For our second on shore day in this cruise we wake up in the morning and the ship is already docked a Juneau, the capital of Alaska and the second largest populated city in the region. The time we are docked at this port is much shorter than yesterday and our excursion begins very early in the morning so let’s see how today played out.

Rise and shine early in the morning, we gotta get out early so we gotta eat early, so onto Cabanos again for breakfast buffet. It’s so busy however that we cannot find a seat, so instead we have to sit outside on the 9th floor area, which does have alot of chairs and tables, still feels a bit weird and more extra effort.

Today is going to be a long day so we pack up on breakfast buffet items, for example I get the usual bacon and eggs fare. You would think by now that I am sick of this shit, but for some reason I am not.

To mix it up a bit I add some oatmeal and fruit, with dried ones in oatmeal, plus some miso soup because yea, there is a notable number of Japanese people on the boat so why not have it on the breakfast menu. These items are pretty solid and help keep me regular along with all bacon and eggs shit I have been eating almost every day.

Looking out on the 4th floor decks and it’s a misty day today at the Juneau, which itself is kinda of a peninsula town/city.

Proof of town existence, feeling pretty tired with back to back excursions but sure I guess.

The port and boat itself is a bit far away from the city so we will need to take a shuttle to get to the main port area which is kind of a pain but what can you do.

We arrive at our excursion meet up place and they triage us into groups. Our group is team Anna group, and they give us stickers to put on our clothes/jacket for identification.

Juneau apparently is a city with a wide array of excursion activities, many things to do from whale watching to taking a helicopter or going on smaller boats around the town for sightseeing. We however are doing things a bit more grounded and frankly not as expensive as the former so just a bus tour to a few places. Our bus/group only had 12 people it in lol wow. I think there are other groups but due to the timing ours is just super early perhaps for most due to the short time we have at the port.

After walking and checking out of our boat we walk to the shuttle terminal where some buses transport you to downtown while others lead you to outside city excursions such as our own.

This dude holding the team anna sign, indicates where our party of 12 are supposed to be.

And are handed off to our driver/tour guide, this blonde women for the rest of the morning/afternoon.

Our bus is especially empty with only 12 people, I am not sure why it’s so sparse. Our group only contains I think a total of 3-4 families which is kinda eh, considering the over 2k people that are ok our boat. Is everyone just super rich and did like the $500 per person helicopter ride or some shit or whale watching tour which is also similarly priced? I will have no idea.

Our bus guide tells us this is where the downtown shuttle to boat port is, it’s free apparently but lots of other boats and people come here too, not just for our ship but all ships that service Juneau.

On the road to our first location and it’s nice but not as scenic as Skagway in my opinion, even on a fast moving bus.

Same can be said for when we are more out in the open, nice but nothing comared to the views we got on the train and even bus of Skagway.

After a decent drive we get to our first destination the Mendenhall glacier? Think we had enough of seeing glacier? I haven’t hence why we are here, to see some more shit up close not just as sea perhaps.

Proof of another glacier existence with signs of various trails and decisions we would have to make edition.

The entire area is a fairly large park with trails several of them but for our tour, we are only allowed about 90 minutes here, so we have to manage our time, we cannot do and walk all routes and almost every one of them requires 20 minutes walking to get there and 20 minutes back, already taking like 40 minutes/give or take walking speed and such.

Outside of the nice trails, even from a distance at some zoom the glacier is just there in front of you in it’s full glory to be seen. Wow, very icy indeed.

The surrounding area without the glacier is also quite beautiful regardless of the ice or not too.

But at the end of the day this is more or less for us a Glacier day 2 extra bonus because why not? Glaciers are cool. Gotta seem them before they all melt due to global warming and are ruined after all? Might as well see them before they are gone and cause more problems.

Proof of glacier day 2 existence, Mendenhall glacier edition prepare for doom trail walking.

