Konichiwa!

The ship first docked in Kobe (home of the famous beef) on the southeast side of Japan. Most of Kobe was destroyed in 1995 in an earthquake so the parts that survived or have been restored are extra special and more money is put into their preservation. The first day I went to lunch for some amazing traditional Japanese food then I went to a Shinto temple. The temple was a beautiful bright red color with a fountain to purify yourself in by washing your hands, a huge bell you pull and make a wish/prayer on, lanterns, scrolls with the imperial crest on them and mediation/prayer areas. I went to a random wood-working museum for a class which was sort of interesting. At sunset I explored a beautiful garden, which was once privately owed by a wealthy silk trader. You can meander by the pond which has huge trees with red and orange leaves, rows of chrysanthemum bushes and lovely mini gardens. The weather is perfect luckily- fall crisp breeze and sunshine.



My second day in Japan I took the train about two hours outside Kobe to these restored 17th watchtowers and a shopping center. After that I went to a completely restored ginormous castle/city complex from the 1600s called Hijemi. It's used in a lot of samurai video games and movies. It's a bit hard to explain but basically has gardens, stables, towers, barracks and castles inside a big moat. The buildings are a bright white color with metal roofs up on a hill with beautiful trees of fall colors around it. The central building is about 7 stories and completely restored wood interior. It looks so new you could move in tomorrow. The really cool thing is that the feudal lords used it as the final defenses in case of attack so it has tons of hidden rooms, moving walls, arrow slits, hidden gun racks and shelves to the outside wall which they used to drop tar or rocks on invaders. I don't think it's the kind of thing everyone would like to spend hours in but I definitely could. The world really can be a small place- while taking pictures a family asked me to take a family photo for them and of course they were from Los Altos, CA (which is next to my town for non-NorCal people). Around the castle were these guys dressed as ninjas who would pretend to attack you so you could get a cool photo. The odd thing was that they didn't ask for money or anything or seem to be official photo ninjas just two guys that dress up as ninjas for kicks.



Many people elected to get a bullet train pass and travel around Japan that way and just meet up with the ship in Yokohama the last day but I decide to stay on the ship. Japan has a super efficient, clean and extensive public transportation system. You can get anywhere in Japan via the subway, bullet trains or local trains. Almost everything is super expensive here (especially in comparison to the pervious countries we've visited). For example a bottle of Febreeze is $10 or a decent cup of coffee is about $4. You can definitely find food that isn't too expensive but almost everything else you really have to search out in order to not break the bank. Staying on the ship saved a lot of money and was actually kind of relaxing. When we got to Yokohama I spent most of my time exploring, eating and walking along the shopping malls and skyscrapers. A couple friends and I took the train to Tokyo. Tokyo is huge though the area I was in seemed to just be malls, hotels, offices, restaurants and train stations which was fun for an afternoon though I don't know what tourists do during the day after a while here. There are actually more people in Tokyo than the entire continent of Australia. The greater metropolitan area of Tokyo has over 30 million people (LA's metropolitan area has about 13 million to give you an idea of Tokyo's size). Tokyo is very impressive as a testament to modern abilities- it's very clean and efficient with miles of skyscrapers, office buildings and shiny glass malls. There is something a bit sterile though about parts of it. I've heard that unless you know locals you'll never see the real Tokyo. All the interesting/fabulous places you apparently have to be "in the know" to know about which I apparently am not. The sections of Tokyo I was in looked a bit like 5th Ave or the financial district of New York but much cleaner and less colorful. There are so many really nice shopping malls here selling Dior, Tiffany's and really nice boutique style Hello Kitty/Sanrio stuff. You can buy everything from a toaster oven to wedding cake toppers with Hello Kitty on it! There seems to be Starbucks on every corner here too but they're cleaner and more polite. The Starbucks and malls were all covered in Christmas decorations too- music, garlands, trees, the whole shebang but it seemed as authentic as green-obsessed St. Patrick's decorations in America must seem to Irishmen.

On my last day in Japan I explored Yokohama, which I actually liked better than Tokyo. It's still a huge modern city but less people and more colonial architecture- it seemed to just have a bit more character than Tokyo. I explored yet more shopping malls and skyscrapers while walking along the city. I really enjoyed wandering the Yokohama Museum of Modern Art, which isn't very big but has some famous Western artists like Salvador Dali, Kandinsky, Picasso and Brancusi. It was really nice just being away from all the Semester at Sea people but not looking at yet another temple. Two other students and I had fun exploring a really high-end mall and gourmet food stores.

