kobe, japan

whew, can i just say that our first morning and mid-afternoon in kobe, japan was not a pleasant experience at all.

we were awakened by the announcement that everyone needed to make their way to the faculty and staff lounge for a temperature check. we were given a card with our name and i.d. number by one person only to turn to the next person and give the card back. we walked past an infrared temperature camera, down the stairs and back to our cabins to await the next step in the customs and immigration processes for japan.

the student life staff was called to the port to begin distributing passports-every person on the ship (almost one thousand people) would have to do a face to face with the immigration and custom officials. we handed each person their passport and they stood in line awaiting their turn to have their passport checked, their fingerprint taken and then their picture taken. this entire process took almost three hours to complete-we were cold, tired and hungry.

once everyone was let loose in kobe, we grabbed lunch on the ship and concocted our plan for the day knowing we would be meeting laurie's friend, mo, for dinner. we decided we would catch the train to sannomiya and spend the day seeing what kind of trouble we could get ourselves into. andrea, laurie, bama and i left the ship, exchanged money in the port area and went in search of the next train to sannomiya. it took us less than ten minutes to get to sannomiya (we later discovered we could have walked) and less than ten minutes to get lost looking for the post office and chase bank. after getting stamps and money, we wandered around sannomiya into one mall after another in search of postcards. can i just say that japan is very expensive! after finding our way out the mall (which is no easy feat when you can't read japanese) we found a starbucks where we sat down to enjoy chai, coffee and a small pastry treat :) after starbucks we stumbled upon a couple of baseball stores where we spent time looking for baseball memorabilia for family members. after a few hours we strolled back to the train station to meet mo who was in kobe working with the jett program. we had a great dinner with mo, her partner, matt, and their friend, gina. we ate at an organic vegetarian restaurant-even though they had a burrito on the menu i could not bring myself to order one. ( a burrito in japan just didn't seem right to me) after dinner we roamed sannomiya in search of postcards and the 100 yen store.

the next day i met up with laurie, janetta, haley, nate and sarah so they could enjoy the kobe beef that we all heard so much about from our cultural pre-port lecturers. based on a recommendation from mo the night before we ended up in a pretty fancy restaurant filled with business men in suits. after stumbling through our order, and convincing the server i did not want kobe beef, we were treated to a show as the chef cooked our lunch order at our table. it was a great lunch! after lunch we went to the bathroom and that is where we discovered the japanese toilet-i know this sounds strange but this toilet serves as a bottom warmer, massager and a bidet.

after the giggling and laughing subsided we left the restaurant to catch the train to kyoto. since i was on dean duty we had to be within one hour of the ship. we arrived in kyoto one hour and forty five minutes later only to discover that we had taken the local train instead of the express which would have gotten us to kyoto in forty five minutes! we left the train station and caught a cab to the nijo castle. we spent the next few hours exploring the castle, the ninomaru gardens and the cherry blossoms.

since the nijo castle closed at five we decided to head back to sannomiya-we took the express train :) once back in sannomiya we stopped at a belgium waffle stand and then hit the streets to find a restaurant that served sushi. one would think that finding sushi in japan would be easy but one should never assume or think too much :) it took us some time before we found a restaurant that had sushi. i had be bim bop, sushi and veggie potstickers. :) we walked back to the ship after dinner enjoying our last night in kobe.