Japan is amazing – I loved it!! I also adore the Japanese people. They are so kind, welcoming, and helpful. This conclusion is not just from my visit to Japan, but from my interactions with Japanese students aboard the ship. We are blessed to have several Japanese girls studying with us this semester. Of all of the people on the ship, they tend to be the most helpful. I asked one girl about Hiroshima and she drew me a map in English so that I would know exactly where to go when I got there. These are things that typical Americans just don’t do.
Japan itself is awesome. I visited Yokohama, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe. We docked in Yokohama on September 12, 2007. In Yokohama, we sent some letters, exchanged money and set out for the train station. We took the train into Tokyo, where we exchanged our rail passes. After what seemed like an eternity on trains, busses, and subways, we arrived in Asakusa, which is the district of Tokyo that our hostel was in. We settled in at the hostel then went for dinner at a nice traditional restaurant. My friends and I removed our shoes and sat on the floor to eat our dinner. It was awesome. We had soba noodles and each of us ordered different other things. The noodles were very good and I also got shrimp tempura, which was also very tasty. After eating, we explored the city and found a karaoke box to sing in. It was fun and the walls had bright lights on them depicting an underwater scene. After singing karaoke, we returned to the hostel, spent some time on the internet and then went to bed.
The next morning, we got up early so that we could be in Ryoguku by 8 am. This is where people buy tickets for sumo wrestling. We didn’t actually get there until 9 am because we were traveling in a rather large group and it took some people forever to get ready and leave. We got to Ryoguku and bought our tickets, which were about 2100 yen (the equivalent of about 20 bucks in the US). The tournament lasted all day, but the better fighters did not start until around 4 pm, so we decided to explore the city and meet back together later. From Ryoguku, I went with a group to see the Imperial Palace and to Shibuya (a district of Tokyo with lots of shopping and restaurants. We walked a lot that day to try to see lots of sights. We ate lunch in Shibuya at a restaurant that didn’t have any English menus. We just pointed at a small picture of something that looked good and waited to see what we had ordered. Mine came and it was chicken tempura, which was really good. After lunch, we did some shopping until it was time to return to the sumo arena.
Sumo was very fun. It was tough to get used to at first and figure out what they were doing and how one person won. We stayed for about 2 and a half hours and really enjoyed the experience. The sumo wrestlers were very nice and allowed us to take pictures with them. After sumo, we went to the capsule hotel where we were staying. It was quite an interesting experience, especially the communal shower. The girls I traveled with, though, put our bathing suits on and showered. The capsule hotel was really neat and was basically a row of capsules on each side of the room. The capsules were like bunk beds that were encapsulated with a mattress on the floor of the capsule and a television and a light in each one. After checking out and showering, we went to Shibuya to have dinner and hang out. We returned to the hotel by taxi, which was rather expensive.
The next morning, we got up at 6am to catch the train for Hiroshima at 7am. I have an entire blog to put up about Hiroshima, so check it out. We left Hiroshima and went to Kyoto. Everyone was saying how difficult it would be to find a place to stay in Kyoto, but we found a nice place the first hotel we stopped at. It was a little more expensive – 15000 yen, but that equals about 50 dollars per person. This was definitely the most expensive place we stayed, but it still wasn’t very bad. The hotel was really nice and a good change from the places we had stayed the few nights before.
The next morning we got up and visited the tower at our hotel that overlooked the whole city. We headed for temples and sights and ended up running into the guys that we had been traveling with and got separated from. They are very nice guys and it was good to run into them again because that day it was only the three of us girls traveling together. It was Christen (my roommate), Robin, and me that were traveling together. We ran into Blake, Aaron, and Drew. They are really nice and fun to travel with. We went to the Golden Pavilion, which is one of the most famous temples in Japan. Then, we went to Nijo castle, which was huge and a large property. We went to Gion, which is the geisha district of Kyoto. We had fun, shopped, ate lunch, and actually saw a few geishas. They do not stop for photographs, but we snapped a few anyway. From Gion, we went back to the station and took off for Kobe, where the ship was docked.
We got to the ship and settled in a bit. Then, Christen and I went looking for a pay phone to call home. It was about 1:30 am when we got back to the ship, but at no point that the two of us were walking around did either of us feel unsafe. It was incredible how safe Japan felt – I felt safer there than walking around downtown Charleston at night. It was comforting to know that a safe place like this exists.
The final day of our trip in Japan, we visited Nara. In Nara, there are deer that walk around everywhere and are very friendly and domesticated. We went to Todaiji temple, where the largest copper statue of Buddha ever cast is displayed. It really was huge!! I had a great time in Nara. It was a short trip. We only went to the one temple and the deer park. We got lunch, did a little shopping and went back to the train station.
When we got back to Kobe, we looked for a place that served Kobe beef, but they were all really expensive, so we just went to a local place and had some Japanese cuisine, which was really good. Then we went back to the station to ride the tram back to the ship. We got on the ship pretty early. I fell asleep by 9 pm because I was so exhausted.
Japan in general was amazing – I really enjoyed every part of it. I did a lot of things and traveled with some good friends. I also learned that traveling in smaller groups is better than traveling in big ones. I learned about a different culture than my own. I met some very kind people that were able to help me despite the language barrier. It was awesome!!! I love Japan.
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