So I cheated. The photo above is not Tokyo, but it could have been a couple of weeks ago. The Japanese adore all things cherry blossom, and although the delicate pink blooms only hang around for a week, Tokyo dwellers go all out. Office workers pour out of skyscrapers to frolic under the blossoms at elaborate picnic parties, we hear. We witnessed this firsthand farther north in Hakodate, where I took the picture above, smack in the middle of 600 blooming cherry trees – lucky us. And lots more cherry blossom pictures in my next post (I threw one in here to help us imagine what Tokyo might have looked…

We don’t back down from travel challenges, but our race through Yokohama’s sprawling train station had me longing for the rocker and remote, just for a moment. The morning started on a high note, with our entrance to Yokohama Harbor and our last morning with the Diamond Princess (thanks Shari for the ‘view’ tip, and the detailed instructions – it helped, trust me!). We hoped to disembark by 7:30 AM at the latest, catch a taxi to Yokohama station, locate the ticket office to buy our Narita Airport Express tickets, then find the Promised Land – platform 10 – all by 8:26 AM to make our noon flight. Hey, old…