The food is amazing here. Sushi, sashimi, tempura, miso soup... yum yum yum! There are tons and tons of bakeries often selling croissants, madelines, brioche, and such. There are also a surprisingly large number of waffle stands which are actually really nice and expensive to-go stands in subway terminals and major financial centers. Apparently it's a very popular hostess and Christmas gift to send boxes of food like these petite pound cake-like pastries from department stores. At the bottom of the department stores (most are like Saks Fifth Ave or Nordstrom's) the have a "food court." They look like an expensive store's makeup counter but instead it's rows and rows of gourmet food. It was heavenly! Counter after counter of fresh sushi, salads, chocolates, cakes, mochi, fish, etc. If I lived here (which would require tons of money) I think I would never cook and eat every meal from these department store food courts. For whatever cultural reason though there's never anywhere to sit or get a drink in these food courts. I think people must go home or back to the office to eat since there was never anywhere to sit and eat. Another popular Japanese dessert is mochi, which is a ball of dough filled with different flavors. It's a very strange consistency but the best way I can explain it is imagine raw pie or pastry dough about the size of a dinner roll with a custard/whipped cream filling that comes in every flavor from green tea to café au lait to apple pie to sweet potato. They are actually pretty good though I'd choose an éclair if it came down to it.

Everyone was very polite (with the exclusion of cultural norms which are different such as holding the door for the person behind you, handshaking or eye contact) and often when we were trying to figure out the subway system someone would come and help. People would make such an effort to communicate with us in broken English, hand signals or having long conversations with us in Japanese even though we obviously had no idea what they were saying. I rarely saw people laughing loudly or shouting. People in general are very reserved and in control. No one ever stared at us or asked to take our picture though we obviously stood out. I don't know if they just didn't care or are so used to foreigners that it's no big deal though in most places I went there was only a few, if any non-Japanese people out of hundreds of Japanese. There is a bit of a two faced quality it seems to me about many Japanese because you see so many people in severe, expensive business suits or uniforms working six days a week acting pretty reserved and restrained but then you see a girl dressed like little Bo Peep and no one bats an eye or rows of arcade/gambling places packed with smoke, alcohol, female "companions" and really hung over looking businessmen on a major street at 2 in the afternoon!

Almost everyone is very well dressed though they looked a bit high maintenance. The men looked a bit fussy and metrosexual with their choppy blow dried hat, tight jeans, shiny belts and layers of clothes compared to the casual/sloppy American boys on the ship. The women obviously put a lot of effort into their look- no one looked even remotely casual. Most looked like the women in New York on Fifth Ave though no bright colors or prints- thin, styled hair, outfits not just clothes, high heels, definitely not low-maintenance. They looked pulled together with lots of layers of clothes though not necessarily sharp or classic looking. I never once saw a person in sweats, a sweatshirt, a baseball cap or in a bright color like red, pink or aqua. I don't know if all schools have uniforms but every high school/elementary school aged person was in uniforms even on Saturdays! All the uniforms were dark blue and most of the girls ones included long skirts and a sailor motif, which definitely would not fly at most American private schools. On the subway you'd see big groups of girls or boys in these modest dark uniforms with leather book bags/messenger bags and really nice cell phones with an anime or manga cartoon charm attached to it.

You know the expression the grass is greener on the other side of the fence? Well they should change it to the grass is greener on the other side of the ocean because Japan literally paints the grass bright green. Sad, dejected, brown grass gets zapped greener by a guy with this industrial sized paint sprayer in public spaces.

The quintessential image of Japan I left with was in one of the many high-end malls in Tokyo with an older businessman and his younger wife/girlfriend. The man was dressed in an obviously expensive suit and browsing while waiting for the woman and text messaging on his phone, which had a cartoon antennae charm which everyone in Japan seemed to have. The woman was in traditional Japanese clothes- the less formal version of the kimono and wearing one of those white surgical masks, which people do actually wear here. In these traditional clothes and surgical mask she spent serious time shopping in a massive and expensive Hello Kitty store from which you could easily have outfitted your entire life in Sanrio gear.