When you are at this place, you have a make a choice of what to do, either to nothing and enjoy the glacier from a distance or do the trail to the Nugget Falls, a great photo spot and waterfall. Most people do the trail to Nugget falls, we did too, so begins our journey.

Nice bridge we have here, nice sturdy and solid, great green shit too.

The trail just beginning and it seems like some folks already on their way out. Nice.

There is quite a number of clearing with cool tree shit, looks more like a jungle than a forrest.

As it can be seen my sister has broken away as she walks much faster than I. Our mom went to the washroom before walking the trail so I have  no idea if she started or gave up by now.

It really is quite a long trail, I didn’t think it would be quite this long. I hope we get back in time. But nice green scenery nevertheless although lots if bugs and mosquitoes flying about.

After alot of walking we eventually get to our destination by the lake bay, nice scene.

Hell yea Boi, we did it, got to the Nugget Falls. Looks cool man, guess all that walking was worth it.

The waterfall is beautiful, I can see why our tour guide recommend this route as opposed to the other photo scenic route.

Turn around against the falls and see another good picture photo scene, Alaska in general is just full of shit like this.

Getting closer to the falls, you can feel some of the water and mist on your face.

Yea boi, proof of Nugget falls success trail walking existence, peace edition.

Closer double peace proof of existence version level up.

My sister’s proof of walking success double peace edition aswell.

It seems like a good portion of the folks here are from Disney cruise as well.

We were about to get ready to go back to the trail but from a distance I see a familiar figures that I hadn’t seen in some 20-25 minutes. Oh shit.

Ohhh shitt, our mom made it, she actually walked the full distance to the Nugget Falls by herself, delayed by like 10 or so minutes but she made it, what an great achievement. I had thought almost for sure should would give up or turn back halfway through the trail but she pushed on towards the end, great work.

Now that our party has fully succeed in getting to the Nugget falls, we gotta make more photos after all. Gotta do our 6 7 signature pose you know.

Our mom taking a fuller rest and gazes upon her greatest physical activity achievement of today. Good rest for a job well done, well done.

We couldn’t chill for any much longer since it would take another 20-25 minutes back walking to get back to the visitors center so we left. I saw a couple crouching near the ground with the dude admiring the plants and shit, saying that some of these are wild edible plants. Yea yea nature boy, not sure if your on a cruise, but you don’t have time for this kind of shit.

As it can be seen, my sister has gone far ahead and is now out of sight, fast walker man. Looking back I don’t see my mom either, as she left the falls a bit later too to continue her rest. Walk of loneliness in the forest indeed.

After retracing our route I get back to the main area and take a few photos of the glacier again, man it looks so nice. That, or my camera is doing great work of processing/rendering even when zoomed in quite a bit.

Taking the elevator up to the visitors center they have a sort of small museum and of course gift shop/washrooms.

I see my sister there looking at buying some shit. I have no idea how early she got back since we sent ahead but maybe 5-10 minutes earlier than me. She ended buying a lot of books since for some reason they have alot of native story book materials or something which is good for her class courses she is making. Surr.

Got some nice models and shit talking about the glacier and stuff. Didn’t read shit, don’t have time, need to shop.

I just walked around the area and took photos but if you wanted to you could possibly spent like 15-20 minutes here just reading and looking at shit at least. I have no time so just skimmed, good enough.

Making our way out now from the visitors center with merch and gifts in hand.

Our small group gets on the bus then travels to our second destination in Juneau, this salmon hatchery place, hmm.

They are running some Salmon derby thing right now and I am pretty sure it’s not related to umamusame.

So it seems like apparently this place hatches a whole bunch of salmon from their eggs and releases them into the wild. Wow. They even construct these artificial like water falls/cliffs to simulate the journey they would normally take to travel to the streams and rivers they would be born in had they were fully wild salmon.

As it can be seen, it’s like simulating jumping up waterfalls and rough rivers to some degree. Apparently this organization does this because the salmon they release do actually come back to the place of their birth, aka this facility which is kinda jokes in which they lay their eggs again and then die. Hmm. I had thought this was a salmon farm but it’s not quite, they are a non-profit and doing this to ensure that the salmon population levels are maintained to try and prevent salmon populations from being overfished and such, interesting.

