FYI, I'm moving to JAPAN

The last time I wrote to you, it was my first night in Japan at 4am in a hostel. So much has happened since then.
Well, I woke up the next morning at 6:00 and got the whole motley crew up for what would become the best day/night in Japan. We all stayed in a big room with 8 beds, but we fit 9 people in. Needless to say, it took awhile to get going, but eventually we checked out of Sukura Hostel in Asakusa and made our way to the sumo wrestling stadium to buy tickets before they sold out. We get out of the subway and immediately know that we're in the right place - tons of sumo wrestlers are just walking around the city in their "warm up robes". One even pushed past me to get to his train... I was honored haha. So the way that sumo wrestling works is it is an all day event starting in the morning and it goes till 18:00, but all of the highest ranked wrestlers do not go until after 16:00 and we really only wanted to see the best matches. This actually worked out well for us because Blake, one of the guys I've been traveling with, lost his passport and rail pass and had to go back to the hostel to look for it with David (sorry i'm throwing so many random names out). The girls and I wanted to go into the southern parts of Tokyo, so we split from the fellas and headed into the heart of Tokyo for the Imperial Palace.
Now, the JR line is amazing. If you are a foreigner, you can get a rail pass for the week and use any JR line for free. It just so happens that there is a JR line (Yamaote Line) that travels all around Tokyo, so while others had to stand in line to get a ticket each time they wanted to go to a different part of Tokyo, we just breezed by with our special VIP passes. The train took us right outside the Imperial Palace, but there's one thing they don't tell you in all of the tourist books. You have to walk across this gigantic lot, and you only catch glimpses of a tower, then they tell you to walk more... and you can only see a tiny corner of the Imperial Palace. They actually only let people inside the Palace 2x a year, and that day was not our day. In need for a little pick me up, we took the JR to Shibuya... basically the best part of Tokyo and where are the locals hang out. We walked on all the side streets to look for a good place to eat, but all the menus where in Japanese with a very bad picture of what the dish was. In the end, we chose a place that looked the most authentic and where they didn't speak any English. They made us take our shoes off, which we did NOT want to do because our feet were rank, but we sat at a traditional table and blindly chose our food. My meal was amazing... I found out later that it was actually squid, but I'm okay with that. I'm trying to become more cultured.
We met the guys at sumo wrestling and watched a zillion rounds of big fat men with bulging butt muscles, each round lasting 10 minutes.. but not in the way you would think. The wrestlers took about 9 minutes to stretch, and then the actual wrestling match took about 5 secs, minus one match that went for almost a whole minute (unheard of!!). I got some pretty good footage, but at the expense of my camera battery. It died during the final match, and I didn't have a charger with me, so there are 2 days where I have no pics from Japan (boo!). Anyway, we had to leave by 18:00 because we were meeting our two friends in Asakusa at the capsule hotel after their climb up Mt. Fuji (One of them, Drew, actually made it to the top!! He said he could only stay to see the sunrise before he sprinted back down because it was so cold). The capsule hotel was pretty awkward. I don't know if I'll ever do it again, but I'm glad I got to experience it. The "room" is modeled after the cockpit of a jet - it's a tiny box with TV/internet/radio/light, and they are all stacked on top of one another. Men and women are not allowed on the same floor, though. Our floor actually had a sign that said, "Women Only, Keep Out Man". The women's showers weren't separated and old ladies were just chillin by the showers naked and pouring buckets of water on themselves from this hot bath (which had to be over 100 Fahrenheit). The girls, all 6 of us, just weren't comfortable exposing ourselves to the world, so we showered in bathing suits. The old ladies laughed at us the whole time.... we're so American.
All 11 of us head into Shibuya, a 30 min cab ride from our hotel, and separate into 2 groups for dinner - those who were wimps/wanted American food and the ones who wanted to eat some raw fish. I was in the ladder group. Jackie, Rachel, David, and I found a sushi conveyor belt place where the staff didn't speak any English but were more than happy to show us how to order our food. Stuff goes by on the belt, and you also have a picture menu so you can see what each thing is. I had no idea what anything was, so I just started grabbing stuff. I think I had some sake with Hawi Maki, Raw Flatfish, Eel, and something that closely resembled shrimp but tasted so much better. My bill.... about 700 yen.... a little under $7 US. Yea. CHEAP! I like how they think over there. Our wimpy friends, however, paid over $100 US for their mediocre "pizza" if you could even call it that. FYI... always eat Japanese food in Japan.
