The Land of Paper Cranes

We first arrived in Kobe on April 6th, 2009. Now, each country we have visited has been different for getting the ship cleared, which then allows it’s passengers off. So each passenger was required to get our temperatures taken for Japan. But instead of using a thermometer, all we had to do was walk past a camera which took our temperature for us. It was awesome.  Once off the ship, Kristina, a few of our friends, and the inter-port students from Kobe went to go explore the city. We sat down for some lunch in the subway terminal (there’s lots of restaurants), and had some delicious Japanese noodle dish.  We were also very hungry after waiting all morning to get off the ship.  The trains here are just crazy. They are so organized and seem to take you anywhere you would like to go. We took trains everywhere when we were in Japan; it was not that expensive and made it easy to get from one place to another. I really wish we had a system such as this in the United States or at least in more cities than New York, Boston and D.C.
After some lunch, we used the rest of our afternoon to hang out around Kobe. The two girls who came on the ship in China showed us around Kobe until they had to go back to the ship to give a presentation to Japanese students.



We went to visit a shrine in town, which seemed like a little oasis in the middle of skyscrapers. It was peaceful and full cherry blossoms.  These trees only bloom once a year for about 7-10 days, and we came during their season! 
We learned how to bow in the traditional way and looked at prayers left by visitors some were even in English and other languages. Afterwards, we walked around a little more and tried out some delicious Japanese sweets. They were AMAZING! I would go back to Japan just for the sushi and the sweets. I mean, I would for a lot of other reasons too, but those two would definitely be up there.
After some delicious sweets and hanging around town, it was already early evening and we decided to save some money (it was really expensive in Japan) and eat dinner on the ship. The food was good and we met up with the inter-port students again along with some of our other friends and all went to check out Karaoke Japanese Style! Karaoke in China and Japan is BIG. We rented out a room and got unlimited drinks and basically just sang and danced all night with our friends. We sang all the songs we grew up on from brown eyed girl, spice girls, NSYNC, Frank Sinatra, and busted out some Elvis Presley. It was similar to dance party at seventh grade girl’s sleepover.
The next day, we woke up pretty early and had some breakfast before getting a group together to hike Mt. Rokko and see some waterfalls nearby. It was such a beautiful day.

I had fun hiking a little, but eventually Andrea and I became tired and bored.  We stopped to rest and kind of lost the rest of the group. We ended up meeting a nice older man from the States who had been working in Japan for over ten years while we were hiking back down. He showed us where the waterfalls were, and they were just breathtaking to see.  Andrea and I then walked around the area a bit in search for a good place for lunch. We ended up getting Chinese food, but we did not get enough hot pot in China (also couldn’t find sushi for some reason), so we had some delicious hot pot and dim sum to eat. It was sooooo yummy!! Hot pot is basically fondue, where they have a stove at your table and you put all these amazing ingredients in boiling hot water with spices and vegetables and it takes delicious. We also tried a few types of dim sum.  One dumpling had shark fin filling and was pretty tasty.
It was a lovely lunch. Sometimes in the countries where it’s always go, go, go, it’s comforting to have a nice meal and just sit back and enjoy conversation. You get to try out the new food you are about to taste for perhaps the first time. We then wandered around an open mall, which was HUGE. We looked in a few shops but everything was pretty expensive.  So we finally found a grocery store, because we wanted to get some snacks for the ship from Japan to Hawaii. I mean, nine days at sea, can be a long time. We bought some different flavored gummies and other candies. We went back to the ship and I finished packing my bag.

The ship would leave that night to go to Yokohama, so I would travel with a few friends independently to Tokyo and meet the ship in Yokohama. This also happened in China, so the ship docked in Hong Kong for one night and two days, then sailed for two days, then arrived and spent one night and two days in Shanghai. There were students who stayed on the ship while at sea, but most of the students traveled to Beijing to see the Great Wall or other parts of China.
Since my roommate from the fall at Boulder is from Kobe, Japan and she would be there a year, she set me up with one of her friends to meet up with while I was in Japan. It was really sweet of her and I met her childhood friend, Mai at the train station for dinner. She was such a sweet girl and so friendly. She took me to an izakaya or known as restaurant or bar in Japan. It was in this building, that had nine stories and it was on the 7th floor. I would have never been able to find it on my own. She made sure I tried sake and some sashimi, whil she ordered a bunch of Japanese dishes for me to try. I loved everything! It all came out on little plates and each dish tasted delicious. It was fun just talking with her about everything from school, semester at sea, her family and living in Japan. It was really interesting to learn about life in Japan and she spoke great English. 
Eventually I had to make my bus and she walked with me to meet up with my friend.  I asked her something I was curious about, which was why that most of the Japanese are always so nicely dressed.  I felt like a slob to be in Jeans and sneakers. She told me most Japanese just like to dress up a little more and because the people around them are in suits and nice outfits, more people will dress up as well. Almost everyone we saw wore a suit and the women looked like they had walked out of a fashion magazine. I’m not exaggerating at all. The people here were beautiful. Now I met my friend at a crepe place we had visited earlier that day, because we were not sure where the bus would pick us up. It was very strange, there was no bus station but just a location to meet and a man came out of no where on the corner of the sidewalk with a clipboard and yelled off information in Japanese. We heard Tokyo and with some help from a translator who knew some English were able to understand when the bus would leave. We would travel to Osaka, about 45 minutes away and were then to catch another bus.
Once arriving in Osaka, we came to an empty parking lot with lots of people and buses. It was pretty confusing, but eventually we hopped on the right bus which had “reclining chairs” and little hoods to go over them. It was as if we were in baby carriages, but nothing was comfortable. It was about 1/3 the price than the sleeper train and most of us did not get much sleep. But it was an experience, like many things on this trip.