Inside their main building is where the salmon are hatched, they are usually in full darkness vats of water untill they hatch. All these black things in the water are baby salmon. Wow.

A closer up zoom of the black moving blobs reveals tiny salmon swimming about, wow.

I am not entirely sure where they transfer the salmon once they get a bit bigger from these vats but my assumption is that they will release all of these tiny little bitches out into the willd and let nature do it’s course. I think there was a sign that says 95-99% of all of these will be eaten/die by predators before they become of age so yea, if they make it big, they will eventually want to come back to their place of birth, which is this facility, hmm.

Each of these large vats contain hundreds of thousands of different kinds of salmon, interesting.

The hatchery itself is connected to the waters so it has decent views/lookouts as well.

And of course they have a gift shop, typical stuff and some more interesting ones.

I was never quite sure why some salmon tasted better than others but I guess I know why based off this chart. I wonder where other salmon are in this list, like Atlantic salmon and or salmon that comes from norway and from Japan, hmm.

They too also had some ghetto ass museum which for some reason what not solely about salmon like I expected. I don’t care about bears, at least not here so why?

They even have a water tank filled with other sea creatures like this crab and other fishes, why?

They have a little tank of shit for little kids to touch the sea creatures or whatever.

Sup Patrick star, how you doing today? Perhaps someone should but you back home, put a rock on top of you maybe to feel more comfy.

Look at this mad LADD who created this salmon hatchery, good on him man. Our tour guide said that this place used to be a popular spot for vistiors but for some reason no other cruises offer this location anymore except for Disney cruises for some reason, which she says she has no idea. Overall it was a nice little stop for half an hour but I can see why many cruise lines cut this place out, it’s kinda out of the way and while cool, doesn’t have a really big wow factor compared to like scenery or shopping in the town. I mean our tour only has 12 people so I suppose that’s a sign of it’s overall popularity.

Our last stop for our tour is this Juneau museum and national archives place. It has some nice art shit outside which I have no idea about.

Before coming in our tour guide straight up said, you guys don’t have to come in here if it doesn’t interest you, and said that anyone who wants to skip this and go off and do their own thing is free to, just make sure you get back to your boat before it leaves. At least 2 families I think left outright.

The museum itself is a typical musuem showcasing the local Alaskan history with lots of native artifacts and shit about the towns in the region and how they evolved or declined due to WWI and WWII and the likes.

Typical artifacts from native people cause of course they have to.

They even go through the history of when Alaska was part of Russia, hmm.

And it’s subsequent sale to America. Hm. Nice sekko boi statue I guess.

Probably some old relics pre-WWI, probably during the sale of the kind of gear they had in the event for war or some thing. Nice flag.

Some train they used to transport goods and other raw materials during the time.

There were some miltary operations in WWII from Japan onto Alaska which probably few know about, I had no idea and the Japanese army wore shit like this hmm, interesting. Nice signed flag and swords.

I believe one of the ships that was stationed near Alaska ports to defend against any Japanese invasion.

Had some native fashion gallery in the musuem aswell because why not I guess.

When we left the museum I think we were one of the only ones left in our party of 12. I think all the others left on their own as our tour women has said. When she came around to pick up so she was like yea, I wasn’t going to say the museum was boring but yea, it is boring for most. I can drop you back to the shuttle area or in the middle of downtown area.

On our way out from the museum is some Filipino food truck and purple burger truck which our driver recommended. For some reason this town has a sizable Filipino population which seems a bit odd but sure. In the end she dropped us back near the downtown area and that was the end of our little excursion in Juneau for the most part.

After we got dropped off, we head to go to Tracy’s Crab Shack, a hyped placed by many on youtube to get king crab legs and other seafood items in this town.

Nice bench and gimmick going on here, I approve.