Japanese food got us in the mood for some authentic Japanese night life, which led us to the Shibuya branch of Gas Panic. This place had Happy Hour ALL NIGHT, 400Y. And you HAD to have a drink in your hand, or else you got kicked out. However, the trick is to buy one drink and sip it realllly slowly to make it last longer/spend less money (Don't worry, Mom... I know I'm on a budget). Ironically, though it was a local spot, they only played American R&B and old school rap. We got a little OPP, a little hey, a little ohhh, and let me tell you.... these Japanese teens know how to break it down. I swear I thought I was out at a club in the heart of the Bronx (one kid actually had a Yankees cap on!). We were all having a blast, being the only Americans in this club and being taken in by people who we could barely communicate with. At one point, we met this American guy named Jeff from Long Beach, CA who was living in Japan for a year and he offered to show us around the rest of Tokyo. This guy seemed so gangster and none of us really wanted to hang out with him, but he spoke fluent Japanese and was willing to show us around Tokyo so we went with him. We get into Roppongi, another district in Tokyo, and the insanity starts. The Nigerians run this area as well as the Yakuza. One Nigerian came up to me and asked if I was Japanese, and then tried to get me to follow him. Jeff jumped in and started yelling at him in Japanese and the Nigerian went away. I asked Jeff what had just happened, and he told me that the guy was trying to recruit me into a prostitution ring. Yea. We found this club that WASN'T run by either of those groups with tons of business people dancing to 80s music, and this bubbly gay guy in a beanie hat tries to dance with Blake. Now, Blake's a Mormon, but he doesn't mind being around all this craziness. The whole group just starts dancing around this guy, and Jeff and I start talking. Turns out, he's not the ghetto fab bad ass that I thought he was, but an intellect. I felt like for the first time someone had the same thoughts about religion and philosophy as I did. Sometimes you meet someone who you can connect with on a special level, but this was so much more than that. I honestly can't even describe it. Too bad I'll never see him again. Ah, well, he can be "the one that got away". After taking to another dance club, he found two cabs for the whole group of us at 4am and told the driver in Japanese where to take us, and that was that.
The next morning, we were all supposed to go to Hiroshima on a 7:06 train, but the boys didn't meet us in the lobby at 6:30 and the hotel manager wouldn't let us go on the men's floor to wake them up and we couldn't miss the train so we had to leave without them (I love how it was the GIRLS waiting for the GUYS to be ready). We had to SPRINT to Tokyo Station, and we made the train by a minute. It's a 4 hour train ride to Hiroshima, even on the Shinkansen. Even though I had only slept 4 hours in the past two days, I didn't sleep a wink during the entire train ride because the scenery outside was so cool. We passed what i would call Real Japan. I wish I could have stopped at each station, but Hiroshima was really important for me. A guy from SAS was sitting all alone, and we asked him what happened to the rest of his friends and he said that they didn't want to see Hiroshima so he left them. Can you believe that?! They didn't want to see Hiroshima! Well, we took Tim under our wing and he tagged along with us for the rest of the day/night. The dome, one of the only buildings left from the a-bomb, was the first thing we saw. Then we headed to the peace museum where they had a really great exhibit on the entire incident... and only for 50Y. The first part of the exhibit was all about what lead the Japanese to Pearl Harbor, and then all the secret meetings the Americans planned for the a-bombs. Did you know that the meeting where they actually decided they were going to use atomic bombs on Japan took place in Hyde Park, NY? AND the first testing of the a-bomb was on July 16th... my birthday. Friggin' government, they've tainted my special day. I also learned that they were originally going to bomb Kyoto, but decided on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After seeing Kyoto, I can't imagine how the US even thought they had the right to touch that city.
Anyway, so then they showed before and after pictures of Hiroshima. After the bomb was dropped in the sky above the city, everything was instantly destroyed. An entire school building of children died in less than a second, and the entire hospital gone with only traces of brick left behind. There was a step of a bank where the stone had turned white from exposure to the bomb, and a black outline of a man who was sitting on the steps when the bomb was dropped. A wax statue of a family wandering through the mess, their skin falling off of their body. There is an eternal flame lit outside the museum which they will not extinguish until every nuclear weapon is destroyed. It's eternal because every country is too power hungry to follow through with this. The United States alone has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the EARTH. I wonder what they think of Americans in Hiroshima. Do they hate us? Pearl Harbor was bad, but that was an attack on the military. The a-bomb was an attack on civilians, just like 9/11. Are we really that much different than Al-Qaeda?
Later that night we were supposed to head to Kyoto and stay overnight, but all the hostels were booked so Jackie, Rachel, Tim, and myself snuck 4 people into one hotel room, pushed the beds together and paid $15 each. Pretty sweet. We ate dinner by the river at this random cafe where you grill your own food. It was so messy but fun and YUMMMY!!!!! We walked around town and accidently ended up in the Red Light district. Eek. But the funny thing was you couldn't pick out the prostitutes from the regular women, because they all dressed in beautiful silk dresses. Accidently went into the wrong building, decided to call it a night, and passed out although I only got 2 hrs of sleep because i was so excited for Kyoto the next day.
