史上最高のラーメン？！日本の高校生ガイドと酒田で過ごした一日 – ダイヤモンドプリンセスクルーズ

史上最高のラーメン？！日本の高校生ガイドと酒田で過ごした一日 – ダイヤモンドプリンセスクルーズ

Welcome back to another episode from our 11-day cruise around Japan on the Diamond Princess. So far, we have traveled to Nagasaki, visiting a place where the bomb was dropped, explored an ancient bamboo forest, visited the Golden Temple, and explored one of the largest Buddhist temples in all of Japan. But in today’s video, we will try some festival foods before we get our own personal high schooler to guide us around the city. Or at least so we thought. Plus, we try some ramen from one of the most famous places in all of Japan. All of this and more coming up next. [Music] me. Hello. You got a shuttle bus ticket? No. Would you like to go? Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you. Morning. Hello. Good morning everybody from Sakata, Japan I believe is how yes it is said and uh we just brought the bus in which was uh a little bit of a ride but uh it was really cool seeing like that they had students out who are practicing their English and if you have questions they’re going to help you kind of navigate the town. So, um, it’s kind of a cool thing that they do, you know, and it’s a Saturday, so yes, you know, I don’t think that they’re necessarily in school. I don’t know if they kind of have the same system that we do, but still nonetheless really cool. So, uh, we are just going to be out and about today walking around and exploring the town. Uh, we want to get some ramen. We’re going to send out some postcards to our YouTube members and uh all the while just kind of have a good time. As you can see, it’s a little cloudy right now. So hopefully the clouds will break and the sun will start shining and uh it’ll warm up a bit. Let’s go. So, this is really cool. I didn’t know that we would see this shrine up here on this park. Now, I do know that like this is a pretty large park, but um this was kind of surprising and it’s really cool to see. I think there’s more gates up ahead, I think. So, and there’s a lot of shrines here in Sakata. There’s also a lot of Buddhist temples. um all kind of like smaller things, but interested to see what all we see today. This is really cool. It is It kind of stinks because we missed the blooms here. So you can see that on some of the trees there are just still a few petals left from the flowers. I mean I see some bigger trees that have Yeah, there’s like there’s one down there. But man, this would have been a really cool one. A really cool pathway with all the flowers on it. Oh, there’s some guys over here that are trimming up the bank and stuff, cleaning it up, picking up all the straw or the pine needles. I mean, [Music] hello. Hello. It’s like all the kids brought everybody up here. Yeah. Hello. I don’t know. So, we’re now in the park area. There’s a ton down there, which is kind of where we were walking or where we were walking to until we saw the uh shrine over there. So, but even just from up here, we’re in this like little lookout. Oh, wow. There’s a bunch of like little food vendors and stuff down here. This is really cool. I wonder if it’s like kind of a festival thingy. Probably. Huh. But there’s a bunch of uh you can’t really see them from this point, but it looks like there’s a ton of uh trees that are still flowering. So, we’re going to walk down through here and just take a quick peek. Oh, yeah. That one with the wind. I just saw a few fall off. How do you start teaching English? So, I will say one thing that’s been really nice about this sailing. Uh you know, this was this is marketed as a spring flowers cruise, right? So, you’re kind of chasing the flowers trying to see them. Now granted that they say that the susakura when it starts to bloom it only lasts for a week. So it’s very easy to also miss that uh that bloom but it’s been really nice that we’ve been kind of hitting it I think on the mark. Yeah. Throughout this sailing but also pretty much every port that we’ve been in has not had another ship. So we’ve been like pretty much the only ship. Now we have seen other big tour groups. Those could be landbased. They could be coming from another port. But for the most part it’s been really nice. Oh wow. Look at this. Uh, you can go that way if you want. Go this way. Sure. So, just kind of keep that in mind. And I and I say all that because um I don’t think that we’ve ever been to another country on a cruise where when we got off and they dropped us off or even just walking off the port that they had students there who were so willing and um enthusiastic about trying to help people out. I kind of actually feel bad that we didn’t snag one of them to There was three of them up there trying to get somebody else. They basically brought everybody up here to the park cuz I think that’s where everybody wanted to go. But still, it’s just so cool. I mean, like, it really seems like the culture here is just so welcoming to foreigners and uh they’re so helpful. So, check this out. This is really cool. Some beautiful, beautiful Sakura trees. It’s like we’re at a fair. This is really cool. It’s like uh the Sakura Festival or something. Yeah, that’s definitely what it seems like. [Music] [Music] All the boat. Hello. [Music] Yeah, the the the small one. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Well, today is a ramen day, but we had no idea that this festival was going on here in the in the park and uh I love seeing like the food vendors here. And whether or not that they’re owned by somebody local or not or whoever, uh I’m all about trying to support somebody. So, also nothing is in English and most of these people don’t, I think, really speak all that much English. So, sorry, I can’t get one out. These are fried chicken sticks. Yeah, they’re pretty good. Taste a little bit of like salt and air. Nice crispiness to them. They’re very crispy and they’re really light, too. And it’s um it’s like actual, you know, like maybe chicken breasts or something. Yeah, they’re pretty good. Tasty. 600 yen. So, three bucks ish. Yeah. I really love this. I think this is like a really cool thing to get to be here and like see local families out and about. They’re all like picnicking and yeah, you know, just enjoying uh the weather. For some of us, we might not think it’s all that great, but No, but it’s like it’s nice out today. Like a light jacket, jeans. It’s perfectly comfortable. Yeah. And it is really cool seeing people like literally just coming here to picnic. Like they brought their blankets, they brought coolers, like everything. And that like that’s not something that people really do. They’re probably coming anymore. Dumb Americans walk. I mean, they honestly could be. I would [Music] Hello. Good. How are you? Um, here’s a flyer. You can also try and meditation if you’d like to. Oh, wow. So, we just made it to Gichin Gian. Good morning. Good morning. And we have our Buddhist temple. Well, it’s our first Buddhist temple today. And she said we can actually go inside or Oh, no. It’s over there. I think we go in. Thank you. Hi. Hello. Hello. He’s going to give us a tour. Oh, okay. Nice to meet you. Yeah. Hello. Now, the high school kids take tours around the city to practice their English and to learn more about other cultures as well. And most of these kids do speak, you know, decently good English, but still broken. But just remember that they are not completely fluent. So, you still need to have some patience. If you know, you’re on this, you go to Sakata and they’re there. Uh, just make sure that you have patience with them. Now, I do really like this. you know, instead of us just aimlessly walking around inside of the uh temple in here, you know, this uh really nice kind student walked around and explained some stuff for us. He took a picture for us. No, you’re good. And it was a lot better than just us kind of, you know, walking through and looking at things and taking it in, which is nice, but to get the background and context for, you know, why things are the way that they are and why they’re here, um it was just really cool. So in this this uh like little statue here is meant to you know kind of like take away your pain and anxiety. You put your hands on their shoulders and you know it’s supposed to just remove those things from your body. So it was cool. You know we wouldn’t have known that if he wasn’t there to really explain it unless we you know took the time to look it up ourselves. Now he was also really nice to want to take us to where we were going to eat ramen at. But I think also the students are encouraged to take tourists to the shopping areas to the places where they’re going to be stores where they can, you know, purchase souvenirs and get more touristy like food, which is not really what Taylor and I were looking for. What we were looking for was authentic stuff. And, you know, bless this kid’s heart, um, he had the greatest of intentions to really just kind of get us maybe what he thought was like maybe we just wanted to get some food. But um we ended up kind of like standing around and really not knowing what was going on. And then finally I just said, “Hey, you know, we’re going to go to this ramen place. I’ve got it in my phone. Um you know, you’re more than welcome to walk with us uh until we get there, whatever.” Um and he was super kind again, asked us questions, talked to us, uh learned a little bit more about the US stuff. We learned a little bit more about Japanese stuff in the city. So it was cool and it was really nice to have him there and we really appreciate it. So, we uh after seeing the the Buddhist temple there, which we got a really great guide, a uh Japanese student. And so, I was telling you guys earlier, it’s kind of cool how they really try to get the kids out and integrating with um other people and maybe working on English a little bit. So, now um he is guiding us to the uh a ramen location that also has some shopping and things like that. So, um you know, it’s been kind of an interesting day. It’s still cloudy out. It hasn’t broken yet. The sun’s not out, but walking around is kind of heating us up. And we’re walking along the river and, you know, it’s been kind of nice. Might be a line. I see some people standing down there. I will leave this time. So, okay. Uh, what’s your name? Josh. Josh. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Perfect. Yes. Thank you so much. Oh, can you take one first actually? Perfect. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Byebye. Okay, so we’ve made it to the ramen place and it is uh really it’s actually kind of busy already. They just opened up. It’s right here on this corner and um so you can see like people are hanging out outside. It’s a popular place. The student who was walking us around told us that this place has won several like ramen uh like championships or something here in Japan. So, it’s really cool. It’s a popular place. Um, what I will say though is that um, not that we were being swindled by the by the children, but um, it definitely seems like their kind of job is to make sure that they get tourists to like the touristy places to shop and like, you know, eat ice cream or do all of those kinds of things because that’s kind of where he wanted to continue to take us. Um, and honestly, it’s my fault because I said to him, I said, “Is this a good place to go or is there a better place?” And so he kind of um took that to like kind of walk us to somewhere else. Um and then we double checked and we said, “No, we just want to go to the ramen place.” So he he was very nice and walked us here. And it was cool to like, you know, get to talk to somebody um who is Japanese and is interested in culture and, you know, wants to learn about the world. So, but yeah, so we’re going to wait. Might be 15 minutes, might be 20 minutes, might be an hour. We’ll see. Josh. Hello. Hi. Thank you. Okay. I have uh language detect on so that I don’t have to just it would it would be Japanese but we were in Korea too so wanted to be sure. So you just snap a picture. Here’s this side. So I don’t know if you can see it really well on the phone but essentially everything is translating fairly well. And I mean there are some pictures of stuff. Um but once we know what we like want to eat off of like our menu here that we’re looking at on Google Translate then we’ll just be able to point at that like on here. So, do you know what you want? I’m just going to get the number one. I’ll just get the number one. Okay. It’s a,000 yen for a bowl of ramen, which is like $7. And it’s a big bowl of ramen. Like, I’ve seen a few come out. I’m very excited cuz it looks and smells really good. Everybody seems like they are thoroughly enjoying in here. And um we’re we’re the only Americans in here. Um, so it’s I feel like that’s how you know you find an authentic place whenever you you know there’s nobody else that looks like you in there. Um, or speaks your language. Um, it was the same thing when we were in New York City when we found a really good um, dumpling place. It was Chinese food, but still. What is that weird? Josh is giving me a weird face, but like And I mean, there’s a line out the door. Come on. How is it not good? [Music] So, this has been phenomenal. Like, really, really good. Um, this is one of my favorite. Taylor found this place when she was doing some research. Um, and yeah, I mean, it’s a great choice. They turn over everybody really quickly, but I think there’s kind of a unstated role here, which is that like you eat your food and then you get out, right? Um to make room for other people who are waiting. So, you know, there’s not a lot of like Yeah, there’s not a lot of like hanging out and socializing for the most part. But it’s really good. Um this I think Taylor said a,000 yen uh for each bowl. It’s like $6.80, I think, or something like that. Back in the States, a meal like this for just the ramen bowl would probably be like 20 bucks. So, this was pretty far from where they dropped us off at. You did have to walk, but well worth it. Absolutely well worth it. So, this is so good. This restaurant has been our biggest and I would say really only language barrier that we’ve really had at all this trip. Everywhere else we’ve gone, people have spoken enough English to like get by. Not a lot of English here at all. No, nothing at the restaurant is written in English. Um, most places have like, you know, menus in both or like some things will say things in English. Um, so we just used Google Translate like I said earlier and just kind of pointed at the things that we wanted and he knew exactly what we wanted. We got what we ordered. Somebody had asked us, you know, how the language barrier has been on this trip and we really haven’t encountered one at all. And I still wouldn’t say we really encountered one here. Maybe a little bit, but I think just because we have traveled other places, like we were expecting them to not speak any English coming this far away from the cruise port and really not in a major city at all, but it was well worth it. Well worth the language barrier to come and eat here. Yeah. So, that was fantastic in there. That was my favorite thing we’ve eaten so far. Yeah, that broth was just so like welldeveloped. It was fantastic. Yeah. And the noodles. And mine had pork on it, so it was tasty. I got a different one than Josh because I saw that. So, they’re known for their wonton noodles there. Um, but I knew that I was not going to like those cuz I’ve had wonton before and I don’t I It’s a texture thing