Saturday, September 13, 2014
Today we celebrated Stephen’s birthday. The day started with a birthday breakfast with some good friends. The breakfast provided a chance to open some birthday presents. The ship arrived back in Otaru just after lunch. Once docked and cleared and we headed into town to stretch our legs and enjoy being back in Japan and on land after a few days at sea. Hilde and Tricia used the shore landing as a chance to arrange train tickets to Sapporo Airport.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
We woke up early to say farewell to Hilde. She had a very early train and we wanted to make sure her very expensive taxi to the train station showed up on time. It did. So we waved Hilde off knowing that we had a wonderful shared experience with her. We had a final breakfast meal with Tricia before repeating the farewell ritual with her. For a second time we managed to hold back the tears while we waved Tricia off, again knowing we have made wonderful memories.
Caroline and I joined the shuttle bus for the 45 minute ride to Sapporo. Here we took lunch and did a little shopping and exploring with our good friend Peter. Sapporo is a nice enough town and we enjoyed walking around the shopping malls and parks. We fell asleep on the shuttle bus back to Otaru. We returned to the apartment for a quiet night.
