NCL Jewel-Tokyo to Alaska live review (maybe...)

[mking8288]

16 hours ago, natefish95 said:

I called BOA and after battling with their automated prompts ... BOA just didn’t recognize the transaction type. I tried a few more times using the 7-11 Seven Bank ATM and got the same results ... 

Just a suggestion, if you haven't install the BOA App to your mobile device, consider doing so should you plan to withdraw funds at ATM's and/or use it for payments abroad.  That should help with getting transactions approved by their AI bolts.  It might take a 2nd swipe or attempt to go thru, checking & tapping "Yes" to approve when prompted on the BOA or SMS messaging, that it is a valid payment that you approve and know of when traveling.  This is also true when using it for Tap & Pay ... it's mostly fine at home with the U.S. but abroad, BOA should & need to do better but that's another topic & not directly related. 

 

Returning to follow your live review and pictures, interesting stories, etc. etc. 

[natefish95]

Good morning! It: about 7:40 here in Osaka and I’m about to go meet up with my tour to Kyoto. 
 

Yesterday, taking the train to Nara could not have been easier. The online schedule was correct and of course everything was perfectly on-time. From Namba, I was able to take the Kintetsu-Nara line which is about 40 minutes to Nara. The train was packed and I had to stand the whole time. Each way was about 650 yen and I was able to pay with my IC card, just like the metro. 
 

Once you get out of the station and walk straight ahead, you will immediately start seeing deer! It’s just so crazy how they aren’t afraid of people. I bought some deer crackers for 200 yen to feed them. They will even bow at you, and if you’re not feeding them fast enough they’ll bow more aggressively and closer. One bit my jeans when I couldn’t unwrap the deer crackers fast enough. 
 

You could definitely smell the deer poop, but it wasn’t awful. Overall I spent about 2 hours walking around. I had originally booked a walking tour through Viator but decided to cancel and I’m glad I did. It was nice to just wander around at my own pace. I’m sure I missed some context and fun facts, but I still had a great day there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cincicruisers]

Following along.  Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

[yakcruiser]

Those toilets got me worried. I need to find a YouTube tutorial on what all those little diagrams mean on all those buttons. I have enough trouble with all the pictographs on the newer cars.

[CruisnHallelujahs]

When you mentioned your toilet experience I was envisioning Dh’s early experience in Asia.  Two footprints and a hole.  I wouldn’t want that in my home so don’t think that is what people are ordering. 

[natefish95]

8 hours ago, yakcruiser said:

Those toilets got me worried. I need to find a YouTube tutorial on what all those little diagrams mean on all those buttons. I have enough trouble with all the pictographs on the newer cars.

Go in blind and just know you’ll get surprised no matter what!

[natefish95]

7 hours ago, CruisnHallelujahs said:

When you mentioned your toilet experience I was envisioning Dh’s early experience in Asia.  Two footprints and a hole.  I wouldn’t want that in my home so don’t think that is what people are ordering. 

Oh absolutely not! These are the most high tech toilets I’ve ever seen! Thankfully no squattty potties to be found!

[natefish95]

So now for the food tour last night, first things first, here is the tour I booked for $88 and would HIGHLY recommend. A very fun environment all around where we learned about the food of course, but also culture, what it’s like as an American living in Osaka, and even how to curse in Japanese. 

 

our first stop was at Johnny’s karage, which was probably my favorite stop. The decor was all 80’s, so the vibes were obviously very right. We tried 5 different types. I don’t remember them all, but my favorite was the Nampa karage, which had mayonnaise on it. The plum wine on the rocks was also very refreshing and could be dangerous. If you like sweet drinks, get it!

 

I think we had yakitori and tempura next? I forgot pictures. Oops. Next up was Takoyaki Ichiban (which means the number one Takoyaki). It’s an interesting texture and flavor. Not my favorite but the atmosphere was so fun. The lemon sour drink was also very good! 

 

 

After that, we had gyoza

 

after that it was maybe kushikatsu and sake? There was definitely sake. 
 

Overall, amazing tour for a great value. The owner messaged me our group photo on WhatsApp this morning and was so helpful when I asked for recommendations for dinner tonight. I think this is a smaller company, but they really go the extra mile. 

