Japan!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! By the time I post this everyone back in Illinois will be enjoying turkey and all the goods. I, however, had my Thanksgiving dinner basically a day before everyone else. But all the same I did have a Thanksgiving dinner. The ship served us turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green beans, cranberries, and pumpkin bars but because everyone was eating mass amounts of food, the food ran out over and over and over. The cooking staff couldn’t keep up! I waited in line with the girls, cheering each time a new dish was refilled and then announcing, “Ohh, it’s already gone,” three minutes later before we had gotten to that spot in line. The pumpkin bars were even harder to get and disappear within thirty seconds each time a tray was brought out, no joke. Janelle resorted to asking for the turkey carcass and going at it at the table. A waiter brought another carcass out for her later to and by then we all wanted more turkey so badly that we joined in at stabbing at it. After dinner with the girls we sat in Carrie’s room, exchanging pictures via a thumb drive and then I ran upstairs to the open mic in the Union titled “Turkey Coma Coffee House.” So yeah, I may have missed out on turkey with the family for the second time in a row, but I still had some type of a Thanksgiving so I can’t complain. I hope everyone’s is having a good one back home.

Oh and happy 21st to Kari Winter! A little late, I know, but the ship’s internet was down the entire time we were in Japan.

So yeah, I was just in Japan!! My blogs are getting harder and harder to write because I have so much to say and not enough patience to get it all out, and I have finals on my mind so yeah. Either way….

So Sunday was my first day in Japan. It came so quickly that, as I walked around the city of Himeij that day, my mind was having trouble registering the fact that I was indeed in Japan, the country I have been studying for the last semester.
Carrie, Erin, Sarah (this girl who did the Merida trip in Venezuela with me) and I were off the ship by 12:30 but had to wait in line for money exchange for an hour because other SASers had beat us to the line in the port terminal. We took the train into downtown Kobe and from there took a train to Himeiji, a nearby city with the most famous/beautiful castle in Japan. While on the train to Himeiji two American boys boarded the same car as us. One was super cute, to the point that I made the girls find time to turn around and check him out because his eyes were so great. As the train neared our destination I overheard them talking about the castle as they stood up to get off. Carrie suggested to me we jump on with them in our journey. “Hey are you guys headed to the castle?” I asked. And so the rest of our day was spent with the two boys: Ed and Sarge.
Ed, the cute one, was half Japanese and moved to Japan two years ago to teach English to children. He told us about how his mother moved to the U.S. thirty years ago and was cut off from her Japanese family. She hasn’t seen them since. Sarge’s story was that he moved to Japan two months ago for work. He and Ed know each other from college.
Since Ed had been to the castle many times before he led the way telling us to feel free to stop and take pictures whenever. He was just really nice and really cute and I loved that we hung out with the two of them although I didn’t get too much of a chance to talk to Sarge. The boys asked if we had plans for the night but unfortunately we kind of did. I would have gladly changed them but I don’t think the girls felt the same way. So after our visit to the castle and hanging around outside for a bit, we took pictures together and went our separate ways.
After our visit to the castle we walked around the mall area of Himeiji, looking for somewhere to eat dinner. Oh and can I just say that in Himeiji, and throughout Japan I assume, there are malls that look like streets. Like, you walk down the street and turn onto another street and it’s an extremely long covered stretch with hundreds of stores. In Himeiji there were so many streets like this, all in the same area. It was so cool.
We finally found some random place to eat and settled on it because as I put it, “they have food.” A bowl of udon, wheat noodles, later and we were headed to the train.
The four of us then took the train back to Kobe, got back on the ship to quickly clean up, and left once again, this time to find saki. We were supposed to meet up with some other girls but they bailed on us, meaning that yes, we could have hung out with the boys, but whatever…I’m over it. Some guys were handing out flyers for cheap beer outside of the port terminal so we set out to find this bar called “Second Chance.” After getting lost numerous times we finally found the bar, which turned out to be super small and really not that cool. We still drank though and took shots of saki. Next door to the bar was a convenience store and in Japan public drinking is allowed so we each bought a beer at the store. A beer, by the way, which came with a free toy attached to the top of the can! Two hours later, after a mandatory stop at McDonalds, we were back at the ship.



