Japan! Tokyo: Roppongi District

       Karaoke is like Sunday Night football to the Japanese- the best way to spend free time and let it all go. While American businessmen relieve stress by drinking brews and yelling at the television, the Japanese businessmen unwind by drinking sake and singing their hearts out. Thirty-five of us packed into a small room that reminded me of the back of a limo. Mirrors on every wall, sparkly vinyl booths, and an intercom used to request a new song. Someone would go to the front to sing, but their voice was drowned out by the booming chorus of the rest of us singing the best of the 90s.

      As the night progressed we became slightly worried about our situation. We polled the different locals we met. At the Tokyo Ice Bar (overrated) we met two couples that were stationed on the US Navy base. On the street we met four women who had moved to Japan just because, they approved of all options but told us to stay away from the Roppongi district because it was dangerous for travelers. Guess where we ended up? Roppongi.
       You know those movies where they speed up the film and show a bunch of people running back and forth, running into each other, going up an escalator then back down, then remembering someone they left behind, etc? That is what we looked like as our large party navigated the metro to get to Roppongi.
       A group of SAS students had rented apartments. The five of us were relieved to have found a place to stay. Stephen and I went out to explore the district life. It was explosive with the energy of people celebrating life in the crisp open air. My night ended on the apartment balcony, smoking a cigar with Nick looking at the city lights in the distance, the busy street below us, and the still metro bridge in front of us. I closed my eyes tight trying to save the image and memory.

Japan! Tokyo: Home vs. Homelessness

      After making our way back to the hostel, I used one of the lobby computers to skype home. I could see and hear my family but could only interact through the keyboard. Molly walked by and squealed and pointed to the computer screen, she thought I was looking at a picture of myself- in fact, it was Madeline. Others that took turns looking at my real-live family in America compared my features and mannerisms to Mom and Dad.        I laughed; rather I typed ‘haha.’ It felt like I had been sprinting around the world and home life had been stretching, gearing up to join me when I returned home. I stunk of fish, had not slept, was typing on a Japanese keyboard, in an alley hostel in Tokyo. Back at the starting line, Mads, Hayl, Mom and Dad gathered in our familiar kitchen; sun streamed in from our patio door lighting up their bright faces. Watching them, I could feel the warmth of a meal at that kitchen table with that winter Wisconsin sun toasting the family with illuminating memories. The conversation ended as we rushed out the door to go begin another Tokyo adventure.
        I had begun our backpacking adventure with my backpack, the clothes I was wearing, a dress, a swimsuit, a toothbrush, and my trusty travel bag. On the second day in Tokyo, I was therefore on a quest for underwear. Cat, Meena, and I had checked out of the hostel with only a plan. We had been on the North East side the night before so we were heading to the South West side of Tokyo: Shibuya. On the way in Yoyogi, I spotted a GAP from the metro window. So we got off, I ran in, and began my search. All underwear was an XXS, XS, or S- I guess this is telling of the American physique. I picked up two pairs of underwear and two pairs of socks. I checked out for $66: My most expensive pair of underwear. Reality Check: we were no longer in one of the developing countries that I had been used to since September. This was even more expensive than the US, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
       While I scoured the store, pulling on my underwear, trying to ask where I could find it, Cat and Meena had run into a few SAS students. They were also looking for a place to stay. Word on the street was there wasn’t a single hostel, hotel, or motel with vacancy that night. Our night of homelessness began then: in between a four-story GAP store and a busy metro station in Yoyogi, Tokyo, Japan.
       We made our way to Akasaka, where Stephen, Casey, and Stephanie had a hotel. It was a pristine district. We were reprimanded for jay-walking a street that was no wider than a sidewalk. We peaked through some tall shrubs to see a bride descend a spiral staircase into a garden. When she reached her groom loud and festive music started playing. When we reached the hotel, white Christmas lights had been lit up and down the streets adding the elegance of the area.

       They let us shower and keep our things in their hotel room. Missy and Andrew were also desperately looking for a place to stay. Options: 1) A love hotel that we could rent by the hour. We would only need a few hours if we stayed out late. We could even pick themed rooms. 2) Go to a business bar that has tubes to sleep in. These are popular in Japan because in order to be successful drinking after hours with clients is expected. The tubes provide a place to sleep after the subways close at midnight. 3) A karaoke bar. You can rent the boothed rooms by the hour. There is no law that you have to sing while you are in there. This is another popular alternative for travelers.