[natefish95]

Morning all! Taking the bullet train back up to Tokyo today. While I’m on the train, I’ll post about my day trip to Kyoto. 
 

if you’re coming to Japan, I’d recommend staying in Kyoto for a few nights instead of taking a bus tour from Osaka. Traffic was a mess last night. The tour was good and I saw a lot though.

[natefish95]

Greetings from the shinkansen! I'm being rocketed through the Japanese countryside at 200mph on my way to Tokyo! I've taken many of trains before, but nothing is as quiet and smooth as this one! I opted to do "green class" for $130 for a resreved seat and including space for an oversized bag. I booked seat 1A thinking that I would be on the left side to see Mt. Fuji, but turns out I was wrong. 1D gets the view on the left side this way. Oh well, I'll be at Mt Fuji tomorrow on a tour.

 

So back to my Kyoto tour. I booked the tour linked below called "Kyoto Top Highlights Full-Day Trip from Osaka/Kyoto" We met at Nomba OCAT and left on-time at 9am. It was about a 40 minute drive to Kyoto and we stopped at the Fushari Inari-taisha shrine where we were able to see the thousands of iconic red gates. I've seen these in pictures, so it was nice to finally see them in person with a million of my closest stranger friends. It was by far the most crowded of the places we visited. There is definitely more to explore in this area, but I was a bit pressed for time, and the guide made it very clear they'd leave if we were late. Japanese punctuality!

 

Next we went to the Kyomizu temple and kyomizu stage. We had about 2.5 hours to explore on our own here. Leading up to the temples, there is a large shopping street, including stops for food. The shopping street was SO CROWDED, but once you got up to the stage and down into the gorge, the crowds thinned. When I booked my tickets, I decided to have lunch included. Tun-red out, only me and one other person did this option. It was a heavy tofu lunch and I would have been better suited to find a restaurant there for lunch.

 

Third stop was a quick stop at the golden pavilion. Very beautiful. Not much to say about this. 

 

fourth and final stop was at the Arashiyama bamboo forest, which was my favorite. Our guide walked us into the bamboo forest a bit, and then gave us several options of routes we could take. I opted to take the long route, which he said takes about 45 minutes, but I did it in about 30. This was the least crowded stop, which is so nice! I was getting very peopled out with the constant crowds. This stop also had a large shopping area. 

 

On the bus ride back to Kyoto we hit traffic for about 90 minutes, which was less than ideal. If I could do it over again, I would maybe spend 1 night in Kyoto and see the sights from there instead of bussing to Kyoto from Osaka and back OR just take the train to Kyoto. 

 

Once we finally made it back to Osaka, upon recommendation from my food tour guide, I went to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant called Chojiro Hazenshi and it was probably the best sushi I've ever had! You take a number when you walk in and wait for it to be called. I waited about 30 minutes or so. The staff was all very kind and spoke some English. You order via ipad or you can just take things off the conveyor belt. I did a combo of both. What was very helpful is that at each seat, they had a "how to" guide of how to use the iPad, what each plate color costs, and how to call the staff at the end. I had probably 5 plates of sushi and plum wine for $19. It would have easily been $50+ in the US (plus tip...)

 

An exhausting day, but I was able to cram a lot in for 1 day. For a bus tour, I still did nearly 25,000 steps. 

[natefish95]

All the gates (and the people)

[natefish95]

Kiyonizu and the stage 

[natefish95]

Lunch and matcha ice cream 

[natefish95]

Just now, natefish95 said:

Lunch and matcha ice cream 

Oops, first picture was my sushi dinner at Chojiro Hazenshi. So good!

[natefish95]

Golden pavilion (even the ticket was beautiful)

 

[natefish95]

Bamboo forest and surrounding area 

 

 

 

[catgirl411]

On 4/4/2024 at 10:29 PM, mking8288 said:

LOL ... get use to it.  Once you tried, experienced and enjoy it - the refreshing & clean experience ... environmentally friendly as fewer paper tissues are needed on a routine basis.  You can't and really don't want to go back.  Hotels abroad, especially better ones throughout Asia, not just Japan ... also South Korea, Taiwan & even places like Singapore have them ... oops, almost forgot, Honolulu upscale resort hotels too (as they "used" to get huge influx of Japanese visitors to the island)

 

It's easy DIY install but when we remodeled our co-op, general contractor installed it for us - prices varied widely, better ones are several hundreds & up, with remote & sensors ... high end ones in the thousands.  Replacement parts are expensive as you can't just order it from Home Depot or pick up a generic lid or seat from True Value Hardware, etc. 