I dedicated my entire day on Monday to visiting Hiroshima. I originally had not planned to visit the sight where the United States dropped one of two atom bombs, but after learning about it in my Modern Japan class and realizing that I would probably never again have a chance to visit the city and museum within it, I reconsidered. I’m really glad I went.
To save money I did the trip through SAS and drove to Hiroshima by bus rather than take the bullet train. In turn, I spent ten hours traveling to and from Hiroshima. Everyone was on the bus by 6:00 am. There were actually two buses because so many kids were interested in going. Carrie, Janelle, Erin, and Cynthia were all on the trip with me which made the day much more enjoyable.
Miserably tired from the night before, and still nauseous from drinking beer and saki and eating McDonald’s only six hours earlier, the ride to Hiroshima was quite miserable for me. I couldn’t get comfortable and didn’t sleep the five hours there as I had planned. So yeah, the ride to Hiroshima took forever. On top of that we made multiple stops at truck stops so by the time I finally fell asleep I was woken up again.
Upon arrival in Hiroshima we visited the T-shaped bridge that was the target of the atom bomb, or the A-Bomb as the Japanese use for short. Beside it still stands one of the few buildings in the city that remained standing after the blast. A plaque showed a picture of the devastated city completely turned into ashes with the building standing alone alongside the river. Since 1945 they’ve basically put a fence as well as a park around the building and turned it into a memorial. We continued walking through the cold fall air (by the way, there were beautiful golden and red trees surrounding the entire memorial site) and passed the flame of peace, which they say will continue burning until all nuclear weapons are destroyed and no longer exist. In the park there was also a monument for the children killed by the A-bomb. On top of the monument stands a child whose wings are outstretched. It’s supposed to be Sadako, the little girl who folded over a thousand paper cranes in hopes that she would not die from the radiation-caused leukemia that eventually killed her ten years after the bomb was dropped. Around the monument were several huge clear containers full of colorful paper cranes that people from all over had folded and brought to the monument in her memory. We continued walking and saw the coffin-shaped stone that lies at the end of a long walkway. Inside it are all the names of the 240,000 victims of the A-bomb in Hiroshima.
There were a lot of us SASers and I found myself disturbed and annoyed by students who were handing off their cameras to their friends in order to have their pictures taken in front of a monument or the ruins of the building left standing. I mean, I was taking my share of pictures. But to stand in front of such a devastating and horribly sad sight and smile to show that “you were there,” just seems wrong to me. For example, after visiting the museum, I, myself, was trying to let everything I had seen sink in and full of thought and sadness, but some SASers stood outside laughing and posing for pictures. I just don’t understand how, after seeing these pictures of burned bodies, and hearing about all the people who lost their lives in the exact location we were standing, some students could be so unaffected. I don’t know, the museum just really upset me and some kids seemed to care less than others and see the site more as a tourist attraction rather than a huge cemetery.
So anyway, about the museum. There are two in Hiroshima, but the main one, the one we visited, is not a state-owned business, meaning the slant on it was significantly less than it could have been. Besides, regardless of whether or not someone thinks the bomb should have been dropped, it still happened. The museum basically explained the course of events leading up to the bombing, the situation after the bombing, and the history behind nuclear weapons.
Inside there were wrist and pocket watches frozen forever on 8:15 am. Burnt and tattered clothing off victims’ bodies were displayed. Pictures of children accompanied belongings that were found next to their dead bodies including a lunch pail and a tricycle. The original steps from a bank were displayed and the shadow of someone who had been sitting on the steps that morning, waiting for the bank to open, was burnt into the cement. A picture of victims taken three hour after the bomb was dropped was blown up and placed on a wall. A volunteer at the museum came over and explained to me how a Japanese newspaper photographer took photos of the immediate destruction but because the sites he was seeing were so gruesome and tragic he could only take a few photos. “My viewfinder became clouded with tears,” it said next to the picture following a short description of it. It was a pretty large museum with more to see than I had time for. School children filled the three levels of the museum, reading captions under pictures and then scribbling notes onto some paper. I spent a half hour watching a film about the aftermath of the August 6 and the people who, years later, were still dieing and suffering from mental and physical effects of the radiation of the bomb.
