20251031 Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 27– Tokyo, Japan to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 27 – Disembarking in Tokyo and flying to Mongolia

We were up early today as it was disembarkation day. That meant we needed to get out of the room completely by 8:00. We grabbed breakfast as we were docking in Tokyo.

Sailing into Tokyo past the industrial berths

Tokyo has a huge port area

The port is right in the city, and that is very cool

Getting a little tug assistance

After clearing the room, we waited on deck #2 to disembark. Just like the Japanese Immigration fiasco, disembarkation was equally disorganized. Everyone was assigned luggage tags with a color and a number, based on the timing of their plans. Did they call people by luggage tag color/number? Of course not. It was another free-for-all. They did try to get some early departures in The Restaurant, but that line merged with the regular line that stretched from mid-ship to the Cruise Consultant's desk and down the stairs. Organization is not a strong suit on the Yi Dun.

Walking off the gangway and into Tokyo

Once off, grabbing our bags was easy. We zipped through Customs and found our bus for Narita Airport. Once loaded, we made the roughly one-hour drive northeast to Terminal 2 for our Mongolian Air flight later in the afternoon. Narita is a huge airport. We walked into the terminal near check-in counter A. We checked the board and saw that Mongolian Air worked out of counter P, all the way across the terminal. When we arrived there, there wasn't a soul anywhere. We looked at the screens over the counters, and they said that the counters would open at 12:30 for our 3:30 flight. Well, that's great when you arrive at the airport at 11:00. We wound up standing there for 90 minutes, waiting for the counters to open. It would have been much nicer if Viking, the company that arranged both the flight and the airport transportation, had just kept us on the ship for another couple of hours and then had taken us to the airport. Like I said, organization was not a strong suit on the Yi Dun.

Eventually, the counters opened, and we were able to check in for Mongolian Airlines flight 502 to Ulaanbaatar.

Security was amazingly smooth, especially when compared to the invasive security checks we endured on all the flights within China. Because we were flying Business Class, we had access to the Japan Airlines (JAL) lounge. We were able to grab a bite to eat and something to drink, and took advantage of the free Wi-Fi and comfy seats overlooking the tarmac. I grabbed a beer. The process for getting a beer was so cool, I had to get another one, just to film it. I didn't want to, I had to, just for you, dear readers.

The perfect beer pour, completely hands-free. How cool.

Our gate, gate 68, was at the opposite end of this wing of Terminal 2. Our boarding time was 2:50, so we departed the lounge at 2:30 and walked to the gate.

The flight to Ulaanbaatar departed a little late. 

They made up time in the air. We got lucky and scored Business Class seats, so it was relatively comfy for the five-hour flight.

It was pouring rain in Tokyo all afternoon. We felt bad for the folks who had booked Tokyo extensions and were dealing with the rain.

Lining up for runway 34 with a bunch of planes lined up behind us

Once in Mongolia, we cleared Customs quickly, got our checked bags, and met our Viking rep. 

It was brisk, in the 30s, but still comfy as we walked to our tiny bus. The 24 of us were divided between two buses. The buses were small and our luggage was piled in the bus with us for the 90-minute drive to the Shangri-La hotel. We were packed in like sardines. Mongolia has a population of around 3.5 million people, and half of them live in Ulaanbaatar. Most of them were on the road at 10:00 at night as we hit bumper-to-bumper traffic. It was crazy. We finally arrived at the Shangri-La Hotel just before 11:00.

We found out on the bus that we would be on the first of three 8-passenger flights tomorrow to the Gobi Desert, and we will need to be on the bus at 7:00! Get to the hotel at 11:00 at night, check out at 6:00 the next morning to get breakfast and go. Tomorrow will be a long day. But we're here in Mongolia, our 93rd U.N. member-state country, and 111th country overall.

 

20251030 Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 26– Shimizu, Japan

Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 26 – Shimizu - Finally a little snow on Fuji, and some Shimizu Deja Vu

We docked this morning in Shimizu, Japan. Shimizu's port has been operating for 125 years. Shimizu-ku ward in Shizuoka city, a Shimizu town in Shizuoka Prefecture, and the former city of Shimizu, which is now part of Shizuoka city, boast a population of about 3 million people throughout the entire urban area.

 One of the attractions here is Mt. Fuji. We visited Shimizu in October 2023, and Mt. Fuji had no snow on it. Today, we got to see Mt. Fuji with a little snow, so we're counting that as a win.

As we were admiring Mt. Fuji's beauty, this rowing team came by the ship.

