Turning Japanese (I Really Think So)

Yokohama
Tokyo
Kyoto
Miyajima
Hiroshima
Osaka
Kobe

Whirlwind tour of Japan: 5 days, 7 cities. After plowing through the roughest ocean conditions encountered by Semester at Sea since 2005, we docked in Yokohama the morning of January 26 to the greeting of a brass band. Ellen, Jasper, and I had the afternoon to spend exploring, so we popped into Tokyo to see anything that caught our eyes. The way I like to travel is to wander around and find something interesting, and that methodology usually meshes well with Ellen's well-researched logistics (sometimes there are minor disagreements but it usually works out in the end).

As we moved through Tokyo's suburbs on the rapid-service train, we saw signs for the Ginza district and said, hey, let's give this a shot. There was a four-story toy store that Jasper found, and within this store were lots of cool toys. J rented a slot car and raced a bunch of laps  under the watch of the animated attendant who wielded a long spatula to flip over the cars that overcooked the corners. Also in the store, a Japanese Zero plane kit of Nanoblocks, and J finished building it now that we're on our way to China.

 
Ellen at the Mac Store in the Ginza district

I love the colonel.

Dawn was falling as we left the Toy Park store, and it faced onto a wide street with high-end shops: Prada, D&G, Apple Store,  Swarovski crystal, etc. I noticed there were no cars, and sure enough the avenue was blocked off so pedestrians could stroll. It was beautiful to walk a few blocks in the middle of the street, much like I would imaging doing if Wall Street were closed. Then 1700/5pm hit, and the cars reappeared. The Japanese are incredibly polite and I heard no honking, but we could tell the cars were ready to resume usage of the street. Then we ran into a protest and counter protest–I'm not sure what it was, but it was distinctly separated and well guarded by the police.

Next was a day trip on the high-speed Shinkansen to Kyoto. Japan has great public transportation infrastructure, so we traveled from the ship to a subway to a local train to the Shinkansen station, sort of a progression of slowest to fastest. Took us all awhile to figure out directions, connections, correct fares, and get everyone on the trains together. I also found that Japan is larger than I realized, so the trip took most of the day, and we had difficulty finding the traditional hotel we had booked. It was near a spectacular Buddhist shrine on a hillside, and the traditional hotel (ryokan) was associated with the temple and was the quietest, sparsest hotel I've ever stayed in. We had dinner that night at the ryokan and it was a fantastic spread of sushi, sashimi, miso soup, lobster, oysters, and course after course; it wasn't inexpensive, but it was perhaps 12 courses and was beautiful to look at, Most of the food was delectable, but with so much stuff there were a few items we didn't care so much for, so we skipped them. Then we took traditional Japanese baths–segregated, unfortunately–and made up our folding beds after putting aside the low table. The ryokan was very nice but catered toward folks who went on pilgrimages to the temple, and certainly not to western tourists.

Regardless, the stay was really nice, and we got up the next morning early for a private tour of the Buddhist temple. Ellen's dad, Ellen, and myself (J slept in) trod up the hillside slowly to a temple with a 20-foot gold Buddha statue and sat cross-legged while the young monks performed a ceremony. We then went to another building with another statute and sat for another similar service and then quietly left when the guide thanked us for coming and then requested we leave as another ceremony started.

Breakfast at the Kyoto ryokan. You should have seen the dinner.


Toilet controls at the ryokan. Japanese toilets rock. Heated seats, several varieties of sprays, deodorizers...

We traveled again by bullet train the next day to an island named Miyajima and boarded a ferry for the short trip over. It's a sacred land where the emperors established temples and pagodas, and no one is allowed to be born or die there: the island has no maternity ward or cemeteries. The island is small and has a few ragged peaks, the tallest of which is about 535 meters high above the seaside temples. We had a nice stay at the ryokan there with another elaborate dinner, and I wandered around that evening when everything was closed but I did find a beer vending machine. There were lots of tame "wild" deer who would sidle up to you in hopes you'd have a snack to feed them. I didn't feed them but did pet a few. The deer look like whitetail but are a little lighter, shorter, and stockier with thicker fur. After a Japanese bath that evening and an elaborate Japanese breakfast (J opted for the western version), Ellen and I took a fast-paced hike to the top of the peak of the island named Mt. Misen. The tour brochures described it as a tough hike that takes about 90 minutes for 2.5km. I booked it up the path in 33 and got in an overdue workout.