Since there were seven people traveling with us, I decided to be the odd one out and met this lovely Japanese woman who was a culinary chief for a vegetarian restaurant in Tokyo. We talked for awhile, but eventually fell asleep and woke up in between the stops on our way to Tokyo.
The last stop was Shinjuku in Tokyo and while boarding the buses we were given a free coupon for a McDonald’s coffee. So right off the bus our first stop was the bathroom and McDonalds. I had an egg mcmuffin and some very strong coffee. We tried to wake up before getting on the train to find our capsule hotel. Our capsule hotel was located in Akihabara, known as the electronics part of Tokyo. If you don’t know what a capsule hotel is, they are usually in Japan and you do not actually have your own room. There is a section for women and men as well as one floor for showering and a lounge area (one floor for men and one for women). The capsule hotels are geared towards business men and there are only two capsules for women in Tokyo. You have your own little “capsule” where there is a bed, small TV, alarm clock and radio in your little capsule. They also give you a locker, towels and a robe. It was a lot nicer than some of the hostels I stayed in and was similar to a dorm atmosphere. Since I was with a bunch of girls, it was a lot more fun.



We locked up our stuff and went out to explore Tokyo!
        I was with a group of seven and you learn fast that the max amount of people to travel with is five. Usually 3-4 people are perfect. Too many people it gets hard to keep track of everyone and too many people want to do different things. So after getting a train to Shibuya province, we walked around and realized that some of us wanted to shop (I do not know why, it was the most expensive country we went to) and some wanted to see the park and the Meiji shrine. So I went with two friends, Katie and Andrea and we bought bento boxes or known as little lunch boxes you can buy from restaurants for pretty cheap. We then took our lunches into the Meiji gardens and had a little picnic. We saw the Meiji Shrine and it was beautiful.  I really love shrines, temples, and similar religious sites. They usually calm you and just let you think about where you are. It wasn’t that hot outside, but actually a little chilly while we were in Japan. We were just so exhausted from not getting any sleep the night before, so we just relaxed while walking around the gardens and ate ice cream (always a good decision).
        We then found an oriental shop which sold a variety of Japanese souvenirs for semi-reasonable prices. It was called the Oriental Bazaar, and I bought a beautiful black kimono with cherry blossoms on it along with some postcards. We walked around a little more, exploring the Harajuku area and then took the train back to the capsule to check in. Some of us showered and we took a nap before dinner. I mostly wrote in my journal and wrote a few postcards. We then ventured out to find a sushi train or conveyor belt sushi restaurant. Basically there is a conveyor belt that goes around the entire restaurant with different colored plates and each plate has a different price, you just pick up the plates of sushi that you want. It was a lot of fun and we tried a bunch of new things. It was weird though, a lot of the sushi had mayonnaise in it, which I found strange. Though, it was a lot of fun to eat sushi and drink green tea while we were in Japan.
After dinner, one of the girl’s knew someone in Japan and he took us to an area known as Shinjuku, we walked around and found yet another karaoke place. Karaoke is so much fun! I definitely need to find a place that does it when I get back to the states. It’s just fun with a great group of friends who get into it. We sang everything. After our singing careers ended with horse voices and two hours of dancing and choosing songs, we took the train back to the capsule hotel. The trains so great to get everywhere and I found it pretty easy to figure out how to get to where we wanted to visit. I ended up going to bed around 1 am and saw a friend in the lobby and last minute we decided to see the Tsukiji fish market in the morning.


When I say morning, I mean we got there at 5 am. So I woke up around 4, in order for us to get a cab at 4:30 am. So no sleep from the night before and three hours of sleep that evening adds up to a tried Kara Zucker. It was totally worth it. The Tsukiji fish market is one of the largest in the world and there were little open shops with buckets of different types of fish just out for people to buy. We were able to see the auction, which is where they look at all the fish lined up and decide which has the best catch. The fish were HUGE! To give you an idea, they were probably the size of my snowboard.
We continued to walk around the fish market and met up with a friend who hung out with an Israeli who had lived in Japan for a few years. They had met at the Chabad Passover sedar the night before. We all walked around the entire market and saw all types of fish. Some of the fish included barracuda, octopus (it was still alive!), sea snails, tuna, salmon, blowfish, eel, clams, squid, shrimp (all sizes), and whale (which is illegal, it was sad to see).  I definitely took some great photos.  We had some sushi breakfast, which was delicious!


