Konechiwah from Japan!

So due to some technical difficulties with Chinese internet regulations, (the country isn't allowed to access Facebook, YouTube and Google has begun placing restrictions on anything coming out of China accessing anything to do with Google) my post was not allowed to go through. So its a little late and it will be followed up with one from China here soon but here's Japan for ya.

We ported into Yokohama and first thing off the ship started on our way over to Tokyo. A most people had hotel rooms to check into, a few us, myself included, utilized the floor of the hotel room as a storage unit for a backpack for the day and took full advantage of the fact that Japanese clubs in Roppongi, city next to Tokyo, closed after the sun came up.

We started off the day by finding a little nagiri place in Roppongi. They had this sea eel that was freaking amazing. That and this other thing we still can’t pronounce were some of the best nagiri I’ve ever had. Then we got experimental and just started pointing to things and having them make it up, as one of the guys called it, we ate spongy brain. It really wasn’t that bad, just interesting.

Fortunately for us one of the guys in our group is half Japanese and spoke enough of the language to get us around pretty easily. He took us to a crazy street shopping strip in Tokyo filled with all sorts of interesting gothic Japanese kids and students, kinda interesting. Again, found some more great food for dinner. Most of their restaurants are on floors 2-6 in high-rise towers that have offices above them and even apartments above that.

From dinner we started the absurdity that was the Japan experience. We invaded Muse bar in Roppongi after starting the night with a few of these Kirin Strong drinks, stronger than beer and it tastes like lemonade, freaking amazing. Muse was an interesting underground bar off the main street in Roppongi. Their Monday nightlife isn’t too much to talk about.

The next day was spent going around Akihabara, the electric town. The main street is the postcard for what you see in Tokyo night pictures, lights and signs everywhere. Five story electronic stores, five story porn shops, anime shops all over the place and everything from an original Nintendo game system to the new Sony 3D Tv’s, which are freaking unreal. Can’t wait to find one to watch the world cup on this summer.

That night we went out and found a Japanese-Korean restaurant where they have a circular grill, the size of a medium pizza depressed in the table and they bring out all sorts of raw meat and you cook up the meat yourself on the grill plate. Again, freaking amazing food. After that we hit up Ferria, a four-story club in Roppongi. Each level of the club had a different theme to it and the basement was the dance club. Like most of their clubs there’s a $25-30 cover that includes two drinks. The bar tenders were really cool and watching Japanese people dance was hilarious.

 Again, like the night before, we didn’t leave the club till after 5 am, except this time we had a to go to the station at 6 am to catch our train to Kyoto. Their train system is amazing. The bullet trains move at 200 mph, few stops and for traveling around most of Japan, they take no more time than catching a flight.

In Kyoto we went to a few temples, one that had a 1001 full size identical statues that took over 75 years to make. Its amazing the how similar all the statues looked since they were all hand carved 1500 years ago. We also saw the Golden Temple, an amazing building set on the picturesque Japanese landscape.

The next day was spent rolling around Osaka checking out the Osaka Castle and the Floating Garden Observatory, the tallest building in Japan. Sat up there enjoying a drink watching the sun start to set out over the Osaka bay. After Osaka we headed into Kobe to meet back up with the ship. Dropped out stuff off and headed back out for dinner. Found a little place on a side street that had some amazing pork to eat. Wasn’t able to eat a Kobe Beef dinner in Kobe as a 4-6 oz piece was around $100. Crazy expensive compared to every other meal.

On the final day we just wandered around Kobe checking out stores and sake breweries. They sell just about anything you could think of in their malls. To get into their malls you just walk into an open-air building. None of the stores have doors and its all much more open and flowing. Found a small place for lunch, ate a bowl with chicken, something, something else and grilled fish scales on it. The fish scales were pretty good. It was amazing how good the food was when you had no idea what you were really eating.

Then it was back on the boat for a short two-day voyage over to China. Now its off to explore Shanghai. Update you all soon.

Kyle Koelbel
kdkoelbel@semesteratsea.net
(Sent from a cruise ship somewhere in the world)
http://bearsatsea.blogspot.com