JAPAN JAPAN JAPAN!!! Wow is the first word that comes to mind! I had no idea I would love the country of Japan so much. The culture is soooo unique and so cool and the people are great. I can’t believe we were only there for five days, we did so much in those days and experienced so many amazing things it was exciting, cold, challenging, and exhausting..but we got a great feel for the country in those days that felt like weeks! We’ll break down our days in Japan for you…

DAY 1: Wednesday, February 10, 2010.. Arrival into Yokohama Harbor.

After doing customs, Trevor and my “sea” was called 3^rd so we got off the ship pretty fast.. switching from my go-to Hawaii outfit of a sundress and a bikini, I was ready for the chilly with my jeans and sweater.. I brought a jacket but we actually got really good weather this first day! Little did I know that Japanese girls, who are VERY fashionable by the way, are pretty much all homogenously dressed in black and or navy, with cute boots.. I, however, had chosen a floral top and a bright turquoise sweater to show off my Hawaiian tan, and thus stuck out like a sore thumb on the crowded Tokyo streets! Anyways, we walked from the yokohama terminal into the main city center of yokohama. Yokohama is the 2^nd largest city after Tokyo in Japan! It is a lot like Yokohama=Oakland, Tokyo=San Francisco, as they are separated by a bay and the location looks very similar!  We walked around Yokohama, looking for a train station to exchange our Rail Pass vouchers for the real thing… and on the way we luckily got to see a Japanese Baseball stadium!! It was the stadium for the Yokohama Bay Stars!!!!! Very cool.. I wish it was baseball season but unfortunately its not!!! (not sumo wrestling season either-too bad they both would have been awesome!) Anywho, we made our way to the station, where we got our hands on our rail passes (which ended up being the best decision EVER as we used those things like CRAZY!) Then we took the train to Tokyo (only about 20 mins away by train) and got off first in Akihabara, which is the “Electric City” of Tokyo… it is just as nuts as you can all imagine. Crazy mazes of electronics weave into shiny lit up buildings and streets are sooo crowded with people! One of our favorite things about Japan (and especially Tokyo) is EVERYTHING is lit up!! Its sooo cool there are lights everywhere!  After Electric city we went to the “young hip” section of Tokyo which is like Times Square.. its called Shibuya and it is so cool! There is soooo much hustle and bustle and the streets are crazy… fashionable shops, crazy lit up buildings, lots of “pachinko” gambling places (I swear Japanese men don’t go home—they go to work, then head to these crazy high tech Japanese video game slot/gamble/guitar hero places, and then to the bars.. all while wearing their very nice suits 24/7)  That is definitely something about the Japanese.. they are fashionable… they always look nice.. the men in suits and the women in fashionable coats/boots. 

By the way, all day this day my phone was not working (it was supposed to be international so I could text people to meet up with them but it wouldn’t get any service at all!!!) so we had no idea where in the crazyness of shibuya our friends were!!! Trevor and I ended up eating at a stand up sushi bar (very cool!) and then I, at this point still afraid to actually make sushi my meal even though I did try it and I did think it was good!!!, went and found a Japanese Italian restaurant and got a (really yummy!!) margherita pizza (don’t judge, I tried the sushi, I just wanted real food and bread--- who knew the Japanese were so Italian!! Trev agreed it was really good! Also a cool thing about eating in Japanese restaurants is your meal (my pizza was about 10$) comes automatically with a salad and an after meal drink like a cappuccino or tea… however if you don’t know this (like us of course) and the waitress doesn’t speak English (like us of course) you just keep getting brought things and get very confused! But we went with the flow and I like how they do that!  By the way, random fact about realty in Tokyo… sometimes a house or apartment in Tokyo will run you about 100,000 dollars PER SQUARE FOOT!!!!! A 250 sq ft apartment in Tokyo (about the size of our cabin on the ship!!!!) will run you $1200 a MONTH!!!

