Japan!

With only a day to go before Japan we experienced a some pretty heavy weather. We had thought that the worst of the seas were behind us, but instead we began to experience heavy rollers and an increasing wind. Via the ship's intercom, we were warned to secure loose gear as a gale was expected. Through the day the sea's got rougher. Students began bailing out of classes with renewed seasickness and eventually the last couple of classes of the day were canceled. It didn't effect any of my students as my classes were done for the day. By evening we were in a sustained nine meter sea and the bridge reported winds in excess of 65 knots. For the record, that puts us into hurricane-strength wind and was more wind than Semester at Sea has seen in apparently eight or nine years. A group of intrepid faculty and staff got together in the staff lounge which sits on the highest deck (Deck 7) all the way forward on the ship. There were cheers (and moans) as the bow plunged into the heavy seas and sent sheets of sea spray whipping into the windows fifty feet above the sea surface. The ship seemed to handle the conditions well, and while it was exciting, there wasn't any real danger. Several folks who hadn't spent any time on ships didn't completely believe that assessment…

All was well though and we awoke the next morning to calm conditions as we steamed into Yokohama harbor. The sky was clear and we were treated to an apparently unusual clear view of the snow-capped majesty of Mt. Fuji. At the pier, we were greeted by a brass band performing to cheering students. Within an hour we were cleared and allowed to leave the ship. I got off pretty early as the Marine Biology class had a field trip scheduled to the Yokohama Aquarium.

The bus to the aquarium took a half hour or so and we proceeded to walk through a Japanese amusement park on which the aquarium was just another of the featured attractions. It was Sunday morning and the facility was packed with young teenagers and families with little kids. It was a nice aquarium, but pretty packed. My students had a hard time going from their assignments in the building with all the people pressing in close to see the exhibits. The aquarium was nice although the tropical tanks were a bit lacking. They did have a nice turtle exhibit and some cool invertebrates like deep sea crabs and chambered nautilus. Off in another part of the park there was a marine mammal exhibit that allowed you to come up to the edge and touch the animals. I got to pat my first Beluga whale which was interesting. Smooth and squishy, if you were wondering.

The next morning I joined a group of six faculty and staff from the ship to take a three-day trip down to Kyoto which is south of Yokohama. The plan was to stay there and then proceed on to Kobe where we would meet the ship which was steaming without us from Yokohama. We walked to a train station, took a train to another train to the station for the Shinkansen - the so-called Japanese "bullet train". We boarded the train and were soon speeding at 180 miles an hour south to Kyoto. Along the way we were treated to fantastic views of Mt. Fuji, crowded little towns and snow-covered streets in the little hamlets that we passed through as we traversed the mountains on our way south. After about two and a half hours, we arrived in the giant train station in downtown Kyoto. Across the street from the station we found a great little sushi place and had a great lunch.

Figuring out the trains was one adventure. Trying to read the Kyoto bus map was yet another. Almost no one we met spoke English and signs seemed to randomly have English words or not. There wasn't a pattern that I ever figured out, but between the six of us and the occasional kind passer-by, we were able to figure out what bus we needed to get on to head toward the backpackers hostel where we had reservations. Along the way we stopped at Castle Nijo, a historic site on exquisite grounds surrounded by a high stone wall and an honest-to-god moat. The castle was constructed with wide boards that were engineered specifically to squeak, no matter how lightly you tread on them. This was to prevent assassins from sneaking up and killing the Shogun. It was a bit spooky, walking through the building listening to your every step squeak. I, of course tried to walk silently but my ninja skills are a bit rusty and I'm afraid you would have heard me coming.

From Nijo we bravely set out with map in hand to find Hostel Mundo where we had reservations. Don't look up "Mundo" in a Japanese-English dictionary. It's a Spanish word that means "world". The owner has visited Latin America and likes the language, so he named his hostel in Spanish. Go figure.