After visiting the museum we loaded back into our buses and stopped at a Japanese garden. On the way I tried desperately to truly embrace what went on here 60 years before. Underneath all the new pavement and buildings is one huge cemetery. I pictured the screaming, the crying, the horror that survivors witnessed, but couldn’t. It may have been because I was low on sleep, but either way, I was just really really sad after leaving the museum, and understandably. I started thinking about WWII in general and all the people that died in the Holocaust and then I got to thinking about the Vietnam War and the pictures I saw at the War Memorial Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. I thought about the Armenian genocide that I learned about in my human rights class and the genocide that took place in Cambodia in the 70’s, although I know very little about it. So many people have died horrible deaths just in the past century alone. There’s been so much tragedy, a lot of which I know nothing about, and in the U.S. we’re so sheltered from all of it. When I was in fifth grade I saw the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian and I don’t remember ever learning that this plane had killed hundreds of thousands of people. I don’t know, there was, and still is, a lot going through my head after visiting the museum.
So anyway, we went to this Japanese garden and were given an hour to roam. I spent it with Carrie and Erin, taking pictures of the bright red trees and their reflection in the pond. Back on the bus we began the drive home. We stopped at a truck stop for dinner and paid for our meals via a machine, pressing a button that corresponded with the meal we wished to order. Then we proceeded to the counter and handed a man the ticket. It was definitely a new process for all of us. I ate my noodles and tofu, leaving my rice balls alone because I realized tiny pieces of like baby eel or something like that laced the rice. From there I roamed the convenience store/bakery that made up the rest of the building. Vending machines lined a hall like they did every other stop we had made. Oh yeah, and before I forget, you can buy pretty much anything out of vending machines. Beer, tons of types of coffee, corn dogs, heck, even French fries…it’s amazing. And their everywhere, especially the drink ones. They rarely have any soda in them, just tea and both cold and hot coffee drinks. I walked around the building, buying random food such as banana gum and a pre-packaged icecream treat surrounded by a waffle, just to try it. Oh yeah, and gas-station stores in Japan don’t just have candy and sweets. There was octopus jerky, lots of random seafood packages, come to think of it, I don’t really know what any of it was because I can’t read Japanese. But there was a lot of food that gave me goosebumps just looking at it.
We got back to the ship around 9 pm and I retired to my room to shower and pack for the following day.


On Wednesday morning I traveled to Kyoto, via three different trains, with about twenty other SASers and a few Japanese students from Ritsumeikan University who had come to Kobe to assist in our getting to their school. We got to the university at 11:00 am and as soon as we arrived were taken to a room where we sat in assigned groups that we were in in for the rest of our stay in Kyoto. In my group there were four Japanese students: Michi, Rika, Hitomi, and Kiyono plus three other SASers: Vivian, Julie, and Adam. We sat on the floor, legs crossed, at a table low to the ground and introduced ourselves. Upon being told to by the organizer of the day, we awkwardly exchanged gifts. Rika chose my gift, complete with a Chicago baseball cap that she wore throughout our tour of Kyoto the next day. I handed each one of them a mix I had made of American music. Our group stuck together as we headed to lunch in the university’s dining center. The cafeteria-style line was full of unfamiliar food, none of which was labeled in English. So they helped as I curiously asked what each plate that looked appetizing was. While we ate, Rika took pictures of us with her pink cell phone and I took pictures of them. We were equally amused with each other. The students knew English really well and language was not a barrier at all so, in turn, we were able to have real conversation with one another, it was nice.
They took us on a tour of the campus, which was basically us walking around and admiring how beautiful the trees and set-up of the school was. Students walked to and from classes, two boys sat outside playing acoustic guitar, it was all very familiar. The big difference was in their dress. The Japanese are amazing dressers! The girls are all decked out in trendy clothes, leather boots, cute jackets…barely anyone just wears a T-shirt and jeans. And in the U.S., the boys would all be considered metrosexuals in their thought-out sexy haircuts and fashionable clothes. I was just blown away by it all because everyone dressed and looked uniquely different.
After the campus tour we headed back to our foot-high tables in the room we were in previously. Each group of about eight American and Japanese students was given three topics to discuss. Our hosts had prearranged the topics and the students had printed out sheets they had prewritten to outline the discussion. It was all so organized. Just to be involved in the day the students had to apply in the summer and write an essay explaining why they wanted to be a host for us. The second day we spent with them was planned out ahead of time by each group of Ritsumeikan students too. So anyway we discussed food culture, educational differences, and skimmed over the peace constitution topic. Michi laughed when we brought it up, explaining that he doesn’t follow politics. Because I’ve been studying Japan on the ship, it was the one thing I really wanted to talk about, but I understood his viewpoint, or lack thereof…it’s the same way in the states.
