The rest of Japan..

We woke up around 9 30 or so and checked out of The Ace Inn. We got to the main train station to transfer to the main JR lines that take longer distances. The train was really nice actually, we had reclining seats that were really nice to rest in on the 2.5 hour ride from Tokyo to Kyoto. The ride was rough, we all didn’t feel our best after a long night in Tokyo. It was really nice though, it felt so good to just relax and not just constantly on the go. I was so glad I brought my ipod, it made the ride go so fast. When we finally got to Kyoto we took a different subway to the main station of Kyoto. It was seriously POURING out, it poured the entire day, it was miserable. Kyoto was really cute though, it wasn’t built up like Tokyo at all, it was a smaller, but still large city. It kind of reminded me of Europe with all the back little roads, it was quaint. There was a big river that ran right through the middle of it. Some of my other friends told me about how they went to a public bath—it sounded cool, but definitely very different. After we walked for a little ways into the city, we decided to get lunch (a very late lunch), it was a really small Italian place, it was cool though because their version of Italian food is much different than ours. My friend got the pizza and the crust was like a tortilla, it was soooo good. After lunch we just walked around for a while trying to find the hostel we looked up, but it was really hard to find, so we ended up finding this huge internet café to look it up. When we got to the internet café the people made it seem like you could sleep there, it was really funny because our communication was a little off, so we said why don’t we just stay here, when they took us up to our “room” we realized it was like a little cubby wehre you rent out for 12 hours at a time and it was just like a tiny mat with a computer, tv, and playstation. There was no where to keep our stuff locked up and there were no blankets, we ended up just staying there for like an hour and just used the internet for a while. The lady at the hostel finally emailed my friend Anne back and we ended up making our way over there (in the pouring rain, so miserable). The hostel was really cute, we got two rooms—Me Lindsay Laurel in one; Em and Anne in the other—the hostel was called the Bak Pak Hostel, it’s like made for young travelers. We got ready for dinner at the hostel and went to this cute restaurant. It was one of my favorite restaurants we went to. They had a really nice English menu it was so cute inside, they had really cool pictures all over, it was very modern, but the food was very authentic. After dinner we just walked around a little bit then went back to the hostel to sleep—everyone was SO exhausted and wanted to get a good night sleep.

The next morning we packed our stuff up and checked out of the hostel around 930-10. We got breakfast at this cute little coffee place. I only got an apple because I wasn’t very hungry. After breakfast we walked to a Shinto shrine, it was similar to the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, but a lotttt smaller. There were some people there doing some type of religious ritual where they rang these bells then bowed, it was cool. After the shrine we walked to the largest/oldest Buddhist temple in Kyoto. It was sooo cool. The whole place itself was free, but to enter the temple costed like 5 dollars, which was totally worth it. It was so pretty inside, there were people doing some sort of Buddhist ritual with a monk. I have so many pictures of the temple, it was pretty big and really cool to see. There was this small pathway we took to actually look at the Buddha.. It was so cool, it was all gold and up on this throne type thing. The ceiling was so beautiful, it was all black and white with really cool paintings. After we finally left the temple, we walked around, stopped at Starbucks (dumb Americans) to get some coffee, and got on the subway to get back to where the JR lines are to take it back to Kobe (where the ship moved to while we were independently traveling)…we had to get back a little bit earlier (before 5) so Anne could make her FDP(it’s an SAS trip she signed up for, stands for Field Directed Practica..most are for classes). The train to Kobe was only an hour, and we were back in Kobe around 3 pm or so. At the station Anne left us to go get ready, and the rest of us stayed in downtown Kobe to look around. We went to this huge mall that had EVERYTHING in it. We stopped and got lunch at this small little Japanese place, it was okay, but at that point we just wanted anything to eat. We walked around the mall for a while, and two of my friends (Emily and Laurel) got the funniest care bear onesie outfits, they are so ridiculous, and they put them on and wore them after we left the mall, and wore them back to the ship…EVERYONE was staring, it was soooo funny. I have pictures and a video of it. We took the subway back to the ship (it felt sooo good to be back, it was like being away from home for sooo long) and unpacked our stuff and showered and got ready for the night. After we we got ready we met up with some other people and took the subway back to downtown Kobe. We went to dinner at this really cool restaurant that was very modern and open. We sat at a huge table for all of us and the food was really good. After dinner we went to a Karaoke bar…its soooo awesome. You rent our a room, its pretty small, but big enough to fit like 20 people or so, which we did. There were some SAS kids already there that we met up with, a handful of them I didn’t know, which was cool because I love meeting new people. We had to pay a little under 30 bucks for the whole night and it was open bar…we had such a blast. Everyone was singing every type of music…karaoke is definitely a must-do in Japan. We left pretty late and took a cab back to the ship, where we slept that night. The next morning we ate brunch on the ship, then me Lindsay and 2 of our guy friends took the subway to walk around Kobe. We just walked around the streets trying to find a place for the boys to get the famous Kobe beef, but everything was so expensive, we decided to not get it. It was so funny after that we were desperate just to find any restaurant we could, but since there was something going on (not sure what) everything was closing! We could not find anywhere that accepted cards (we were out of yen pretty much) that was open—so after about an hour and a half of triyng to find somewhere we ended up just going back to the same restaurant we ate dinner at the night before, which was fine because I really liked the restaurant, I just ordered something different. On our way back to the subway we saw this guy singing and playing guitar in the street, it was really funny watching all the Asians clap and wave their hands in the air to the song. This one Asian was with her friend who was loving it and the other Asian looked like she hated life. We could not stop laughing, she was like barely waving her hand (it look like she was trying to have a good time, but she was absolutely hating it and totally did not want to be there). We were about to leave then we saw this other guy who had this boombox type thing on his waist and was playing this really loud techno music, and he started setting up his stuff to start painting (so we decided to stay and watch). It was so cool, he like spray painted really cool pictures and danced to the music as he painted, it was the coolest way I’ve ever seen to paint. The first picture he did was seriously amazing of this woman’s face, after he finished it he wrapped it up and he gave it to Lindsay, it was so cute…Linds was SO happy, she cried because she was so happy. He did another one and it was of this guy running and after he held it up in the air for someone to grab and no one took it right away so I just walked up and took it (I really wanted it)…its so awesome I’m so glad I have it as a souvenir. I have a video of him doing it…it’s really hard to explain, but it was one of the neatest things I have ever seen. I think it was my favorite part of Japan. Anyways, after that it was around 330 and we had to be back on the ship by 6 and the lines take FOREVER, so we took the subway back to the ship. I feel so lucky to experience so much in such little time, it felt like I learned so much and took in so much it’s crazy it was only a few days. It was so nice to rest, but now we get into China tomorrow morning and I still don’t know if I’m ready. I’m signed up to do this like 5 day tour with this program called the China Guide…I’ll post my itinerary.