Japan

Hey everyone! Greetings from the ship. I am on my way to Hawaii at the moment. We left Japan a few days ago and I was so exhausted and spent that I haven’t done much since. I’ve spent a lot of time resting, and watching Prison Break (TV Show) with my roommate and some friends. Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted.

Anyway, Japan was pretty awesome. I chose to travel with two other girls, Hillary and Mandy and we mapped out a pretty intense course of travel. We decided to hit up Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka and Hiroshima! We also wanted to spend a little time in our port city in Kobe. Somehow, we managed to make it to all these stops!

We started off by getting off the ship pretty late. Japan has some pretty intense regulations for disembarking and it took much longer than any other port. After getting off we walked around Kobe a little on the way to the train station. Kobe was surprisingly a pretty cool city. My friend had read to me, before getting off the ship, that Kobe was mostly a resident’s city and not one that would excite travelers. However we found the subtle differences from other cities to actually be pretty cool to experience. We also were generally just pretty excited to be in Japan. We made our way to the train station and caught an express to Kyoto. I was planning to meet up with AK, Ira and Zack in Kyoto which was a pretty great addition to the trip. Thankfully everything went smoothly and we managed to get in touch and get together for dinner. We had a great dinner with some delicious food and it was so nice just see family and get a taste of home. (Thanks again for meeting up with me Blumberg family!!)

The next morning was spent exploring Kyoto. We walked around the area of our hotel and managed to take a train to the Imperial Palace, which we later learned was only opened 5 days a year. It was a really cool palace with some interesting history. We walked around the grounds and ended up finding this little farmers market around the area. After roaming around we left for the shopping area. We walked through the Ponto-Cho district which is known for its nightlife and was completely dead during the day. While searching for a market we came across an outdoor covered mall that we walked around for a while at. We had to leave a little early to check out and catch a train to Tokyo. We could have easily spent the whole time in Kyoto, but we had to move on.

We took a bullet to Tokyo where our first plan of action was Tokyo Disneyland. Yes, it was not my idea. Yes, I did have fun. Mandy and Hillary were SET on going and I decided it could potentially be fun and went along with it. The layout was almost identical to Disneyland in LA which I went to the summer I lived in LA. After that we went out in the Roppongi district and, of course, I found a ton of other SAS kids and spent a good part of the night doing Karaoke! We slept in a capsule hotel, which was pretty disgusting but an important experience to have. If you want details let me know, I’ll avoid going into detail here.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to head to the Harajuku district. We’d heard great things about the district from other kids who had gone and we knew it was where Gwen Stefani was inspired for her clothing style and some songs on her new CD. The district was so cool! We walked around for a good couple of hours in and out of shops and people watching. Then we went to another district in Japan where we walked around and searched for shoes. Japan has some pretty amazing shoes. Sadly, but happily for dad, I didn’t find anything in my size! After that we took a train to the Tokyo Giants baseball game! It was so much fun and again we ran into some more SASers. A huge group of us sat together and enjoyed a few hours watching some good baseball. It was so cool to be in a stadium cheering for the Giants again.

After the game we headed to the train station to catch a train to Osaka. We heard a lot of SAS kids were going to be there. We had some complications and didn’t make it until late at night into the city. Once there we walked around, realized we had no great hotel or hostel to stay in and decided to just take a train back to Kobe to sleep on the ship. Since we had bought rail passes ahead of time we saved a significant amount of money and decided it was just easier to sleep back in Kobe since the plan was to wake up early for Hiroshima. We hung out in the train station for a little while and caught one of the last trains out to Kobe. We met up with a ton of other kids back in Kobe and somehow made our way back to the ship after switching from subway to subway.

The next morning we awoke and headed to Hiroshima. This was my most anticipated part of the Japan trip (besides seeing my family of course). We took an early train and upon arrival went straight to the Hiroshima Peace Museum. It was a beautiful day in Hiroshima, one of the nicest we’d had in Japan. Walking through the outdoor grounds and then through the massive museum I was taken aback by the sense of hope and willingness to move forward for a safer future. I purchased the audio guide and was glad I did so as I walked through the museum that had some amazing artifacts, including letters from Einstein to FDR and Truman and details about the city and the bombs that I found fascinating. There was also a big section on the mayor of Hiroshima, who after the bombings began to write a letter every day for the rest of his term protesting the use of nuclear weapons to every major arms holder in the world. It was incredible.

We spent the rest of the day roaming the city and then made our way back to Kobe and hung out until we had to get back on the ship by 9 pm.

Japan was such a rush of motion and hurrying and waiting at train stations and shopping and city life. It was a lot of fun and very tiring. Like I said, I’m back on the ship and life is great now that I’m rested. Got to go work out – miss you all!!!

Peace, E