Anyways, After getting some food we walked all around the crazy and awesome streets, stopping to get a really good crepe (yes crepe) on the street and also at a Japanese arcade place where these people were getting really into their drumming video game… so of course trev and I played – it was soooo fun, you drum when it tells you to its just like guitar hero—and it plays JPOP (Japanese pop music) in the background! Its sweet and although trev beat me, it was still really fun!  The arcades are CRAZY.. its definitely not just for kids… the city life is attracted to these high tech metropolises and they are bustling with people!  We eventually made our way back to the ship for the night as we had to get up early the next day to meet up for our Semester At Sea Mt. Fuji tour!!!!

The second day of Japan we got up bright and early at 6 to pick up our Semester at Sea Mt.Fuji trip. We hopped on a coach bus called a poodle (a knock off of our greyhound) and took the 2 and half hour bus with our tourguide from Japan telling us facts about Yokohama and Tokyo. We climbed up the ascent and came upon Mt. Fuji which was spectacular in the distance, the whole ride it had been extremely overcast but there was a lucky patch of sun conveniently located above Mt. Fuji. The tourguide said that only 30 days out of the year, 10% of the time, can you see Mt. Fuji so we were extremely lucky. The dean of students was on our bus and has taken this trip 3 times before on different voyages, and was ecstatic that this was the first time she had seen the mountain at all. We went to the visitors center, snapped many breathtaking pictures, and bought some trinkets. I got a Japanese flag, and I’ll be putting up a flag from each port on my cabin wall (except Hawaii being it is U.S.) We then took the buses up to the 4^th level of Mt.Fuji, there are 7 in total and the fog was cold. The top levels were closed off, but many Japanese people take a spring trip to walk up the mountain. It is recognized as a sacred mountain to them, and there are cool pictures of hundreds of them stretching at each level on their ascent to the top. It is 12,365 feet as they call it the 2 year mountain (12 months +365 feet) and it is an active volcano. After Mt.Fuji we proceeded to Hakone National Park about an hour away with Hakone lake. Christina bought a Fuji apple from the local vendor and it was fantastic. Then we took a ferry across the lake. After that we took a Gondola all the way up Hakone mountain and it was crazy because the gondola went through the thickest fog I’ve ever been in. We could only see 4 feet of rope our gondola was attached to in front of us, and nothing else. We finally reached the top and walking on the trails was scary because you could only see about 2 feet in front of you. At one of the trails, a Shinto shrine stood, with a monk inside it. Before we left, we went in to a shop where they had hundreds of stuffed animals of Totoro. Totoro is a famous anime movie, that is actually really good, it is much like a Pixar movie. Hayao Miyazaki is the director of Totoro along with Spirited Away and Ponjo, all famous anime movies, that Disney has transferred with English dubbing.         

After getting rid of our stuff at the ship, we headed out to Tokyo. We found our friends at Shibuya (Times Square of Tokyo) and we got conveyer belt sushi. You sit down and grab anything off of the conveyer belt and green tea is free with your meal, but you have to have at least 7 dishes off the belt. We had no problem doing so with Christina staying with her favorites ebi(shrimp) and when she asked for abocado(avocado) they brought her a California roll (crab and avocado wrapped in seaweed with rice. I grabbed anything crazy or interesting looking and devoured it before settling our 12$ bill with full stomachs. Getting into the culture we walked across the street into a karaoke bar with our group of friends. They give you a private room with high tech tv, a huge book of American songs, and a lcd screen to enter in the numbers of songs, two microphones, and tambourines. The door is sound proof, and there is a phone on the wall to call and try in your best Japanese to order Asahi, Kirin or Sapporo beer. We belted out our favorite tunes including American Boy, Don’t want to miss a thing(Aerosmith), California (Tupac), and many others for a full hour. It was incredibly fun, and after we had to make our way to the outskirts of Tokyo to our hostel. The hostel was really cheap, and safe, and a bunch of other Semester at Sea students were staying there. Japan is incredibly safe, much safer than the U.S., we saw no Yakuza (their organized gang) and we stayed the night ready for another day of fun.