Japan! Tokyo: the city that never sleeps

       Ninja Tokyo Hostel? With a name like that, good times are guaranteed. As we walked the five flights up the steep stairwell, we were intrigued by the anime story that visually explained the perils of playing with samurai swords. The moral of the story: if you are a ninja octopus, you may cut off several of your tentacles.

       Our hostel was very Japanese meaning very space efficient. I would like to compare our sleeping area to the back of a band’s tour bus: a narrow path between stacked, box-like, wooden, private sleeping cubby holes. We were each given a key. So we threw our backpacks onto our beds, slid the wood panel shut, and locked our things into our personal caves.

       I actually never slept that night. After dinner we headed to Club Camelot in the Shibuya district. We made several friends in the metro station that used iPhone applications to direct us through the metro routes. We arrived back at the hostel after three in the morning and we all made use of the free internet: chatting with friends who were in class on mid-Thursday afternoon.
      At four in the morning we woke the rest of the group up and we headed to the Tokyo fish market for a cultural experience. Before the sun could even provide a sliver of light, we dodged forklifts while hundreds maybe thousands of people scurried like ants around the covered market. I chatted with a local fisherman after he caught me poking one of the large translucent squids he had on display. He took a liking to me and my foreign curiosity so he offered me a fresh cut of tuna sashimi. I excitedly accepted it and ate it, only thinking about the possible repercussions of fresh raw fish while I gaped at a large tuna being publicly dissected a few stalls over. With the rising sun came more and more spectators, buyers, and fishermen. Buyers were bidding for the finest seafood for their five star restaurants. Local mothers, trailing their small children behind them, bargained for smaller morsels to provide for their family. Fisherman argued pointing fingers, brandishing fish, shouting Japanese. Other fisherman proudly arranged and rearranged their my-sized catches or passed their hand over tanks as if to frame their seafood in a braggadocios manner.

Japan! Yokohama

The ship docked in Yokohama on November 20 and left from Kobe on November 24. Everything that happened in between was an adventure. This adventure was five days, four nights, thirteen hours of sleep, hundreds of miles, five major cities,

and the experience of a lifetime.

       We were only in Yokohama for the amount of time it took to walk from the ship’s terminal to the metro station. (Granted, the time inside of the terminal was extensive due to Japanese Immigration Standards that required face-to-face interview, fingerprints, infrared temperatures, and personal photo upon arrival.) But the short two block walk was enough to make a striking first impression of Japan. This was the first port that the streets were not comprised of a loud ensemble of (depending on the country) angry taxi drivers, squealing motobikes, deafening horns, rickshaws, ox, donkey, cow, intense pedestrian traffic or any other general chaos. Once we noticed the difference it was deafening, cutting off one sense to fully take in another. Japan looked and smelled much cleaner than any of the past several countries we had been to.
       Even inside of the metro stations I would feel safe to eat something that had failed the ten-second rule. Looking back on it, I must laugh when I describe the utter confusion of our group and discombobulating manner that we tried to decipher maps, signs, hand signals, and Japanese phrase books. After no less than forty five minutes, half of us boarded a train heading for central Tokyo. The other half set out to find their Japanese Rail Passes that they had pre-ordered. We wondered if they would make it to Tokyo. Brian, Meghan, Meena, Dave, and I watched Japan transform from countryside, to suburbs, to tight housing districts, then go underground. In only forty five minutes we arrived at the central Tokyo station. We stepped outside and I strained my neck to look up and all the way down the grid of tall buildings. Once again the buildings seemed to personify the typical Japanese businessman- standing in regiment single file in their finest, sleekest, black or blue suit awaiting an order to dutifully fulfill.
       We pulled out maps trying to find our way. A nice local man heard us speaking English, formally introduced himself with business card and all, explained he attended high school in San Francisco, and then asked if he could be of assistance. We showed him the address we were trying to get to and the options of circles that had been drawn on the map by conflicting local opinions. He shook his head and led us all the way to another metro station, walked us downstairs, showed us what buttons to push, which train to take, and where to get off. Well we got the right ticket. Got on the wrong train, skipped the right stop, and then backtracked to do it all over again.
       Finally we were in Nishi-Nippori, the district of our hostel. We began to walk in the general direction- I even got out a compass to make sure that if we were going to walk aimlessly, we were going to go the right way. Luckily, we ran into some other SAS students. They pointed us in a direction and we found it!

hey so i am in a hostel in tokyo... i cannot determine what picture is which so here are some pictures from my latest adventures, eh?

playing chicken in the Saigon river.. i was afraid these guys were donezo.

