Around the world in 106 days: Japan day 5- Kobe and Reflection of Japan

Today is our last day in Transit, tomorrow we arrive in Hong Kong. Again I am trying to stay caught up on my blog and also schoolwork. So excited for Hong Kong!

Jan 31^st

The morning of Kobe we met our friends in the dining hall for breakfast at around 8am (we literally dragged ourselves out of bed). We were all exhausted but excited to see Kobe and enjoy our last day in Japan! We ended up leaving the ship around 10am after exchanging more money and then getting everyone through immigration. Once everyone was through though we walked about 2 miles to the nearest bank so someone could get money out and then the post office for people to send stuff out to family. While they did that though we got to use some Wi-Fi, which is like a treasure when we can actually get online and see Facebook, especially if its more than 5 minutes. But we didn’t stay long and kept moving on. Our first destination was a district that was known for its western style houses. On the way we came across a Shinto shrine so we stopped and explained the shrine to our friends who had never seen one before and also watched a ceremony that was happening in the temple.

After we kept waking and came across a Japanese bakery, so we followed our senses and ordered things we thought looked interesting. Everything from doughnuts, to some kind of maple cake, to my chocolate pastry I got that had a filling. We all tried each other’s and they were all really good. Each was fresh and delicious in their own way. We spent some time sitting and talking on the streets of Kobe while we enjoyed our pastries. We walked up a hill and came across a Muslim mosque and we stopped to take pictures and while we were doing this a man on a bike came up to us and asked if we wanted a group picture so we got a picture of all of us. I found it really interesting how diverse Japan was in their religious beliefs. Although most people were Shinto, Buddhist or Christian it wasn’t hard to find other religions also.

We ended up giving up on finding the houses and decided to walk toward a shopping district so we could get food. Me, Angela and Kim all wanted to try some Kobe beef before we left. Unfortunately if you want Kobe steak it’ around 3,000yen per person or over 35 American dollars. So instead we settled and found a place that was serving a Kobe Beef Hamburger with gravy for lunch, which also came with potatoes soup and salad for a third of the price of the steak. It ended up being such a good choice. The salad was dark green lettuce with an orange dressing and some mayo, a miso soup and then our entrée. This ended up being a pretty big lunch but we finished every bit of it. It was one of the best meals I had while In Japan. The Kobe Beef hamburger was so juicy and delicious. We were all so glad we didn’t give up on it and still got to try it. After we ate we walked toward the water because we were told there was good shopping. We ended up stopping and trying some crepes, I know they aren’t Japanese but I had still never had one so we all got our own. Mine was strawberry, banana and whip cream, it was so good.

On the way to the shopping area we ran into our friends and took pictured with them in front of some famous Kobe buildings nearby. Some locals came up to us and asked us questions about where we were from and stuff, we were being pretty loud and joking around with each other so we drew people’s attention but they were laughing too. The group started walking back to the ship since we had to be on the ship by 6pm to avoid dock time. We thought we had plenty of time so we went off on our own. We shopped until 4:30 and then decided to take the train back to the ship. To save money we decided to buy children tickets onto the subway, the security guard seemed to know we got children ones but he didn’t even care. We got down to the trains though and got confused about which way. So Angela and Kim went back up to ask, I waited for a bit but they didn’t show so I went up to check on them. It ended up that the guard made them exchange their tickets for an adult ticket. I had to do the same. They were not mad though they were laughing. It was funny though because buying a child ticket is not an easy thing to do you have to actually press separate buttons and everything so we couldn’t play stupid tourist. We had a few laughs about it though. Once we found our right train we realized it was 5pm and we had to be on the ship in 1 hour, not including if there is any line waiting for us. We literally ran to each transfer for trains and made it to our ship at 5:30 with a huge line. As we ran up the the line the executive dean said to me “don’t bother running you’re not getting on on time”. We pretty much freaked out because ship time is a total bummer. (for every 15 minutes your late you have to wait 2 hours at the next port before getting off). BUT at 5:55pm we walked through the gates of the ship and gave each other a nice big hug. We made it in time for dinner and so we ate, relaxed and pretty much headed to bed really early because we had class the next day.

Reflection.

Japan we so different than what I expected. I thought the language barrier would be such a pain but it really wasn’t that big of a deal. There was never a person we met that was mean or rude. Everyone we met was happy to help or tried their best to help us. Some even going out of their way to help us. My impression of the Japanese is that they are very orderly. There is a way you do things and there’s a reason for everything. You take off your shoes when entering a room to keep the floors clean. Everywhere we went the streets were always very clean and for major cities that’s not easy. They are also very big into recycling. Everywhere you go it’s very important to recycle. The thing I did have trouble with was that there was never any garbage cans! If you ever had trash you had to hold onto it until you could find one.

The culture was so rich, I loved walking in the middle of a city and stumbling upon shrines and temples to be reminded of their history and their culture. Another impression I got was that they were accepting of many types of people, but just religions but I was a handful of cross dressers and people who openly walked the streets in costume. While they walked around no one seemed bothered by it and the people dressed up were not just in touristy areas either. I thought it was really interesting to see things like that, but at the same time 98 percent of the people we saw were Asian. We were always the minority (other than my Asian friends that were with us). My friend Bridget especially with blond hair was always looked at because she was so different. They didn’t bother her or anything it was just curiosity. Overall I would love to go back to Japan and see more. But with more time because 5 days was a tease.