-Trevor

4^th day:  Osaka Floating Garden +Aquarium

On the fourth day of Japan, we got up in our lovely Japanese style hostel room and went downstairs to our personal Japanese kitchen. We made 12 scrambled eggs because, although I love every type of Japanese food and Christina has been really adventurous, their idea of breakfast is very interesting and not what you want in the morning. We then walked back to the Kyoto cube saying goodbye and took the bullet train all the way to Kobe where we went to the ship to drop off our backpacks we had lugged the last couple days. We had heard that Osaka was amazing, so we took the 20 minute train ride to Osaka, which is a huge city with a lot of skyscrapers. We went over to the Umeda Sky Building, an architectural wonder which is known as the Floating Gardens. We took the clear elevator all the way to the top of the huge building. It was really cool to see the Panaromic view of Osaka, and the Osaka bay which connects Osaka and Kobe. Also, it was cool to find that this building was catered to couples and especially so since it was two days before Valentines Day. They had all of these seats with hearts on them and special tables to set your camera and take a picture with your sweetheart while enjoying the view. And also there is a cool room that when you sit with your significant other it changes color and lights up the room with brilliant Japanese electricity. Next we traveled via train, as everything in Japan you do so, to the shipping district of Osaka on the way to the famous aquarium that houses a whale shark. There are only two places in the world that has a whale shark in captivity, Osaka and Atlanta, Georgia.

MY SIDE OF THE STORY: We got out of the station and read the directions to the Aquarium, which told us to go to a drug store Lawsons and take a right, so we did so and after 30 minutes of walking, we saw a big sign with a whale shark urging us to go straight. After another 30 minutes, no civilization around, and being deep in the shipping district with darkness coming, we saw another of those signs still telling us to go straight. Finally after an hour and a half we saw someone and asked for the Aquarium. He said in his few English words, “FAR AWAY!” This guy was so nice, he walked with us all the way back to the train station while trying to talk to us with his little English, and continued past the station to a different Lawsons drug store on the same street took a right and after 5 minutes we arrived at the gigantic aquarium. It turned out that those signs we had seen pointing straight way far away were for parking structures which were miles away from the actual aquariums but had buses from them to the actual aquarium. We should have known it would be by the huge lit up ferris wheel and megalopolis which it was.. but we had gone so far out of our way we just had kept going, hoping to come up on it sometime!
The aquarium was a sight to see at night! It was lit up beautifully in the dark with a grand entrance of rays and sharks all in lightbulbs. We were so happy to be there and he was so nice to walk us all the way there. Then he went to the ticket office, spoke some Japanese and purchased two tickets for us! We were taken aback by his kindness, and told him no, but he said “A gift for you” and we were so grateful to him. This is a perfect example of the kindness of all of the Japanese people, he was a businessman from Kobe, and helped out two strangers lost with no worry about where he needed to be. This eliminated any stress about getting lost, meeting this kind gentleman and we entered the aquarium.

The aquarium, was the most amazing either of us have ever been to. There were sea otters, that were so playful and cute. Two of them dove down deep and popped out doing side by side tandem flips, and we were amazed by their show. (later, i bought a little stuffed animal sea otter for christina as it is almost valentines day and she is so much like one:swimmer girlfriend haha) There were white-sided pacific dolphins in the next tank playing and diving around. Then came upon the huge tank with not one, but two huge whale sharks!!! They were majestic in how they moved and there were so many hammerheads and eagle rays playing around the whale sharks. At the top of the tank was a tiger shark which was so cool to see. I took hundreds of pictures, because I get credit for my Bio of Sharks class, plus now I can classify them and I know their scientific names too. After we sat and watched the sharks for so long, and wanted to stay and just marvel at the sharks but we had to make our way back to Osaka.

