I know I said I would post a blog about my time spent in Hilo and Honolulu, but as you can probably tell, I am very bad at writing promptly. I would like to change that right now by jumping immediately into Yokohama & Tokyo, Japan while it is fresh in my mind. I will post about Hawai'i at a later date. However, if you really are interested in hearing about Hawai'i, you can email me about it! anschiralli@semesteratsea.net. I would love to hear from you!
I got up and went out to the deck at 6:30 AM on Tuesday, Feb 9 with my friend Ali, because that is when we were told we would be able to see land. We were not disappointed! On the starboard side of the ship, we looked out and saw the most incredible sunrise over the low mountains directly in front of us. Ahead we could see several small buildings in the distance through the morning fog, and looking up, I noticed that we were flying the Japanese flag.
Although I knew we still had several hours before we could get off the ship, I couldn't go to sleep when I got back to my cabin. So I got up, showered, and started packing my backpack, as my group and I planned on spending the night in Tokyo. Going through customs was, as we were promised, incredibly slow, deliberate, and organized to the T (I would soon realize that this is a trait that is consistent in almost everything that the Japanese do). Students were let off the ship according to what "sea" they belonged to. On the ship, students are grouped according to deck number as well as what side they live on and whether they are toward the bow or the stern, and are assiened a Sea, such as the Yellow Sea, the Carribean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, etc. I myself am a proud member of the Bering Sea! Anyway, I found myself standing around with most of the other students, waiting for my sea to be announced. It took so long that the crew began serving lunch at 11:30 am. I was just about to get food, of course, when my sea was finally called, so I grabbed my things and rushed to deck 5 to disembark.
I swiped my ID card at ship security and made my way down the gangway. I was given my passport, was fingerprinted and photographed by Japan customs, and finally let into the country. I found my group of 5 other students waiting for me, as all of their seas had been called before mine, and we immediately set out because we were already off to such a late start.
We made our way down the street in Yokohama, taking in the beautiful day! Although Japan is in the middle of winter right now, the sky was clear, it was sunny and very warm. We got in on the perfect day for walking around. As we searched for the train station to take us into Toyko, we were talking and laughing excitedly...which is when I realized that we were the only people around making any sound at all. Although Yokohama is a city, it was almost eerily quiet out on the streets. The people keep to themselves and walk in silence, the only noise really coming from passing cars. Suddenly I felt like that loud, obnoxious American that I had been warned not to become while in port, and I understood what exactly that meant.
We stopped at an ATM to get Japanese currency and made our way down to the subway, which at first could not be more confusing to us. Luckily, we were armed with our simple Japanese phrase sheets so we would ask a local for directions, which we did...often. One thing I can say about the Japanese is that they are almost always happy to help a lost foreigner, especially if you attempt to speak the language. Generally our encounters involved saying hello in Japanese ("Konichiwa!"), a lot of pointing at maps, and saying thank you ("Arigatou," a phrase I found myself saying a LOT). We hopped on the subway, which was just as quiet as the streets above us. Although many of the trains we took between the two days we spent in Tokyo were packed, hardly anyone says a word. I couldn't help but think of New York City, and how different my train experiences had been up until this point.
Of course, this was not the only difference between American and Japanese cities. Not only are the people friendly and approachable. but the entire country, everywhere you looked, was immaculate. The city streets, the subway, the public bathrooms, were all spotless, not one piece of garbage to be found anywhere...which was strange, considering you were hardpressed to find a trash bin anywhere. Wanting to be respectful, I kept stuffing any garbage I had into my jacket pockets until I found find a garbage can, which was not until we got to the hotel where we were staying in Toyko.
A little on the hotel...we stayed the night at the Ritz Carlton. The mother of one of my friends, Briana, has a friend who works at the hotel named Linda, who gave us an amazing discount. We got two rooms, one for the 3 girls and one for the 3 guys, on the 50th floor (out of 53). According to Linda, the Ritz is the tallest building in the city, which was apparent when we looked out our windows and could see all of Tokyo. The view was breathtaking.
Linda showed us around the galleria on the first floor of the building, directed us on where to go to do karaoke, then took us to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant to get a late lunch of real Ramen noodles, where she left us. Afterwards we got on another subway and went to the Senso-Ji Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo's oldest temple, which was beautiful. The temple is set back from the street, and to get to it, we had to walk down a long alley lined with shops filled with all sorts of souveniers, fans, kimonos, Japanese dishes, electronics, Japanese food and candy, etc. After seeing the temple, we wandered around the shops for awhile before heading back to the hotel to get ready for a night out.
On the way back to the Ritz, we stopped to get some champagne to celebrate our first night in a different country! When we clicked our glasses together, we said "Kung-pie!" (which means "Cheers!" in Japanese). Then we headed out to a karaoke bar to see what the Japanese love so much about it. We rented out a room for an hour and had an absolute blast. After that we went to a real bar and got our dance on with some really awesome locals.
Even though we didn't get back to the Ritz until about 2 AM, we were up at 4:45 AM to go to Tokyo's world-famous fish market to see the tuna auction. Well, 4 of us managed to get up and go to it anyway. In my opinion, it was by far the coolest thing we had done in Japan. Not only was the auction interesting (the tuna were HUGE!! I got plenty of pictures and a few videos of it), but there was every kind of fish you could imagine there, many of them still alive to keep them as fresh as possible. There were buckets of squid, crabs, lobsters, mussels, tanks full of pufferfish, sea cucumbers, salmon and flounder and sundry other fish on ice...it was incredible. Even though it was freezing at 6 in the morning and I was quite underdressed, I didn't want to leave because it was so fascinating. It's hard to believe that this fish market goes on every day except one day out of each month, with that amount of fish.
After the fish market we got a quick breakfast of, you guessed it, Ramen noodles, then went back to the hotel to go back to sleep for a couple hours. Around 11:30 AM we finally checked out and went to the Imperial Palace, which is the main residence of the Emperor of Japan. It's a spacious, parklike place surounded by high walls and a moat. We saw buildings where the samuri once stayed, and the famous cherry blossom trees that Japan is famous for (which was lucky because they are not supposed to bloom until April). It was a beautiful place.
The last place we went before returning to the ship was called "Electric City." As soon as I stepped out of the subway, I was bombarded by what seemed like a million different lights and sounds coming from all of the different electronics shops. It was anime galore and the air was filled with a genre of music known as J Pop. After walking around for awhile, we went into a conveyor belt sushi place to get some lunch, which was really cool. What you do is sit at the bar and the sushi comes around on a little conveyor belt with 2 pieces on each plate.
By that time, it was starting to get dark, cold and rainy, so we decided it was time to head back to the ship. It's funny, after the two days of taking subways to get everywhere, the subway system, which at first was impossibly confusing, now seemed second nature to us. We got back to Yokohama with no problem at all! Once we were all warm and dry, we went back to one of the cabins and started exchanging pictures, which was great because my camera battery died right after the Imperial Palace.
Anyway, right now I am sailing from Yokohama to Kobe with just 152 other passengers because many of the students decided to travel independently and meet the ship at the next port. Since there are so few of us sailing with the ship, there is a special dinner for us tonight and a few other special activities going on. I'm glad I decided to come back. After all the walking and lack of sleep from the last two days, I was absolutely exhaused! We should be getting to Kobe around 7 AM tomorrow, and I will be ready to do some more exploring. I'll post again and let you know how it went! Overall, it was a great first experience in a new country. I could not be happier, or more tired.
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