Once again they have different kinds of crab to get for your orders, which the thing that has red king being the most prized and expensive most of the time, similar to salmon too.

Shit ain’t cheap so we just ordered the #1 Shack combo to share between all of us with the red king crab.

There was no line at the time but apparently this place gets super busy as new boats and tourists come in. It’s already pretty busy now yea still. This is the outside eating area, noice.

Inside is also busy bumping with a gift stop at the back, ok.

Nice sign, I like when they do signs like this, it looks homely and ghetto even tho this company and restaurant is probably not that home run.

Our crab shack meal is done, wow, I don’t think I’ve never had king crab before, the claws are huge.

Proof of king crab Tracy’s existence, mission accomplished edition.

Backup proof of crab tracy shack existence. It comes with 4 crab cakes, some buns, 2 king crab legs and crab/lobster bisque. Petty heafy meal for one, but we are 3 so it’s not that much.

I have no experience cracking open king crab legs, they are pretty spiky, so I am not entirely sure how to do it even with the plastic tool they give you so I let my mom do all the cracking. The extracted king crab meat is quite something, it’s very sweet and has a very nice firm texture, damn, I think this is better than most lobster and other crab meat I’ve eaten. I guess I understand why king crab legs are so expensive, they are the king after all.

Nice info displays on where they get king crab from and info on how they catch them, which is very dangerous work. They even mention specifically ‘the deadliest catch’, a show that is/was on tv that showed some boats catching crab. The show as alright reality tv and I can see why they risked their lives on the sea for good crab like this, shits good and so expensive.

After we finished our sampling meal, there is now a line out the door waiting to order. Looks like this place truly is a busy iconic place to eat popular with the tourist it seems. Guess my mom and sister were right to listen to those youtube hype videos.

After our light crab lunch we decided to use the rest of the day for some shopping in Juneau. Time to buy some souvenirs I guess as usual lol.

They have all their shops at the dock/port all lined up in a line just like in Skagway but somehow much more compressed. Due to the popularity and boats dropping off people here, the streets and sidewalks were always very busy and crowded. This shirt company is very prominent, they have like 2 or 3 shops due to it’s popularity and reasonable prices.

Wow, so it’s true, the Filipino community is tight in Juneau for some reason wow.

We went into some shopping complex which is just filled with more gift shops and the such, better looking than average.

Lots of shit around town still mainly in the main tourist area. As the capital of Alaska, you can kinda tell that after this touristy area the town goes back to like a normal town, no more gift shops and jewelry shops every step of the way.

Damn they even named a street Manila square, truly Filipinos are here in Juneau if you have a sign like this.

We went into a pub/store called the Red Dog Saloon. I have no idea why it’s so popular and has it’s own gift shop but apparently a quick google search there tells me that his is one of the oldest restaurants/saloons in Alaska and has a lot of history, hmm ok I guess. Not gonna lie, their merch game is pretty on point.

A snapshot of the actual inside of the place still serves food and drink, you can tell it’s old and has a lot of history.

I didn’t see it inside but apparently one of the tourist attractions of this place is that they have a gun owned by Wyatt Erp, famous wild west lawmen famous in movies such as Tombstone and shit on a wall. I did not see it but I guess that’s something, granted it’s a real thing.

Wow, some bust of a famous Filipino guy apparently, I am not sure about the history behind this man but I guess he was important enough to have a statue put up in manila square.

This area is where the shuttle is and is also where these two cable cars to go up the mountain also are located. Unfortunately I am told that the cable cars are broken and has been a big loss for this community which has lot of money coming in from tourism and sign seeing. They have a lot of staff and people just helping with the traffic and crosswalks because the roads get quite busy with local and cruise buses coming and going.

Some war medal of honor veteran memorial which had a good run, can’t remember a town putting up a monument to just one guy for just the medal of honor. I guess since he lived so long, he was well remembered/loved by the town.

