Ferry to Japan

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Japan signified the end of hotels and cheap taxi’s and the start of hostels and expensive living. We changed £75 into Japanese Yen and got only one note ¥ 10,000. We had booked our Ferry tickets on arrival in Shanghai and this time made sure we had a semi good room. It was the best room for the cheapest amount of money. There were shared Japanese style dorms which meant sleeping on tatami mats. We didn’t much fancy this and so booked a 4 person cabin. It was far bigger than any of the train cabins we had been in. We took a taxi to the ferry terminal and queued amongst Chinese high school students. There was not a white face to be seen and then we turned a corner and 4 girls cheered at us. We weren’t expecting to see any other foreigners and so we were pleasantly surprised. There was no Miss Marple or Doctor Wong but 2 mad Austrian girls and 2 sisters from England. Other foreigners appeared in dribs and drabs but none of the others spoke. One thing we have found travelling is that foreigners don’t talk to each other hardly ever. We try and catch their eye in the street but lots of people actively avoid looking at you. We find this really weird- maybe it’s just us they don’t want to speak to.??? As we leaft Shanghai we got some great photos of the buildings.

We were sharing our room with 2 Chinese girls from the white shirt brigade. (On the ferry were two big groups; the grey track suited teenagers and the white shirt and black trousers brigade who were slightly older than the teenagers but Chinese nevertheless.) Anyway these girls did nothing but eat, sleep and watch the T.V, which was in our room. We on the other hand went out to the lounge areas and the deck each day. We sat and chatted, listened to iPods and generally tried to entertain ourselves until the Chinese began to suffer quite severely and noisily from sea sickness. If you’ve read our other blogs you will know what we think about Chinese hygiene. Well this really took the biscuit. All around the ferry were good strong looking sick bags and even sea sickness pills for free at the information desk so we thought it might get a bit choppy and it did. We were all sat in the lounge area when a woman near us began being sick as loudly as was humanly possible and multiple times. She made no attempt to move towards the toilets. The sick bag remained in her hand swinging back and forwards whilst other people were sat next to her. She never had a drink or washed her mouth out and THEN she just put her open sick bag in the communal bin. YUCK!!! None of us could believe what we were seeing or smelling in fact. Eventually we had to move. She stayed there for the best part of the entire 2 and half days being sick at the top of her voice. We suggested sickness pills and even using the toilet to be sick in but apparently that is not an option. The last night on the ferry we decided that we should experience the ships bar/karaoke area. I’m pleased to say that we didn’t sing but the crazy Austrians did and of course the Chinese and Japanese. Karaoke is a serious business over here but to the untrained ear it can be easily confused with the sound of a wailing cat. A couple of beers later we were busy copying the OAP ladies on the next table who were doing sit down at a table exercises. A sort of brain gym meets circulation exercises.

The following morning we disembarked and followed the Austrians, who had been to Japan before and new exactly what they were doing. In fact they loved all things Japanese and were even taking night classes to learn to speak the language. Luckily for us their hotel was across the road from ours so they guided us from the ferry terminal to the centre of Osaka. This meant we got a crash course on how to use the trains and metro lines. This was invaluable and set us in good stead for our future travels in Japan.

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Comments

[Paul J]

Nice present for someone?
You should keep the sick bag (containing the sick) as a souvenir. Things like that will remind you of your happy times. At least you are on dry land now, I'd love to see some Japanese cities.