Day 2 (Kyoto): I had my last field trip for my classes today. We went to Kyoto to observe temples and gardens. We first went to 2 temples and then had a tour of a zen garden. All three were very beautiful, but it was raining and cold so it was a little hard to fully enjoy them. After the field trip I signed out and stayed in Kyoto. Me and a few friends went to a sushi restaurant where the sushi is served on a conveyer belt. It was a lot of fun! After that I headed to a hostel that I was staying at with a group of girls. It was my first hostel experience. It was actually very nice! We had 8 girls in one room, so it was literally one huge bed with all of our mats on the floor.
Day 3 (Kyoto/Tokyo): Today was much better whether than yesterday, so we decided to go to the philosophy path, which is a cherry blossom garden. After the garden we headed to the train station and took the bullet train to Tokyo. Right from the train station we went to a baseball game in Tokyo. It was a really nice stadium and was fun to have a game night with my friends here. Before each port we are given information by a staff member that is considered “experts” on the country. The teacher that talked to us about Tokyo said we would have no problem finding a cheap place to stay in Tokyo. So we decided we would just find a place to stay after the baseball game. Ugh, bad idea. We walked around for hours, going to different neighborhoods and all of the hostels and hotels were booked. Needless to say, it was an interesting night. We gave up looking around 1a.m. We went to Starbucks and stayed there until 3a.m. when they closed. After that we went to an internet café until 5a.m. and then started our day, with no sleep. (The trains do not run from midnight to 5a.m., so we didn’t have much of a choice of what to do.)
Day 4 (Tokyo): At 5a.m. we took the train to Yokohama to the ship to shower and change clothes. Even though we did not go to sleep the night before, we were not too tired and started our day as soon as we were done getting ready. We took the train back to Tokyo and went to the Shebuya area. They have many shops and is known for being busy, bright, and having younger adults hang out there. After that we went to Harajuka, which has shops and many interesting people! After exploring for the day we were ready for a good meal and made a reservation at a Ninja themed restaurant. We couldn’t make it until 9p.m., so we went to an internet café to relax for a little bit and look up directions to the restaurant. At this internet café, you can stay overnight so we decided to stay there so we did not have a night like the previous night. When we were checking out the girl in front of us in line asked the receptionist to hold her bag while she went out. After hearing that, my friend thought that they had a locker in the back to hold people’s bags who were staying there. She asked if he could hold our stuff as well while we went to dinner since we had a reservation to stay there. I was in the bathroom for all of this btw, when I came back she told me that she got our stuff locked up for when we go to dinner so we didn’t have to carry all of our souvenirs around. In my friends defense, the hostel that we had stayed at earlier did have a locker, so she assumed it would be just like that. Well, when we got back from dinner, we asked if we could get our stuff. It was a different man at the reception desk and looked a little confused. After we explained it to him he looked in the back for our stuff, but could not find it. He called that man that we left it with, and I guess it was translation error because he thought all of the bags we gave him was trash. Ughhhhh. I realized my nook was in there and started freaking out and started to cry because it was a thoughtful gift from my parents that meant a lot to me. My friend asked where the trash went so we could go through it to try to find it. He lead us downstairs to the trash. It was a compressor, but we thought it wouldn’t have gone yet. He opened it up, closed the door quickly and gave us an “uh-oh” look. He said that it was already compressed, and said “uh no more stuff, all broken.” The man helping us felt really bad and said he would reimburse me for it. He did not know what a nook was because they don’t have them there, so I called it my ipad to make it easier. After he said he would reimburse me I tried to explain that it was a nook, but he didn’t understand what I was saying and said that I should go to the Apple Store in the morning, buy an ipad, and bring the receipt back so they could reimburse me. After all this happened I couldn’t sleep, so I had another night with no sleep. :[
Day 5 (Tokyo): At 5 a.m. we headed back to the ship because my friend had a class field trip at 7a.m. Our great luck just kept coming. There was an accident on the train in front of ours so we were stuck on the tracks in the cart for an hour and a half. Needless to say, she missed her field trip. At this point we were all so exhausted and full of emotion that she started to cry, then we would laugh, then cry some more. Everyone looked at us like we were crazy. When we got back my friends went to bed for the rest of the day. I had to get the next train back to Tokyo to get the ipad. I spent my day dealing with all of that and got back to Yokohama in the afternoon, and slept for 18 hours that night.
Reflection: I learned more of a personal lesson during my time in this country. I love to plan ahead and pretty much none of this trip went as planned. I have learned throughout this trip, especially in this country, that sometimes you just need to go with the flow. I have a ways to go with being okay with this, but I have definitely gotten better with going with the flow during this trip. Sometimes it’s for the better, sometimes not, but everything happens for a reason in life!
“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” -Miriam Beard
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