origami
Tsukiji Fish Market
Baseball game in Tokyo
Cherry Blossoms
Harajuku girl!
saki
Shinto shrine; Tokyo
prayer blocks @ the shrine
prayers
all the Japanese girls were completely put together head to toe
Tokyo Japan
castle in Osaka surrounded by cherry blossoms
First night in Osaka
Sushi dinner!
Flower Rd. Kobe, Japan
In Japanese culture when the lucky cat waves at you, you are showered with good fortune.
Cherry Blossom season! SOO beautiful!
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page -- St Augustine
I can’t believe I made it through Asia, four ports back to back just about killed me. Japan was the cleanest country I’ve ever seen, and oddly enough it was impossible to find a garbage can to throw anything away. We first ported in Kobe where we just spent the day walking around the city exploring. We came across the Oho Hachimano Shinto shrine, which was pretty neat because I had just been learning about them in my Asian philosophy class. The shrine was surrounded with small strips of paper with people’s prayers written on them and then tied onto trees; it was beautiful to see.
We went to a sushi lunch since everyone was craving it, and anything sounded better than noodles, just having come from China! After lunch we walked around the outdoor mall that was basically lots of “sparkle shops”, one store after another selling everything imaginable bedazzled, it was insane; pretty hilarious. The Japanese girls were some of the most adorable girls I’ve ever seen, they were covered in bows and glitter head to toe, they looked like little dolls.
Later that day we took a train to Osaka because it was supposedly the best night life in Japan. Osaka was a ton of fun, we were there less than 24 hours, literally got there, went to a sushi dinner, went out, woke up, and left for Tokyo after lunch and a little walking around.
We met some Canadians at our hotel who told us about some places we should see before we left, and even gave us their subway passes to get around. We spent the morning wondering around the streets; saw a few shrines and a really beautiful castle surrounded by cherry blossoms. Then we were off to Tokyo!
The train to Tokyo was about 3 hours, but we all immediately fell asleep once we got on the train so it wasn’t too bad. Tokyo was SO different from Osaka and Kobe, it was a really big busy city, kind of reminded me on Hong Kong a little bit. Our hotel was in the Roppongi district, which ended up being a good location to walk around.
That night we were SO exhausted and didn’t even want to think about staying out all night like the previous night, so we decided to go see a movie. We walked around the mall for an hour or so and then headed to the theatre to see Marley and Me! We all loved it, and it was a nice to get to sleep early and get some rest before out first real day in Tokyo.
The next morning we got an early start and walked around what seemed like most of Tokyo. We went to the Shibuya district to see the busiest crosswalk in the world (WOW!) tons and tons of people crossing on their way to work- it was pretty cool to see. We went into a few malls around there; similar to Osaka they had lots of “sparkle shops”. After leaving Shibuya, we went to the Harajuku district, where we visited Meiji Jingu Shinto shrine. It was so beautiful. It was tucked away in the woods and you had to walk a long rock path to get to the actual shrine. People were everywhere writing on prayer blocks and washing their selves as a sign of purity. Around Harajuku there was lots to do, we went down to a strip of markets we had read about in a travel brochure where we were promised that we would see Harajuku girls that we had all been waiting to see. Harajuku fashion recently become well known in America because of singer Gwen Stefani, but is basically just a type of fashion popular with Japanese teens who mix and match things to look very unique. These teens usually group together on Sundays around this shopping district, but we were lucky enough to see a few while we were there.
We were all pretty exhausted from walking around, and stopped at a sushi place for lunch. After lunch we made our way to Yoyogi Park to see the cherry blossoms. We couldn’t have chosen a better time to be in Japan. The weather was absolutely perfect and we happened to be there for cherry blossom season, which only lasts about a week. I never knew a tree could be so pretty. Everywhere we walked they stood out from afar. We got really lucky. Once inside the park, the cherry blossoms were everywhere we turned. There were tarps laid out with hundreds of people having lunch picnics. There were people of all ages, and they all seemed to love us! We found a space to sit and passed around a bottle of saki while enjoying our beautiful surroundings. When the wind would blow all the petals fall down and it looked like it's snowing. A group of Japanese college kids thought it was funny we were sitting there in a circle drinking saki like all the Japanese people around, and came and introduced themselves. We ended up staying a couple hours talking to them and learning about Japanese culture. They laughed at just about everything we said, especially when we’d ask them questions about karaoke, they thought it was hilarious!
We finally said goodbye to our new friends and ran back to the hotel to drop some things off and change and we were off to the baseball game. In Japan baseball is a HUGE deal, there are even special cheering teams that meet year round to practice their songs. It was pretty hilarious to be the only Americans there surrounded by reeeallly intense Japanese fans yelling their heads off. It was SO much fun! After the game, we met up with lots of Semester at Sea kids to go out on the town. We chose to go back to the Shibuya district and had a great time. That next morning we woke up at FOUR am to make it to the fish auction at the Tsukuji fish market where 30% of the world’s fish is bought. We made it there just as the auction was getting started, it was insane! We watched the tuna action- I never knew how huge tuna were, they were bigger than me!! We walked around the market after the action and saw just about every kind of aquatic creature being sold! We then ate a sushi breakfast because apparently it’s the thing to do, and it was WELL worth it! The last day, we took a train from Tokyo to Yokohama and went back to the ship for a couple hours. We ran into some friends who also got back to the ship early and decided to all go out and do something together. We started walking and found a bowling alley, and basically just spent the rest of our night there. Our last day we walked around the city and saw the beautiful gardens, harbor, and streets of Yokohama. We found a grocery store and stocked up on snacks since we knew it’d be a looong 9 days on the ship until Hawaii. We also found an amusement park and couldn’t resist going on the rollercoaster!
I was very sad to leave Japan, I had such a great time, and wish I could have stayed another week, DEFINITELY a favorite port!
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