I have no idea if the ropeway tram will ever be repaired. One tour guide said Alaska in general has only 2 seasons, winter and construction season since everything is in a need of constant repair and maintenance. I think a tour guide said it had been broken for a few months now, with no known knowledge of when they will fix it. RIP major tourist attraction, disappointing really for those who might have brought tickets in advance or planned to go on this.

Due to the lack of revenue and money coming in the tram terminal has itself become a makeshift giftshop with random shit being put up for sale, some for Alaska in general other for some native work and whatever. I am sure this place is not supposed to look like this.

Around the main shuttle bus area to the docks they have a whole bunch of other kiosks for guests to adhoc buy a tour on the day or so. Honestly it seems kinda shady but some people want to save money so sure I guess? I wouldn’t trust these guys.

While waiting for our shuttle back to our boat we see not to far in the background this store called Taku, which I guess sells salmon products. Let’s check it out.

They have a dine in restaurant but also a fairly large store with their goods, clothes and generic tourist stuff but alot of their own products like smoked salmon in jars and tins, salmon jerky and other related products and merch. Cool shit, brought some stuff here too, quite expensive tho cause it’s pretty premium fish.

After some slight waiting and confusion on where shuttle buses go, we arrive back in front of the port in front of our Disney boat, nice.

I don’t really like this layout however, the ships are stationed to far away from the main town area so these shuttles are absolutely needed but at the same time I wish I could just walk to my boat instead of having to deal with waiting in line to get on a bus shuttle.

Back on the boat we rest for the rest of the evenings activities, my sister got me today’s special swirl ice cream, banana and chocolate, it works not bad. We were to leave port at like around 4:45pm but around this time there was an announcement saying like the following three passengers are on board, please go to the main check in lobby immediately. Oh shit. Looks like someone didn’t make it on board in time and is still in Juneau or elsewhere. The three names were very Korean sounding names, so maybe they got lost or didn’t know that we leave the port earlier or something, maybe they are dead or injured. Damn, Sung Jin-woo and family are dead, left behind like trash. I know that they didn’t find them on board because we left like an hour later than expected off port and my mom and sister were outside at the lobby and some boat officers were asking for the cleaning people to open the door to room 2xxx or something to check ifthey were in there or not. Damn, RIP Sung Jin-woo and family, left behind.

With the apparent news of Sung Jin-woo and family missing, it was never broadcast again, probably not to hinder the rest of the guests enjoyment and vacation. Well, anyway, we moved on with our life and went to tonight special stage show rendition of Frozen, I mean, we need to let it go, Sung Jin-woo’s family and all that after all.

I kinda forgot what frozen was about other than Elsa’s Let it go song sequence which is basically the only truly memorable song and part of this animated movie/story but the entire stage play version did a great job of telling the story. The performances and affects/costume changes were very well done as well as all the songs and singers. Elsa’s Let’s it go of course got an extra large clap and overall a standing ovation for everyone at the end of the show. Good job, I think anyone who loves Frozen will like this live show.

Time to aura farm outside looking for Sung Jin-woo’s ghost and family on his behalf, left behind in Juneau all alone. This scenery is beatutiful nevertheless.

Perhaps our lost Korean breddrens will appear behind the mountains and walk through the mountain mists with his family in tow, but I think it’s too late for that now, RIP.

We decide to kill more time and memory of Sung Jin-woo and family’s absence with some song trivia again. On the table are the medals you win if you get first place and win for example.

This particular trivia song session was song from the 2000’s and you can bet your ass most of the people in this session know the songs very well.

We however, did not. My sister did the bulk of the song recognition, I contributed almost nothing lol. I guess I don’t listen to mainstream pop songs I guess during high school and university I guess. There were like 3 groups that had perfect 40/40’s and they could break the time, so they all won a medal. There was lot of karaoke sing along to this session, especially for white girl songs from Taylor swift and miley cyus.

Another song trivia another rotational dining experience at Tianas again, back to the first restaurant we went to when we first landed. Hm.