Bert is watching intently as our guide is showing us graphic pictures of all of the victims of the Khmer Rouge.



Kelly and I excited in front of Angor Wat.

children at the killing fields that kept repeating please please i want to go to school, i want to go to school. they followed Anders and I from the far side all the way to the bus...

then the reflection of the Angor Wat temples at sunrise on the one of the four ponds a part of the front landscape.

            climbing on the ancient temples

hanging out in elephant palace

 

getting suits made in Viet Nam

Le PUB! 

HONG KONG! !

then Tienanmen square

getting ready for a cold night Great Wall Style

forbidden city and temple of Heaven

 waking up the restless morning after camping on the Great Wall 

 
where we slept

hiking&zipling down the great wall 

 

 

on top of the Shanghai World Financial Center 

Hong Kong

on top 

 shanghai

 
   

China: Shanghai

 Arriving back at the ship was one of those moments that you are so happy to see home. Espcially because it’s backdrop was the skyline of Shanghai. We wasted no time and headed out into the gloomy city. Our goal: to go to the top of the tower that looked like a beer opener. What we realized when we arrived there was that it was actually the second tallest building in the world. The tallest building in Asia and also the tallest observatory in the world. Nice. It had just been finished in 2008. Our experience felt futuristic as we were guided by clone-like guides to various fast-paced slideshows and an elevator that took us to the 100th floor in less than a minute. From the top we could see our ship amidst the city buildings. We were up there for sunset and saw all of the buildings come alive with lights.
Everytime we were in a taxi the driver would ask, “Obama?” yes. Obama! And they would somehow communicate that they were excited that he was in Shanghai! During one ride we heard part of his speech on sustainability in China. It was unreal to hear our president’s voice when he was in the same city as us a half world away.
When we were in the markets Obama was also talked about, but in a different way. Those who sold knock-offs and stolen goods were extra cautious. While hunting for a purse, I was taken through a series of five secret doors. When I asked her why she said that security had increased because Obama was in town.

China: The Great Wall

THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!! We arrived late at night and had dinner at the base before we began our trek up the dark mountain to the Wall. It was freezing, literally less than zero degrees. Our local guide powered up the hill with nothing but a little flashlight. Our large group spanned for hundreds of feet behind him. I followed as close as I could. After a fifteen minute hike we reached the wall. I could still see little flashlights way below winding up the mountain. Our guide said we needed to go seven towers over. So we started slipping and sliding in the dark towards the seventh tower. This entailed walking on narrow paths with no wall or rail. We all slipped or fell a few times going up and down the stairs and ramps in disrepair. Our local guide gave us each a matt and a sleeping bag. We split into groups and went to different towers. Our guide passed us as we set up our bags. We asked him where he was sleeping, he laughed and said he was going home.
We wondered exactly how dangerous it was to be sleeping outside in the snow on part of the wall that is not maintained or patrolled. We feared it would become Lord of the Flies because no one was looking out for us. We convulsed and shook all night long as we tried to huddle as close together as we could. Not even Jim Beam could keep us warm. I did not sleep most the night, no one did. I closed my eyes and thought warm thoughts but mostly hoped that death would come soon.
It was all worth it to see the sun rise over one of the seven wonders of the world.
In the morning I did not see any locals. A rumor was passed down the wall saying to head east. So we did. For four hours we walked, slipped, climbed, stumbled, got turned around, and guessed how far we had gone. It was the best way to experience the Great Wall. It was so much fun. It was so much work. It was all so unforgettable. We reached the zipline and huddled together as we waited in line to descend. Taylor and I screamed “I CLIMBED THE GREAT WALL!” as we streamed down the mountain with a crystal clear lake below us.