Day 4 – Hiroshima - I woke up to Roommate (Caitlyn) yelling at me to go shower. I don’t remember getting out of bed. I think I was still in zombie mode. I do remember Taka standing at the door in his underwear and with a towel on his head yelling at me to hurry up. So I sprinted downstairs to jump in the shower. I shower set ups in Japan are different as well. There is no toilet in the same room as the shower. You walk in one little room and there is the sink and a washer and dryer and then you take 2 steps down to a smaller room and there is a bathtub built into the ground (a huge bathtub I might add) and then a shower faucet on the wall. In many houses there are little stools on the ground so you can shower sitting down. There was one at Taka’s house but not at Misaki’s. I showed standing. (haha). After my two minute shower and a quick breakfast (consisted of yogurt, egg, fried cabbage, bread, and coffee. It was yumooo s. Taka’s mom gave us each some chocolate as a gift. I didn’t expect it at all.), it was time to pack up and run to the train station. We were headed to Hiroshima! Taka was absolutely wonderful. He paid for everything the entire time we were with him! I couldn’t believe it. Anyway, he took us to central Tokyo were we would catch the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. We were a pretty quiet bunch on the train. Two and a half hours went by so fast. The trains are so interesting because nobody talks on the trains. For the most part it is because they are traveling alone, but sometimes we’d see a couple on the train and they wouldn’t talk the entire time. I think we were the loudest ones on the train and we weren’t even talking very loud at all. The trains have smoking sections on the trains. The boxed room holds maybe 4 people in it at once. They are small little cubicles. The bathrooms are really nice and clean on the train. I thought I got stuck in one though. I forgot the door was a sliding door and I kept trying to push on it. I felt stupid afterwards. Haha there were people waiting for the bathroom. Haha anyway, There were ladies walking back and forth with carts of food and coffee, and they also sold gifts too. I saw one lady walk by selling boxes of chocolates. They were nicely decorated. It was interesting. So anyway, the train ride was great. We soon arrived to Hiroshima, and decided we were hungry so we looked for a place to eat that sold oeconomi-yaki which is a food that Misaki made for me and pria and cherish last semester at Gonzaga! It consists of diced cabbage, egg, cheese, pork, and flour type stuff. We did end up finding this really cute place on the 2nd floor of a building close to the train station. We were the only ones in there and the waitress spoke zero English so that was fun. We sat on little pillows on the floor around this really short table. The table had a frying pan stove connected to it. The waitress brought all the ingredients in a small bowl and mixed it right in front of us and made our oeconomi-yaki for us. She showed us how to make it. I’ve come to realize that that is a huge part of the Japanese culture. A lot of restaurants will just give you the raw food and you can cook it yourself. I went to three restaurants that we had to cook the food ourselves and I really like it. It also gives a sense of community, because we are all sharing the pot of boiling water, or the hot grill, or the stove top. I really enjoy watching them cook. The waitress was so nice at this Oeconomi-yaki restaurant. I don’t actually remember her name. Maybe Toko? But anyway, she brought out a Mickey Mouse pancake for us, and said it was a present. She was the nicest lady! The pancake was so good! They put chocolate on top of it. They also heated it up right on the stove top in front of us too. It was funny! Oh it was even funnier when she cut Mickey up though. She was like “I kill Mickey.” Haha And she had her sad face on. It was funny. Anyway, so that was such a fun experience too! The oeconomi-yaki was so yum! After lunch we had to take a trolley to the peace park and the A-bomb Dome. It was fascinating to see and also very depressing. Rachel and I went into the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. There was a room of faces inside the memorial hall. There was also a place where you could look up names of victims and see their picture. It was a very powerful walk through the memorial and the peace park. There was a place in the middle of the park that was basically a grassy hill surrounded by fence. There were origami cranes next to this area. The hill was the spot where they gathered all the dead bodies and burned them. It was intense to read about it. There were quite a few statues around the park. Each statue was a remembrance for victims. We saw one statue that was dedicated to the lives of the Korean victims. Origami cranes slung over that statue as well as all the other ones. It’s like instead of putting flowers by them, they put origami cranes because they can never die. To my understanding, when you make an origami crane, you are making a wish. After walking through the park, Rachel and I went over to the A-bomb dome and just sat in front of it. It was crazy to think that everybody that was in the building when the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6th, 1945 at 8:15am died instantly. I read on one of the planks that people in the surrounding towns continued to die slowly up until December of that year, all because of radiation. So, yes, the park was an intense experience. And I’m really glad we made it to Hiroshima. After we sat and pondered about the Dome, Rachel and I adventured off through an outdoor mall thingy. It was like a covered stretch of street lined with markets. It was right next to the park. We entered a couple of shops. The one that was the most fun was the Manga shop (Manga is a Japanese comic book.) There were different sections of the shop. There was a section for young girls, A section for older girls, A section for young boys and older boys. Some Manga books were really nasty too. You know how in the States in the stores there will be an 18 and older section that is closed off by a curtain or something.. Yeah there was no curtain. Haha Rachel and I ended up buying a Manga book. It looks like a romance book. Obviously we don’t understand anything, but we know that Manga is a huge part of the Japanese culture and it’s very interesting, so we bought some books. They were really cheap too, compared to in the states. After strolling through a few more stores we decided to head back to the train station. It would have been really great to stay at a Buddhist temple at least once while in Japan, but we ended up heading back to the boat. Next time I come to Japan, I am going to stay at a temple though. I am determined.