They started waving

Then, they raised their oars and saluted us before they continued on their way

We left the ship for our 12:15 tour

A fun water storage tank featuring a cruise ship and Mt. Fuji

We caught some great views of Mt. Fuji on the way

It was a good thing because a few minutes later...

...it was completely obscured by clouds for the rest of the afternoon

Our last look at Mt. Fuji

Our first stop was Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha Shrine. It was built in 27BC as protection from volcanic eruptions. It is a traditional starting point for guests climbing Mt. Fuji.

The current buildings were constructed by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Shogun, in the early 1600s, however, many of the original structures were destroyed by earthquakes, and only the Inner Shrine, Outer Shrine, and Tower Gate remain.

It was familiar, but we've been to so many Shinto shrines, they all start looking the same

A guardian at the gate

A statue honoring the riding archers  - they still compete today

The main gate

Honoring the year of the snake

A hand purifying station

You dump the clean water over each hand to purify - wow, this seemed familiar

The main shrine building

Children get blessed at various points in their lives - this girl was seven and receiving a blessing

She was happy to pose for photos

 The family asked to take photos with our entire tour group - it was fun and should be a nice memory for her

Volcanic rock from Mt. Fuji

Another volcanic stone

A wishing wall where you tie a piece of paper with your wish on the ropes

Wow - this seems really familiar...

As we walked to the pond within the complex, I had a huge wave of Deja Vu

And yes, we visited this exact shrine on October 12, 2023, on our Viking Orion repositioning cruise

You can see the visit by clicking here.

We duplicated photos from that trip on this bridge

After we completed our shrine visit, we boarded the bus for the ride to Shiraito Falls. The Shiraito Falls (Shiraito no Taki) are located in the southwestern foothills of Mount Fuji. Ranked among the most beautiful waterfalls in Japan, the 150-meter-wide cascade is fed by the volcano's spring water and flows off the edge of a 20-meter-high cliff in thin white streams that resemble hanging threads of silk - hence its name. It flows well all year long since the water takes time to reach the falls as it percolates through the permeable volcanic rock.

A small portion of the falls - not the main attraction

Our first glimpse from the upper level

We descended the 100 or so stairs, stopping at different levels for a view

Reaching the bottom, you can appreciate the full falls and the multiple streams that make up the entire display

There are so many individual streams seeming to come right out from the tree roots that it is impossible to count them all

We started back up - you can see the staircase with the 100 steps - I'm very happy that the new knee was working well

Arlona spotted this guy on the stairway up

I spotted this one - ahh, nature

Arlona noticed this bench at the stop of the stairs - kind of ironic, given that we're near the base of Mt. Fuji

We made the 45-minute ride back to the ship, ending our final excursion of this cruise. 

The next thing on the agenda was more packing. We got mostly done and then headed to the Explorers Bar for one last pre-dinner drink. Then, we hit the World Cafe for our last dinner. We set sail around 7:00 and were sent off into the night by a brief but lovely fireworks display from the pier in Shimizu.

The other item on the agenda was to continue our battle with Guest Services about their incorrect accounting and the supposed balance owed. We met with them this morning and got nowhere, and were hoping for a resolution when we got back this afternoon. Unfortunately, we got no answers then either. We printed out our receipt showing that we had prepaid everything other than gratuities before boarding the ship, hoping that printed documentation would help us get a resolution. 

After dinner, we went down to Guest Services again, and they finally got everything sorted out and showed us the expected $249 of non-refundable onboard credit that we should have had. Because the shops have been closed or had very limited stock, there was no opportunity to spend the credit on the ship. We asked if they would just move it to one of the three cruises that we have already booked on Viking. They couldn't figure out how to make that happen. Their solution was to cancel excursions we had already taken, resulting in a refundable credit, and then rebooking them with the non-refundable credit. After jumping through that hoop three times, we ended up with $249 of refundable credit that will get refunded to our credit card shortly after we disembark. In the end, the result is that we wind up whole and are not out any money. The fact that we had to fight with them for three days to get to that outcome was simply unacceptable. It's too bad because it tarnished the luster of this trip.

With that finally behind us, we returned to the room to finish packing and get our big bags out by 10:30 for Viking to deliver to the pier. It will be an early morning tomorrow as we need to get breakfast and vacate the room by 8:00. Our airport transfer is at 9:30 for our 3:30 flight to Mongolia. Tomorrow will be a long travel day, getting us ready for the Mongolia extension. Tomorrow, we visit another new country!