Tokyo

I don’t know how many of you have seen the Kill Bill movies, but I was really excited to go to Tokyo and pretend I was Beatrix Kiddo. We got up early and caught the train from Yokohama to Tokyo. The trains here are amazing. Everyone gets their tickets and waits in single file line for their train. When the train arrives, everyone waits for the arriving passengers to get off before everyone boards. Along with regular cars they have cars exclusively for women, children and senior citizens. We got to Tokyo and it was raining, which reminded me of home. For those of you that have never been to Tokyo it is like a giant NYC except in Japanese. They have the biggest intersection and crosswalk in the world! It was nuts. We found a few temples and had lunch at a really yummy restaurant that reminded me of St. Honore except with a self-serve salad bar that was SO GOOD! It was super green and organic and such a nice change from all the foods I have been eating the last 4 moths. Tokyo had a 4 story H&M and so you can imagine my excitement as we ran toward it! We visited the China town in Tokyo and then headed back to the ship in Yokohama.

Yokohama

Yokohama is much smaller. This was our last day in Japan and so me and my roomie Clara went with some friends to the Starbucks in little China Town to Skype our friend Genna who had to go home in India because she had malaria. We miss her so much and so it was so good to catch up with her and hear her voice! Then we got lunch in China town and walked around town and had coffee. It was nice to just soak up the last couple of hours in Japan and be in our last international port. I didn’t have any expectations for Japan and I didn’t know what to expect, but it exceeded the expectations that I didn’t have and I really liked it. Japan has so much style! One thing that I loved about Japan was their attention to detail, especially in shopping malls. When you make a purchase they ask you if you want your purchase gift-wrapped? I always say no. If you buy something like stationary without gift-wrapping, they take the paper and wrap it in tissue. Then they fold it into a decorative paper, take a ribbon and make a loop that they stick with a sticker. Then they put it in another small paper sack before putting into a sack with handles and then tape that sack shut. If you have ever seen the movie Love Actually (my favorite movie of all time) and have seen the scene where he is gift-wrapping with cinnamon and holly with candy on top, it was just like that! It made me wonder what a purchase with gift-wrapping would look like.
Speaking of gift wrapping and the holidays, I busted out my Bob Dylan Holiday tunes and we decorated our room with holiday garlands and Thanksgiving is tomorrow! We actually have two Thanksgivings because we are crossing the international date line and will finally be back from the future. For the past few days I have been living in the future…a day ahead of all of you, and as I told my grand dad on the phone, I have known all about your tomorrows since I have already lived your yesterdays. This also means that with two Thanksgivings I will have extra time to think about all the things I am thankful for, but I will share a few with you now. I am thankful for all of my friends and family. I am thankful to have the opportunity to travel the world, to learn and explore. I am thankful for clean water, for food, for shelter, for happiness, for safety, for health. I am thankful for you–Happy Thanksgiving from the Pacific Ocean. xoxo

Kobe

The next day we got up bright and early and took the subway into town. We didn’t have any plans except to just walk around and explore. It was so early that all the shops and houses were buttoned up, but we walked through neighborhoods and got a glimpse of Kobe outside of the busy city center. Around lunch we headed back to the city center and did some shopping and visited China town. It is funny to visit China town after just being there! We got these amazing pot stickers at a street vender and people watched. Then we walked around and found this dessert called a dessert burger. It was a doughnut for a bun and had a cookie crunch inside and was packed with yummy fruit and hot chocolate syrup. It was SO good. I felt like I was on splendid table and so I took a video of us eating it and we gave a great NPR narration of the goodness. That night we were back on the ship to transit to Yokohama. Our transit day was nice, because transit is optional and so there were only about 250 of us on board and so it is quiet and you can catch up on journaling and school work and just watch movies and relax. It was a good day.