7:00 we walk to the JR station, say goodbye to Tim, and take the Shinkansen to Kyoto (which has a station called Miyake Station!!!). I had to pee so bad once we got into the station, so we ran into the bathroom and as I'm peeing I realize that there is no toilet paper. There isn't even an empty alcove where the toilet paper should be. There just isn't anything to wipe yourself with. Jackie and Rachel call to me from their stalls and we all are just sitting there wondering what the heck we're supposed to do. Drip dry we did, and as we exited the bathroom we noticed some women were buying toilet paper out of a machine which we had thought was holding tampons. Lesson Learned. Always Bring Toilet Paper.
There are tons of shrines in Kyoto. The buses are pretty efficient, but there are crazy amounts of people in Kyoto every day that we decided to only go to a few shrines. The three of us trek up the side of a mountain to the Kimizuya (sp?) Shrine and we passed cities of graves and traditional Japanese houses. The shrines at the end were pretty cool, but nothing special. The walk DOWN the mountain was much better. Instead of walking down the tourist path, we walked down a residential road to see what real Japanese houses looked like. All of a sudden, we hear a gunshot from one of the side streets and run to see what happened. A school yard opens up before us with a bunch of school kids competing in some type of triathalon thing. There are kids in white hats and kids in red hats. They were in four lines, with the people in the front lying on a mat covering their ears. We realize they were covering their ears because of the gunshot, which when fired meant that the people in front hopped up and started running toward this balance beam. Then they met their partner and tied their legs together for the second part of the race... 3 legged race. It was interesting to see what Japanese recreation was like, and afterwards I decided that my field research project for the semester is going to be recreation for elementary and disabled children in Japan/China/Vietnam/ and India.
After seeing a bunch of shrines that looked exactly the same, Jackie suggested that we travel to the other side of the city to see the Golden Pavillion. It took an hour to get there, but it was totally worth it. The shrine is completely gold, accompanied by a tea house and temple. We drank some tea with gold flecks in it and got blessed with some smelly water, and then caught a Shinkansen to Kobe, where the ship was. Japan is incredibly humid and hot, so the first thing I did was shower. Then a bunch of us went out in Kobe, but only Jackie and I were smart enough not get blacked out within the first hour of arriving at this club, we actually didn't have more than 2 drinks the entire night. The entire SAS ship was loud and obnoxiously drunk, so Jackie and I left and went to this Japanese bar up the street and learned how to write in Japanese. This guy and the bartender didn't speak English, but could read somewhat, so we sat there for 2 hrs just communicating through pen and paper. I learned that Japanese symbols represent SOUNDS, not letters. So my name would be written in 2 symbols because it is 2 syllables. I now know the symbol for temple, street, and station!
We went back to the club we were at, which by 2am was only locals. All the SAS kids got so drunk that they headed back to the ship by midnight. Silly kids, everyone knows that Japanese night life doesn't start till 2am. I made friends with these two Japanese gay guys who had the most amazing fashion sense ever and loved the 70's/80's music... so I taught them how to vogue. This old man joined in and taught us some crazy dance move which I think cracked a disk or two in my back, but hey.. no pain no gain! I learned a lot about this new generation of teens in Japan.... things are really changing. Japanese students are stereotyped as nerds or neurotic hard workers... but they're just as care free as I am. I asked one of them how many hours they spent studying each week, and she just laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
The next day we went to Sorokuen Gardens in Kobe, which was pretty awesome and almost like my own little wonderland. There were all these paths you could take, so we went through the garden several times just so I could try each one. We took the slowest train back to the ship because we just didn't want to leave Japan... but here I am in China and I wish I was back in Japan. It only took two days to get to Qingdao from Kobe, which left me almost no time to plan a trip to Beijing. I just booked a flight to Beijing tomorrow evening with my friend Raj, but after today I do not plan on walking around Qingdao until our flight. This place is scary. It is what China does not want you to see. Run down. Dirty. People trying to take advantage of tourists. Awful public transportation. Normally we stop in Shanghai, but I think they wanted us to see Qingdao for a reason. Culture shock like you wouldn't believe. One girl was crying for an hour this afternoon because it was so hard for her. I would love to be in Shanghai, but the typhoon is heading through there right now and there is no way to get in or out of the city... although I heard they are trying to evacuate the city right now (Jake, I hope you are OKAY... MEET ME IN HONG KONG). Beijing tomorrow for 3 days, then Hong Kong. Then 2 days at sea, then VIETNAM. Pretty crazy. Can you believe they are fitting a semester's worth of classes into this voyage?