Busy day at sea

Today was a busy sea day. This morning I attended a port tips discussion for Osaka and Hiroshima. I then met with my fellow independent tourist to discuss our agenda. Luckily in-between I scored an Asia, World Cruise t-shirt from Princess. When I next stopped by the sales desk they were practically all gone. In the afternoon I attended the lecture "The Story of the Buddha and Reflections on Buddhism". I thought it was nicely done. There was then an "Oscars" auction of memorabilia donated by one of the lecturers. Before the auction was over it was time for our cruise critic get together discussing our plans for Asia.

In the middle of all this I thought it would be better to switch to a Princess tour. Luckily the one I liked was sold out, so I am still independent. My decision had been based on erroneous info. on the length of the train ride. I did some Internet research tonight and it appears independent is probably the best way to go so I'm glad to still be independent. It appears we will be visiting Nijo Castle, Heian Shrine, Kyoto Handicraft centre, Kiyomizudera Temple and the Gion area. Then it will be a race back to the ship with any time left over spent shopping in the area near the ship in Osaka.

A wild card is the time we can get off the ship. We have a finger printing and immigration process that is scheduled for 8:45 and we have been told to show up only during our assigned time. This could cause us to get a much later start on the day than we had planned as the ship's tours are all scheduled to go ahead of us independents. Another potential wrench in the works is that we need to be back on board at 7:30 at the latest. This could put us in the middle of rush hour trying to get back. Of course getting left here isn't so bad as the next port is Hiroshima which is pretty close.