Kobe, Japan

 

Day 1

We arrived in Yokohama at our normal time, 0800 and were all given quarantine cards.  We had been warned the night before that Japanese customs takes a while and is a much harder process than any of our previous countries, so we knew not to expect to get off the ship in any timely manner.  Around 0830 we started the process by filing through the faculty/staff lounge and walking past an infrared camera that took our temperatures.  If we passed, which we all did, they took our quarantine cards.  Next we had our diplomatic briefing while they continued to clear the ship.  They slowly began calling the ship by our seas (hallways).  When they did we had to get off the ship and go into a building next to the ship, pick up our passports and customs cards, and get in an extremely long line of students.  When you finally got to the front of the line they scanned your passport and then took you picture and your fingerprints!  Even though this was so annoying it was kind of neat having your fingerprints taken.  I was planning to hang out with Chris and Stephanie, so they waited until my sea was called to leave the ship, since my sea was one of the last ones called.  Once we were off and cleared customs we headed into the city.  You can either walk into the city, which takes about a half hour, or take the $2 train into Sannoymia station, the main station in the city.  From the train station we walked about a half hour to Mt. Rokko, the main mountain in Kobe.  A lot of student hiked the mountain that day (and some got lost), but we took the cable car up.  We had such great views of Kobe, and could even see our ship from the top.  After taking some pictures and enjoying the view, we headed down.  It was a sunny day but there was a slight haze that made the pictures not come out nearly as clear as it really was to the eye.  After headed back down we walked back to Sannoymia station and then we walked to Kobe City Hall.  Kobe City Hall was not impressive at all, in fact it just looked like a normal skyscraper.  There was a flower clock right next to it which was cool – the flowers displayed the image of a music note.  Also, the clock and the City Hall building are solar powered which is pretty neat for such a large structure.  At this point Stephanie had to head back to the ship for a trip she was doing, so after Chris and I made sure she got on the train ok we headed out to explore on our own.  Kobe is known for its sweets and pastries, so we found this awesome pastry shop to pick up some snacks.  I got some sort of giant cream puff that not only had cream but some sort of custard in the middle.  After we got these we decided we should probably actually eat something of substance, and one of the cheapest places we could find was a pasta and salad place.  Chris got pasta, and I got a “Japanese Salad” that had extremely thin sliced dry fish on top (which was alright), dried black seaweed (which was gross), and some kind of great ginger dressing.  After we ate, we headed back to the ship.  We also ate out pastries when we got back to the ship, since they were not factory sealed we couldn’t take them back onto the ship.  Back on the ship we got ready to out for the night.  Stephanie knocked on my door when we was done her thing, and said that some guys invited her to go out, so our group joined a group of about 15 guys and girls to go out.  We went to this bar that had been handing out flyers next to the ship when we got off, $15 to enter for girls, $20 for guys, unlimited drinks.  We took the train into that main station again, and then had to walk about a half hour to get to the club.  When we got there we quickly realized that it was a very small bar, but luckily we were the only few people there at the time so it was easy to get drinks and we took advantage of that knowing that as it got busier with more SAS kids it would be harder to get our free drinks.  My favorite drink was called Yougi Pineapple, and it was this yogurt flavored liquor (only 15%).  Mixed with pineapple juice it tasted like those drinkable smoothies that Dannon makes, it was so good!  As is started to get more crowded and more crowded it got hotter and hotter in this small club, so Chris and I decided to leave.  There was a club next-door called Philadelphia, so I wanted to check that out, but it was nothing so we decided to grab a beer from 711 and head back to the ship.  The trains close at 12 and we made it to the station in time to make the last train, but the ticket machine that we went to wasn’t in English and we didn’t end up making the train because we couldn’t figure out how to buy a ticket.  Nothing here is in English, and no one here really speaks English, and it isn’t easy to get around at all.  We started walking, following what we thought was the right train line.  We walked for a while, a few hours actually before we realized that we were way off.  We really had no clue where we were and we should have made it back to the ship by then.  There was nothing open around us to ask for directions in.  Luckily, Japan is very safe and feels very safe so we never felt threatened that way.  About 15 minutes later we found a lonely gas station.  I was happy because I needed to use the bathroom.  It was the coolest self-sanitizing, music playing, water squirting, air blowing toilet ever!  Just press the button on the side of the toilet and all of these amenities are at your fingertips!  There were also taxis resting here, so we knew this was out option to get home.  It took us about half hour to communicate through pictures and motions where we needed to go, and finally it clicked with one of the taxi drivers who then took us back to the ship!  We got back at about 3am!  We said it was a good thing that neither of us was too intoxicated or else we would have never made it back!  On the ship I went to bed ASAP.

