November 19 2010 / Kobe, Japan

ASKJKDSF JAPAN!  We watched Spirited Away in my room last night in a cuddle pile with Ellie, Jared and Julie and I, which was awesome to get in the mood for JAPAAAAN!  I woke up early and was able to spring out of bed right away, to my surprise.  For some reason I woke up with extremely intense free-floating axiety that I just couldn’t shake—I wasn’t sure why it had hit me and why it wasn’t going away, because I wasn’t too worried about getting through Japan, even though I’m doing it independently with minimal plans.  But anyway I went to breakfast and sat with Julie and Jared and talked a little bit.  There was a band outside serenading us.  People at ports who greet us are so adorable!  Aegean Sea was called up first for once, which was kind of nice but is not so nice considering we’re getting off the boat second to last in San Diego.  :| 

But anyway we went up and I realized belatedly that I’d forgotten my quarantine card, so I had to hustle downstairs to grab it.  Japan is super overprotective over who it allows to go into Japan, so you have to get shot with a thermal-evaluation-laser-thing in order to be sure you’re not feverish.  As I got up back up there, this guy I was next to started walking really jerkily.  At first I thought he was going to be seasick, because he kneeled down.  I asked if he was okay, and he said yes, but he was shaking so violently.  All of a sudden he straight up fell over, blacked out cold.  It scared the hell out of me.  I was just frozen as people were calling for the medical team.  He wasn’t out long, but it was so incredibly strange and I just felt so freaked out.  I’m really not over the Andre thing.  So I started sweating and trembling because this didn’t help my nerves at all.  I passed the thermal test anyway and then went down and had me a nap, because I was ready to restart the day—felt far too stressed out. 

I woke up when the ship was cleared, which was around 10am.  Julie and I were going to go out exploring together, so we headed out together.  We had to wait in this HUGE line to go through immigration and customs, which didn’t bother me too much because I was too excited to be in Japan, and was skimming through my travel guide.  :B  When we finally got through there was a hospitality desk, and one of the ladies there directed me as to how I would get to the Miyazaki Museum in Tokyo, as well as how to buy tickets in advance—we would have to find a drugstore called Lawson’s that would sell the tickets.  Also, nothing is more hilarious than a Japanese woman looking at you in confusion when you say “Miyazki,” and then shouting “TOTORO!” with a look of triumph spread across her face.  I’m pretty sure the hospitality desk thought we were the most hilariously geeky Americans ever. 

SO ANYWAY.  Out we went to adventure into Kobe!  Kobe is a rockin’ port city that’s about a mile from the southern ocean to the northern mountains, but stretches a huge distance from west to east.  Julie and I walked towards the city, which actually was razed by a huge earthquake in 1990.  It’s incredible how fast everything was built back again.  One of the first signs that had a picture of food on it, we latched onto, going downstairs into this little… not really a business food court, nor a mall, but a little underground area that had lots of small restaurants inside it.  Julie and I wandered around, a bit confused—there were bento boxes sitting outside, but did we just take one?  What was the nicety for that?  So eventually we steeled ourselves to sit down inside one of the little areas at a table.  It was a tiny room, with maybe ten small tables inside, and a kitchen against the wall.  Was it just me, or did everyone go quiet when we came inside?  Everyone was A Japanese Business Man.  When the waitress came over, she looked at us strangely and pointed to the little stand-up menu on the table—all Japanese, no pictures.  Julie ran outside, took pictures of the little display lunch sets, and I shuffled through them until I found one I wanted and pointed at it.  She kind of laughed but I thought it was pretty ingenious. 

Lunch for me was a bowl of soup with yakisoba noodles and a piece of shrimp tempura floating around in it, with a side of this truly incredible glutinous rice, that had a little bit of soy sauce and egg and it was just amazing.  Oh gosh it was an incredible meal, even if it was simple.  On the side were these orange slices I didn’t recognize until Julie said it was pickled mango—it was SO GOOD, but we kind of laughed at how shy we were.  It’s funny how we’ve been traveling so long but we still get embarrassed at not knowing how to do the right things. 

