Japan: Temples, Cherry Blossoms and Anime

JAPAN
(April 6th -10th)

Today we arrived in Japan!!! Yay!! It was really cool! What an industrious place!! So many buildings, cars, traffic and highways. Lots of ships and signs. The country is so busy!! Our first port was Kobe. In Japan I just had day trips planned for the most part. We had to get up really early to go through Japanese customs and security. Before we could go out and do things, we we’re all called by seas to wait in a really long line for “face-to-face” inspection for entering the country. We brought down our passports, ID’s and customs forms that we filled out earlier and gave it to the Japanese representatives. We had to get another picture taken and our temperature and fingerprints. It was intense, some ports are pretty serious about their stuff and this was one of them. Once that was all finished and all 900 some of us had gone through, they “cleared” the ship. Yay, we could finally go out and explore Japan!!


HIROSHIMA

Today I was going to go visit Hiroshima, the site of the atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. at 8:15am on August 6, 1945 after the Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. We took the bullet train to get there. It’s pretty far away, but this train goes so incredibly fast, like 300 miles per hour so we got there pretty quick considering how far away it was. While waiting in the train station beforehand, a bunch of us went to the convenient store. I got some apple juice and Courtney and I saw Pocky and made plans to stock up on it before leaving Japan.

We finally arrived at Hiroshima and headed to the museum. It was a beautiful place and so peaceful. In talking to some of the Japanese people who worked there they said that history is behind us, the U.S. did bombs here but all is forgiven now. They just want to educate the people on what happened. Especially the younger generation, they for the most part weren’t alive during this time but they want them to know the story so they can appreciate it and try and prevent things from coming to this end again. It was one of the most peaceful cities, they really act on what they say here. The museum was very interesting and incredibly moving. I took a lot of pictures so I can share with my family and friends the story of what happened. And bring home the museum for those that haven’t been there and might not be able to go.

Everyone was pretty quiet in the museum reading and such. All but me, who had to blow my nose every 5 min, but I tried very hard to be quiet about it. Apparently, its rude to blow your nose in public in Japan, its looked down upon? Val told me that later. Interesting, I thought. It was interesting to be an American in the museum. The museum wasn’t necessarily one-sided or condemning the U.S. in any way. I felt awkward at times. It was similar to walking into the war museum in Vietnam. We we’re all treated as equals and sometimes you wonder to yourself “why?” After all, I thought towards them, “don’t you know who I am, I’m American, and doesn’t that bother you here?” But it didn’t at all. We we’re all mixed together in the place where such tragedy occurred, in a war between our countries. It was a surreal feeling walking through the museum and so sad to read all the stories. They had pictures and videos playing. They showed the actually footage of the nuclear bomb attack from the cameras on the U.S. planes and others who were able to film bits of what it looked like. It was something to see for sure. We basically walked through a timeline of what had happened, and we’re accompanied with artifacts and things that were still left such as someone’s watch that was stopped at 8:15, when the bomb dropped. They we’re killed on site. The beginning was about the war and the events leading up to it. I learned a lot about Hiroshima and how it was picked to be the place where the bomb was to be dropped. Apparently it was “good weather sealed Hiroshima’s fate”. The end of the tour is what was the saddest because it went into detail of what happened during the blast and its aftermath. There was a model of the city built to show what it looked like before and then a second one for afterwards. Hanging above each model was a red ball to symbolize the bomb dropping and where it was to hit.

Their was an exhibit built showing a part that was hit by the bomb, and there we’re people models in the exhibit that we’re showed burned extremely, so bad that their skin was shown melting off of them so the point that you couldn’t recognize them. That put things in perspective for me, I could not even imagine that, the pain and what happened. Where the bomb went off, there were a lot of children’s schools nearby. They were affected greatly by this disaster and so many of them died. There were a lot of stories about particular children. There would be shown a torn burned dress from a girl who was there and under it they had her story, how she ran home after the blast to her parents and ended up dying when she got home because of her wounds. The picture said that she sewed that dress for herself the summer before. They had so many detailed stories that really helped to put things in perspective. That it wasn’t just that a lot of people died. So many were affected, they all had lives, have stories. Sharing those stories really brought it home, it made it easier to make a personal connection.

There was next a part of the museum that talked a lot about the aftermath of the destruction physically and also, what the bombs did to the people and how they affected them with the radiation and everything. Even today, people are still showing side effects from the blast and are still sick and passing down genes to their children. Even unborn children were affected even. “Many children exposed to radiation in their mother’s womb were born with what became known as “A-bomb microcephaly.” “Suffering from retarded mental development or physical disabilities.” (from a plaque description, Hiroshima Memorial museum). It was a very moving experience. I took lots of pictures, especially ones of the plaques with the personal stories on them so I can remember them looking back.