The hostel is set well within a little local neighborhood, nowhere near any established sights or major attractions. This was pretty cool in that we were able to navigate down narrow little streets and see how the locals lived. Off the main drag, the streets are all one-way and barely wide enough for the tiny little Japanese cars. I'd hate to try to take my pickup truck down these things! Kyoto has not discovered zoning, so as we walked you would pass a residence sitting next to a small restaurant sitting next to an auto repair garage or carpentry shop. Many residences have small Buddhist temples sitting next to the front door. Some are covered with gates, although many are open with small figurines and symbols etched in stone or metal on them. A common symbol of good fortune on these little temples was taken by the Nazis in WWII Germany. It's disconcerting for a westerner to see swastikas on these tiny religious monuments.

We arrived at the hostel which was a tiny building built right against its neighbor. It consisted of a small common area, two bunk rooms (one for each gender) and a couple of small rooms upstairs. There was a narrow kitchen and behind it a toilet and shower. This bath area was covered by a plastic roof and was essentially out in the weather. At night it got pretty chilly and in fact only the small common room had any heat - a small kerosene space heater. The rest of the place was cold and in the summer I imagine, hot. The manager of the place was a very nice young woman named Midori. She had a black lab named Tida who loved attention, which we all gave him plenty of. After settling in, we found a local restaurant and managed with much pointing and smiling to get some food. We ate what the chef/owner cooked - we couldn't read the menu and he couldn't understand English. It all worked out great and we all shared a big heaping pile of stir-fried greenery, noodles and what we think were chopped up squid. Along with some local beer it all tasted great.

The next morning dawned cold and cloudy and we made our way to the nearest bus stop. We visited several shops and found a nice place for a good cup of coffee. We then got on a bus to go to a local paper-making shop. It turns out that we took the wrong bus, which we figured out after only a couple of stops. Jumping off the "wrong" bus, we found ourselves in front of a Buddhist monastery. Why not? We took a walk around the property and discovered a Shinto fertility temple right next door. It was beautiful, filled with statues of rabbits - which is a great symbol for a fertility temple if you give it a bit of thought… Following that little adventure we got back on the (right) bus and headed down toward the geisha district. We walked around there a bit, taking in the sights and sticking our heads in the occasional shop. We even saw a few geisha, or at least women dressed in traditional costume. We eventually found the paper shop, but it was closed. We ended up getting there the following day, so all was not lost. We spent the afternoon just walking around the city taking in the interesting architecture. Kyoto is a very old city and it's not uncommon to see a glass and steel building sitting right next to a traditional wooden structure. I love the feel of the place - very different from either Yokohama or Kobe.

The next day was our final in Kyoto. We took a bus up to a place called the "Golden Temple". This was a beautiful property with a great deal of historic significance. This was the most "touristy" thing we had seen and unsurprisingly, we ran into students from the ship there. They were all having a great time and they regaled us with tales of Tokyo and missed trains. Following that visit, we went to a Zen garden called Ryoanji Temple which had extensive moss gardens and fantastic Zen rock garden. At this point it had begun misting lightly. The overcast sky, moisture in the air and the beautiful mossy ground was just amazing. It really created a feeling, a mood that felt so peaceful, calming and for lack of a better term, zen. I ended up walking ahead of our group and just soaking it all in. It was a very cool place.

We retraced our steps back via bus and foot, reclaimed our luggage and said goodbye to Midori and Tida. Another bus took us back to the train station and we boarded a train for Kobe. This was a local and we got to experience rush hour as the train stopped some 15 or so times as we crawled through Osaka and southward. We got to Kobe in time to find dinner and navigate our way through rough directions to the ship. My little stateroom on the boat felt foreign after two nights away from the ship. It was nice to be able to get ready for bed without seeing my breath steam from my mouth.

Kobe is a bigger town than I expected. It has high skyscrapers and lots of traffic. I spent our last day today just walking around the waterfront and touring monuments to the big earthquake they had here a decade and a half ago. I walked up to the top of the built-up part of the city where you could look down on the downtown and then hiked back to the downtown. After an incredibly spicy, yummy lunch near the train station, I bought some Japanese snacks for the boat and walked back to the ship. I probably did eight or nine miles on foot today which was nice after being trapped on the boat. I remember in my sea-going days missing hiking most of all when I would be on the boat for weeks at a time. It's easier on a big boat like this one, but I still miss taking a walk when I want to.

We are underway to Shanghai as I write this. I don't expect that I'll post again until after we leave China. Hopefully I'll have tales to tell….