for me. Um, so I just got ramen, which was also fantastic. Um, and then Josh got a different one, but it was so good. Yeah, I’m still like smacking my lips cuz I can taste it. It It was a journey to get there. It’s kind of like a cultural experience for them, I guess, because I would guess. Um he didn’t really say that, but Well, I guess we didn’t ask either, but like for them to, you know, kind of practice their English with English speakers. Yeah. because I also saw some other kids holding uh that were doing the tourists with the adults holding signs that had stuff in English and then they were trying to make sure that they were pronouncing those words correctly. Yeah. By asking like, you know, somebody like us. So, however, like I said earlier, I think their main goal is to get people to like the shopping areas. Yeah. And I don’t think that that’s necessarily like to get people to spend money. But I think it’s No, but I think that’s what most tourists are looking for is like the shopping areas. And I mean, even when we’ve been on excursions, I’ve heard some of the other couples say like, “Okay, why don’t we going to the shopping area?” And I’m like, “What is it with you people in the shopping?” Don’t get me wrong, I like to buy little knickknacks and stuff, too, but I also want to be immersed a little more in the culture, not necessarily just go for like all of my knickknacks and stuff. Like if we get something great. If not, we just went to an awesome ramen place where nobody spoke English. It was Japanese only on the menu and everybody in there speaking and like that to me is way better having that experience than a knickknack for me to take home. Yeah. Yeah. So, it was cool. We’re now going to go to the place where he was originally taking us to, which does have some uh shopping and knickknacks. I think they’ve got like ice cream there that’s made from rice. And we’ve been having ice cream like every day. We’ve had ice cream more in the ports than on the ship, which is really funny because yeah, we’re paying for ice cream when we could just get it included on the ship, but you’re traveling anyway. We’ve already taken the yen out, so it’s free at this point essentially. Grow bath. So yeah, you know, uh just get out and explore sometimes when you port. That’s what we’re doing. No paid excursion today on the ground walking around. So, let’s go see what they got up here at the shop. Hey, you want to step in here real quick? Just take a look. [Music] Now, one thing that I’ve actually really been loving about this cruise is that every time that you come back to the port, they always have some vendors out here who are selling, you know, knick-knacks, artwork, handmade stuff. Uh here they even had some little food stands that you could grab before getting back on the ship. And this has basically been at every single port. There’s something here, you know, so maybe you didn’t get to do a lot of shopping. You have the opportunity to do it here back at the port. Um whatever. So this has been really great. Uh I don’t feel like we’ve really seen this a lot on other cruises, uh international cruises, of course, like you know, Nassau Bahamas, they have a whole shopping district right there at the port. But um you know this is you know relatively safe. Um it’s easy. It’s not crowded and chaotic. So it’s been really nice. [Music] Now something else that I wanted to mention here again before we kind of conclude today’s episode is that in almost every port again there has been this sign off for us from every single port where these people come out. I’m not sure if they’re paid or if it’s just voluntary, but they do some type of show or performance to, you know, basically send us off on our way to the next port of call. And each one has been a little bit more different, a little bit more unique. And so far, it’s just been really cool. And today, we’ve got um just this really cool display going on. And so, to end it, I’m just going to kind of just leave it here with this in today’s video. Oh, [Music] this song. [Music]

Join us as we explore the charming port town of Sakata, Japan, during our cruise through Northern Japan! This day was truly unforgettable—from wandering through a stunning sakura (cherry blossom) festival, to slurping up some of the best ramen we’ve ever tasted, and experiencing a heartfelt walking tour led by a local high school student.

This isn’t your typical cruise port stop. Sakata gave us a glimpse into everyday life in Japan—full of history, hospitality, and hidden gems you won’t find in a guidebook. Whether you’re planning a Japan cruise or just love cherry blossoms, local culture, and food adventures, this video will show you why Sakata should be on your radar.

🛳 Cruise Line: Princess Cruises
🌸 Sakura Festival highlights
🍜 Must-try local ramen
👘 Cultural exchange with a Japanese student
📍 Cruise port tips for Sakata

Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and follow along for more cruise travel vlogs across Japan and beyond!

#JapanCruise #SakataJapan #CherryBlossoms #CruiseVlog #RamenLovers #CruiseJapan #TravelWithLocals #SakuraSeason

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