Once I was finished walking through the museum and its exhibits I turned in my audio tour device and headed outside to walk through the park area. It was a beautiful day out and the sun was just beginning to set. I had lost track of Courtney somewhere in the museum so I waited for awhile, but thought she might have been ahead of me so maybe she already went outside to tour. I walked around outside on my own, which was a good thing because that way I was able to reflect more and take everything in. The park was large and beautiful. There we’re many monuments and statues dedicated to the remembrance of what happened. There is one original building that still stands although destroyed. Its remains mark the spot that was the center of the disaster. Right outside there was a monument, a long pool that reminded me of the one in the “Washington Monument” in the U.S. a little bit, just because of the pool part and having a structure in front of it. It was an arch. It had flowers laid in front of it and people were there also leaving their own flowers and origami cranes in remembrance of the children, and praying. I took a picture of two Japanese women praying in front of the arch. Right under the arch in the distance you can see the building with the dome that was left. The park was so beautiful and had such interesting sculptures.

We were really lucky and arrived in Japan at the perfect time to see Cherry Blossoms. Apparently there is only a 2 week window or so in which they bloom and fall and we were there just at the right time. They were beautiful! They were all over the park and along the calm river that ran through it. It was really nice and peaceful. The sun was setting just when we were leaving. It was a beautiful time of day and the sunlight setting really added to the peaceful feeling there.
We headed back to the ship and as the bus drove back, I reflected on everything that I had just experienced.





KYOTO

The next morning we got up. I had a trip to Kyoto, which I was excited about. Courtney and Holly were on my trip also so that was fun to have them around to hang out with. We saw so many things, so many temples and gardens. We visited the old emperor’s residence and toured inside and got great information and history from the tour guide. Something interesting about it was the floor. They squeaked when you walked on them slightly, it sounded kind of like little bells chiming. They are called nightingale floors, they were designed like that so that the owners could tell when someone was entering into the house, for instance if someone was sneaking home late or someone was breaking in.
The temple was really neat and the gardens on the property we’re beautiful. I took so many pictures of cherry blossoms. They were so pretty and when the wind blew it looked like snow was falling. We even saw some Geishas out which was really rare because they usually only come out at night but there were some walking around.

We went to show many gardens that day I can’t even remember how many. They were all so beautiful. By the time we got to the last temple at the end of the day my knees were hurting me so bad that I could barely walk. I had to leave early from the last temple because there were so many stairs that we had to climb and I knew I’d have a hard time doing it and fall behind. Holly who was with me was actually feeling sick and didn’t want to go up the hill and the stairs. We decided to stay behind at the bottom of the hill and visit the shops. It wasn’t long before the rest of the group came back down the hill to go to the shops. I’m going to get pictures from Courtney of what the view looked like from the top. Holly and I went to the bathroom. Unfortunately it was another squat hole, these things are so disgusting, but that’s just how they do it here. They think its easier. I don’t agree personally, I think its really unsanitary. And I found that I really appreciated the western tradition of toilets and really missed them. An odd thing to miss, something that I wasn’t expecting, but I will never complain about going to the bathroom in a gas station again. It’s a good thing that I had a cold because I had a roll of toilet paper with me that I had been carrying around since China to use to blow my nose, and it also came in handy for the bathrooms, because people in Asia don’t use toilet paper for the most part, they just use their left hand to take care of things.

Some people found it funny that I was carrying around toilet paper out in the open. They had never heard of someone with a cold carrying around a role of toilet paper with them. Maybe its just an Iowa thing, but that’s what we do at school. It’s cheaper than Kleenex and a lot easier. I got some funny looks from the Asians. But I made friends with people, Americans and European tourists especially because of it, because when it came time to go to the bathroom they really appreciated that I had some with me


A NIGHT IN

When we got back to the ship I got dinner with some friends at the grill and ended up hanging out there for awhile with Courtney, Nora, Adam and Ben. We had a good conversation on music and movies. Not all of us saw eye-to-eye on what we thought were good and bad movies, it was fun bickering back and forth about things. We ended up getting on the movie “Role Models” – one that I have never seen but would consider to be what I call a “stupid funny movie”. I wasn’t interested in it at all, because I thought it was silly humor. That night we decided to have a movie and music party. We decided to bring all our movies to Bens room and decide on a movie, but it ended up being that we were going to watch Role Models anyway. I didn’t think I would like it but I actually really enjoyed it haha, probably because I really identified with the main characters and another one was really into role playing and renaissance festivals which I’m also really into, so I actually did find the movie to be very enjoyable and funny ha.

