request. I did have the original email which clearly said interconnecting rooms booked. So they ended up on a high floor with rooms side by side.
However I made a travel mistake as the senior rate I booked didn't come with breakfast. We of course got it but elected to eat in the restaurant for a family breakfast.
So to our room. typical Japanese touches especially in the bathroom with the shower beside the bath.

 

 

 

Lots of construction but no noise.

 

 

 

Wasn't sure about the welcome amenity.

 

We then went for a walk around the hotel. A model train set in the lobby for Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Off the lobby there was a baccarat display.

 

 

 

then back to the lobby.

 

 

[drron29]

 

 

 

[drron29]

The judge addressed the drunk. "You have been brought here for drinking."
The drunk said, "Thank you very much, your Honour. Let's start."
Everyone in the court started laughing.
Banging the gavel, the judge said, "Order!"
The drunk said, "Whiskey and soda for me."

 

 

 

[drron29]

Breakfast in the restaurant at the Hilton was a complete zoo. i remembered why I fell out of love with them. fortunately they always opened 2 other restaurants for the overflow an once their fine dining restaurant as well and we scored a seat there. The other problem was the queue to get in. the quickest time to get to the head of the queue was 25 minutes. We thought we would have real problems being a party of 7 but that meant we were always seated in one of the overflow restaurants.

 

After breakfast we went to a couple of department stores. There are 3 in Osaka station. First we went to the Hanshin department store. From the station you enter their food hall. We think these are very interesting places. Our first stop was at the alcohol section.

An amazing array of Rose wines.

 

Rojaan fell in love with this wine.

 

I was interested in how a Dornfelder rose would taste as I really liked the White Rock Dornfelder from Tasmania. So we bought a bottle. I hoped it was worth it as we had to queue for 30 minutes to buy it. So don't let people think the Japanese are not into wine as most were buying champagne. I am happy to say it was a really nice wine. And very reasonable price

 

Now just a bit about prices. We were getting nearly 100 yen for our $A. so you just put a decimal point in front of the last 2 numbers. To get the price in $US you take a third off the $A price. so that bottle was a little over $A17.50 so around $US12.

 

Next were their versions of Christmas cakes. And there were lots of them.

 

 

 

And who would think you could make sweet potato into a Christmas dish by itself. these are all sweet potato.

 

 

We often buy lunch or dinner in a Department store food hall and take it back to our hotel. Attractively packaged.

 

 

 

 

The place was very busy. this was about a third of the line at one cake counter.

[drron29]

Then we went to the Hankyu Department store. this was way busier so they had an In door and an Exit door. both doors were policed. A huge craft and pottery floor.

 

 

Mrsdrron took a fancy to this plate.

 

But at ~ $1000 I became a grinch

It is interesting the characters popular in Japan. they do have quite a few Snoopy shops.

 

 

 

 

 

On the same floor they had their version of a Christmas market which was extremely popular.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[drron29]

 

 

 

[CurlerRob]

🥌🍺

 

[Emtbsam]

Pleased to report that Weatherstem has put a camera on top of the local fire station.  After trimming a tree today, we have a view of our "Dock of the bay".  It will be nice to see just how bad the storms are when we're not here.  It updates frequently.  https://franklin.weatherstem.com/fswnalligatorpoint

[drron29]

Of course we then headed to the food hall of Hankyu. Making red bean buns.

 

 

 

Fruit is always expensive in the Department stores though usually excellent quality. Would you may $A22 ( $US15 ) for 1 apple?

 

The prices for some of the strawberries were really eye watering.

 

 

 

 

 

The other thing I am always staggered by is the price for meat. The price for this meat is for 100Gm. So $A2700 9 $US1800 0 per KG ( 2.2 lbs ).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wonderful name on these bottles.