Then we all went our separate ways and headed back to the capsule hotel to shower and met up with my friend Greg, as we were going to the sedar that evening in Tokyo together.
You definitely meet up a lot more with people in places, because you do not have a cell phone to contact them, so you are constantly meeting people specific places. I met Greg in the hotel lobby and we both agreed to meet at ten when we would be able to check out. I showered and talked to some girls I knew from SAS and then took a nap. The girls I was with before were annoying me after awhile and they had to get back to the ship that afternoon for a trip, so I was happy to travel with a new group of people.
Once meeting up, Greg had a few friends he was traveling with and we ate some waffles at a little stall outside the train station for my second breakfast. They had apple cinnamon, chocolate covered, and strawberry filled waffles. They were sooo good. We met up with a few more people at the station and went to the Tokyo station (Tokyo station inside Tokyo, weird I know) to visit the Imperial Palace Gardens. It was a perfect day and was so beautiful outside. All the cherry blossoms were blooming and just looked so peaceful. We were able to go in the gardens and some of the museums in the park for free! Anything free for travelers is automatically a “yes” decision. We wandered around the park for a good hour, just enjoying the day and smelling the cherry blossoms.  The group was starting to drag a little and everyone started to want to do different things. So we all went to lunch close to the gardens. Most of the larger buildings have food courts in the basements, which is great because they’re usually pretty reasonable and everyone can get what they want.
I bought some delicious sushi and it wasn’t ridiculously priced. Then we decided to split up, as some people were heading back to the ship and wanted to explore Yokohama. My friend Greg and I went to explore Tokyo and walked around the city while walking through a small park in between a bunch of skyscrapers. We headed to Roppongi area by train to find the U.S. Embassy where the Passover sedar would take place. We found the embassy, but the sedar was taking place at the U.S. Embassy residences and put on by the Jewish Community Center of Tokyo, so after some confusing directions we found it. Once arriving, they would not allow us in until the sedar started. So we just hung outside the gate until more SAS kids showed up. Eventually we had around 11 people (though 25 were supposed to show up) and Michael who oversees the Jewish community on the ship came with his family as well. Michael and Mindi Goldwebber are from Cincinnati, Ohio and I felt like they truly have been my family away from home. They are so sweet and welcoming and it’s been fun getting to know them and enjoying the Jewish holidays together. Every time I sit next to Mindi, she introduces me as one of her sergeant children. :-) There was a small and short service before sedar started and as the evening went on more and more Semester at Sea students showed up. There was an interim woman Rabbi from Massachusetts leading the sedar and I found the Jewish community in Tokyo pretty diverse. I met a young girl visiting her father who was from Australia. There were people from all over Japan, one person from Canada, some from Europe and another person from Cape Town. It was pretty crazy to have most of the world represented in one room.
The sedar was lovely and the food was great! It was lovely to have a Jewish community to spend Passover with, even if it was in Tokyo.  It felt as if we could have been anywhere. After a wonderful evening of the four questions, ten plagues and plenty of glasses of kosher wine, we headed back to Yokohama with 10 boxes of leftover matzah. I am so glad we went and met so many people around the world. This made our connection to Japan that much stronger. The train ride back didn’t take long and we had about 12 people coming back with us. I have never been so squished in my life though on a train, you were literally packed like sardines I assumed it was the evening commute.
I decided to stay in that evening, as I had about 5-6 hours of sleep over the last two days and had a long day trip with Semester at Sea the next day. My last day we were able to see a lot of cool things. Some of the highlights were the Tokyo Tower (beautiful view of the entire city), Akihabara area of electronics (that we did not get to see while staying there) and some beautiful gardens with tons of cherry blossoms.

We also went to the Toyota center and saw some of their futuristic car models of hybrids and racecars. It was a lot of fun, but I was still so exhausted from the days before our trip.
The last day was just a blur and I would really like to go back to Japan to visit Mai and my roommate, Ellie. A lot of Semester at Sea students bought a Japanese rail pass ($300) and gave them access to all over Japan by the bullet train. I decided against it for a variety of reasons. First off $300 is a lot of money, though it does save you money if you go just a few places. But I was a little tried of running around in all these countries and I am happy to spend most of my time in Tokyo just exploring on my own. I want to go back and see Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, and Hiroshima. Most of the students who saw and went to Hiroshima said it truly was an amazing thing to experience. They built a memorial museum and a peace park. There was even a small city and it was wonderful to see the people there having hopes of peace instead of revenge.
Sometimes I wish our country could learn from the Japanese, instead of making things worse, sometimes just recognizing the problem and work to putting a stop to nuclear weapons is a lot better than making more weapons and attacking the first to blame. Through all my experiences, I really did love Japan. I actually did not enjoy China as much as I thought I would. I think next time I travel, I need to spend a few days in smaller cities and get to know the people better than just see the larger cities. Can you imagine people who come to our country and just visit New York City or Los Angeles? They have no idea about the small towns in Colorado or the mid-west and the welcoming people who would open their homes to someone who could be lost.