Wet Arrival

Guess what?! We made it to Yokohama!

Guess what’s outside my window?! LAND!!!!!! as in, solid. as in, not moving. as in, halfway around the world from everything i’ve ever known. i mean, the ocean looks pretty much the same everywhere, so we didn’t notice. but the local alphabet does NOT.

i was so excited that it was hard to sleep last night - we’ve all been tired though because yesterday was our first big Global Studies test (meaning all 650 of us have to take it, some of us on dinner trays in the student union...and as i said in an email, the student union is the farthest thing forward short of the bridge on the 6th of 7 decks. think about the physics of that, and you’ll realize why two bathroom stalls just ain’t enough.) anyway, of course the night before when we were all trying to study we hit the remnants of a typhoon that’s been in the area, and the seas were the roughest they’ve been - the pool on the seventh deck was having tsunami issues, and the water was all over the deck (i guess we slowed down to miss the worst of it but then we had to speed up and go like 20 knots for a couple days, which is booking it). needless to say, we’ve all needed some good sleep. but yet i managed to wake myself up at 5 - it looked out my window like they were swabbing the upstairs decks, but in fact, it was just raining that hard. i pulled on all the waterproof-ish things i owned and headed up to the deck, but everybody coming down said that it was just too wet and cloudy. we tried 7 aft but there were about three feet of standing water! FINALLY my friend Bo and i found dry spots out on the lifeboat decks, and we watched, or at least heard, this major thunderstorm roll in, cross over us, and keep going, and just kept raining and raining and raining! in the foggy, murky distance we passed other ships, and you could see more as it got lighter, and then, at last, land! Tokyo Bay is humungous, so all we were really seeing was these distant rocky islets, and it was still hours to go, but we kept seeing more and more ships. i finally made it out to 7 forward where Cole (he’s famous as being the outspoken Ian Kennedy of this voyage, and slightly less annoying) and i were the only ones braving the wet for awhile (everyone else stared at us, warm and dry in the faculty/staff lounge). more and more people joined us and eventually we made it all the way into the bay, with city and industry and all kinds of trawlers and container ships and barges and pushers ALL around! it was SO cool! i saw the pilot hop on and then we raised our Japanese and under pilot sailing and quarantine flags (which we now all understand from our bridge tour! also we saw dolphins on our bridge tour! - did i ever mention that? but learning about the flags was my favorite). we wound in and under a GIANT new suspension bridge and then turned the whole freakin thing around and backed into the fancy fancy new terminal that has landscaping on top and all manner of people waving and shouting and music (including somewhere over the rainbow(?)) being pumped in (one guy shouted “Konnichi wa! Hello! buenos dias!”) and a big welcome to Yokohama sign, and Cole and I were all out with the crew, mostly the cooks, and they were all just as excited as we were. it was awesome.

after we pulled up some people came on board and there was a ceremony in which Capt. Jeremy got a plaque (this is Explorer’s first time Yokohama!!!!!) and a pretty piece of art and lots of people took pictures, and two girls in kimono presented us all with flowers and then a group did a Lion Dance, all drums and flutes and even the one guy who did fancy fancy moves with the drumstick in one hand while he drummed with the other. it was great. afterwards they let us, and some of our little kids, play them. it was sweet.

now we wait. to be cleared.

while we’re waiting, what else had happened lately? last night there was a talent show! that was fun. Except for an act that Jade and another kid were in that kind of made us all want to die. Jade looked like a muppet, and that’s all i have to say about that. there was some more TC and Aldrianna hula-ing (separately, and awesome as usual). And lots of other singing. two guys did show tunes one right after the other. and some other guys sang way off-key backup for Judy, who always sings right before port (her partner is the one known as Sparkles, who runs the field office. they’re both wonderfully buxom older women and make a lovely couple, really). it was great. i was sitting next to to Jeff and he always makes me laugh, or i make him laugh, and that’s fun. he and Nikki, btubs - TOTALLY hooking. up. hmm. i guess you guys wouldn’t really care about that.

also last night Doc Nancy the bio prof got out her super-duper will-blind-airline-pilots laser and pointed at some starts. also last night the whole ship smelled like fish, aka, downtown Boston. made me kinda homesick. and i’m sad that Japan means that our Japanese interport students, Aki and Megumi, are leaving :-( i like them.

also my roommate is the only other person i know besides me who consistently falls asleep with the TV on. interesting. when we got close to Japan on our little chart, the ship didn’t fit, so for awhile it looked like we were crashing into it.

UMMMM everybody just wants to get off the ship but for me it’s ok waiting. i’m just happy to see land and a gangway, which, oddly and excitingly enough, is on deck 5 instead of two, and looks almost like a jetway. this is a very fancy terminal indeed.

i really hope that i don’t offend anyone here by the fact that right now i smell like wet dog. but mostly, so does everybody else.

sometimes i get lonesome. i know i have lots of friends on the ship, but i’m not really a central part of anybody’s anything; it’s not like people ever come looking for me or anything, i’m just an added extraneous bonus sometimes, or a hinderance others. why does life feel like that sometimes?

anyway. back to blow-drying my pants.