At least this time I managed to set up the blog before we left home! We're just about finished packing for tomorrow's flight. Meal timing will be a bit weird as Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of us, and they usually turn down all the lights not long after the meal to 'encourage' people to start adopting the new time zone. We'll see how well that works out, considering our flight leaves at 1:50 in the afternoon.
The weather is expected to be quite nice, so we only have to consider a couple of cooler days near the end of the cruise when we sail up to Hakodate on the northern island of Hokkaido and then back to Tokyo. Let's hope that the weather forecast was at least close to accurate.
We'll be very busy on this cruise, and I hope to do lots of sketching. We have two days of tours with a private guide in Tokyo and she's already included a stop for some Japanese art supplies in our itinerary.
It seems like a very long time ago that we booked this cruise, and now it is finally almost upon us. We're really looking forward to all of our excursions and expect to learn a lot about Japan, its people and culture as we travel around. Hope you will enjoy it too!
