Japan

Hello Everyone,

I just got back from Japan, my last and final international port, and am on my way home!!!

The currency in Japan is the Yen, and the exchange rate is about 118 yen = $1. This wasn’t too difficult to figure out, but there are a lot of coins in this currency. 100 yen (about 1 dollar) is a coin about the size of a nickel and was the most common. It was especially helpful when paying for the various trains that get you from one place to another. Japan is a very clean place and very expensive…..I did the least amount of shopping here, and it still ended up being my 2nd or 3rd most expensive port.
I really noticed good parent/child relationships in Japan. It seemed like everyone really liked their babies. I had a lot of fun “people watching” here because of all of the children….Japanese babies are really cute! The children all wear school uniforms with hats and blazers. The rest of Japan was really high fashion….every girl that I saw was wearing stiletto shoes, and you could tell that some of them were more experienced than others in the shoe department, as many walked funny and looked like they’re feet were killing them. One would think that I would be a squattie pottie pro by now, but I still have some issues…….in Japan, there are many western style toilets, but when I encountered a squattie, they had little steps which made them a lot easier to use….I called them training squatties….

On day 1, we were welcomed to Kobe port by some taiko drummers who boarded the ship and put on a show for us in the Union. When we finally got off of the ship, we decided to head over to the main part of Kobe. We had to take a tram to get there and it was 200 yen each way. We made it to the center of Kobe, and decided to walk around the huge shopping mall for a while. We didn’t do much shopping, but had fun looking at the different styles that are popular in Japan. After a while, we found ourselves a 350 (a restaurant where everything on the menu costs 350 yen…) I had some fried rice and sushi. This was by far the best sushi that I had in all of my life….it was really, really good! We had some good ice cream and then headed back to the ship…we had to ride that tram again so I spent another 200 yen. We got ready and decided to head out to some local bars and clubs. We found a few that some of the other SAS kids were going to and decided to tag along. On the way to the bars, we passed a pet store and got to look at some of the cutest puppies of all time…. I was so happy! We had a few drinks and did some dancing. After a while, we decided to leave and go and eat some Mc Donalds.

The next day, our friend Bob (who participated in the MASP program with us at CU and now works as a teacher in Japan) met us at the ship and offered to show us around. We all decided to head over to Osaka to see the city. We got to walk around and look at all of the various sights. We walked around the Dotonbori area and the Sinsibashi area too. This was really fun, and in the evening the city would light up and it reminded me of New York a little bit. We stopped in at a little restraint that served conveyer belt sushi…this was a lot of fun. I also got to eat some delicious strawberry shortcake. Japan has some of the most amazing desserts I have ever seen. We visited the Hello Kitty store and I made a few small purchases….everything hello kitty is super expensive! We stopped in an arcade and took some silly Japanese pictures in a photo booth. They were fun! We had to find our own way back to Kobe, so Bob did his best to give us directions and we headed back on our own. We were a little confused at first, but we finally made it back safely. We decided to get some sleep because we had a busy third day planned.

On day 3 we woke up and headed over to Nara, a city in Japan famous for its temples and deer. The group (with the exception of Age and Greg who were doing home stays) took the trains again and spent about 30 dollars traveling. We met Bob in Nara and he had some of his Japanese friends with him so they helped us navigate around. I was really excited to see all of the deer present in Nara, even though some of them looked pretty mangy. I got to pet one and take lots of pics. After seeing the deer and the Todaji Temple, we went to grab a bite to eat at this little restaurant. The woman who worked there didn’t speak a word of English and so we had to go outside and point at the food we wanted from a display in the window. There was another man in the restaurant who came over to us after we had ordered and began yelling things at us…I think he was really sick, and drunk. He kept on covering his mouth with a towel that he had around his neck while he was talking and yelling and coughing. It was kind of weird. Later on, someone said that they think he was missing part of his tongue! We decided it was time to head back to Kobe and so we took the train home. We decided to go bowling when we got back and so after a quick Mc Donalds stop, we headed over to this huge arcade and got to bowl. Our shoes were dispensed from this huge machine that worked like a vending machine….we typed in our size, and out they fell. It was really neat. We bowled the fastest game of all time and then we got to dress up as bowling pins (they had a costume we could put on and take pic’s in). After bowling we went back to the ship and slept.

Day 4 we woke up early and headed once again to Osaka. Once we got to the Osaka train station also called (OCAT), we were able to watch some break dancing girls who couldn’t have been more than 10. They were really good! We had originally planned on going to a baseball game. We tried to go to the convenience store to purchase tickets, but had a great deal of trouble communicating. We finally figured out that we needed to head over to the baseball dome to buy our tickets. After buying our tickets, we got some souvineer shirts and took pics with the mascots. We saw the Orix Buffalos vs. the Soft Bank Hawks and since we are buffs fans anyway, we decided to cheer for them. The game was a lot of fun, we ended up sitting next to this huge group of students who had these really loud noise makers. Instead of a 7th inning stretch, huge balloons were passed out and special songs were sung for each team. Once the song was over, the crowd let the balloons (which had been blown up) go and they went everywhere! it was really cool to see! After the game, we headed back to that Dotonbori area and rode on this giant Ferris wheel. We had a lot of fun. We met back up with Bob and had some dinner at a 280, which is even better than a 350! I found a pink umbrella on the street and got to keep it as a prize, so I was really excited-even though it didn’t rain! We went to this little night club with a pretty decent DJ. The club had videos playing over a large screen and as we stood there dancing on our last night in a foreign country in our last port, video footage from Brazil (our first international port) began playing. It was really fitting, and kind of sad. We had decided that we were going to stay out all night because the trains stop running at midnight and don’t start until 5am. We headed over to Bob’s to do some Karaoke and use his internet. We left at 5 am and headed back to the ship. After sleeping in, we took one last stroll around Kobe and had the 350 sushi again. We purchased some art….kind of….from this cool cat on the street. He was an artist who wrote our names and inspirational messages in Japanese…they’re pretty neat! We came back to the ship and as we left the port of Kobe, we were able to see some bioluminescence in the ocean…there were shimmering neon blue particles that were glowing in the water as we left….it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

So here I am, heading home after spending nearly 100 days traveling the world. I have had such an incredible time and am so grateful for the thoughts and prayers that I’ve received during my time away. This was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I am so excited to share my stories and photos with all of you! I’m looking forward to coming home and catching up. I love and miss you all….see you in less than 2 weeks!
~Valerie