Kyoto

We arrived in Kobe and had a LONG debarkation process. We had to wait in line for about 2 hours to get pictured, finger printed and all of your forms checked. It was about 5 minutes per person, but they have to process 700 people and so it was a long morning. We also had to pass temperature checks in order to be let into Japan and I was so happy to pass since the whole ship came back from China with colds. Once we got through immigration we headed right onto the subway line that took us to the train station. We grabbed Chai Tea Lattes and headed for Kyoto. It took about an hour to get there and so by the time we got there the sun was setting. The station had a HUGE mall and so we wandered around and looked at clothes and stationary and accessories. Japan is super hip and trendy and so everything is cool, right down to the shoelaces that they wear—stylish from head to toe.
Then we went and found where the bus station was and got on a train into town. We got on the train, which was JAM PACKED with people. Nothing was really in English and all we had was a map and we were traveling at rush hour. We had an idea of what stop we wanted to get off at, but we weren’t exactly sure. When we got on the train I did make out an announcement that said the bus didn’t accept anything but exact change and so by some miracle I had what I needed. However, for a future note, if you are ever taking a bus in Japan, know that you need EXACT change. And, as I was on the bus with all my bags and was digging for change, I thought how smart it would be to bring those change holders like you can buy at IKEA to have in your car, and that way, on a trip, you don’t have to be digging deep in your purse in a crowded space in the dark. Anyway, we were on the bus for what seemed like an hour to move 3 stops, but we finally made it to the exact street where we wanted to be.
        We went to a temple that is open at night and it was SO beautiful. All the lanterns were lit up and it was quiet and peaceful. I think my favorite part about the temples is that you can be in rush hour traffic, surrounded by wall-to-wall people passing on the street, walking by food stand after food stand with yelling and crowds, and then you make one turn and you find yourself in a temple that is totally tranquil... you could hear a pin drop. This temple backed up to a huge park and a pond and so we just wandered around. Then we went back to the main street and wanted some food. I found a stand on the street and this guy was deep frying something that looked yummy and there was a line, which was a good sign. When I got up to the counter I asked what was in the fried dough and he walked back into his little kitchen and came out with a HUGE BOWL of octopus. He spoke absolutely no English and pointed to the pile of octopus guts.  Then I pointed to another fried thing and he pointed to the bowl again. I have to say that while I didn’t eat any, I bet it was good. Instead we kept walking. We found a big open grill on the sidewalk and a tiny little hole in the wall restaurant behind the grill. An old man was making these amazing pancakes filled with eggs and veggies and spices and seaweed and all this yummy stuff. We watched him make them and decided to eat. It was SO GOOD! After dinner we stopped in some shops before taking the train back to Kobe that night.

Last Day in China

Today we spent the day wandering around Shanghai. We wanted to take a cab to the old part of the City and had no map and no idea where it was. We asked like 4 door mans where we were and where we were trying to go and all of them said they didn’t speak any English. However, they all know how to say, “I don’t know English.”  We finally got in a cab and the driver had no idea what we were talking about and so we got out and found friends that had a map. Then we went to the metro station and got a ticket to the old city. When we got out of the metro we left our friends who had the map and were standing looking lost and a little old lady came over to me and asked if we wanted to go to the old city? I said yes and asked her if she spoke any English at all and she only spoke a tiny, tiny bit. She took us to exactly where we wanted to go and tried to explain to me where she lived and that she had lived in Shanghai all her life. She was so sweet. I just wanted to fold her up and put her in my bag and bring her home with me! She was SOOOOO cute! Sometimes when you are traveling, it is easy to get worn out with the language barrier, the overload, the unfamiliar, the everything new, the here, there and everywhere…so when you find those kind people (the mom in South Africa who gave me a hug, the school teacher in Vietnam and the sweet little old lady today) they make everything better, they make the world seem small, and they make everything seem possible. It was just what we needed! We got to a long street of vendors and we have now been around the world and so we are pros at cutting the prices in half. We saved a ton of time by naming our price and walking away. Actually, the language barrier was so fuzzy that we typed prices into calculators and then walked away! But it was a success! The weird thing was that I heard Christmas music playing in English today, but I didn’t meet a single person who spoke English…go figure. Tonight we are all back on the ship and heading for Japan. Classes are back in session tomorrow! Hope all is well! Love from China! xox