[drron29]

 

 

 

 

[Tothesunset]

[DavyWavey70]

Well if anyone has ever wondered what it’s like to be on a ship in the tall ships race in Sydney harbour on Australia Day then you might want to click below. 
Tall Ships Race

 

 

[drron29]

i was wondering if I could ask you a quick question @Port Power. When you arrived in Japan did the ship arrange your visa. I have been doing all the paper work for our cruise from Bali this coming Friday. I went to do the Japan Evisa online but it only gives you the option of air arrival. So I emailed their department and they say that arriving by ship is a paper based visa and the crew would hand them out 2 or 3 days before arrival.

So did that happen or was it just a case of waiting for the ship to be cleared?

 

Nothing going right. W ent to get a new annual multi trip travel policy and it won't let me proceed past the putting of our ages in. It isn't a case of not insuring the elderly. We have gone through them for the last 3 years and they say they will ensure you until age 100. might have to do it by phone.

 

At the moment just taking a break from the Indonesia evisa process. What a clunky system!

 

Ps just finished this when an automatic update announced itsel. They normally do that at night.

Edited March 10 by drron29

[Port Power]

21 minutes ago, drron29 said:

i was wondering if I could ask you a quick question @Port Power. When you arrived in Japan did the ship arrange your visa. I have been doing all the paper work for our cruise from Bali this coming Friday. I went to do the Japan Evisa online but it only gives you the option of air arrival. So I emailed their department and they say that arriving by ship is a paper based visa and the crew would hand them out 2 or 3 days before arrival.

So did that happen or was it just a case of waiting for the ship to be cleared?

 

Nothing going right. W ent to get a new annual multi trip travel policy and it won't let me proceed past the putting of our ages in. It isn't a case of not insuring the elderly. We have gone through them for the last 3 years and they say they will ensure you until age 100. might have to do it by phone.

 

At the moment just taking a break from the Indonesia evisa process. What a clunky system!

 

Ps just finished this when an automatic update announced itsel. They normally do that at night.

I didn’t have to do anything for arriving by ship.  I definitely did not obtain an e-visa myself.  The Japanese officials came aboard and set up in the Panorama Lounge.  We were called by deck to go in with our passports and have a face to face check.  It is all coming back now!  It was a bit of a shambles because the computers kept crashing!  I remember us talking about it, saying that surely the Japanese should be IT experts!

 

So that’s one less item on your to-do list! Good luck with the rest.

 

I am doing a world cruise next year, January from FLL.  I am not looking forward to getting all the visas sorted.  At least I know Vietnam is done as a group entry by the ship.  I have to do Chile again, but I am definitely not going to use the Melbourne consulate! Indonesia changed the rules again, so I might pick your brain.  China I think will be fine using the 72-hour free transit rule.  Such a headache, isn’t it?

[drron29]

Thanks so much @Port Power for that it does mean one less worry. I did finally finish the Indonesian Evisa on line today but it was hard. At first wouldn’t accept the upload of my passport. Turns out because of a tiny shadow on the picture I took. 
But then the original upload of your passport needed to be a Jpg image but the second time they as for it it needed to be a PDF image. Basically took me all afternoon.

 On our last cruise we transited Bali and the ship did the evisa’s for $US 30 where today online I paid $A52. So much easier to get the ship to do it and slightly cheaper.

Edited March 10 by drron29

[drron29]

We do have a wer d sense of humour in Autralia. This is a numberplate from the State of Western Australia which slipped through the regulators.

 

 

Now look at it the Australian way - upside down.

[drron29]

 

 

 

[drron29]

One of our local gin distillerys has the World Icons of gin award for the best craft gin distillery. and yes I do have their products -a Koala, kangaroo and Quokka varieties.

 

 

 

 

https://www.sunshinecoastnews.com.au/2024/03/05/organic-distillery-named-best-in-the-world/

 

Another of our very good gin distilleries, Sunshine and Sons, on the Coast this time won the world's best craft vodka award.

[drron29]

 

 

 

[QueSeraSera]