Yes, Captain Phillipe was taken off the ship by ambulance yesterday in Hakodate. We had an announcement last night that he was in stable condition and expected to recover and be fine in a few days. Barry did tell us later that the Captain was literally exhausted after having to spend 24 hours on the bridge at least three times on this cruise--once during the bad storm we had and two nights in a row due to dense fog. He didn't say it was a viral infection, but I suppose that's possible. We haven't heard any more about his condition today. Right now the Staff Captain in driving the ship. We just arrived in Sendai, Japan. We aren't going to be here very long, so we've decided to just stay on the ship today. The weather is kind of dreary and rainy anyway. We did have a visit from some cute Japanese children to welcome us. Yesterday, in Hakodate, we had a fun time at the market in town. We tasted some fabulous melon that were everywhere, had a local beer and helped the executive chef pick out some humongous King Crab to take back to the ship. We almost went to a tea ceremony but since you have to sit on the floor we thought it might be a little embarassing when we tried to get up.
:rolleyes:
As we were leaving the port, a whole bunch of people from the town came out to play music and wave goodbye to us. Last night we listened to some more jazz and then had a great dinner --Beef Wellingon, my favorite. Tomorrow we'll dock in Yokohama. We're planning to take an all day tour to Tokyo. We won't see Marc and Arlene because they've already left for Osaka--but we'll see them soon.