Japan Part I: Tokyo Rising

Seeing as i never wrote about what happened AFTER they actually cleared the ship in Japan, i thought i should do that.
But then i realized some of the stories i never told.

the really special one was about how i got two birthdays - i wrote about birthday number 1, the GIANT ice cream cake from Mike, Lindsay, Benjamin, Deeanna, Carrie, Josh (JOSH?! he’s the yearbook guy, and i still can’t believe he was in on it. he loves to make fun of me) etc. But then the NEXT day Nancy and Jim, who are pretty much my parents by now, got me a cake that was supposed to be for our special lunch, but they accidently ordered for dinner, and they gave me a fantastic birthday present - not only was it wrapped in a beautifully folded and stitched map, but it had two things - one for buoyancy and one for well-being. the buoyancy one was an SAS rubber duckie, and the well-being one was a bunch of saltines. it was awesome. and then Kristin and Nikki and Brian and company dragged me along on their bridge tour, which was SO fun. we got to try on the captain’s hat and use the binoculars and everything and we saw DOLPHINS! and got to go out on the flying bridge, but my favorite part was learning about all our flags - i think i talked about that already. anyway, our tour guide was the great Bulgarian second-in-command. i couldn’t really understand him, but he was sure exciting.

anyway, after lots of not-so-secretive secretiveness, THEY got me a cake too. so we ate that, and then i went and fetched the Frankel children (Jake, 7 (i think), Sarah, 4, and Ellie, 2) and they helped me finish off Nancy and Jim’s cake (plus there was chocolate mousse for dessert - let’s not even GO there). for awhile after that Ellie just called me Cake. really, i think that’s why she likes me. i like her because she actually is one of the most adorable things that happened to the world.
ANYWAY - i’m trying to think of other misc. things that i may not have mentioned from the long Hawaii-Japan crossing - Doc Nancy gave a GREAT talk about her hard-core work for the National Park Service. i also think that i forgot to mention the fantastically bumpy night we had two nights before port. nobody died.

BUT THEN WE GOT TO JAPAN! and then we waited and waited and waited, as previously mentioned, and then at some point they cleared the ship and we waited and waited some more to clear customs, and then we finally poked our anxious little heads into the real world. i was on a tour of Yokohama and Tokyo, so we got on a bus. Benjamin was even a gentleman and let me have the window even though he was there first (that only lasted the afternoon though :-P ). we had a really nice guide name Yuki (i think?). our first stop was at these BEAUTIFUL gardens that were sort of in the middle of a neighborhood and some important guy’s property, and we didn’t even realize how nice it was to see GREENERY after all of that ocean!!! and to be able to walk for 500 feet without having to turn around or tackle a staircase. and we also got a free tour from an old tour guide named Sako who was very funny and little and cute. i climbed up the this pagoda and then we all had to SPRINT back to get to the bus on time! also, it turns out that Japanese tourists in Japan are almost the same as Japanese tourists not in Japan.

our next stop was Harborview Park, where we stood and looked at the neat skyline all around the bay, which is pretty cool, and marveled at how tiny the poor little Explorer looked from up there, and we also went to a cemetery for dead foreigners. all of this was on a high point in town where the streets were kind of excitingly narrow. our last stop in Yokohama was across town in the real CBD of the city, which was remarkably more Western-feeling than the rest of it was. we took a super-fast elevator to the 69th story of the tallest building in Japan and a wonderful view - from Mt. Fuji on one side to Tokyo on other back to our now even tinier-seeming ship on another. and then we went back down and through a fancy shopping mall and back to the bus, and then we went to Tokyo. the drive was actually really interesting for a couple of reasons. one is how INCREDIBLY built up it is. i mean, i thought that the Corridor was bad, but that’s nothing on this. the highway (not freeway cause it costs like a million bucks to use) is like a roofless, winding artery snaking through this crazy environment. also because we were along the river for a little ways, and there are these boat wards down on the water. and also because the sun was setting gorgeously and you could see Mt. Fuji in the background.

