Yokohama Mama

Today we are back on the ship after two wonderful days in Yokohama and Tokyo. My whirlwind two days were unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. We arrived in rainy Yokohama at 8 in the morning. In Japan, unlike Hawaii, the entire ship does not have to go through immigration before the ship is cleared. Instead, all of our passports are reviewed by the Japanese officials while we wait on the boat to hear that we’ve cleared. We were hoping the entire process would take only three hours, but it was more like four hours. The Japanese government also brings an official onboard to do a thermal screening.” They ask for anyone who has been suffering from a fever, diarrhea, sore throat, or an upper respiratory infection to report to them in the ship’s medical clinic. Our ship doctor made sure to brief us on this as the people who take the Japanese up on their offer for a thermal screen don’t usually ever leave the ship. Needless to say, nobody from our program volunteered for the screening.
Once our ship cleared at noon, we headed to the train so we could make it to the Yasukuni Shrine and Yushukan (Museum). We had a trip leader who had lived in Japan for three years, which came in handy as the Japanese train/subway system is extremely complex. After a train change and a stop at the ATM, our group of 20 or so made it to the shrine. The rain had stopped and the weather was the perfect temp for walking around the grounds. This shrine was founded in 1869 as a memorial to the 2.5 million Japanese who have died in military service to their country. A statue of Masujiro Omura, a Japanese commander who defended the imperial Meiji government scowled at us upon entry. The shrine has a history of political controversy since the Japanese constitution explicitly renounces state-sponsored religion and militarism, but is still a well-visited site with hundreds of thousands of Japanese paying their respects each year. One of the students on our trip is Japanese and she explained to our group that we should approach the shrine, bow twice and mediate on something important, make an offer of 100 yen (this is a dollar or so as the exchange rate was 113 yen to the dollar) clap twice to awake the spirits and bow once more. There was also a small box to place a donation of 100 yen. The donation allowed you to select a fortune, written on Japanese and in English on small sheets of paper. If you liked the fortune, you were permitted to keep it. If the fortune was a bad one, you could tie it to the branches of the trees near the shrine to release it.
Since we were pretty exhausted at this point, we got back on the train and headed to Asakusa, which is home to the largest tempura restaurant in Tokyo. Tempura is basically batter-fried veggies and seafood and it was delicious. At this point, Lara, who is a professor of music on the ship, and I decide it is time to find our hotel which had been described by our two guide books as an “upscale capsule hotel” (think The Killers’ music video, “Read My Mind”). The capsules were described as one meter by two meters, with nice sauna facilities. Some would say this is akin to a small coffin, others would say this is a chance to be adventurous. As most of you know, I love a good plan, so I was feeling pretty proud for suggesting the capsule hotel plan (not knowing if there would be good pillows or not). Thus, you can see how it was then EXTREMELY daring and adventurous of me to accept Lara’s decision to wait until the morning we arrived in Yokohama to make our reservation for the hotel. When the internet was not available that morning and we were, thus, unable to make the reservation, I told myself not to worry, that we’d be fine. When it was 11:15 PM at night and we were still wandering around the neighborhoods of Shibuya with our overnight bags, I was screaming in my head, “We should have made a plan. If only we had made a reservation and highlighted it in pink!” As Lara is a new friend, I thought it was perhaps best to save any rantings about a plan for our second outing together in a foreign land...too much drama for the first.
Luckily for us, there were nice people everywhere who tried to help us. I was repeatedly touched by the number of people who came to our aid throughout the entire trip in Tokyo. Even more significantly for us was the fact that people helped us in English--as Americans so far from home we marveled at how spoiled we were and how unable we'd be able to return the favor should any of our Japanese friends travel to Virginia. At least four different people tried to point us in the direction of the hotel, but when we finally got to the alleged hotel area, we found a man who said the words the rest had been too kind to say, "closed." EEEEKKK! So, we backtracked our circuitous loop and found an inn to stay in--the beds were made of brick, the pillows of beans, the shower spickets faucets did double duty as the bathroom sink faucets, but we were safe AND we had robes & slippers to change into for the evening. AND we were in Tokyo!!! Life was good.
The following day, blonde heads bent over our Lonely Planet guides to Tokyo, staring up at the Japanese writing on the walls of the train station and back at our guidebooks, we encountered more kindness of strangers. A business man took the time out of his midmorning commute to approach us and walk us to the correct train. He told us he'd never been to the States, but he had been to Honolulu. Later that day we stopped for the Japanese delicacy of ramen noodles after a failed attempt to eat them at lunch (we ended up in a spaghetti restaurant as the numerous bowls of plastic noodles in the front of the restaurant looked like ramen to us. There we successfully ordered a meal where nobody spoke English and there were no pictures on the menu for us to "cheat" with. We had to order your dinner from a machine on the wall where you inserted money and were printed a ticket to hand to the host. The host gave us one tip by pointing to three different buttons and stating, "small, medium, and large." Apparently supersize me hasn't taken off in Japan because all three sizes cost the same. We paid our money and took the bibs he offered us, pretending not to notice that none of the other Japanese in the small, hole-in-the-wall restaurant were wearing bibs. We think ours said "dumbass American" on the front, but, again, since we can't read the language we may never know. The dinner was delicious (this is not the Ramen of your college days--or Andres sisters of your usual snacks)and since tipping is not done in Japan, we thanked our host by giving him a small bow and comforted ourselves knowing the joy we must have brought him while trying to make sense of the menu!
Our visit ended with a visit to the Imperial Palace East Garden, the only part of the Palace open to the public, where we were meeting our friend Kathy, the ship’s librarian. Perhaps because she was celebrating her birthday, she had made sure to confirm her hotel reservation the previous night, so we regaled her with tales of our 2984376529384765 mile hike around the city the previous evening.
We set sail last night at midnight. Today’s been a great ship day—only 80 of the college students are sailing with us to Kobe as many of them bought rail passes and are traveling independently between the two ports. The faculty and staff took over the pool in the afternoon where we lounged in the sun and then tonight we get a special five course dinner. Internet was blacked out in Yokohoma and is extremely slow today—so slow I can’t even read all of the emails much less respond to all of you who have sent me lovely notes. Speaking of lovely notes, Pauletta, Connie, and Sarah Campbell, thank you for yours. Real mail, especially when the internet is so spotty and the credit card companies can’t find you, is something truly special and much appreciated. Arigato, friends!
Finally, please know that in addition to "mastering" the Tokyo subway system (see attached map picture) I have mastered the scantron machine and have finished grading the 632 global studies exams which is one of the less glamorous aspects of my job. The students will have those grades to look forward to after Kobe. We arrive there at 8 AM tomorrow. Love to you all!