Temple of Heaven

The last day in Beijing we went to the Temple of Heaven that is in a park. Just FYI: The emperors from the Forbidden City were known for going to this temple and all the roofs have blue tile to match the sky (instead of the traditional yellow tile). The square was full of senior citizens playing bad mitten, cards, dominos etc, because the senior citizens get into the temple for free—Terwilliger Plaza would have LOVED this place! It was pretty cool to see all these guys having domino competitions!  Then we went to a traditional teahouse! They showed us all these different types of traditional Chinese teas and how to smell them and taste them and how to hold your tea cup with your pointer finger and your thumb and have your middle finger on the bottom of the cup. These cups were not even cups-- it was like tea shots! They were sooooo small. I have HUGE tea MUGS at home and so I would have to have about 2 billion trillion sips of tea in order to even fill one of my mugs. But, they were fun to try and it was interesting to learn about all the different types of teas and what time of day they drink each kind and what tea to drink when you are sick or sad or whatever. It was good to have the tea ceremony at the end of the trip because if you have seen the bathrooms in China, you know to hold it. I thought I had to pee at the Great Wall and when I walked into the bathroom I decided to just wait until we got back to the ship… I have been to Ghana and India so that is saying a lot. Actually, now that I mention it, there are a lot of places in the world that you should probably just hold it and wait. Luckily, today, in Shanghai when we were looking for a bathroom they didn’t even have any—ANYWHERE--and had no idea what we were talking about. That takes care of that.

The Great Wall!

The next morning we went and visited an international Kung-Fu School. They put on a performance for us where they broke glass using their heads, smashed big sticks in half and kicked each other. Then they had picture time and if you know me at all you know that I:
A.      Never get up on stage
B.      NEVER Get my picture taken with people on stage
C.      NEVER Act like a kung-fu person in a picture on a stage
D.      But I am happy to watch other people do A-C on stage.
So I stood and watched from the audience. Then they taught us some moves…again, I just watched because I don’t need to learn kung fu. I was watching friends attempt Kung Fu moves when I suddenly noticed a bunch of little kids outside. I walked outside and all these little kids that were between ages 3-9 years old were learning kung fu. They were SO cute! ADORABLE! This one little kid (who I wanted to take home) was about three and he didn’t really want to learn kung-fu or be out in the freezing cold and he was trying so hard and trying not to cry. His dad was amazing at kung-fu and was trying to help him along. I was a huge help to this little kid (I am sure) as I took pictures and video of him and was cheering him on as he tried to do the splits. I wished that I had been able to speak fluent Chinese to tell him that I am 21 and still can’t do the splits so not to worry about it. I also wished I could have told him how proud I was that he was sticking with it—since I would have gotten up and said no way—I want to go inside and play with my toys. He was precious. SO CUTE! I watched them for about an hour and we left they were still practicing! Then we drove the rest of the way to the Great Wall! The Great Wall is called “the long wall of Ten Thousand Li.” However, the Great Wall is way better than great and so I think it should be called the freaking amazing, incredible totally cool wall! FYI: It took more than 300,000 men and 10 years to complete. I didn’t know that there were so many stairs and so I was surprised by how much uphill and downhill there was and you can trip and kill yourself if your not careful! I made sure not to trip. Don’t trip on your trip. That is the motto. I do think that there should be a race on the wall! I think that would be awesome—an ultra marathon! We took a tram to one of the sections and got to walk along the wall for about an hour. It was so amazing! We had a photo shoot and took a million trillion pictures! We got to watch the sunset and then we got coco and made our way back to Beijing. We had a HUGE meal with all kinds of rice, chicken, beef, and pot stickers, hot and sour soup, egg soup, rice cakes, spring rolls, egg rolls, fruit! It was so yummy! Then we went to an Acrobatic show. They had live birds that flew all around and it probably had a theme, but it was all in Chinese so who knows?!? The acrobats climbed up on a stack of 10 chairs and then did hand stands (I can do that), made a pyramid with a trillion people (no big deal), balanced on bicycles (easy), jumped through hoops and were bendable in all directions (anyone can do that). It was impressive. I am not a huge acrobat fan, but this was cool. It was similar to Cirque de Soule (yup, spelled that wrong) and then we headed back to the hotel for the night.