we checked into our rather fancy hotel and then Deeanna, Carrie, Ben and i went searching for dinner. we walked up and block and back along the block and back up and and back along it and FINALLY ended up at this weird “beer and restaurant” that was kinda smokey and gross and i was already pretty out of it and tired because i’d been up since 5 (0500) so i gobbled up some fried rice and stared into space for awhile, and then Ben started asking Carrie and Deeanna if they “had anybody at home”, but he never asked me, which for some reason struck me as kind of odd. we wandered for a little while after that. i drifted around, like i do sometimes...and then Deeanna and Carrie went back up and Benjamin and i walked the other direction. and we were real quiet for awhile - sometimes that really weird, but it wasn’t, really - and we talked a little bit too, and explored a little residential side street (it’s funny because i guess zoning is different; residential areas are right next to business areas). it was nice. then i went back to room, lay down, and feel asleep.

the next morning the girl who was supposed to be my roommate comes BURSTING in, wearing the going-out clothes she’d been wearing all night, in total hysteria because she’d just found out that one of her best friends from home and had died, and i got really nervous and gave her a hug and ran away to breakfast - rice and croissants, what a buffet. and then we all loaded up the bus but we were missing one, so there was an ordeal of trying to locate her, and then being unsuccessful, and then leaving really late. which was ok. and eventually she turned up at the ship.

our first stop was the Tokyo observatory, which was actually amazing way to see the city, to see the way it grew organically and endlessly and all over the place. Carrie and i and a few others took the wrong elevator and ended up in the wrong spot so we ran a BIG circles around the whole building and made the whole bus even later.

the next stop was Meiji Shinto Shrine, which is near this really fancy shopping street that kind of reminded me of a giant Nantucket, for some reason. the shrine itself is, of course, beautiful; we all even observed the purification rituals like good tourists.

to my best recollection, our next stop was the Imperial Palace outer garden, which is basically a park by two of the bridges over the moat. somewhere in that a bunch of people from our group got a bunch of schoolboys to take pictures with them - it seemed kind of odd. i think that Americans have a weird school uniform fetish, but that’s just my opinion.

then we went to lunch! aka, endless amounts of tiny-portioned food that quickly added up to making you very full. i, the one vegetarian, had two little salads, one little thing with and individually cooked potato, sweet potato and okra, rice, miso, some sort of eggplant thing, and assorted sauces.

after lunch we went to this major pedestrian old-fashioned kind of shopping area that reminded me REMARKABLY of an Middle Eastern souk. i walked around with a new friend from Toronto, Eva, and she even patiently helped me pick out a Japan pin. the street ended at a big temple that had beautiful paintings on the ceiling, and you could even get a fortune - if your fortune is good, you keep it, if it isn’t, you tear it into strips and tie it to a wire rack, and the monks come along and burn them.

our last stop was at Akihabara, ElectricTown. This kid Jeff and i decided to break of there to go to the train station. Jeff, it turns out, is one of those people who thinks he knows more than he does, and we proceeded to get incredibly lost in the train system. the thing that cracks me up about the Tokyo system is that the fare is also like the station number, and it’s the only recognizable thing on the map to a foreigner. and of course Jeff thought that we were going to be pushed onto the train, as tokyo is famous for that, but did not.

we did, however, get very lost in Tokyo main station. and stood in a lot of wrong lines, some of them multiple times. the real low point, though, was when Jeff asked the poor ticket lady (who didn’t speak English) for three sets of tickets. and then one of them wasn’t the right time, so he straightened that out but then the train that he wanted to get on was full, so he was like, oh never mind, so she took the tickets away, and then he was like, oh but i can i keep those just in case? and she looked SOOO confused. and then i said, me. Ninohe, Now. and she looked relieved, and sold me a ticket, an then it was pretty much over between me and Jeff, or, The Most Annoying Boy in the World.

and then i was alone in Tokyo main station. alll alone.

continued in part II!