Japan: Yokohama and Tokyo

Ok most disappointing thing ever. I typed up the longest blog post ever and it deleted itself when I tried to post it.

I'll try again, this won't be nearly as detailed.

And for the record I don't know where I am besides near Mt. Fuji.

We got in later yesterday than planned into Yokohama, by the time we got off the ship it was 1130. We had to go through immigration and customs. We had been planning on going to Disneyland but we got off way later than expected because of the storm at sea.

When we got through everything in the terminal/port there were people writing your name in Japanese calligraphy and then your picture in a traditional Japanese kimono. They could have written anything in Japanese and told us it was our names. It looks cool, even if it does say you're stupid.

I'm writing this quickly on the way to Mt. Fuji on some bus, early in the morning.

Once through everything we wandered to a Post Office and got money. Atms work here for our cards. Although it was a struggle in Japanese and broken English. When it gave the receipt it was unclear as to my balance...oh well.

We wandered and struggled to find the Metro station. We wandered around Yokohama til we ran into SASers going to it. We got some basic help from random strangers. You have to buy tickets with specific prices for where you're going. We took a 6 minute train to the Yokohama station and got more random help to get on the JR for a 55 minute train to Tokyo. The maps are all in Japanese characters and impossible to decipher. I have never felt more incompetent than here with no inkling as to the language or writing. Struggles. And almost nothing is in English.

A few wrong tracks later we made it on with other SASers. Now think about the subway or T in New York City or Boston. You can take any number of stops to end up in NYC or Boston, but there's a million places in the city. So we ended up in the Financial District. Fails. We got help at a 7 11 esque store. We hopped back on the train and took one stop to Ginza. Ginza is the shopping and fashion district of Tokyo. 3 of are from NYC, LA, and Miami, obviously we went to the fashion district.

The Metros were wicked high tech with tvs streaming commercials and music piped in literally everywhere. Everything was so clean: the subway, the streets, the stores.

When we finally got to Ginza, we got a late lunch. I'd love to tell you where we ate, but I've got no idea. We found a place with English and pictures. Way more key than you could imagine. It was Japanese food, we didn't go looking for American food. We had seaweed soup, fermented cabbage, pork with onions, rice, and salad. It was delicious. We had some strange cold tea. People hardly speak English here, which shocked me. I had heard it was easy to get around and people can speak enough English. Fallacies.

The waitresses clearly were laughing at our struggles with chopsticks and brought us forks. I struggled through and managed. I'm determined to use them every chance I get---they're not in every restaurant.

After lunch we explored Ginza. It was the Rodeo Drive of Tokyo. Everything expensive and Americanized: Chanel, Dior, Coach, Louis V, etc. We wanted Japanese high fashion and the crazy neon colors that we'd been promised. Unfortunately everyone was dressed in blacks and greys. We'd been told that everyone dressed brightly. Maybe because it's winter they weren't. Everyone was dressed nicely though. I did fit in with my brown boots, black jeans, and black fleece. (Nick I know you're cringing at the fact that I mixed brown and black. My apologiesy)

We got frustrated by the popular chain stores and had to ask for directions to more Japanese stores. We walked around for several hours through the crazy streets, not understanding any signs. The architecture is pretty sick. I took a bunch of pictures. Finally we found some. There was an entire store dedicated to Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty everything: bling, cameras, Nikes, clothes, you name it, they had it. They even had manicurists in the store. For 13,000 yen you could get a blinged out Hello Kitty manicure. That's roughly $140. Who does that?!

I bought a mega blinged out iguana ring. So BA.

In better spirits we headed back to the streets. It was dark and the signs lit the streets like crazy. Just how you'd expect Tokyo only way better in person. We wandered down the lit alleys until we found a restaurant we wanted to eat at---LoBos. It was Spanish/Italian, where, of course, they spoke almost no English. The restaurants in Tokyo are tiny and realy intimidate, which shocked me. For such a huge city with a population of about 12 million they can't seat many people.

LoBos was underground and slightly larger than the restaurants along the street with tents and tables. It was nice inside. Not too crowded. We got fruity drinks and toasted to Japan. I got a pork bolognese spaghetti, shockingly delicious. I was a little afraid of Italian esque food in Japan. The waitresses left us alone and the meal took about 2 and a half hours. Probably because we didn't speak any Japanese and they barely spoke any English. I wouldn't have wanted to deal with us either in the reverse situation. But they were so nice to us. We got more drinks and dessert and finished up. We tried to get directions to the Ice Bar in Tokyo where one of our friends had reservations. She couldn't understand the address, written in English. Thank God for my blackberry. I googled it and it came up in Japanese. She looked through it and gave us some directions.

We managed to get most of the way there then had to stop to get more directions. Note: when in need of assistance stop by large hotels. There's usually an English speaking concierge. She gave us more directions and a brochure so we could show it to people for help along the way. We headed in the right direction before we got distracted by a CVS type store. It had some American brands, very few, like Dove, which was half English half Japanese.

Upstairs (there were 3 floors) there were all sorts of crazy electronics like travel coffee mugs that heat themselves.

After our distractions we continued in the way of where we thought the Ice Bar was. With little success we stopped an older looking business man. He took pity on us and gestured to follow him. He took us a block and a half right to the door with our map. He must have daughters, he was so nice.

I vow to have more patience and tolerance for foreign travelers at home and help them as much as possible. It's very difficult.

We got to the Ice Bar early and they let us in. They gave us puffy insulated blue frocks with furry hoods and black gloves. The whole place is made of ice: the walls (you can see through out to the street), the tables, chairs, bar, obscure sculptures, and drums. The drums actually worked! The bar was tiny and the reservations were for 45 minutes at a time. We got there as a bunch of SASers were leaving. So we had the bar to ourselves for a little while to take pictures with the bartenders and each other. Our friend had reservations for 45 people. I think 20 ended up coming. With 20 it was comfortably crowded. The bartenders loved us and gave us the drum sticks to play with before everyone got there.

I took a ton of pictures. Unfortunately I won't be able to post them til May. None are on my phone/facebook.

Everyone showed up and we caught up with our friends and met new people.

Then we had to voyage back to the metro and ship. We trekked back 20 minutes walking to the metro. We got there around 2245. We got more help from a random young man and somehow managed to make the train back to the Yokohama station. We got a 2345 train back by the port. The last one ran at 2400, just in time. Then we had a 20 minute walk back to the ship. We were exhausted and our feet were killing us.

Once on the ship we had to pack for the rest of our stay in Japan.

Part of the Japanese culture is quietness in public. The streets and trains were so quiet and silent at times. So hard for all of us as we laugh and talk so loudly. We had to make an effort to speak in hushed tones as to not offend people and draw even more attention to ourselves. No wonder Japan's happiness factor is only a 65%. With no laughing or talking I'd be depressed too.

Mom and Aunt Lisa: this is the reason Japan is not for you. At least not together.

Also, they don't talk or constantly text on their phones in public either on the streets or the subways. I guess that's part of the culture of quietness. (As I type this on a bus from my crackberry) They don't have blackberries or really iPhones for that matter either. They have these sick flip phones with HD quality screens. Way ahead of us.

It was weird in the evening and at night. Once it got to be about 1700 the streets were almost completely void of women. It was strictly businessmen. Even the bars we walked by at night were all men. The only women I saw were coupled off with boyfriends or husbands. Even then, there weren't many.

That's about all for now.
Wish us luck on our 600 mile trek south for the next few days. We have no real plan.

Love and miss.
From Japan.
S