Japan Day One

I got up about 5:40am to watch the ship come into the port and watch the sunrise (over the land of the rising sun) but it was overcast and not much of a sunrise. It was still very exciting to see Japan, and very reminiscent of Hawaii. I guess that's not a big surprise since they're both volcanic islands. There were just a handful of people up that early, but gradually more and more people started to make their way up to the 7th deck. I waited to watch the pilot come on board at 6:30 and then went down for a quick breakfast, and then back up to the deck to watch the festivities. As we got closer to the port there was a fire boat that pulled along side us and shot water up into the air in celebration, then a band lined up along the port terminal building's deck and played Sousa marches. There was also a guy with an umbrella and a surgical mask dancing around and encouraging us to cheer. This guy must be an indigent self-appointed welcome committee, because I've seen him hanging around the port since then.

They took all of our passports into the terminal to do immigration, we didn't actually have to present them in person. My passport now has some Japanese stuff stamped in it, though. Around 9:30 there was an official ceremony in the student union building. A super goofy guy who was the port agent gave us a greeting speech full of tourism plugs for Kobe and a kind of long talk on a soon to be opened airport in Kobe. There were also several young women in pink hats that must be chamber of commerce there to present gifts to people. Bob Viera the executive dean received a sword and the captain got a vase, the chief engineer, hotel director and staff captain got bottles of sake, and they presented two students with official welcome robes. After this there were three traditional dance performances, one about a samurai who was having a sake drinking contest. Then an American diplomat gave us a diplomatic briefing that freaked everyone out, because he kept telling us we wouldn't be able to get money out of the ATMs and no one would take our credit cards. This isn't really true. I've found at least three international ATMs, and I haven't even been looking that hard. Everyone was so anxious to get off the ship that by the time the diplomat was on, it was very hard to pay attention to him.

At last, though, the ship was cleared and Mary, Kelly, Sally and I set off for Kobe. The port is about a mile from downtown Kobe, but there's a very convenient train that goes right to the downtown station (Sanomiya). Buying tickets for the train is a little intimidating at first, but once you figure it out it's pretty easy to get around. If you look at the map of the trains in the station you can figure out where you are, and the station you want to get to, and there's a number in bold print above the station name, that's how much the fare is one way. Put money in the ticket machine and press the number corresponding to the amount of the fare, a ticket prints out and ta-da. It's no big deal if you mess up and don't get enough money on your ticket, because there are fare adjustment machines at each of the exits and you can put your ticket in and it will tell you how much additional you need to add and give you an adjusted ticket. All of the train maps have roman character names on them in addition to Japanese. The biggest challenge is, if you have to change trains to get to your destination, figuring out which train you need, but you can ask someone just by repeating your destination over and over and over again until you pronounce it well enough that they understand what you said. (This works in general very well for all communication, just keep saying karaoke, karaoke, karaoke, karaoke, until the person says "OHH, karaoke" and then they'll give you good directions.)

We rode the portliner into town and Mary and Kelly took off to go find the public library and Sally and I went to an ATM. There was a huge line of semester at sea people at the international ATM in Sanomiya station, and it was taking a long time since not everyone could figure it out quickly. When Sally and I got up though we didn't have any problems and I told the senior adult passengers who were right behind us is line "Don't worry it's easy." and they all said "Would you help us?" So I stayed in the little booth and the first one up was a lady who is known on the ship as being pretty out of it. (She sat in on a friend of mine's class and when he asked if anyone had any questions at the end of his lecture she raised her hand and said "What time is lunch?") She handed me her card, that was clearly a debit Visa and said "I don't have a checking account so take it out of debit." and I said "What?" and she said "I don't have any money in my checking account, this has to come out of debit." I thought, "Oh no." So then I asked her "How much do you want?" and she said "$200" and I said "Well, 10,000 yen is about $85 dollars, and so 20,000 yen would be $170 or so, and 30,000 yen would be $250." She said, "Oh, ok... uh...uh...uh... let me have $200." The line is getting longer and longer. I put her card in and entered her pin, and tried getting money off of credit, and it spat the card out. I asked her if she was SURE she didn't have a checking account she said she was sure it was debit, so I tried savings and it spat the card out. The line is getting longer and longer. So I thought, "This lady doesn't know what she's talking about," so I put her card in and got 20,000 yen out of her checking account no problem. I figure that her kids probably didn't want her writing checks so they told her she didn't have a checking account and to just use her debit card. The next four seniors had their acts together and I got them in and out of there lickity-split. When I stepped out of the booth, the first lady said "tell me how you did that, because I don't have a checking account, what did you do so I'll know. I don't have a checking account." I said, "I took it out of your debit," and she said "oh, ok."

After that Sally and I wandered around Kobe for a couple of hours, found a place for lunch and ended up with salads because we couldn't figure out how to order anything else. But they were good. We got kicked out of a pachinko parlor for taking pictures and went to a 7-11 and bought some iced tea. I had to get back to the ship to leave for the baseball game. There were four buses to take people to Osaka for the game, and it was about a 30 minute ride. There was a English speaking guide on the bus who taught us a little Japanese and told some funny stories on the way. The stadium in Osaka was huge, I think they said capacity was 65,000 people. We watched the Orix Buffaloes play the Soft Bank Hawks, we were rooting for the Orix Buffaloes which is a Kobe team, but frankly they weren't that good. The fans have elaborate cheers for each of the players and they wave flags and play instruments. It was a lot like a college football game. Marc Peterson and I arranged to leave the game early and explore the nightlife in Osaka. We left after the 4th inning, and spent 30 minutes or so trying to figure out how to get to where the nightlife in Osaka was. We ended up in a very cool part of town that looked like it came straight out of Blade Runner. We wandered around for a long time gaping at things like 5 levels of overhead train lines and neon, looking for a place to eat until we wandered down an alley with a lot of restaurants. Most of them were full of Japanese men in suits. We finally found something I guessed was Shabu Shabu, which I was told by Chris and Rachel was a must do.

The restaurant was very small, a circular bar with a serving area in the middle. The total capacity was 20 people, maybe. The staff seemed pretty nervous about our obvious lack of skills, but we just kept smiling and pointing at things until they brought us beer, iced sake, a bowl of delicious sauce and a plate of vegetables. Each seat has a pot of boiling water in front of it and you take the vegetables and put them in the pot and cook them. Then they bring you a big plate of thinly sliced beef (or pork) and you add this gradually to the pot. As your meat and vegetables cook you dip them out and put them in the sauce and eat them. It's very tasty, and fun, and also dangerous because that pot of boiling water is very very hot and if you don't know what you're doing with chopsticks you're probably going to burn yourself. I did. The fun doesn't end there, though. After you've cooked all of your food and eaten it the waitress uses the broth you've just made to cook noodles. But, you have to get these out of the water yourself which isn't as easy as you might think. We made an enormous mess and were very embarrassing. Then they bring you some cool tea and a tasty scoop of ice cream.

After that we went to a shopping mall that had an giant, red, plastic whale hanging from the ceiling and on top of that mall the 3rd largest ferris wheel in the world. It was the first, but London and Tokyo have beat them out. There were amazing views from the top, though. After the ferris wheel we wandered and wandered like zombies. There are seemingly hundreds of alleys each brightly lit with shops and cafes and nudie bars, and karaoke. We walked until we couldn't stand to take another step and then caught the train back to Kobe.