After the movie we exchanged some music with each other and tried to guess which songs were popular in the U.S. We talked about how us being gone, were missing out on all the pop culture news. Like whats going on with people, what movies are big and what the hit songs are. We went through some new artists and tried to figure out which songs would be the hits on the radio. We all were really into Akon, especially the new song “Right Now, na na na….” or something like that. Haha, I found out later from a friend back home that it was actually a really old song back home haha. It’s so interesting how that works out. We are all going to really be out of the loop when we get back.

We took the picture down in Ben’s room and read the back of it. It too like ours, was filled with comments left from previous SAS-ers, their experiences, tips, advice and things. It was really neat to read and remember what an incredible thing we were all doing. It rekindled the love we all had for this ship and passion for this trip and the experiences we were getting from it. It was amazing.




DAY ON THE SHIP

Wednesday was our day on the ship. To save money I decided to come back to the ship and sail with it to Yokohama rather than stay in a hotel and find my own way to Yokohama to meet up with the ship. Courtney, Nora, Holly, Adam, Chris and Ben and I were all on the ship together as well as some other students and faculty who decided to sail with the ship. After staying up late talking to friends, I slept in till 10 or so. I got up and got ready and went to work on a paper that was due after Japan. I got lunch with Courtney and we decided to meet back up at 2 after getting some work done to get some food and take a break. We met on deck 7 and ran into Nora, Chris and Adam and stayed and hung out with them for awhile. We called Ben to come up who was still sleeping, he came up to make an appearance and then went to go do some work. It was so nice outside! We couldn’t believe it. Courtney, Nora and Chris and I decided to lay outside today. There wasn’t many on the ship, so we were able to lay out on the 7th deck in a lawn chair and not have it be crowded. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the breeze was perfect to just cool you off if you got hot laying out in the sun. We stayed out there for awhile. It was really peaceful and so nice to just relax and enjoy ourselves in the sun on the ship, spending time with each other. What a great day.

That night Holly, Courtney and I made plans to get dinner together and then walk around the ship to take pictures of the ship and its facilities and us hanging out on the ship. Things took a slight turn when Holly realized that she couldn’t find her doll. We spent a good part of the evening looking for it but had no luck. We put a note into the ship and they were on the lookout for it. After that we didn’t really hang out, Holly was pretty upset and just wanted time to herself. Courtney and I wandered around the ship for awhile to take pictures of the ship and then we headed back to our cabins to get some work done and head to bed. We had a busy day tomorrow because we were arriving in port.



HARAJUKU/SHINJUKU

I got up early the next morning because the ship had arrived in Yokohama and we could get off. Courtney, Stephanie and I were going to Shinjuku to meet up with Val, Candace and Janelle. It took a long time to get there, we had to take so many different metros. It was really complicated, luckily though Stephanie knew some Japanese and had been there before. Shinjuku is like a fashion capital of Japan. Apparently, the music artist Gwen Stephanie is really into the “Shinjuku” style and her dancers take after that style. Basically its crazy clothes. Mainly the girls, wearing large oversized doll dresses with lots of different colors, leggings with skirts and huge heels or platform shoes. They were something you couldn’t miss on the street. We visited a temple that was close by before heading into the downtown area. It was a really neat temple and we got there just in time to watch a ceremony take place, it looked like an initiation or welcoming ceremony.

After our time in the garden temples we walked back past the train station to downtown to meet up with Val and them. There were so many people on this street where all the crazy stores were. There were some interesting designs and fashions but it was really cool to see. We found Val, Candace and Janelle and continued to walk around with them. They ended up running into a guy that they didn’t know but they were affiliated with the same sorority/fraternity name, his name is CJ. So that was cool to run into him and hang out, he was really nice. He was here with his family, as a graduation present.

The Japanese seemed to be very much into the retro American style, they had a lot of retro fashions and memorabilia from way back in the day. The things here are SO incredibly expensive! It was ridiculous. I bought nothing pretty much.

