News from the Boat_Japan

The first cultural experience we had in Japan was a temperature check. Japan likes to protect itself from diseases, so every person entering the country has to get checked for a fever (by walking past something that looks like a police radar to measure your speed). If your temperature’s too high, that’s just too bad. No entry for you.

I guess that’s Japan for you. A little formal, a lot cautious, but very polite all the time, even when they’re telling you you might not be able to get off the ship.

Luckily I did not qualify as being sick, even though I was feeling pretty horrible, and so was able to go on my very expensive SAS trip to Hiroshima by bullet train. The Shinkansen itself is an experience: clean, orderly, with numbered seats, and it’s moving so fast it kinda feels like you’re not moving at all. It’s a bit like an airplane, in that sense. And it looks like a space shuttle. No joke.

Hiroshima, though, was… not what I expected. I’ve always connected it with chaos and destruction in my mind, but the atom bomb flattened the entire city, so it’s not like you see any of the remaining damage. Aside from one building, the city is brand new. You’d never be able to tell that such a tragedy occurred here if it wasn’t for the occasional statue or the museum. The museum, though, really gets you. Hiroshima calls for the end of all wars, everywhere, and the museum doesn’t pull any punches. Little children’s diary entries, lunchboxes, hair, fingernails… you name it, it’s in the exhibit, and it’s going to make you nauseous. It gives a little historical background, too. And here’s a scary thought for my German readers: The US wasn’t sure what country to bomb at first. The only reason they didn’t choose Germany was because Germany was already going down. Otherwise, ‘Hiroshima’ could have just as easily been ‘Berlin’ or ‘Dresden’ or ‘Hamburg’…

On a side note: One of my professors was on the trip, and he’d just learned that I was German pretty much the day before. So when I was talking to our guide, he came up and asked me what I thought about the museum.

Well. An American, a German, and a Japanese person all discussing World War 2. That was a little awkward.

But anyway. I didn’t really learn anything new. Except that atom bombs melt your fingernails from your hands and that war is terrible, always and under all circumstances. There is no excuse for slaughtering other people. There just isn’t.

That night, Jenn, Alex, Damien and I headed on to Kyoto where we spent the night in a capsule hotel. That’s pretty much a spaceship on the ground, with sleeping pods instead of rooms and shampoo and conditioner in single-use packets. They were originally designed for business men who worked late and had to go back to work early, so going home didn’t make any sense. It was very snazzy, though. They give you everything, even pajamas, and the women have a separate floor, bathroom, lounge and elevator all to themselves. Oh, and lights that turn off and on slowly so waking up isn’t so bad for the system. The only downside was that none of us could figure out the alarm, so we all overslept.

In the morning, we realized that we were only about a thirty-minute walk from the Imperial Palace, so we went and checked that out. It was pretty cool, definitely nice architecture and design, and there was a traditional dance thing going on in the courtyard. Plus, the leaves were all crazy vibrant colors and the air was just that right sort of crisp, cold without being painful. My first real autumn in over three years… I felt right at home. But then the whole of Japan reminded me of Germany, in a way. Maybe it was because Japanese people are fairly introverted and quiet, and aren’t falling all over themselves to interact with strangers like the rest of the world. I don’t know. It just all felt a little familiar.

We checked out the castle before we took off for Tokyo. Between the castle and the palace, the castle definitely wins. It has floors that creak so you can tell when intruders are trying to sneak in. How badass is that? But then we had to take off to catch the Shinkansen and somehow made it, after several hours of trying to decipher symbols and cryptic directions, to our traditional Japanese bed&breakfast. It didn’t have rice paper walls, but beds and a small sitting area all on the floor and a tea set just waiting for us. It was like a Japanese apartment, basically. I would have totally moved in.

So far, so good, right? And that’s when it started to get strange. Jenn wanted to see a Maid Café, a café where the waitresses are all dolled up in French Maid outfits. I figured there’d be one or two, but no, there were dozens. (Cafes, not waitresses.) Granted, most of them were closed because it was ten in the morning on a Sunday, but we did find one. First of all, Jenn and I were the only girls in there for a solid hour. (Then, one other girl showed up with her boyfriend. Hell of a date.) We got charged just for sitting down, and the prices were ridiculous. Alex ordered a special where you got a pancake, a waffle, a drink and a picture with one of the waitresses (taking pictures independently was a huge no-go) for $25. Well, as it turns out, there was some miscommunication there. The special was a pancake OR a waffle and a picture with one of the waitresses for $25. Poor guy still hasn’t lived down the fact that he bought a $25 piece of cake. So, a little overpriced, but okay, ladies in short outfits, I can understand why people would go. Except that the entire room is made up to look like a little girl’s room, with stuffed animals and magic spells that you cast over your food. And then a very random, sort of bad song-and-dance that everybody else found absolutely hilarious. I’m all for being culturally open, but I still have no idea what to think about that, and I spent a solid hour and a half alternately feeling like I should be in a French Maid outfit or feeling like I shouldn’t be there at all.

After that, most of us were ready for some average mediocrity, but Jenn wanted to see more strange things, so we went out to Harajuku station to see girls and guys in crazy outfits. Not that we really found any. Instead we went to a Shinto shrine where we read some pretty great things on the wooden plaques that people write their wishes on. “Good health,” I can get behind, same for “A loving relationship,” but “a good correlation between October sky and my software firm”? At least it’s honest, I guess.
We walked around the shopping mall for a while but didn’t actually buy anything because it was all insanely expensive. But it was nice to know that everything is fashionable *somewhere.*

Of course, that still wasn’t enough insanity for us, so as a belated birthday extravaganza, Jenn and I went to DisneySea. That’s like Disneyland, only in weird. The rides are a bit faster and a bit scarier, like the storm flight simulator where you die at the end. I probably spent way too much money and walked until my legs started cramping, but don’t anybody dare tell me that wasn’t Japanese culture – we were the only white people in the park.

After we didn’t make it back to Yokohama until almost midnight, I sort of slept in the last day. I was still pretty miserable from all the walking the day before because every time I stopped walking my legs would cramp up, so I walked. Walked down the waterfront, through the Yokohama doll museum with a special exhibit about dolls that were sent from the US to Japan as gifts at the beginning of the 20th century, back up the waterfront, through one giant very expensive sort-of shopping mall, through another giant very expensive sort-of shopping mall, back down the waterfront, and then in the remaining two hours before on-ship time I sprinted to an internet café and back. Fun times.

But anyway. I enjoyed Japan, even though it was extremely exhausting. I’d definitely like to visit again when I have a bit more time.

Lots of love from 31˚ 33.2N/120˚ 32.6W.
Alexa

Pics are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=258874&id=834707681&l=d9e2b23a0d