We returned to the Umeda sky building, where I purchased Christina a Valentines Day present which I think is probably the coolest present ever. We got a heart shaped lock made at the top of the building with our names engraved on them and the date. We went outside to the circular top of the building, and a guy brought us to the love bench where you hold hands, and grab the metal and the ground lights up (measuring your love), then you make a wish and attach your lock to the side of the building. The lock can never be opened, and is on top of the Umeda Sky building, (a relatively new building) in Osaka, Japan for as how long that building stands there. Our names will be up there for hundreds of years hopefully so if anyone goes to Osaka, go up and see it for yourself.

-Trevor

For our last day in Japan, we couldn’t have picked a better day than Nara.  Nana had told us about Nara and we had heard good things from people on the ship as well, so we decided to make it our destination for our last day. We woke up and had breakfast on the ship (actually.. correction.. Christina woke up and had breakfast and then broke every rule to bring Trevor breakfast downstairs since he was still asleep of course—I got yelled at but nonetheless got him his omelette and toast!) and then we went to the train station to take the bullet to Nara (only about 45 mins away) We arrived and immediately fell in love with the little city. It is much more remote than the big cities we had been to, and much more traditional.  We walked up to “Nara Park” which is where about 1200 deer freely roam through the park (see the picture!) and are so friendly that you can feed them and pet them! Its like the whole town is a petting zoo, its really great… The park encompasses a lot of the town, and is where most of the shrines are (Nara, like Kyoto, is famous for its BEAUTIFUL shrines.. including its biggest and most famous which holds the largest Buddha statue in the world! Its literally HUGE. The shrines were beautiful, the deer were adorable, and trev and I thoroughly enjoyed walking the traditional parks of this lovely town. We also made our way onto a main street where we made friends with a cute old Japanese shopkeeper who was selling these yummy sugary tea-like drinks that were sooo good (we bought some to take home) he was so nice and liked me because he said I was “perfect” and he was convinced I was an actress! He pointed to trev and said he did good haha. Also, the Japanese girl in the picture that im doing peace signs with kept saying how beautiful I was.. needless to say I love Nara!!!  We walked around a lot and Trevor picked up a pork bun from a random stand in the park… it was sooooo delicious!!!! The sweet dough around the pork was sooo doughy and the pork was loaded with onions mmmmmmm! I also got a huge (literally the size of my face) fuji apple from a stand, it was so yummy!

By this time, we had spent every single last coin and yen we had, which is good considering it was our last day! So we headed back with our rail passes to Kobe and boarded the ship for an evening of catching up with everyone and exchanging funny stories (like our friends who had gone to Hiroshima and accidentally ended up in a hostel surrounded by Japanese brothels and strip clubs!, as well as our other friends who got yelled at intensely in rapid fire Japanese by a restaurant owner for using the bathroom and not eating there) and of course we told them all about Trevor getting us lost 2 hours out of our way into the shipping village of Osaka while Christina silently let him lead us into god knows where! (note to self.. Trevor has a very good memory but isn’t very good when it comes to finding things for the first time!!!)

Japan was unbelievable. We loved it so much and are so sad to leave, but we live a life on the run… its off from that country and onto the next! Lots to do lots to see!!!

We are absolutely exhausted today trying to get recuperated as well as trying to get organized quickly for China!!! It’s hard to believe we have to pack tomorrow for our 8 day extravaganza to Shanghai-Beijing-Hong Kong!!!!!! We will arrive in Shanghai the day after tomorrow and we can’t wait because Keith and Cathy will be joining us for an awesome adventure! They’ll get to board the ship on our first morning and see our stomping grounds, and then Keith will show us all his amazing buildings and his Shanghai stomping grounds!! Can’t wait to tell y’all about it, but until next time,

Love,

Christina (geisha by day, karaoke superstar by night)