Japan

Japan was amazing. It was such a busy 5 days! I hardly stopped to sleep. Communication was difficult, but that just made it interesting. We found ways to get by. The hospitality of people in Japan was incredible. I found that people were very willing to try and help you out, even if they didn’t understand you, in which case they found someone else who could.

Upon arriving in Japan, we had to have our temperatures taken to assure we were ok to get off the ship. They we were welcomed by a drum performance on the ship, and finally around noon were cleared to get off. We spent our first afternoon going to the train station to get bullet train tickets to Hiroshima and Kyoto for later in the week. We must have looked confused in the train station trying to figure out where to get the tickets we needed, because this little old man came up to us and asked if he could help. He was adorable. Later that night we got ready to go out for dinner, and on the train met Chris who’s from Norway and is studying in Japan right now. He had been at the ship earlier in the evening for a welcome reception with Japanese students. So he showed us around for the evening. We all went out to dinner, and then to a karaoke place. We got a room for the 5 of us, and then sang karaoke for a couple of hours. It was a blast!

The next morning I was up and on my way to Osaka. We spent the day walking around checking out the city, and visiting the castle that’s there. Later that evening we went to a baseball game in Osaka.

On our third day in Japan, I was up and checking things out in Kobe for a while. It’s amazing that you can walk into these shops that look tiny from the outside, but they go up for 6 floors and are packed with everything you could imagine. You can find everything from toiletries to televisions to Gucci bags. Then I had the chance to visit a Japanese home. Keiko, my host, was very sweet and welcomed us right into her house. We got to help her make lunch. I made tempura using chopsticks. It was the most difficult cooking experience ever! I also got to try on Keiko’s kimono. Talk about a process! There are about a dozen layers of things to put on. Talking to Keiko I learned that most women, unless they have their parents nearby who can help take care of their children, do not work once they’re married. Many women go to school, have a short career, and then by about 25 have quite their career and are stay-at-home moms while their husbands are out working long days to support the family.

Later that evening, we were off to Hiroshima via bullet train. Upon arriving in Hiroshima, Shea and I checked into our ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, and then headed out to explore for a while. We actually ended up in an arcade. Arcades are huge in Japan. And it was amazing to see a bunch of men in business suits and ties playing games in the arcade around 11 on a Friday night. We played a couple of games, including DDR which Shea destroyed me at. Back at the ryokan, we used the communal bathroom that was on the floor, rolled out our beds, and watched some Japanese TV before going to sleep. Let me just say that Japanese commercials are the best. Everything is so exaggerated that even while we didn’t know what they were saying, we found them hysterical. I would advise anyone who goes to Japan to spend a night in a ryokan. It’s such a different feeling than being in a hotel.

We spent the next day in Hiroshima. We visited the Peace Park with all of its memorials. The park itself was beautiful. There was the Children’s Memorial where thousands of paper cranes were on display. There’s a story about a girl, Sadako, who had cancer as a result of the atomic bomb, and according to belief that folding 1000 paper cranes will make your wish come true, she folded cranes. Now students world wide will fold cranes and send them here. We also spent time in the Peace Museum. It was an incredible exhibit. Some of the displays were very difficult to look at. There were pictures of people very badly burned by the atomic bomb, and items that belonged to students who died within a day or two of the bomb being dropped. Reading about young children being burned and dying was awful. One of the most moving exhibits was a wall full of letters written by the mayors of Hiroshima since the dropping of the bomb to other countries every time there was any discussion regarding nuclear weapons. There were some spells where there was a letter written daily.

After seeing everything in Hiroshima, we went to Miyajima which is famous for its floating gate. It’s one of the top 3 things to see in Japan. When we arrived, it was low tide, so the gate didn’t actually look like it was floating. But it did by the time we left. Then it was back to Kobe. We ate dinner from a vending machine. It was quite interesting. You put your money in, choose which meal you want, and it spits out a ticket. You give the ticked to the waiter, and then sit down and he’ll bring your food out to you when it’s ready. Then we went out for karaoke again, and sang all night. I sang myself horse. I did more karaoke in Japan than I have in my life. Did you know that half the words in Mr. Roboto are actually Japanese?

On our final day in Japan, we went to Kyoto. We got to see a geisha show which was very exciting. They don’t perform all the time, so we lucked out that we happened to be there when we were. We also walked around a couple of temples. We probably shouldn’t have kept Kyoto for the last day. We were so tired by that point it was difficult to really take everything in. Maybe I’ll get back someday.

Overall, Japan was amazing. Public transportation was timely and easy to use. There were signs all over that had English that didn’t make sense. I actually felt really tall. And in the bathrooms, there would be squatter toilets, and then in the next stall over, there would be a western bidet toilet complete with a heated seat. Japan was comfortable, being similar in many ways to the States, but at the same time, a completely different experience.