Welcome to part three of my Japan adventure chronicles! In
part two, I shared my very first day in Osaka (not just the first day for this trip,
but my first time setting foot there ever!) which mostly consisted of
exploration of the immediate area surrounding our hotel. We were passing the
time until boarding of our cruise ship, the Silver Muse, was scheduled to
begin. Today, I'll share photos of my boarding experience (another first; I
had never been on a ship of any kind before!) and my first impressions being
on the ship!
Wednesday 15 March 2023 - Boarding the Silver Muse
We were shuttled from the hotel to the boarding location via tour bus.
The wait for our group number to be called was longer than the ride
itself.
First clear view of the Silver Muse!
We were thrilled to discover that we had been upgraded from the cheapest
and smallest suite (all the cabins are suites on this ship) to the top
of the mid-range options! The bathroom included everything you see here
plus a separate shower and bathtub, with luxury Bulgari toiletries. The
only negative was how disturbingly loud the flush on the toilet was. I
have no idea if that's just a thing on cruise ships or what 🤔
Here are the sleeping and sitting areas of our Deluxe Veranda Suite. The
black cases on the bed were luxury sanitation kits that included a pack
of face masks, hand sanitizer, antimicrobial wipes, and hand lotion
❤️
Both of the gigantic mirrors in the sleeping/sitting areas had smart TVs
inside! We received notifications, messages, and news about the cruise
on it, and could watch live video feeds from a couple different
locations on the ship, among other things.
Drinks were included in our cruise fare, and they provided a bottle of
sparkling wine in our room to kick everything off 🍾 I do wish marking
ourselves as teetotalers was an option, though. I like the flavor but
not the alcohol, and my husband, Sean, doesn't drink at all.
The fantastic view of the Osaka Cruise Terminal from our ✨~veranda~✨
😄 We were expecting to have nothing more than a picture window (that
is, a window that gives a great view but doesn't open) when we booked,
so being upgraded to this suite was dreamy for the veranda alone!
カンパイ！or Cheers! 🥂 I popped open the bubbly, and Sean had Sprite
😄
We explored the ship after getting settled in our room. It was full of
interesting and unusual art! This is an example of some glass work.
Here is an example of avant-garde sculpture.
A framed tapestry; these were my favorite.
Non-representational painting. I loved the colors and textures of this one.
Me and the great wheel at night! My only regret is not getting to ride
on it!
Our first dinner on board was at Kaiseki, a Japanese style restaurant.
They kept the drinks flowing much too liberally, especially the
delicious sake! I enjoyed it at the time but I don't want to drink like
that again 😅
The atmosphere and food presentation was excellent in this tiny
restaurant, but I have to admit, their vegan "options" were very
limited. Still, we had a good time, enjoying our first evening on board
any ship ever!
Although I don't have any memory of departing from the port, because I
drank WAY too much, my hangover woke me up at three-in-the-morning and I got to enjoy a
dreamy vision of the moon shining through the clouds and lighting up the
sea 🌘💕
So ended our first day in Osaka, our first day on the Silver Muse, and our
first night on the cruise. I'll be back soon with part 4 of my adventure,
which was a full day at sea, heading towards Kagoshima. Please look forward to
it!
The weather has been a bit odd recently, several weeks of frosty sweater
weather (a bit of a shock after spending three weeks in warm, sunny Japan),
then a sudden wave of summer temps and dry thunderstorms for a few days,
followed by cool rain starting today. I'm glad the deep chill of winter is
finally over, but I hope the rain sticks around for a while. I want to be able
to enjoy proper spring weather!
My cherry tree in bloom mid-April 🌸
Today I'd like to share with you my art-related activities and recommendations
from the past two months. I won't go into specifics about my Japan trip, since
I'm already doing that in a separate blog series, but it may come up here and
there. In any case, I hope you'll enjoy this two-month art roundup!
Patreon Rewards
In March I sent out these adorable postcard rewards featuring the chibi
caricatures I recently made of my two pet pigeons, Kumo and Sora. I did not
originally make the caricatures with the idea of turning them into a reward,
but it worked out so well that I'm going to make rewards featuring my two pups
and my kitty next 😊 I'm very close to done with the puppy reward, so be sure
to
sign up here
if you'd like to receive the next adorable postcard (or a larger, more
detailed print version)!
Whaaat?! I finished posting all my 2022 work to dA?!
Yes! I did! Finally!
Now I have four months of a productive 2023 to catch up on 😆 Of the most
recent uploads, this final piece from Inktober 2022 is my favorite. The prompt
was "farm" and I was still following my gryphon theme, so I drew a
turkey-gryphon farmer! Not only did I enjoy the amusing visual, I feel this
was one of my best inking jobs from the challenge. Makes sense, since it was
the 31st ink drawing I did that month!
