Miyakojima Island

　　December 19th. We would land on Miyakojima Island today. We finished breakfast earlier and got a numbered ticket for the tender boat. I presumed that Miyakojima Island didn't have a pier big enough for a cruise ship like the Diamond Princess. It was the second time for us to get on a tender boat of the Diamond Princess. I hoped to take pictures of the inside.
　　Our room was located on the 5th floor, called Plaza Deck. We had stayed on the same floor in the last cruise, but our room was inside and had no windows then. This time, however, we took an outside room and the room had a square window. Look at the outer appearance of the Diamond Princess, you'll find square windows lying in a row on its white ship hull. There were management facilities below 5th like the clinic, rooms for crew members, food storage facilities, machinery rooms, and so on. Our room was at the lowest floor among the passenger rooms and we weren't able to breathe outside air and weren't able to see the clear view due to dirty window glass.However, I found one thing of our room which was better than the upper class rooms. I'll write about that point later.
　　There were a variety of public facilities on the Plaza Deck. The art gallery was in front of our room. Every time we went out, we were sure to go through the gallery and saw lots of pictures. I liked some of them, but the prices were out of reach. While observing them every day, the number of pictures labeled "sold" increased. I heard that passengers buy them as a memory of the cruise.

(Vocabulary)
numbered ticket 整理券
ship hull 船体








１２月１９日、今日は宮古島へ上陸する。早めの朝食をとり、上陸のためのテンダーボートの整理券を受け取った。ダイヤモンド・プリンセスが接岸できる港はないのだろう。テンダーボートに乗るのは前回のクルーズを含めて２回目。これはこれで楽しみ。混んでいなければテンダーボート内部の設備を写真に収めたい。

今回の部屋は５階プラザ・デッキにある。前回のクルーズでは窓のない部屋だったが、今回は外側の部屋で窓はある。外から見ると、白い船体の部分に四角い窓が見えるが、この階である。４階以下は医務室やクルーのための部屋、食品倉庫、機関室など運行のための設備がある。客室の中では一番低い位置にあり、景色は悪いし外の空気は吸えないものの利点が一つ。今日の記事の最後にこの利点について書く。

５階には共用施設がたくさんある。部屋を出るとギャラリーとなっていて、毎日ギャラリーを通ってメインホールやショッピング街、洗濯、レストランやプールに出かける。気に入った絵もたくさんあったが、なにせお値段が、、、(^_^;)　毎日見ていると、売約済みのシールが貼られていき、翌日には他の絵と入れ替わっている。クルーズの記念に買い求める乗客が多いそうだ。