Japan

We arrived in Japan the morning of the 11^th to a torrential downpour and biting wind. That, combined with my combination pack of illnesses, meant that the absolute last thing I wanted to do was leave the boat. Japan doesn’t look bad from the boat, after all. But I begrudgingly left my warm bed and ventured out into Kobe. It became immediately apparent that this would not be like most of our other port experiences. I’m pretty sure if the statistic was kept, Japan would hold the record for “Most Suits per Square Kilometer.” The people are well-dressed, the streets are spotless and, most shocking of all, there is nobody trying to sell you anything. What is this land that God himself created?! The first stop was an ATM, which proved to be harder than anyone expected since most Japanese ATMs don’t accept American credit cards. But true to Asian form, everyone around us was willing to help, even if they didn’t speak a word of English. After acquiring currency, my friend Nichole and I went and got a lunch of Kobe beef (you’re only in Japan once right? Sorry mom…) and let me tell you, it was absolutely, 100% worth it. The meat was so tender you could press it against the top of your mouth with your tongue to cut it. Yeah. Plus we were the only ones in the restaurant so we had our own personal waiter and chef. The only hitch in the afternoon was that we didn’t know we had to specifically ask for the check, so we were left waiting as the waiter and the chef went and had lunch. But we figured it out and he even threw in a free package of napkins for good measure.

            After lunch we toured an old sake brewery, another of Kobe’s famous consumables. I’m not a huge fan of sake (it tastes kind of like a mix of vodka and white wine…hmmm…) but it was cool to see. Plus the subway was an adventure as most of the signs were not in English. In contrast to China, very little in Japan was translated, which we were told was because most of the tourism in Japan is from people from other parts of Japan. But we made it and upon returning, set out to find an internet café. First we went to Starbucks, but since nothing in Japan is free, they didn’t have free wi-fi. So we spent the next 2 hours wandering around Kobe looking a whole lot like lost tourists. Eventually we found a “comic café” on the top floor of an arcade. Once again the cashier spoke NO English but we tried to communicate the best we could. Eventually he led us to little boxes with cushions/mattresses and pillows, along with a TV and a computer. Apparently these booths can serve as anything from places to sleep for a few hours to places to go use the internet to places to do…other things. Wish I had known that beforehand.

            The next day I took a tour to Hiroshima, which consisted of a 5 hour bus ride split by breaks and several rest stops along the way. These are not your mother’s old rest stops. One vending machine served coffee and actually had cameras inside and a TV outside so you could watch your coffee being made. The bathrooms had monitors on the doors alerting you as to which were occupied. You could choose which MUSIC you wanted your toilet to flush to. There were vending machines selling absolutely everything you could ever need (a common theme in Japan.) Once we got to Hiroshima, we started at the “A-Bomb Dome,” the iconic steel skeleton of a building that stood right under the detonation point. Continuing, we saw the Peace Memorial Park and the museum. I was curious to see how it compared to the Museum of American Atrocit-sorry, War Remenants Museum, since we were the enemy in both cases, and I have to say I was surprised. The whole bottom floor of the museum was dedicated only to facts about the event and the efforts of both sides to reach peace. No propaganda, no anti-Americanism. Just a push for peace and the end to nuclear weapons. On the top floor there was an exhibit about how nuclear weapons work as well as a heavy exhibit with survivor’s accounts of the day that brought tears to many people’s eyes. Exiting the museum leaves you directly in the middle of the park…it was one of the best museums I’ve been to. I was also amazed at how beautiful Hiroshima was. There are parks everywhere, the city is backed by mountains, a lovely river runs through the middle of it…quite a change from a city that was completely decimated. There’s only one thing the residents of Hiroshima are more adamant about than the beauty of their city, and that’s the end of nuclear war. We took the bullet train back which felt like riding on the wings of angels after the joys that were the Moroccan and Indian rail systems.

            That night 6 of us took a sleeper bus to Tokyo since the ship was traveling to the new port of Yokohama. Sleeper bus is a bit of an exaggeration though…it was more of a regular bus that happened to be traveling at night. I was lucky and happened to be the first one to book my seat and so was automatically seated behind the bulkhead, giving me substantial leg room. Others were not so lucky. However, we arrived safely at Tokyo Disneyland the next day, the happiest (and most crowded) place on Earth. The lines for rides weren’t that long though…at least not compared to the lines to get into the stores. There was a line three HOURS long just to get into Donald Duck’s Emporium. Needless to say we were very confused.

            Reminder #2 that we were in Japan came later in the day, when I was informed that I was too tall to ride on one of the rides (Japan is not built for people of my stature.) I said that was fine and my friends went on while I went to find a place to sit down, at which point the ride operator, a tiny Japanese girl, came running up to me and said (as best she could) “I’m very sorry. I feel really bad. Please enjoy our other attractions. I’m also sorry I don’t speak English.” I tried to tell her that I should be the one speaking Japanese but that might have gotten lost in translation. But that just goes to show how accommodating the Japanese can be. It was alright though, I spent my time taking pictures of people taking pictures of people posing with the peace sign in front of the ride entrance. I hit 30 and began to run out of space on my camera. One highlight of the day was the Indiana Jones right, in which we went on a high-speed, danger-filled adventure while Indiana Jones yelled things at us…in Japanese. I’m sure he was saying helpful things.

            The next day we tried our hand at the 42-line Tokyo subway system which was spotlessly clean and had flatscreen monitors in each car that helpfully announced each stop in Japanese and English. We made it to Shinjuku, the “skyscraper district,” and went up to the observatory on the 42^nd floor of the TMG building (did I mention it was FREE??) After that we ventured down to Harajuku, the crazy fashion district. And let me tell you, it was pretty crazy. Japanese girls dressed head to toe in Hello Kitty, or dressed as Santa Claus, or wearing foot-high platform boots. One item in particular I would like to see in the states is a combination wool hat and attached mittens. That’s right, it looks like really long strings on the side of the hat, but they are actually mittens on the end! They’ve thought of everything. We hopped back on the subway at rush hour, hoping that we could experience the men hired to push people into the subway cars. Alas, it was not quite crowded enough and thus we had to push ourselves. We went to Shibuya, home of Shibuya crossing, the iconic intersection that undoubtedly comes up when you google Tokyo. It was a lot like Times Square in New York City but…Asian? It was also here that we met Del, who noticed my Denver t-shirt and told us that he just moved to Japan from his place on the corner of University and Evans. If there’s one thing you can count on with Semester at Sea, it’s that the world gets smaller every single day.

            The morning of our final day we went to the amusement park in Yokohama and walked around the waterfront. For some reason it felt a lot like LoDo, with some brick buildings, low rises and clean, uncrowded streets. Unsuccessful in finding sushi for lunch, we ate back at the ship. At this point my illness was really taking its toll on me and I was getting really grumpy and decided I needed to get away for a little while. I took a walk up to the hill in Yokohama where there was a beautiful park and a free zoo. The zoo wasn’t all that exciting (did I mention it was FREE??) but it did have two adorable red pandas and you couldn’t even really hear the noise from Japan’s second-largest city. Refreshed and ready for the 9-day voyage to Hawaii, I boarded the ship still feeling like shit but with a smile on my face.