Loved Japanese toilets especially the heated seats! I was in a public washroom at a museum in Tokyo where in addition to the “standard” features, it also played music to cover the sounds!

[julig22]

On 4/4/2024 at 4:26 PM, natefish95 said:

I called BOA and after battling with their automated prompts (“AGENT”…”AGENT”…”ohmygod no I don’t want to do a survey…”AGENT”) I finally talked to a real person and it wasn’t a fraud issue. BOA just didn’t recognize the transaction type. I tried a few more times using the 7-11 Seven Bank ATM and got the same results. The money exchange actually worked out well. I’ll probably go back there before I head up to Tokyo just in case. 

I'm on the same cruise, we arrived on Saturday. I also had an issue using my BofA card to buy our Disney tickets prior to coming, I had to use my Chase card, not thinking I'd have to pay a foreign transaction fee. Oops. Haven't ever had an issue in the past using it while traveling, just assumed it was because it was an internet purchase??

My Charles Schwab debit card also wouldn't work at the 7-11 bank kiosk at the airport but worked just fine later at another ATM.

[natefish95]

What’s up party people

 

did I forget about you? Yes.

Am I enjoyed this trip? YES

Is the wifi bad on the ship? YES!!!!!!

 

To quickly summarize, my day trip to Mt Fuji was great even though we couldn’t see the mountain. We saw (and smelled) all the sulphur from where the hot springs water originates and took the Hakone ropeway and a short cruise on a lake.

 

the next day the weather was terrible. I took the subway to Shibuya, but it was monsooning so I noped out of there real quick and went to an onsen. Then I did a really fun walking tour around Shinjuku.

[natefish95]

Wednesday the 10th, took the JR line to the ship and got on about an hour after I got there. The process was a bit strange and surprisingly unorganized. The ship still looks great and just how I remember her. We had a very large solo traveler group of about 35, which was really surprising. Solo host right now is Caio from Brazil.

 

Today we docked in Sendai. The schedule had us actually docking in Ishinomaki (contrary to port schedules). Turns out NCL is wrong and the port schedules were right—we docked closer to Sendai. 
 

They offered a shuttle service to downtown for $20 which took about 40 minutes each way. We docked a bit late around 10:30 and back on board was 4:30 so not an ideal port stop. 
 

The NCL shuttle dropped off at Sendai station about noon and then I went with another solo to get the local favorite of beef tongue (gyutan) which was surprisingly delicious! Walked over to Jozenji-Dori to take pictures and hopped on the shuttle around 2:30pm. 
 

gyutan, barley rice, and oxtail soup

 

 

[vacation44]

Still following along........

 

I really enjoyed your reports so far and the pictures.    Thank you for taking the time to share your vacation.

 

Not a fan of NCL charging for shuttles to get to downtown.

[PhillyTravelBug]

On 4/5/2024 at 9:20 AM, MM9U said:

In most of Asia, tattoos are a sign of gang membership.  The "right" kind of people don't have tattoos, and will not go to places where tattoos are allowed.

Wow. I have tattoo sleeves on both of my arms. Guess I would stick to the thermal spa on the ship 😉

[lepidoptera]

I love your review! The Nara deer look so cute and all the food looks so good. Sorry they had you in the wrong port and such a short time ashore-that is really crazy. 

[natefish95]

7 hours ago, PhillyTravelBug said:

Wow. I have tattoo sleeves on both of my arms. Guess I would stick to the thermal spa on the ship 😉

If you search enough, you can find onsens that are tattoo friendly. I went to Thermae-Yu in Tokyo and they offered adhesive patches for smaller tattoos. 

[natefish95]

Hello! Docked in Hakodate about 10am today. I spent the morning relaxing in the thermal suite before heading ashore. 
 

I took the tram up to Goryokaku Tower. Tram was 230yen and the tower ticket was 1000yen. Pictures below

 

 

 

 

 

 

the Sakura ice cream was 450 yen. I’m keeping a running total of price’s because NCL shore excursions were ridiculous and this is all doable on your own.