We went inside a big building to look around at things people buy, and I was SO EXCITED to find a row of cheap pokemon action figures!  If you’ve been in my room at college I have a little collection, so I was so glad to get another little guy to add to the group of friends.  :D 

Then we went off to find a Lawson’s and the Shinto-Kobe station, since I would have to catch a train from there to Kyoto if I couldn’t get onto Julie’s SAS trip, which I’m really hoping for.  We found it and the information desk directed us to a Lawson’s, which is a kind of 7-11esque convenience store.  We had no idea what to do.  So we stumbled through broken Japanese and singing the Totoro theme song to infer what we wanted to a very kind confused woman, who took us to the vending machine for the tickets and pushed the buttons for us, as she didn’t speak any English.  Ultimately, we got two tickets for the Tokyo museum at 10am on the 23rd (or so we hope… I don’t read Japanese)!  Energized by our success, we charged away for our next destination, which was a picturesque waterfall called Nunobiki Falls.  We walked north until we reached the mountains, and then I saw the cable cars that I wanted to go up on to the Peak of Mouth Rokko, which gives an incredible view of the Kobe skyline.  Upon buying tickets in the building, I happened to look out the window and what do I see but two huge hairy boars wandering leisurely back to their forest!  It was the strangest thing and it cracked me up. 

The cable car ride up the mountain was incredible.  The trees below us were changing color, so most were green but there were also yellow and red and brown.  It was so beautiful.  We passed right over the waterfall, and attempted to take many pictures—unfortunately for us, it was that kind of day where the light just sucks for picture taking.  When we got to the top, we decided to walk down, so went through the Nunobiki Herb Garden, which also had us pass through a spice room, a greenhouse, and flower gardens—it was pretty fun and oh so Japan!  The city before us started turning on its lights, which was dazzling and I loved how the city just stretched to the left and right but was foiled by the ocean.  :)  As we walked down the mountain, it grew darker and darker and a lump settled in my stomach as I realized I would never walk down a strange mountain in the twilight at home.  We walked right beneath the crashing of the waterfall, and Julie scared the hell out of me by screaming when a mouse or something ran by her.  It was not as well lit as we would have hoped.  Fear not, this adventure is not a sign of things to come—we will not decide to get some exercise when it starts getting dark outside when we’re traveling! 

After our Nunobiki adventures, we were hungry yet again!  So we set about trying to find a restaurant on the way back to the ship.  One of the restaurants we went in didn’t speak English and actually told us that the entire restaurant was reserved so that we would leave.  I believed them until Julie mentioned how weird that was—now it’s kind of just hilarious.  But it was a good thing we waited!  We came across this tiny restaurant on the main street with red lanterns out front and walked inside.  There was a kitchen with a bar wrapped around right there, where six Japanese Businessmen were getting their drink on.  The bar had a cook behind it who was cooking KABOBS!  So we sat down at a table and did our best to avoid the wood and cigarette smoke.  :D  IT WAS GREAT!  They had an English menu and our waitress did her best.  I got a beer and two chicken thighs with curry sauce, a baked potato, and grilled onions!  My mouth waters just thinking about those onions.  Afterwards I looked at the menu again and saw that they had fried rice balls with melted cheese on top, which seemed necessary—best decision of my life.  It was covered in a sweet-sour sauce and was just delicious.  Julie and I had a great time just eating, drinking, and people watching.  The businessmen were getting pretty red-faced by the end, but everyone was having a good time and it almost seemed like a Usual Crowd dynamic.  Pretty cool stuff!

Julie and I walked off our massively delicious meal back to the ship, stopping on the way in this AWESOME HAT STORE, which was great because we’d just been talking about how we wanted to buy hats.  I found the most lovely gray-gold knit hat with a flower on the side that is going to be so important in keeping my head warm in my travels!  I’m pretty excited.  Julie got a beret  I think, haha.

We got to the ship soon after—a wonderful first day in Kobe, and hopefully a good sign of many more great times in Japan to come!  My plans are pretty simple:  Tomorrow I want to hitch onto Julie’s SAS group that explores Kyoto’s zen gardens and some of its temples, and then break off and stay there the night.  The next late morning we will take a train to Tokyo where we will visit the Harajuku District and hopefully a cat café, as well as the Pokemon Center!   Yes I’m aware that I am a child.  No I do not care.  We also want to hit up the electronics/anime/manga district.  On the night of the 22nd we’re going to do a great tour called the Full Moon Aoyama Graveyard tour, which I’m SO EXCITED FOR and is like the one thing we’ve reserved.  It’s a two hour night tour of the most haunted graveyard in Tokyo where they talk about these old ghost tales and things that have happened.  Somewhere in there, there will be karaoke, and the Miyazaki Museum is the morning of the 23rd before we go to Yokohama! 

So obviously I’ll be out of contact for the next couple of days while Julie and I go off to explore Japan!  If you email me do it to my stephaniemech comcast account, as it’s the only one I’ll be able to check.  :) 

Love you guys!