Art Livestreaming
At the end of April, I finished my Aoife chibi! Aoife is my big dog; I
finished Chibi Chappie (my little dog) on the last Friday before I left for
Japan 😄 These two will become my next Patreon reward, as I mentioned. You can
watch the final round of work on chibi Aoife, which was done live on Twitch,
on YouTube:
My streaming schedule remains the same as usual: Inktober52 on Mondays (an ink
drawing combining a weekly prompt with my self-imposed gryphon theme), a Lucky
Dip on Wednesdays (four random art tools used to practice an anime-style
character drawing), and Chibi Fridays (adorable chibi caricature drawings). Be
sure to check out my
Twitch schedule
and follow me there to get notifications whenever I go live!
Charity Fundraising
Because March is Women's History Month in my country, I chose
RedRover as my charity this time.
RedRover, among other good things, helps people escaping domestic abuse (a
population which is disproportionately comprised of women) keep their pets
with them, especially because pets in such situations are in just as much, if
not more, danger as their abused human guardians.
Since I was going to miss several weeks of livestreaming while on vacation, I
decided to use March and April's stats combined to determine my donation. My
formula is thus: for every unique viewer I get on Twitch in the selected time
period, I donate USD $0.10, with a minimum of $10 and a maximum of $100.
Through March and April, I had 14 unique viewers, which equals a $10 donation
to RedRover! They had a checkbox to cover processing fees, so I actually
donated a little bit more to ensure the funds could be as effective as
possible ❤️
My featured charity for May is
The Peregrine Fund. I chose them because the
California condor
population, already critically endangered, is suffering huge losses due to an
outbreak of avian influenza. The Peregrine Fund is making concerted efforts to
help the birds, and I want to join them 💪
Mika's Monthly...
In this section, I will share some of the things that have kept me fueled,
happy, and healthy through March and April. I hope you'll give some of these
recommendations a try! (As always, I am not being compensated for any of these
recommendations. I'll let you know if that ever changes!)
...Workout 👟 The way I kept active the most during these past two
months was walking! In particular, this was the most accessible way to get my blood pumping
while still enjoying my vacation in Japan. I even did a one mile
walk around the track on the top deck of our cruise ship, the Silver Muse,
during a day at sea! Of course, the ship moved so fast that the stats on my
Garmin were totally off 😆
...Vegan Victuals 🍱 At the end of April I hosted my first cherry
blossom viewing party! I've wanted to do so ever since I moved here, because
there's a cherry tree in my back yard. For the party, my sister and I made
vegan bento boxes for everyone 😊 It was way easier than I expected. I bought
some
cute vegetable cutters
to make the flower veggies, but other than the bento boxes themselves, no
other specialized equipment was required. These boxes were lined with leaves
of romaine lettuce, filled with steamed short grain rice which was then topped
with furikake seasonings, then filled the rest of the way with carrots,
cucumber, radishes, avocado, steamed broccoli, cherry tomatoes, boiled sweet
peas, vegan hot dogs, and cute animal-shaped vegan chik'n nuggets ✨
...Show 📺 I finished watching
The Mandalorian
season 3 in April and I loved it! Din Djarin has solidified himself as my
favorite character in the series 🥰 I am so excited for the next season, I
really want to see where things go from here. There are so many possibilities!
...Music 🎧 I've been listening to a lot of music of all genres over
the past couple months, so it was a bit difficult to choose what to feature.
One thing I didn't get very much of in Japan was a fix for my otome game
obsession, so I have been listening to a lot of my otome game soundtracks
since I got home! I let that guide my decision here, so I'm sharing my
otome game playlist
from Spotify 😄
That's it for this roundup post! In the couple days since I started writing,
the weather has granted my wish and stayed lovely cool and rainy~ It's
absolutely dreamy this morning ☁️😌🌧️ I don't expect it to last, with summer
just around the corner, so I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can! Here's
hoping you're also enjoying the weather wherever you are~✨ Until next time,
stay safe, happy, and healthy!
Welcome to Part 2 of my Japan vacation report! You can
read Part 1 here. Today's entry will cover my first day in Osaka, which wasn't very long. My
husband and I mostly explored the area around our hotel before beginning the
boarding procedures for our cruise ship. Even with the short amount of time,
however, we still found some cool stuff which I shall now share with you here!
Wednesday 15 March 2023 - Exploring Sakishima, Osaka
This photo is actually from the night before, but I'm including it
because...
...I ended up taking the exact same photo, effortlessly, the next
morning! The tower on the left is
Cosmo Tower, the third tallest building in Japan.
