Japan leg end

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Every passage we depart for seem to get better each time, probably because we are not wasting all our energy tring to hide from the blazing sun or in a freezing puddle in our foulys. This passage was especialy entertaining, particularly in our watch (we have become the strangly fun watch). We have found some odd ways of entertining ourwelves, from tea cerimones, eating strange meat candys (20% more what?! yak?) and flying paper cranes of the railings.

Hiroshima:
I will always be impresed by two things in Japan, the kindness of the people, and the effciency of almost everything, especialy the transit system! Anyway as usual we went out to explore town and get to know the tram system, and then had a date night at a sushi train. It was a little difficult to get in because we had to digitaly get a seat and had no idea how to do so. Luckily we had two ladies help us out so that problem was solved.
The next day Zack and I had an art and culture day. WE first went to an gallary in which I had been expecting classical Japanies art but found a French impression exibit instead!? afterwards we went to the military base and castle nearby and wandered around the beautiful gardens that overlooked the moat!
today was oursomber day, we all got together as a boat and headed off to the war memorials. We of course made a compleat spectical of ourselves on the train ride over to town (37 loud white ppl filling into a v small space) but as soon as we steped off at the A-bomb dome we all were struck silent. we then walked over to the childrens memorial, which had thousands of brightly coloured paper cranes hanging all around it, and the peace arch were all the names of the ppl who had die were kept in a marble box underneath it. next we wandered around the museam for a few hours. It was facinating and disterbing at the same time, with all the stories of everything being suddenly destroyed in a split second and all the children who got burned and then tryied to walk home only to die the next day. The pictures of the people really made it seem real, it was hard to look at them but also hard to look away. Once we had all filled out of the building, forward watch (and a few stragalers) went out for an early dinner/late lunch to process what we just saw and how it made us feel!
we spent the last two days in Hiroshima relaxing and getting ready for our final (and shortest) passage, hade some great nothing days and are rejuvinated for whats to come!

Passage:
Our shortest bt one of the most pleasent! It was now almost warm enought to spend time on deck, even when it wasn't your watches turn to be on the helm. So everyone was beeing a little more social and it was just a great few days! oh and Amanda and I spent half of the passage tring to figure out ways to prank our watch leader Jose (putting tabasco sauce in his mug and putting strange objects in his bunk...). This was also the passage that we finaly killed and found slyvester houdiny the rat! Greg and I were send below deck to clean out the bilges, and as we were waist deep (head first) in them greg gave a little yelp and pointed out the unmoving figure of him. Turns out he ate something that didn't agree with his stomach, pucked on katies pillow then curled up down there!
It took a few tries to actully get into Osaka, the first time wehad to ancore and wait for the right tide, and the next day the traffic lanes were to busy so we ahd to stay for anouther night and then navagaite through at 4 in the morrning! Chase and I Go to stear through the lanes and under the miles long bridges, we almost didn't make it through and were about to turn around when we got down to 2knots aginst the tide going full rev. But we eventuy made it in and were aloud to crash for the rest of the night!

Osaka, our final destination:
Eight days seemed to go by way to quickly! after the first day of getting to know the town, some friends and I imeadiatly went over to Universal studios (which was directly beside our port) to have a fun fill day of standing in lines...
the next two day were filled with re-sorting, cleaning and buying more food to put in the galley storage. again I was sent down to the bilge (but this time through the bunks instead of the sole) to clean out what ever had gotten stuck down there. But the shopping for food was a blast, mostly tring to figure out what exactly it was that we were buying, but ppl on next leg have the joy of finding that out! but after everything was cleaned my watch when out for our final watch dinner to comemarate Seans birthday. So we rented a room (we couldn't find any bathhouses nearby so we had resorted to one person renting a room and then the majority of the boat filling through to have showers) and then headed out for train sushi, just so we didn't have to bother with tring to ordr in a launguage we mostly didn't understand!
Had a great day with Rach, Zack and Amanda, we all head into town to explore the city. First we walked around to get our bearings and had luch in a little park were we fed the birds. Then wen off to have fun in an arcade, of course we didnt play any of the games, just played in the photo booths again tring to decifer the meaning to the buttons we were pressing. after that we ran into Graham and he took us to a batting cage nearby, somehow I managed to beat everybody with the number of shots hit out of the park! Then we had a quite night at the movies, and when home exasted!
Woke up to see that my friends had compleatly hollowed out a loaf of bread, stuck a flashing headlight into it and were dancing around it.... we have reached a new low of ways to amuse ourselves.
Got up early and took the train to Nara to see Manjing Castle, It was amazing, almost all the original materials and several stories high! afterwards we found a tourist center that had free bick rentals (and as the thrifty student travelers we are) took them up on the offer, so we had seven white people, again, making a scene by riding through town (respectfully) racing eachother. That night everyone, exept the crew, when out for a karioky night, but couldn't find a place that would acomadate 20odd people so we found an arcade and had a great time there!

Our last day on the boat: mostly consisted of packing and getting our space ready for the next people coming on, it was a bit chaotic saying that this was the biggest change-over of people since the first leg. We all got more or less dolzed up for dinner and everyone who had gotten clothing tailored showed them off. It was kindof a depressing night saying that we wouldnt be seeing alot of these people for a few months, but it was made better by the fact that most of us had agreed to come down to Victoria in June.

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