“Sailing” From Japan to Vancouver By Way Of Alaska!

April 29, 2025

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So Jody & I were watching the boob-tube up at the Bitchin Ranch when we got a call from our friends Jeff & Debbie Kolod asking if we wanted to take a little trip. It seems they’d gotten a great deal to sail on the Oceania Riviera from Tokyo to Vancouver, BC, by way of multiple stops in Japan, then crossing the Bering Sea, sailing to Kodiak, Alaska, through the inside passage, stopping at multiple Alaskan ports, and continuing along the Canadian coast to Vancouver.

We were trying to figure out how we could go, as we did not want to leave the ranch (and Katie Kitty, our 9-year-old Toy Tiger Cat) alone! As luck would have it, our friends Dan & Betsey Grey were getting ready to put their boat on the hard, as they’d been cruising the Bahamas and were looking to take a break. They had worked with us at many boat shows when we were publishing Latitudes & Attitudes Magazine. With things coming together, we planned our voyage.

Now this was not to be sailing on a private boat, but instead we were joining an Adventure Cruise Ship, smaller than most cruise ships, and it was a foodie voyage as well, with four gourmet restaurants (all included in the price) and plenty of “distractions” like a pool, hot tubs, steam room, sauna, and a Grand Buffet, and with one and a half crew for each passenger, service is fantastic. After almost 35 years living aboard and cruising the world, we wanted to see how the other half lives.

And so it was we found ourselves on an 11-hour flight from Northern California to Tokyo, Japan.

Upon arrival we headed over to the hotel we would stay in for a couple of days so we could explore Tokyo. Our hotel, the Celestine, was an easy ride from Haneda Airport in a luxury van with the most friendly driver. Not only was he smiling and happy, but he also wanted a picture of all of us and said he would be happy to drive us around Tokyo the next day if needed. The hotel room was small but very comfortable, well stocked, and with the most fabulous breakfast buffet included in the price. The breakfast buffet was not your ordinary bacon and eggs, this buffet had smoked salmon, baked mackerel, roasted duck breast, gourmet coffee, and many other delicious meats, fruits, and vegetables, and the traditional American stuff too. Stuffed for the morning, it was now time to be a tourist.

First impression: Tokyo is one of the cleanest cities we’ve encountered. The streets were clean, but more than that, there were more beautiful parks than I ever thought possible. We spent a full day playing tourist on the “Hop On, Hop Off” bus. It was perfect. We played the tourists and loved it. The parks there are fantastic. The grounds are so well kept you’d think it was someone’s home. No matter where you looked, there were hundreds of colors of flowers, trees that were trimmed to perfection, ponds, and bridges over streams.

One of the reasons Jody & I wanted to come to Tokyo was to see the statue of Hachiko. There was a movie starring Richard Gere about the most loyal dog in the world. He was an abandoned Akita puppy, alone and freezing by a train station, when a man would stop by and pet him and started bringing him food. As time passed, he took the dog home, but every day, when he’d go to the train station to go to work, Hachi would follow him and wait all day at the station for his return.

Long story short, one day the man had a heart attack at work and passed. Hotchie sat in the station waiting room for him to come home for NINE YEARS! Through snowy winters and hot summers, he sat patiently waiting for his friend to come home. He eventually died waiting. The people who worked at the train station fed him, but no matter what, he would not leave.

The story spread, and they made a statue of Hachi, that still stands at the spot where he died. I wanted to go there and see the statue. (I am a sucker for dogs!).

As it turns out, the statue is just feet from Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, the busiest pedestrian crossing in Japan and often considered the busiest in the world. It’s a large scramble crossing where thousands of people cross at once in all directions when the lights turn green. We walked the crossing with an estimated 3 to 4,000 people and found the statue just around the corner. The people were courteous, weaving around each other with a smile, and we never heard a car beep or a siren the entire time in the city.

After a full day playing tourist, it was great to get back to the hotel and start packing to board the boat.

I gotta tell ya, the boat was amazing. Not like the large cruise ships, this vessel had a total passenger capacity of about 1,000 people, with an estimated 1,800 crew members. It may sound like a lot of people, but there are no lines, crowds, and plenty of tables at the restaurants. The boat was full of great art and had entertainment each night. The first night it was a Japanese drumming group that was amazing.

We had one day to kill before departure, so we walked the streets of Yokohama, where the boat was berthed, and visited Chinatown. Then we went for a ride on the world’s largest clock.

Yes, I said clock… Cosmo Clock is a 112.5-meter-tall Ferris wheel at the Cosmo World amusement park in the Minato Mirai 21 district of Yokohama, Japan. When it first opened, it was the world’s tallest Ferris wheel, until the completion of the 108-meter (354 ft) Igosu 108 in Shiga, Japan, in 1992. But tallest or not, when your car stopped at the top, it was a long way to the ground!

Departure was planned for 5 pm, so we hustled back to the shop and got prepared to start our journey!

Just before the departure, we went to our balconies to watch us leave. We were surprised by all of the people on the docks waving to us, with music blaring from loudspeakers on the dock. These were not friends of those departing, it was the Japanese people bidding us a joyful farewell.

And then we were underway…