It wasn't even (astronomical) spring yet but many lovely flowers were
abloom!
A map of the area we walked around in. We mostly followed the canal.
One of the best things about Japan: awesome vending machines everywhere!
This ship was a random find! It's a restored Kofun period ship named
Namihaya. This Asahi article
from last October indicates people are trying to find a better home for
it.
There were lots of lively birds in this area!
The blue and green ship in the background is the most vibrant ship I've
ever seen!
Turns out this Osaka-themed manhole cover is an item in Animal Crossing:
New Horizons 😲 My sister sent me an image of it! I discovered later
that many places in Japan have their own specific cover designs, so I
started taking photos of all that I noticed!
My first wild jellyfish sightings! I photographed several floating along
in this seawater canal.
This was a cool driftwood art installation in our hotel, the
Hyatt Regency Osaka.
Part of the artificial pond just outside the hotel.
I spotted several of these birds in the tiny park we walked to. I've now
identified them as
tsugumi, an Asian bird that I'd have never seen wild in my homeland!
That's all for this entry; I'm going to put our next step, boarding and
exploring our cruise ship, into its own post. That will be next! Please look
forward to it 😄
This month I'm using my blog quite differently from usual. Since most of March
was taken up by my trip to Japan (and a single day in Korea), instead of a
roundup post, I'm going to make several smaller vacation recap posts 😄 Think of
it like a digital photo album, with lots of images and short notes that allow
you to experience my journey, or even imagine your own future visit to Japan!
First, a little background information. My husband, Sean, and I were
originally planning to attend the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. I had started saving up
ever since the Rio Olympics closing ceremonies, where Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe emerged from a green pipe dressed as Mario ❤️ But, of course, those plans
were destroyed (with some false hope in between) by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even the replacement trip we decided on, a cruise around Japan in 2022, was
cancelled for the same reason. But happily, the replacement for our
replacement wasn't cancelled, and we got to have the most awesome adventure of
our lives so far~!
Now begins a multi-post account of my three weeks in Japan! Please enjoy!
13-14 March 2023 - Traveling from Boise to Osaka
We didn't realize it would be like this, so it was an exhausting surprise to
find our total awake time (not including naps on flights) ended up being over
24 hours, starting from waking up in the early morning on the 13th at home in
Boise, and ending when we finally got to enter our hotel room in Osaka in the
evening on the 14th 😅 The travel itself was great, we flew Delta One across
the Pacific, which was sooo nice, especially since my last trip to Japan was
via the cheapest seats, so I already had the least comfortable experience in
memory as comparison. But I didn't expect to be so tired on my first day in
Japan!
Me and Sean on the plane from Boise to Seattle.
My Delta One seat on the flight from Seattle to Tokyo.
I've never flown so fancy before~ The seat lays down into a bed!
As soon as you're seated, the first drinks service begins! We chose
orange juice 🍊
All strapped in and ready for takeoff!
Included with this seat was a care packet containing an eye mask, ear
plugs, hand cream, lip balm, toothbrush and paste, and an eco-conscious
pen.
It also came with slippers, headphones (for use with the built-in media
system), and a bottle of water 😊 All needs accounted for!
The media system was so cool! Not only could you watch movies, listen to
music, or the like, you could see all kinds of data and visualizations
of the flight itself and its progress 🤩
The first movie I decided to watch was Spaceballs, a childhood
favorite! I'd actually been wanting to rewatch it for a while and I was
pleased to find it just as laugh-out-loud funny as ever 😂
My vegan breakfast at the end of the flight was delicious!
I didn't have enough time to watch the whole thing, but the second movie
I chose was The Last Samurai, another long-time favorite. Again,
I was pleased to find it just as good as I remembered 🥹
We safely landed at Tokyo International Airport, and when I was allowed
to turn off airplane mode on my phone, it officially became Tuesday
afternoon for me! We skipped a bunch of time when we crossed the
International Date Line; it was only just after midnight back at
home.
The sunset was beautiful on the plane ride to Osaka~
Gorgeous twilight aerial view of Osaka 🌇
We stayed the first night at the Hyatt Regency Osaka, a very nice
hotel!
The best everyday part of Japan is the toilets 🤩🚽✨ Almost all
have a "washlet" with various features such as a bidet, privacy sounds
(so you can poop with other people nearby and not feel self-conscious! I
loved it!!!), heated seat, etc. I want one at home...
Was so nice to go to sleep in a comfy bed after over 24 hours of travel.
I had zero jet lag because I managed to stay up until a normal bed time
😌💤
That's it for the first day of our journey! Next time I will cover our morning
exploring around the hotel in Osaka
and boarding our cruise ship, the Silver Muse. Please look forward to it!