After walking around for awhile we decided to get lunch in the city before heading back to the ship. We found this cute little noodle place and had a nice meal there. After lunch we headed back to Yokohama. Val, Janelle and Candace headed back to the ship because they had a trip leaving to go to the baseball game. Courtney, Steph and I spent the rest of the evening walking around the city. We headed to the post office to buy some stamps and ended up running into a film crew around the corner, it looked like they we’re filming a t.v. show or commercial. It looked too small to be a movie but it could have been. We got some stamps and headed out to the city mall that had some little shops and stopped by a convenient store to get some Japanese snacks and so Courtney could print pictures off. That was an adventure, they didn’t speak any English and we had a difficult time trying to explain what we needed. In Spain it was easier because the languages were atleast similar and used letters but this was totally different. After a long game of charades we finally got what we needed. By this time the sun was setting and we headed back to the ship. We could see the moon glowing over the city and once the sun went down completely we could see the entire moon and it was huge! I’ve never seen a moon so big! It was big and yellow like a Harvest Moon. It was so pretty! Also, now we could see all the city lights from our ship, they we’re so pretty. Unlike the U.S. but just like China, they were all different colors and they changed colors and shimmered on some buildings. The ferris wheel was the prettiest, changing neon colors constantly. We stopped for awhile to watch and just look out at the city to take it in. It was so peaceful.

Once we got back to the ship we we’re exhausted. My knees were hurting so so bad from walking around all day, all I wanted to do was sit but they still hurt even doing that. I tried massaging them to try and make it better, but nothing helped. I finished up some emails and did my postcards and got some dinner with friends, I thought about skipping but I was glad I went because it was spaghetti night. Courtney and I got huge plates of spaghetti, it was so good! I just took it easy for the rest of night, hanging out with friends.



TOKYO – MODERN CITY

The next morning Courtney and I got up early to get breakfast before our trip today. Nora met up with us for breakfast. It was French toast day! Which is very exciting for me! I always come to breakfast on French toast day cause its really good. We were heading on an SAS trip to Tokyo today. My knees were still hurting me, especially standing for long periods of time and going up and down stairs, especially downstairs. It took about an hour to get to Tokyo but we made good time. Our first stop was visiting Tokyo Tower. It basically looked just like the Eiffel tower but a little smaller, red and white and in Tokyo. You could see the whole city from the top of the tower. It was really neat!! They even had parts of the floor that were cut out and replaced with thick glass to that you could look straight down and see all the way to the bottom. It made me nervous to look down but I knew it was safe. But still being really high up, such as that high, still makes me a little nervous.

After visiting the Tokyo tower and having some time to shop in the stores downstairs we we’re off to visit downtown Tokyo to “Akihabara Electirc Town”, known for being a world renowned shopping district. It is true to its name in that it has tons of electronic stores, and has the latest top hits in “anime” and video games. We had freetime on the main street to walk around and shop and do whatever. There were so many people. It was really cool, there were electronic things everywhere, huge t.v’s on the side of buildings playing commercials and things and music was playing. There was anime everywhere and we saw a bunch of girls that were dressed up like characters from different animes. It was really cool to see! What a culture! So busy and vibrant!

After our time in the downtown area we headed to the Hamarikyu Garden, a former feudal lord’s residence during the Edo period. It was such a peaceful place. There were a lot of people there. We had some lunch there and had some free-time to just lay out and relax in the park talking to friends and taking a break.

After the gardens and getting a city tour of Tokyo we visited the Toyota showroom, the Mega Web that houses atleast one of every Toyota passenger vehicle on the market and numerous Toyota racecars. This is a place that actually didn’t interest me to much to be honest. I’m not one for being big into cars and after being on this trip the whole materialistic thing really bugs me now. I did make use of my time after looking at all the cars we had the option of riding in one. We didn’t drive, it was all electronic and run by a computer but Courtney and I and Nora decided to sign up to ride in one. It was fun. The first time I had been in a car in a long time. We talked about how were gonna have to take a practice drive around the neighborhood before we get on the real roads again back home Ha. After the tour of the Toyota shop it was time to head back to the ship and it took forever to get home. The traffic was ridiculous; it took twice the amount of time to get back. I finished up writing y postcards on the way home and reflected on my time in Japan. I really enjoyed it a lot. It was such a buzzing place and there is always something new right around the corner. It’s such an advanced city and so many electronic things. It was very exciting! Now back to the ship. The Global studies test is coming up in a few days and this is the time when everyone is stressing out and all you see anyone doing is studying. Then nine days on the ship. It’s gonna be really busy, with all the final tests, papers and projects due. And the play is opening next week which is really exciting, I can’t wait. I’m excited to do it and ready for it to be over, we’ve spent so much time working on it. Also the talent show is right after. The A Capella group I am in “Sounds Waves” is singing for it. We rock!! We put the whole thing together ourselves and it sounds really good. Its also not just a group singing a song a capella but we as the singers take place of the instruments’ individual parts. It’s a lot of fun, I’m really enjoying it! I can’t wait to perform for everyone, I love it!! Well I am going to get to studying! I’ll write again soon!