 

Day 2

I got up at about 0800 for breakfast, got ready for the day, and went to get Chris to go out.  We decided to go to the Arima hot springs.  We took the train to Sannoymia station, and then needed to get onto a bus to go to Arima.  The bus wasn’t supposed to come for another hour, so we got Starbucks and Chris got another pastry from the same shop that we went to the day before.  We sat by the station and relaxed for the hour.  When we got onto the ship we were so confused about how to pay for the ride, but we had no way of asking so we just said we would figure it out later.  Realizing that the bus stops were not labeled in any language that we could recognize, we asked the guy behind us to tell us when to get off by pointing at a map.  A few stops later he tapped us on the shoulder, and figuring that this was our stop we followed him off of the bus.  Well, turns out he was just being polite and telling us bye, because that was not our stop.  Luckily there was a train station right there and a women who spoke some English, so we gave her money and she bought us tickets to get to Arima.  We got on the next train 5 minutes later.  A few stops later we had to get off the train and get onto another train.  I don’t know how we ever figured that one out, but we finally got to Arima.  It was a cute, European looking town built on a mountain, the back of Mt. Rokko.  Our plan was to just wander around, and that is what we did.  We just walked around aimlessly check out the sites.  I bought this giant, delicious apple at one shop.  There was also a drinking fountain that was fresh spring water, and is supposed to be good for digestion.  There were two cups on strings next to the fountain, and after watching a few people take a cup and fill it with water we realized that they were communal cups and decided to dive right in.  The water was Luke-warm and slightly salty, but wasn’t bad or anything.  We found this cute park and hiked for a few minutes up a stream to find some small waterfall.  The water was freezing here, but it felt nice against the warm sun.  Nothing better than being able to wear jeans and tank top!  The weather was gorgeous.  We then went back down the mountain to the train station where we bought return tickets home.  We were a little nervous about it, but since Arima is more touristy there was directions about how to purchase tickets and which trains to take, so Chris took a picture of the directions and a map for further reference as to how to make it home in case we needed to ask somebody by pointing to a location.   Surprisingly, I don’t know how we did it, but after 2 train changes we painlessly made it back to Sannoymia station!  Hurray for us, we finally found our way directly with no detours and not getting lost.  We decided to walk to this place call Harbor Land, a little mall area next to another outdoor mall called Mosaic.  We started off by following a map, but then got distracted by these huge blocks of outdoor malls, shop after shop after shop, so we wandered through them.  We eventually came to the Kobe Chinatown, which was actually really neat and reminded us of where we had just come from.  One of the gates was called Xian Gate, and Chris and I were like “we were just there!”  We continued to wander and eventually found out way to where we wanted to go.  It was probably a 7km walk, and I was again surprised that we found it so easily after our bad luck with directions before.  There we walked around for a little, admired the view, and went to a huge grocery store where we got some snacks and picked up dinner, sushi!  It is so much cheaper to get your meals from convenience and grocery stores than it is to go out in Japan, so we were happy to save some money.  I normally don’t eat sushi, so I was very nervous, but I have been eating tons of fish on Semester at Sea both in port and on the ship and love it now, so I decided I should try some.  I got some rolls that had rice, crab, tuna, cucumber and egg . . . I am pretty sure that they were California rolls, or their equivalent to them.  They were AWESOME.  I can’t wait until Yokohama now so that I can have more!  After we ate by the water we walked back to the ship which was a few miles away, and surprisingly we found our away again without getting lost.  We were proud of ourselves for turning our bad “getting lost” luck around.  The ship sailed at 11pm to head for Yokohama.  In the day in between I will probably do some homework, watch movies, and hang out with friends!