Port #3: Yokohama Day 1

Port #3: Yokohama

                Day 1: Shibuya, Harajuku, Tokyo, and Tsukube

   What a day!!! Seriously, my experiences get better every day I’m in each port.  I am having such a great time; I don’t see how it can get any better than this!  I woke up this morning, February 9, 2010 at 8am to sit down in the dining hall and eat breakfast in front of the beautiful scenery of Yokohama.  At 8am we got to the port and it took about an hour for us to reach the dock. This port was HUGE! Yet I am not surprised…its Japan!  After breakfast I went up to the top deck to watch us dock.  We were quite far from the pier and could hear drumming.  There were five drummers standing on the roof of the port terminal playing the Taiko Drums for us as we docked.  That was a very nice welcome to Japan!

                Although we docked at 9, we couldn’t get off the ship until noon.  The ship was announcing us by our groups randomly and it took awhile between each group because of customs.  Each of us was fingerprinted, thermal scanned, and a picture of our eyes was taken, plus all of the regular immigration checks.  So I finally got through customs and met up with my friend Soya.  (Soya is a friend of mine who lives in the prefecture of Chiba.  His girlfriend, Natsuka stayed at my house in 2006 for three weeks, and I spent a few days with her and her family that summer in Japan while I lived in Kashiwa for three weeks.)  Soya offered to take me and my friend Becca around Tokyo for the day. (Becca is one of my girlfriends who is from Michigan and goes to Ithica.) Soya was so nice and traveled to Yokohama just to pick us up.  Thank God for Soya or else Becca and I would have spent the entire day helpless little lost souls in Yokohama and Tokyo.  He took us to the post office so that Becca could exchange money, then we hopped on a train to go to a special station to exchange my money, then found the correct place to exchange Becca’s voucher for the Japan Rail Pass.  After all of that mess was taken care of, we were off to Shibuya to have a great time! … I had been to Shibuya and Harajuku before, but it is a great, exciting and fun place to be so I didn’t mind going back and I definitely wanted Becca to experience it.  While in Shibuya, Soya took us to a Japanese restaurant that was tucked into a building.  We had no idea what the menu said, but luckily Japan includes pictures with their menus so that helpless tourists like us could order food that at least looked good.  Both Becca and I got decided on a chicken and vegetable dish that had an interesting sweet and sour orange flavor to it.  It was delicious! And of course it came with rice and miso soup; my favorites! From there we walked a few miles to Harajuku: a city of fashion, entertainment, and cosplay!  (Shibuya and Harajuku are very hip cities for the young life, as opposed to Ginza directed to middle aged and older woman).  So Harajuku is a place where teenagers can dress up in costumes of any sort.  There are all kinds of looks and characters here.  I have a picture of me with a Japanese girl who looks like Little Bo Peep.  After walking around we decided to head into Tokyo more and go to the Tokyo Tower.  I thought I had been here in 2006 and once I got to the top, I realized I hadn’t.  It was gorgeous!  And we were so lucky!  Right when we got off the elevator, our eyes were drawn to the most beautiful orange sunset I have ever seen.  Miles and miles of Tokyo glowed orange from the reflection of the setting sun off the windows and roofs.  And even better!... Mt. Fuji lied there, PERFECTLY placed in that picturesque scene.  I was literally speechless.  I know how rare it is to see Mt. Fuji.  For three weeks I tried to see Mt. Fuji and only caught a glimpse before the clouds rolled in.  And today, it was right in front of me; presenting itself so rare and so beautifully as if God himself painted a scene above the Tokyo skyline for me to witness for five minutes before the sunset.  This sounds weird, but that moment had such a huge impact on me.  I have pictures, but I feel like they do not do justice for what I saw today.  A beautiful sunset. A symbol, icon of Japan.  Overlooked the biggest city in Japan with 8-13 million people.   I stood there at the top of Tokyo Tower, 250m high, staring at this view which I knew I would never experience again and realizing that THIS is why I am on this trip: the emotions I felt of being so small in such a large, beautiful world that God has created and reminding myself how freaking lucky I am to do this. 

                We left Tokyo and got on a train for an hour to go to Tsukube to visit Natsuka for dinner.  I didn’t realize this until I was on that train, that we would be passing through Kashiwa, the home where I lived for three weeks and the residence of all my friends and families.  It was a bitter sweet feeling as we stopped at that train stop.  Brought back good memories, but I wish I had more time to see all of my friends whom I miss so much! When we reached Tsukube, Natsuka was outside in her car waiting for us.  She picked the three of us up and took us to dinner.  We went to a really nice restaurant where we sat on tatomi mats on the floor and we ate Shaboo-Shaboo and Sukiyaki. (please excuse the misspelling! I realized I massacred the Japanese, but I want to post this blog ASAP and do not have internet access to look up these words.) The food was DELICIOUS!!! Ladies dressed in Kimonos came into our private room and started cooking the meal in front of us, then later Soya and Natsuka took over.  There was SO much to eat! Mom, Dad, Steven: you are going to be SO proud of me!!!!!....I ate macaroll, tuna, yellow tail, scallops (all raw!) and crab.  AND I ate raw eggs (which you know I NEVER eat yoke, raw or now! Haha) I enjoyed all of it, especially the yoke! haha.  Well, Becca and I weren’t too fond of the texture of some of the fish, but we didn’t mind the taste.  I had such a great time.  Great food and great company.  I had a very hard time saying bye to Natsuka again.  But I told her I’d be back to visit, hopefully sooner than later.

                Becca and I got back to the ship at 1am after a wonderful first day in Japan.  I was exhausted and ready to hit the sack, but first wanted to write this blog.  But before I could even do that, I was stopped at my bedroom door with a note addressed to me.  It said I had a package. WHAT? I never receive packages!!! So excited, I ran upstairs hoping that the desk would still be open. What the heck, it still was! AWESOME! So I got a fairly large package from my family.  I ran down to my room and showed it off to Sally and Becca.  I was too excited to wait, so I opened it right then.  Aw I thought. My brother baked me a few cookies, as I glanced in the box around a piece of paper.  Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. As I moved the paper, I saw nothing by cookies! I was literally laughing out loud and the girls looked at me really confused.  I looked back and them and turned the box upside down as I dumped the cookies all over me creating a sea of cookies.  Included inside was a card (a cute fuzzy polar bear card) from my mommy for Valentine’s Day.  So thank you mom!!!! Sorry I opened it early, but it was the best surprise ever!!!!! (Besides the three surprises on my birthday!) You never cease to amaze me.  Thanks for being so cute!!! I miss you and love you mom, dad, and Steven! (steven, I take it you baked the cookies? I saw ur specialties were in there.)

                Its 3am now.  I have to wake up at 6.  Shoot! Hopefully I can sleep on the bus ride to Mt. Fuji and Hakone.  I am traveling with Semester at Sea so there won’t be any exciting “getting lost” stories this time. But I’m sure I’ll have plenty to write about still tomorrow night.