Japan

In an effort to get all caught up before we get to Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, I’m going to give a relatively abridged version of my time in Japan, Hawaii, and Guatemala.  I, however, look forward to discussing all of these countries at length with you when I am home…

 

Japan

We arrived in Kobe, Japan on Monday, April 4.  Soon after arrival we began what would be the longest immigration process of any country we’d visit.  We started with the whole ship and crew having to walk in front of an Infrared/heat sensing camera to make sure no one was sick.  Then, at around 10am, seas, one at a time, were called to get off.  My sea wasn’t called until 11:45.  Once we were, we had to wait in a long immigration line before meeting with an officer to review our visa and stamp our passport and then have their computers take our fingerprints as well as pictures.  Once we were off, me and a group of friends went to take a tour of a sake brewery.  It was very cool.  I never knew there were so many kinds of sake.  We sampled 8 different ones, all with distinct tastes.  After our brewery tour, we had a terrific sushi lunch at a conveyer belt restaurant.  You sit at a table along a long conveyer moving across the whole restaurant and just take plates of whatever you like.  At the end, they total the plates you have and give you the bill.  After lunch, we attempted to take an impromptu hike through a mountain to a supposedly very cool waterfall.  After about an hour (it was only supposed to take 30 min at most) we realized we had no idea where we were and were in no sight of a waterfall, so turned back and made our way back to the ship.  Everywhere we went (and everywhere we’d go throughout our time in Japan) we’d take their subway, which is definitely the nicest and the most wide-reaching that I have ever seen.  For dinner…well, to put it simply, I had probably the best meal ever.  Me and a bunch of people went to a Kobe beef dinner.  While expensive, it was absolutely amazing; unlike anything I have ever eaten.  After our terrific dinner, we made our way to a karaoke bar, where we spent an hour in our own room having fun picking songs to sing from a huge book with virtually any song imaginable. 

 

DAY 2

We woke up early to get on a train to Hiroshima.  For the rest of the time in Japan, I’d travel with my friends Max and Josh from Highland Park, Shayna who goes to Wisconsin, and Lizzie.  We got into Hiroshima at 11ish and would spend several hours looking at various monuments and remains of buildings before having lunch and visiting their peace museum.  The museum was very well designed and in addition to discussing the events leading up to and after the bombing, stressed the negative implications and effects of nuclear weapons on the world.  After our time in Hiroshima, we took a train to Kyoto.  In Kyoto, we stayed at a very nice ryokan, We were incredibly fortunate to be in Kyoto for the several week cherry blossom tree season, where everywhere you look were large trees with countless tiny pink leaves.  At night, we went visited the castle, which was all lit up and again, filled with cherry blossoms.  We had a terrific sushi and sashimi meal for dinner.

 

DAY 3

After waking up relatively early (730am), we went to the palace (an enormous area filled with old buildings, gardens, and monuments/statues).  After, we went to an old temple before having a quick breakfast before heading to the train station to go to Tokyo.  Once in Tokyo we spent a while trying to find the hotel that Max had booked while on the ship.  Once we were settled in, we made our way to the Tokyo Yakult Swallows baseball stadium.  We had a quick snack outside of the stadium and then made our way inside for what would be the coolest and most unique baseball game I’ve ever attended.  We sat in the outfield, in the middle of the team’s “fan section” were, when the home team was up to bat, fans would constantly chant, cheer, and sing for each batter, having a unique song for each player on the team.  There were several devoted fans “conducting” the section and even various musical instruments constantly being played.  During the game, instead of the traditional hot dog, I had some teriyaki chicken skewer thing and a plate of soba noodles, very cool concessions for a baseball game.  The home team even had a an American player, Aaron Guiel, who has played on the Kansas City Royals and most recently the Yankees before coming to Japan. 

 

That night, after going out and returning to the hotel, my time slot to register for fall classes began at 2:30am.  So, I spent a couple hours registering, and at 4:30am, made my way to the famous Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest daily fish market in the world where people come from all over Japan to buy, sell, and ship their freshly-caught fish and seafood.  After walking through a maze of literally hundreds of stands and shops with some of the scariest crawling things I’ve ever seen, I found the auction area.  Here I witnessed the organized chaos of dozens of Japanese men screaming over one another, bidding on the gigantic, person-sized, fish laid out on the ground in front of them.  After spending a couple hours watching this and walking around, I proceeded to a makeshift sushi restaurant on the outskirts of the market where I would hands-down, have the best sushi meal of my life.  I had a total of nine pieces of the best and freshest fish ever; it must have been swimming several hours before.  I had three kinds of tuna, regular, fatty, and super fatty; one better than the next, and several other things I’m not sure what they were.  They were, however, so intricately prepared that the chef making them right in front of me, behind the bar, made it very clear that I was not allowed to use soy sauce, wasabi, or ginger.

 

After making my way back to the hotel to meet the just-waking up crowd, we had a nice and simple coffee and waffle breakfast at a nearby café and then headed to one of Tokyo’s craziest, ultra-modern shopping streets, where we’d spend several hours walking around and shopping.  Eventually, we made our way to the busiest intersection in Tokyo, where between every light change, literally hundreds of people would cross the intersection connection 6 different streets.  It was very cool, but my pictures and video are necessary to fully understand it.  Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and changed for our Passover service at the Tokyo JCC which I discussed in my earlier post.

 

DAY 5

We spent our last day in Japan in Yokohama, where our ship had made its way to over the past few days and was leaving from.  We walked around their Chinatown (kind of ironic, but cool since it is the largest Chinatown in all of Japan), ate a couple final Japanese meals, and went to an internet café before getting back on the ship to depart for Hawaii.