Day 5 – Kyoto and Kobe – It was strange eating breakfast on the ship again. We couldn’t eat with chopsticks. We didn’t eat fried cabbage (which is so yum!) It was just strange seeing people we know. I didn’t really enjoy seeing other semester at sea people when just walking around the country, and there I was sitting in a room filled with them (while we were still in Japan.) Obviously when we are cruising from country to country its not so weird, but when you are sitting eating and you look out the window and see Japan right there.. Its definitely strange. Anyway, so we headed for Kyoto. We ended up on the wrong train (not the shinkansen) so it took us an hour to get to Kyoto. By Shinkansen it would have taken 10 minutes. So that was mighty upsetting, because we wasted a lot of time. Once we got to Kyoto we hunted down a map at the info center and figured out how to get to the Golden Pavilion (Rokuon-Ji Temple.) It took an hour to get there by bus, because traffic was so bad. Anyway, the Temple was gorgeous! The sun wasn’t even out but the temple was glowing so bright, it almost hurt my eyes to look at it. The temple sits right on this little lake/pond, and it is about 3 stories high. We weren’t allowed to see inside of the temple though. Another downer was that it was packed with tourist. There were a lot of semester at sea people there too. I expected it to be completely peaceful and silent, but it was quite loud, because it is the biggest tourist attraction in Kyoto. After visiting the gorgeous temple, we stopped to eat. I had ramen again. It’s great every time. You can never go wrong. Anyway, then we headed back to the train station and had to jump on the shinkansen back to Shin-Kobe. On-ship time is at 6pm usually, but its comfortable to get there at like 4. We still had about an hour to kill before time to head back to the ship so Rachel and I went looking for yarn! We found this cute little craft store in the middle of an outdoors mall. (I stocked up on yarn so I could make hats for my friends.) We heard it snowed a lot in China, so we have to prepare for that now. Before we got on the ship, Rachel spotted a Mochi cream stand, so of course she bought a bunch of mochi. It’s her favorite thing ever. I tried it of course! I really like it too! It’s definitely different. I don’t know if there is a food in the states that I can compare it to. Mochi is like bland sticky clumps of dumplings kind of. They are just really sticky and goopy. You can eat it in soup, or with ice cream, or filled with red beans. It’s really good and they sell it everywhere! So that was the end of my Japan adventures. I learned soooo much on this trip. I’m going to try and remember everything and post the rest after this. You will be able to see pictures in May, or maybe sooner if I stop at an internet café!!
Random details:
-They don’t give you napkins at restaurants. There is a tissue box sitting on your table usually. Before dinner they give you a hot towel to wash your hands with.
-you have to ask for a fork if you want to use one. Usually the forks are baby forks. One time I ate from a Winnie the pooh fork.
-Japanese snacks are so yum! We went to stock up on snacks at the 100 yen store (dollar store.)
-I broke one of my mommy’s rules: Don’t take candy from strangers. People on the trains were so nice and I was surprised at how many spoke English!! One lady we met was so nice she started giving us snacks and she gave Caitlyn a key chain, and by the time we got to our destination we had exchanged addresses and had taken pictures with each other. Haha
-They play a lot of 90s music (from the states) on the radio. For example, Backstreet boys!
-I bought a Yoshida Brothers cd. They play the Shamisen (traditional Japanese instrument) in all of their songs. Youtube “Yoshida Brothers Rising.” They are really good!
-Right before the subway closes the doors to leave, the station plays a little tune. It’s a happy upbeat tune.
-the atm sings to you when it spits money out. Kind of makes it seem like you just won the lottery. It’s fun.
-Many cd stores had a Michael Jackson shrine in the entrance. They sold the dvd, all his cds, some tshirts, posters, you name it.
-Karaoke is so great.
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