At 3:30 we went through the Peace Museum and photography exhibit that is part of the university. The museum was interesting, but very little the text was translated into English and the most I could do was look at pictures and follow the timeline of events. The photography exhibit was pretty impressive and contained pictures taken from all over the world. All the captions were written in Japanese though and I had no idea what I was actually looking at.
The 24 SASers who had regrouped for the museum visit split up again, this time into groups of eight for what the schedule we were given referred to as a “cultural experience.” One group practice calligraphy, another group was full of kids who chose to do judo. My group visited the university’s kendo club that was practicing in a large room with a wooden floor. As we were in a recreational building, in the room over students practiced judo and kids sat outside in the cold air wearing work-out clothes. Kendo is essentially a sport involving a dulled bamboo sword that each participant swings toward his opponent. Wearing armor, including a mask that resembles that of a hockey-goalie, you aim for the top of the head, stomach, wrist, and throat of the opponent, yelling out specifics words as you strike in order to get a point. It’s really pretty cool. What’s even cooler is that the eight of us, actually seven because Adam chose to go back to the ship, got to dress in the attire, practice kendo with members of the university’s club, and then compete in a match against another SASer. It was awesome. I repeatedly hit the Ritsumeikan student that I was paired up with as he stood there, letting me take free swings with my sword. He couldn’t speak English so our dialogue was limited. Vivian and I ended up battling as the rest of the SASer and Ritz students watched us. We even had a referee. Vivian I had were a good match and we each scored once against each other. Two points ends a match, but our time ran out before we reached that. After the match I took off my gloves and armor and was appalled at how bad I smelled. The robes they had dressed us in were musky and unpleasant smelling before we put them on and now we too smelled the same way. It was unsettling because I couldn’t escape the odor.
We met up with everyone else after kendo, finally dropped our bookbags off in the guest dorm-style rooms they were supplying us with for the night, and headed to a reception being held for us in one of the cafeteria’s that was normally closed for dinner. Our meal was awesome, but Rika later told me it wasn’t traditional Japanese food. It was served buffet style and everyone sat around the room at a variety of tables. Kim and I sat next to Michi who made us laugh hysterically as he told us stories about how he rode a greyhound bus from Chicago to Seattle.
When dinner ended everyone rushed outside and to a close-by karaoke bar. Curfew in the building we were staying in that night was at 10 pm and we only had two hours. Once there, everyone split into two groups and went into these rooms that had a karaoke machine and tables and chairs. For the next hour we sang as much as possible, taking turns with the Japanese students in the selection of songs. They only knew some of what we chose and we knew none of their songs aside from a Backstreet Boys song. Even though we only had an hour it was still definitely a good time.
Back at the building for the night everyone mingled in the floor lobby for quite a bit. The Rits students spent the night with us as well. Jason, an employee of Rits who was with us during our entire time at the school, sat with us and answered questions about Japan and how different aspects of it compare to the U.S. and Canada. Jason’s twenty-six, from Canada, and has been working in Japan for the last six months. He speaks fluent Japanese too. Pretty impressive. After he went to bed, I spent two hours listening to a debate between Kim and Glenn about politics and eventually retired myself.

The next morning Kiyono and Hitomi woke us up at 7:30 am, they had already been up for quite some time. We ate breakfast in the school cafeteria, which served rice, fish, miso soup, salad, French fries, and pastries for breakfast. The only eggs that were out for students to take were raw, according to Michi. Once everyone in our group was finished eating we began our tour of Kyoto.
The tour was extremely informal and consisted of the students taking us to places and telling us to “go over there” for a good picture. I didn’t mind it though. We first went to the Golden Temple, this beautiful structure built on large pond, surrounded by trees that were bright red and yellow. A path led throughout the park area and Japanese tourists filled it, clogging the traffic of people as they stopped to take pictures.
Next we went to this castle located on top of a hill. Yeah, I don’t even know what the castle is called. The view from it was amazing though. In front of the castle, down below, lie the city of Kyoto while the back half of the scenery was endless trees, many of which had changed colors with the season. Rika kept saying that she had never seen the view from the castle be so beautiful before. Between multiple bus rides and the difficulty of walking through large crowds of people, it was past noon by the time we finished visiting the two sites.
