So, in honor of getting close to Hawaii, I felt that it would make sense to catch back up on my blog posts. This time I’ll be talking about Japan. Japan was the first country since Spain that I have done completely independent travel in. My travels in each country have ranged from completely independent travel to completely SAS run travel. In the easier to travel countries, I tended to lean towards independent travel. Those included Japan, Spain, China, and Thailand. The countries that tended to be more dangerous, overwhelming, and difficult to travel in, I tended to lean towards SAS trips. Those countries included Morocco, Namibia, South Africa, India, and Vietnam. In Hawaii I will be visiting the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. We will be touring the ship, USS Crommelin. You can look up the ship on Wikipedia if you would like more knowledge about it prior to my arrival. I am also meeting up with a friend from High School, a guy named Christian Vetter. I haven’t seen him in about 3 years, so it should be a fun time.
But back to Japan…
We arrived in Kobe the first day and had to wait HOURS to get through immigration. The Japanese, much like the Americans, tend to be very judicious as to who they let into their country. We didn’t get off the ship until after noon. They also didn’t stamp our passports upon entry; they put a sticker in them… You’d have to see it, it’s really goofy. I spent the day traveling around Kobe. The highlight was finding a park, full of Cherry Blossoms in bloom, with a Shinto Shrine in it. For those of you who don’t know, Shinto is the major religion of Japan. I don’t know the details of the religion, but it seems very interesting for me. We then ran into two Japanese students and they invited us to dinner. They were very nice and very accommodating. They helped me understand what I was ordering, which was a plus. I had this food called Modanyaki. It was amazing. You need to eat it if you are ever in Japan. I hear it is really easy to make… mom… We then made our way to the train station in order to pick up our bullet train tickets for our travels to Tokyo.
The next morning was an early morning. We woke up at 6 AM in order to get to the train at 8AM. We boarded the bullet train at 8 AM and made our way to Tokyo. The bullet train is fast. Like mind bogglingly fast. You feel like you’re in a spaceship. In a mere 3 hours, we traveled from Kobe to Tokyo, stopping about 4 or 5 times. Upon arriving at the Tokyo JR station, we had to figure out the subway map in order to make our way to where we wanted to stay. We decided we wanted to stay at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese hotel, in a place called Asakusa. After finding ourselves a place to stay, we made our way down to Tokyo Tower, the largest self sustaining steel structure in the world. It is a ripoff of the Eiffel tower in Paris, but who cares, it was really cool. We then made our way over to a Ramen restaurant and had our first taste of fresh Ramen, it was amazing!
The following day we made our way to Ueno Park. At Ueno Park, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. People keep telling me, “you can see Cherry Blossoms in DC.” My response is that it just isn’t the same, they originated in Japan and the reverence for them is something special that you can only have in Japan. We stopped at another Shinto Shrine in the area before making our way to the zoo, as Laura, a member of my traveling party, had to watch the monkeys there for one of her classes aboard the ship. We then made our way down to Akihabara Electric Town. For those who you who don’t know what Akihabara Electric Town is, it is basically nerd Mecca. It is a street covered in Electronics, anime, manga, and video game shops. There are neon lights everywhere. It is an amazing area. If I could read Japanese, I would have spent waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much money there. Too bad there was no English language section or I’d be coming home with no money in my account. After shopping, dinner, and desert, we made our way to the Ryokan for our last night there.
The following day we packed up and left the Ryokan. The cutest little old lady that ran the Ryokan gave us a present as we left, a small good luck charm. She was so nice for helping us throughout the trip. We made our way to Harajuku, another area of Tokyo that attracts attention both from inside Japan, but around the world. Harajuku is known for its fashion. It is the fashion capitol of Japan. They have every style you could imagine there, punk, rock, gothic, trendy, slutty, etc. Just use your imagination. If you have style at all, you can find it there. We also got donuts from a donut shop called Tomagachi Donuts, if you don’t remember what a Tomagachi is, you didn’t live in the 90’s. They were awesome. After that, we made our way to the skyscraper district in order to see some of the really cool buildings there. We then made our way to our final destination in Tokyo, a place called Shibuya. This place was crazy crowded. There were people EVERYWHERE. This place, from what I could gather, is the Time’s Square of Tokyo. The same idea is there, big tv screens, a big intersection, lots of entertainment and shopping. We found ourselves some dinner and made our way to KARAOKE. We spent four hours in our own Karaoke room. They had every song you could ever want. It was a lot of fun. It is hard to describe how it actually worked, but it was awesome. We then found ourselves what is called a Manga Kisu, also known as a Manga Café. Manga is the Japanese equivalent of comic books. The way these places work, is you rent a cubicle for a certain amount of time. The cubicles contain a mattress, a computer with free internet, a big flatscreen tv, a dvd player, free drinks, free anime and movie library, free manga library, and cheap food. You can rent them for the whole night for about $10 or 1000 Yen. We spent the night in the Manga Kisu and it was fun. I got to do all the things on the internet that I’ve been missing.
The following day was our last day in Japan. We made our way early in the morning to Yokohama, where the ship was. Upon arriving at the ship, I had to leave almost right away so that I could go with MICE to our final on land concert at Yokohame City University. The campus was small and in a very rural area, but it was a fun trip and concert. It wasn’t our best show, but it was definitely worth the trip. I’ll play for any sized crowd anywhere; it’s just fun to play live and to be on stage. That night, we left Japan, and began our long trip back to our side of the world…
Speaking of being on stage, last night was the SOS Auction aboard the MV Explorer to help raise money for both the fairy godmother fund as well as scholarships for future students. I was contracted to be one of the three auctioneers. We made about $11,000 for the shipboard fund. It was fun, but unfortunately, most of the stuff went for more than my payroll could afford. It was fun though and I was glad to do my part. Being an auctioneer is hard, but a lot of fun.
That is all for now, Hawaii in a few days, 4 to be exact. I should have another update before we get there,
Steven at Sea
