New Year's Day Cruise on Tokyo Bay.

5:21am....urgh.

The first day of 2012 found us up bright and early to catch the first departure of the Tokyo Bay Ferry so we could watch the hatsuhinode, or first sunrise of the year, from the boat.

Tokyo Bay Ferry (東京湾フェリー) stands awaiting.

From Chiba, you can get on the Tokyo Bay Ferry at Kanaya Port in Futtsu City. If you're coming from the Kanagawa side, you can take the ferry from Kurihama Port in Zushi City.

You can take your car on the ferry to get across, or you can ride individually as well. They sell one way, round-trip, and cruise (yuranken) tickets.

The difference between a round-trip ticket and a cruise ticket? The round-trip ticket is for people who are getting off at the opposing port and returning later - return tickets are valid for up to 7 days. Cruise tickets are for people who just want to take a trip around the bay - you cannot get off the boat at the opposing port. Round-trip tickets are 1280 yen and cruise tickets are 1000 yen.

We were there for the rise, so we went with the cruise tickets! One trip around the bay takes approximately 100 minutes (40 minutes each way + 20 minutes boarding time at the opposite port).

Inside the passenger's deck.

Southern Chiba.

It had been raining as we were driving to Kanaya Port, so it had seemed a little iffy about whether or not we would actually be able to see the sunrise...but it was slowly starting to clear up!

On the top of the boat in the middle of the winter...needless to say, it was freeeeeezing.

Sunrise on Tokyo Bay was predicted to be at about 6:53am for New Year's Day. Many of the passengers gathered on the top of the boat, hoping to see the sun peek out from the clouds.

By then, we'd actually reached Kurihama! Lots of people were gathered on the beach to see the sunrise too.

Finally! The sun (kinda) decided to rise up out of the clouds.

With this, our mission was complete! There were still other fun things to see on the ride back to Chiba though.

On our way back, we passed by the other ferry heading from Kanaya to Kurihama.

All of a sudden there were a ton of golf bags in the luggage racks!! I guess a lot of people were headed over to Chiba for New Year's golf...Apparently Chiba Prefecture has the 2nd most golf courses in Japan (1st is Hokkaido)!

Looks like it was the start to a very nice day on Tokyo Bay.

Aaaand back at Kanaya Port!

the Fish, located right next to Tokyo Bay Ferry's Kanaya Port. Too bad it was before opening!

On a side note, next weekend the Kickoff Event for Chiba Prefecture's spring tourism campaign 「きらきら房総〜誰と行く？〜」will be held here, at the Fish, from January 7-9, 2012.

This post just reminded me that I went to check out the Fish for the first time a few months ago, and it was pretty awesome - I took a bunch of photos so I could post about it, but then I totally forgot about it! I will try to post them over the next week, but if you are in southern Chiba (or want to come down to southern Chiba!!!) next weekend, definitely check out this event!

They'll also be celebrating CHI-BA+KUN's birthday on January 9! (His birthday is January 11 though.)