Time for some mardi gras party I think, as they gave everyone when you enter some beads you are supposed to wear on the table.

It’s party time again at Tianas proof of existence again.

The menu today was more interesting than the first time we came here so that’s always cool to see.

More fancy bread rolls and some butter other sauce I can’t remember.

Got some spinach soup and croutons, tastes like potato soup and they just added green shit to it.

Mom got some gumbo/jambalaya cajun like sound, it was alright I think.

I got some egg tartlet thing with bacon, pretty solid. I think they used old bacon from Cabanos breakfast, I can kinda tell which is not a bad thing.

Once again some live entertainment with this guy and his peeps doing the celo and shit.

Some terrine thing my mom got, I think it’s like liver and chicken patay?

Some crawfish cheese dip and bread that we all got, I think it was pretty good but my sister said it was mid, maybe because her’s came first and was the last of the batch since she said ti was kinda thin and watery, with little to no seafood. Mines was thick however with some shit in it, so I dunno, I thought it was good.

I decided to try some fancy ass drinks today, some Bayou moon or something which in essence is basically a watered down coke and rum with some blueberry syrup instead and some citrus notes. Overall kinda ok but not worth once again, like most cocktail drinks, according to the bill I saw later, this shit was like $16 totally not worth.

Singer man decided to get crowd involvement and said to try waving your napkins around to his song, lots of people did, including me. Not sure if this is sanitary tho if people dropped food in their lap and shit already.

First main for me was NYC sirloin steak and layered potatoes with pepper steak. I am pretty sure this is not a NYC strip steak but it was still ok, cooked medium rare and the peppercorn sauce helped, not bad but very similar to the steak I had the first time I went here, minus the baked potato.

Both my mom got this turkey dinner thing, it was alright they said, pretty base.

Mom and sister got this sea halibut fish to share, it was just base, nothing special.

Also got this jambalaya with grill shrimp for myself, pretty good shit I’d say, I liked it.

I also got my third main, pork tenderloin medallions with rosti and red wine sauce. Pretty solid, shared also with mom and sister. One of the better pork dishes I’ve had but the rosti was a bit salty.

For dessert I got this pecan tart kind of thing, it was pretty ok.

Sister got this benuits powdered sugar dough thing, it was good yea.

Chocolate layered cake for my sister, it was pretty base.

Rice pudding my mom got, disregarding the weird noodle like things on it, she says it was good, refreshing.

We didn’t order this but one of our servers just gave this to us, it’s apparently a baked Alaska, a ice cream cake of sort  surrounded by dough or something and cream. I am not sure why they gave this to us but maybe because they had some leftover and wanted to give to anyone just to get rid of it, and since we are fat-asses, they just give it to us. Funnily enough, we didn’t really touch it at all lol, I didn’t even try it.

Around this time they had a special song and invited kids and others to dance long with the staff who were making the rounds for the final meal at this place I suppose. Nice staff again.

They formed a congo line and brought the polls to do limbo bullshit.

Of course it was all just a joke and the limbo polls were raised and lowered to everyone highs, just for fun. While it was a fun spectacle, I was not particularly impressed as our table was right in front of it so it was kind of annoying until it was done. You can bet your ass that once it was done, we left fast lol.

Time for our post dinner walk on the fourth floor again.

Pour one out for Sung jin-woo and family. They will never see this view again, or perhaps, they will always see this view forever since being left behind in Juneau.

I can’t believe we left them for dead, but sometimes the needs of the many are more important than the few, RIP Sung Jin-woo and family. This night ocean scenery is like you and your family, blue in despair.

When we got back to our room our towels are formed like Wall-e I think. He too was left behind, just like Sung Jin-woo and family. RIP

That ends our day at Juneau, it was a long and hard day with many losses but many beautiful things seen and done, a long day indeed. Hopefully our last excursion day tomorrow will not have any causalities but we’ll see how it goes. RIP Sung Jin-woo and family, we hardly knew thee, left for eternity, at the sea.