The day before I had told the students that I wanted to try sushi, at which they had exclaimed in joy, and we were short on time since Vivian had to catch the 2 pm train back to Kobe to meet someone. So Michi ran ahead of us to get in line for a table at a cheap sushi place. The rest of us walked a while, took a bus, and walked even further after that just to get to this restaurant. Later, after Michi had left to take Vivian to the train station, I found out that he had run the entire way from the castle to this restaurant downtown, without taking the bus, just to get us a table.
So anyway, this sushi place we went to was awesome. We sat in a booth as a conveyer belt full of dishes passed beside us, looping through the entire second floor of the restaurant. These plates with squid, octopus, salmon, pork, pastries, and a multitude of other type of food, kept my eyes from relaxing the entire lunch. Instead, as I ate, I just kept looking at what else I could eat next, bad for me, good for business. There was just so much to look at! And on top of that, each plate was 100 yen, less than a dollar. “What’s that? How about that?” I asked the girls over and over throughout the meal as food passed by. I did eat raw fish, and yes, I’m so proud of myself. The salmon sushi and tuna sushi I ate really wasn’t that bad, and I actually kind of enjoyed it. I’m excited to back to the states and try it there now.
As lunch ended Vivian had to leave and Michi offered to get her safely to the train station. One of the other girls had to leave to take a test and another wasn’t feeling well. Our goodbyes were actually kind of sad since we had spent so much time together in the last 24 hours. Before they left I pulled out the plastic bag full of random Chicago souvenirs I had with me. Since Japan was our last port I wanted to get rid of them. “You guys can have this stuff if you want it,” I said as I dumped out the Chicago deck of cards, American flag pens, Chicago Cubs bracelet, and other stuff. While still at the table we exchanged emails and encouraged one another to find each other on MSN messenger.
When lunch ended there were only three of us left: Julie, Rika, and I. So Rika spent the next couple hours walking in downtown Kyoto with us and showing us the Guin district of shops. Wednesday happened to be a holiday and the sidewalks were as busy as Wrigleyville right after a Cubs game lets out…that’s how I explained it to Rika who wanted to know if Chicago was as busy and crowded. We walked around for a while and then loaded onto a crowded bus headed to Kyoto Station. Once at the station we rode like seven escalators up the main hall area of the open air station to see the view. The roof of the station was full of people watching the sun set and folks sitting around outside, enjoying the weather. If only Union Station had a set up like that. Kyoto Station also had a huge Christmas tree.
Julie and I said goodbye to Rika as took the 5:30 train back to Kobe. Rika was probably my favorite of all the students I had met because she was so much like me. A junior in college, she talked about visiting a gay bar, how she doesn’t know what she wants to do after college, and was just really down-to-earth and able to answer any question I threw at her. It was sad to say goodbye to her.
When Julie and I got back to Kobe we ran into Mike (he’s an executive producer of Sea TV with me). He was on his way to get Kobe beef and wanted us to join him. To make a long story short, he finally convinced us to go with him but Julie and I ended up sitting in the stuffy, fancy restaurant for like fifteen minutes before leaving him to enjoy his meal alone. On ship time was an hour away and we still had another train ride plus a probable long line to get through security. Mike said he didn’t care and ordered a five-course meal. I never found out how late he got back. Julie was majorly stressing about getting back on time though, like Katie Wubben style, and we had to leave because she looked like she was going to have a panic attack or something.
We totally made it back before 8:00 pm and because it wasn’t even 7:30 yet I got to eat dinner too, a definite bonus.

I had such a good time in Japan. Maybe it’s because I was with students from a completely different part of the world that I could relate with. They made my time in Japan that much more amazing. I can’t believe I was just in Japan and that in a period of four days I saw Hiroshima, sang karaoke, and ate sushi: the three things I really wanted to fit in while there. Now I’m just thinking about how, in the last like ninety days, I’ve canyoned in Venezuela, hiked in Brazil, skydived in South Africa, visited a Hindu temple in India, rode a boat down the Mekong Delta, climbed the Great Wall, man I could go on forever. I’ll get more sentimental about it all as the voyage comes even closer to an end. For now though I have a little less than two weeks to do finals, pack, say goodbyes, and sort out how I feel about everything I have seen and done.