Japan

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Kobe

Hello all! So we got into port in Japan at about 8 am, but we weren’t able to get off the ship until about 11:30 because Japan has a crazy immigration process. First we had to get our temperature taken, then we had face to face inspections with immigration officials to check our passports, and then they even took our fingerprints. Once we finally got into Kobe, Michael, our friend Johnny and I got on the subway to go visit the hot springs on the other side of the city, past Rokko Mountain. It took us a while to find the right train to take, but we eventually made it to the little town that had the hot springs. Unfortunately there were no actual “hot springs” like we expected with waterfalls and natural pools, but they were actually just spas with weird kinds of natural “healing” water. This was a bit of a disappointment, but we decided that we’d come all that way to go relax in some hot water, so we just went to one of the cheap spas and went for it. Unfortunately we hit another road bump when we got in the locker room of the spa and realized that no one wore bathing suits because they weren’t allowed. Awkward. Well we had made it that far, so we just put our heads down and got in the spas… that part of it was really weird, but anyway there were three pools, hot, hotter, and boiling. The hot one was just normal water, but the other two were some crazy brown water that they said was “radioactive”. The water was extremely hot though, and Johnny actually had to get out after only a few minutes because he was getting light headed. I stayed in the hot and hotter pools for a while, but I was only able to stand the boiling lava tub for about ten seconds, and then I had to call it a day on the hot water and naked guys. After that we got some ice cream to cool down, and we headed to the ropeway (cable car) to go up to the top of Rokko Mountain. We got some awesome views of the backside of the mountain as we went over the forest up the ropeway. Once we got to the top, we walked to the cable car that went down the otherside of the mountain into the city of Kobe. We checked out the view from there for a while and then headed down the cable car and got on the subway and went back to the ship for dinner. We went out to a club called “Second Chance”, which was really fun at first, but then the place got packed with SAS kids, so we eventually just headed back to the ship. The next morning I woke up early and got breakfast before going out to explore Kobe with a couple friends. It was interesting walking around in the city because everybody wears suits and the girls all dress very stylish with weird hair styles and crazy outfits and big boots. After exploring the main area of the city for a while, we headed over to the area of town with a little amusement park and a bunch of little shops. We rode the ferris wheel and got some good pictures from the top of that, and then we headed back to the subway station to see what else there was to do in Kobe. We couldn’t really find too much of anything to do that wasn’t really far away, so we decided to go explore Rokko Mountain some more because I hadn’t really gotten to see much of the mountain when I was passing through the day before. We rode the cable car up the frontside of the mountain this time, and once we got to the top we decided to walk along one of the trails for a while, and then we decided that we were gonna go to the golf course that was up there and try to use the driving range. Unfortunately the club house manager said that they didn’t have a driving range, but I think that he actually just didn’t want to let us use it because we were a bunch of young tourists that he didn’t trust. Anyway we only had a couple hours before we had to be on the ship at this point, so we decided to get on one of the busses that drives around the mountain in order to see some more good views and the surrounding area. After riding around the mountain for about a half hour, we got back on the cable car and went down the mountain and then returned to the ship to head to Yokohama.
We had the option of taking the ship to Yokohama or going there independently, but it was only one day on the ship, so I decided that I would save some money and simply ride the ship rather than paying for transportation and a hotel, which was really expensive in Japan.

Yokohama

The ship got cleared by immigration at 8 am in Yokohama, so we were all able to head off the ship really early. A couple friends and I decided to go check out Tokyo, which was only about a half hour away by subway. We found the subway in Yokohama and took it to Tokyo station, which was a pretty easy trip. We just wandered around that area of town for a while, and went to the Imperial Palace and walked around that for a while too. The Palace was basically just a huge park with a bunch of ponds, trees, and pretty buildings. After walking around there for a while we decided that we would try to find the “Oriental Market”, which was in another section of town. We took a subway, and after being pointed in the right direction by a local, we started walking towards the market. Unfortunately it wasn’t a “market” at all, so we ended up walking up and down the street three times before finding out that the “oriental market” was just a stupid little store. That was kind of frustrating, but we ended up eating some lunch near there and then walking to the Meji Shrine. The shrine had architecture very similar to that of the buildings at Tiananmen Square, but other than that it was nothing too special. We left there and eventually found an actual market that had a bunch of good foods and a bunch of local and souvenir type stores. What was really interesting though was the fact that almost every store and shop was decorated for Christmas already, despite the fact that it was almost two months away. I guess that they go all out for Christmas in Japan, even though there aren’t really any Christians. After wandering through the market for a while we decided to go see the “Times Square” of Tokyo, in Shinjuku. We took a subway there and immediately stepped out into a bunch of huge buildings with tons of neon lights all over. We wandered around just checking out all the crazy stuff going on for a while, and then we found a food market that snaked its way through several streets, so we walked through it and just checked out all the crazy foods that they had like squids and snake. After we wandered through the area for a while, we decided to head back to Yokohama. On the ride back, all of the locals on the subway were passed out asleep. Even the people standing up were asleep, but once we got to the station that everybody was getting off at, they all suddenly woke up and got off the train. Anyway, we got back at like 8:30 and were all starving so we tried to find somewhere to eat, but everyplace that looked good was really expensive. We eventually made our way to Chinatown and found a place that looked good and wasn’t expensive. After eating we headed back to the ship and all went to bed really early because a full day of walking around had really tired us out.
We had planned to get up at 5 the next morning to go to Mount Fuji on the subway/bus, but in the morning we decided it would be better and easier to just try to get on the SAS trip that was leaving at 7. We ate breakfast at 6:30 and then went and stood out by the busses in hopes that people wouldn’t show up so that we could have their spots. It ended up that they booked 2 busses even though there were only like 40 people going on the trip, so we all got to go. It was a long bus ride (almost 2 hours), but it was way worth it to go because the mountain was amazing. It was perfectly shaped with a perfect snow cap at the top, and it stood out way above all the other mountains in the area. When we got to the 5th station (which is as high as you can drive) it was really windy and cold, but it was really cool being that close to the top (I think it was like 6 km from the summit). We got some pictures with us and the mountain in the background, and also of the view down the mountain, which was really cool. After visiting the mountain we headed down to a town called Hakone, where we took a little cruise on a lake that had a bunch of really pretty autumn views, and an awesome view of Fuji. We just took a bunch of pictures and enjoyed the views, and then we got off the boat and checked out one of the “Check Points” that the Japanese used a long time ago to make sure that concubines didn’t escape their cities. It was very touristy, but there were some pretty interesting things to see. After that we got back on the bus and made our way back to the ship. When we got back there was a huge line to get on the ship because Japan immigration did another face to face inspection of our passports, so we had to wait in line forever before getting back on the ship.

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