Elusive beer vending machine. I found several, mostly in the smaller cities.


Five-story Pagoda


Deer at the top of Mount Misen. He was camped out in the trail looking for a handout.

Leaving Miyajima, we took a high-speed ferry to Hiroshima for the afternoon to see the peace park. I thought it might be depressing to view the city that was leveled by the a-bomb and had over 140,000 casualties, but it was uplifting. The afternoon sky was bright, the city was new and active, trees were everywhere, and there were touching exhibits in the park. There's a statue dedicated to a young girl named Sadoko who died of leukemia at age 10 several years after the bombing, and her wish was for peace and no more bombs. Japanese folklore is that folding 1000 origami cranes grants a wish, and she made it about 3/4 of the way before succumbing to the aftereffects of the explosion. Ellen and Jasper started a small project on the ship to fold cranes, and the effort went viral with students joining in to help. Much like Sadoko, we didn't reach 1000 cranes, but we had about one per student, and several students delivered the cranes. Jasper delivered a strand of cranes, too.


Jasper hangs cranes at the Hiroshima Peace Park. And yells at me for taking his picture.




Remains of the Prefecture building that was almost directly under the a-bomb as it detonated 600 meters above the city. The force spread out radiation, shock waves over 900mph, temperatures above 3000C, and caused massive destruction.

That day we were traveling inland and reaching Hiroshima, the ship had sailed from Yokohama and reached the port of Kobe. We stayed onboard that evening with a handful of students and faculty that had come back; the majority were still out in Japan. In the morning, we had most of a free day to make it back by 1800 ship time, so we went to Osaka, about an hour away via subway and special-rapid train. In Osaka, we visited the aquarium which may well be the best I've seen of my trips to aquariums (Baltimore, Seattle, Oregon, and various others). After dragging Jasper around the cities, temples, and historical sights we figured he'd enjoy an aquarium trip. The tanks were huge and full of fish; what really set the displays apart from others was that every fish, shark, manta ray, sea otter, sea lion, jellyfish, etc. was active and moving around and hardly anything was standing still.

Osaka also has a huge ferris wheel. Evidently, many of the Japanese cities have big ferris wheels, and I'm not sure why but it seems to me a contest of sorts to have the biggest one. Osaka's ferris wheel has signs proclaiming it the world's largest at 112 meters. We all took a ride and had a blast--it was slow-moving and took 15 minutes to make a single rotation. Jasper claims to be afraid of heights and he protested once we started moving, but we're pretty sure he liked it.

Sign at the queue at the Ferris Wheel. I think it means don't cross over the fence. The fence was kinda low.

 Very high up above Osaka.

Mmmm. Squid.

We rushed to make it back to the ship by 1800 ship time with about a half hour to spare. Ship time means you're through security and return your passport; if you're not onboard you get rapidly accumulating time penalties you have to sit onboard at the next port. Miss ship time by more than two hours, and the ship goes on to the next port without you, so it's a big deal. We cut it really close because Ellen's dad  discovered his wallet was missing when we tried boarding the last train to get to the ship, so J and I camped at the subway while Ellen and her dad went back to the last store we visited. The store clerk led them to the information desk where his wallet was, so we were late getting back to the ship but made it aboard with all our possessions intact. We also heard that a student lost his/her passport in a cab and the driver returned it to the ship. If you lose something abroad, try to do it in Japan.

We've been at sea today for about 12 hours and will be in Shanghai, China in another 36. Hope I didn't bore everyone with a long blog, but we did alot of traveling so I wasn't able to check emails or do any writing while inland.

Konichiwa for now.