April 6th, 2009

This morning we arrived in Kobe, JAPAN! The girls and I got off the ship ready to explore for the day.  The first thing we had in mind was to make sure we had a ticket for an overnight bus to Tokyo.  Courtney, Anna, Abby, Dyland, Jessica,Amanda (they are both from Boulder and Chi Omega’s) and I would all be traveling together.  When we stepped off the ship the first thing you walked into was the subway.  We took the train a few stops down to where we were told we could find a bus stop.  It took us a while to figure out which bus system to take and what had the best deal but we figure it out and had tickets for a bus leaving Kyoto the following day at midnight.  After dealing with our tickets we were all ready to find some sushi.  All the restaurants we came across didn’t have menus outside but they did have displays of the food they served inside.  We found some items we thought looked okay and went into a restaurant.  When we got inside Les McCabe and his family were sitting down and eating.  This made my stomach settle and I figured the food would be good.  Jake was also in the restaurant and we asked him how they ordered because the waitress didn’t speak any English, and the menu wasn’t in English either.  He told us to just pick a picture and point to it.  So we did just that.  Most of the restaurant we walked by didn’t have sushi rolls like you would imagine at home but they were mostly sashimi and a side of noodles.  The food was great and I was pleased with whatever type of fish I was eating.  Anna and Courtney had never had sushi before and I felt bad because if you had never had it I wasn’t sure this is where you should start but I also thought we may not find sushi like we think of it at all here.  We kept trying to tell them they would like rolls but I don’t think they really believed us. 

 

After lunch we decided to do a little exploring of the city.  While we were walking someone spotted a giant bowling pin on top of a building and suggested we go bowling.  We all thought it was silly but headed in anyways.  I was so glad we went in because what we found was an 8 story arcade game center.  We had already seen small gaming centers throughout the street with people playing videos games inside but here I think we found the jack pot.  The games were unlike games I have ever seen, they even had the “claw” games where you try and reach for something with a claw and grab it.  But here guess what you grabbing for things like Pringles, Ritz, and all kinds of food.  We ended up not going bowling and instead exploring the city a little more.  We walked through an indoor/outdoor mall and continued to see gaming centers throughout.  Before taking the subway back to the ship to get ready for the night we came across a place that sold waffles in the shapes of fish that were filled with warm chocolate/pudding.  They also had them filled with different types of meat almost like a type of sandwich. 

 

Once we got back to the ship we ate a quick dinner on the ship to save money, and got ready for the night.  We went back out to the subway where these guys were passing out flyers for a club called “second chance” where it was 15$ at the door and all you could drink.  That sounded like a great deal since I think drinks were 5 dollars a piece anywhere else we were going to go.  When we got off the subway in downtown to head towards the bars or clubs we asked a man if he knew where the club second chance was.  He was a pilot and was in town on business but asked locals for instructions and walked us the entire way to the club.  I had heard this was happened but was still very shocked and impressed that he walked block and blocks out of his way to get complete strangers to where they wanted to be.  We spent the night at second chance dancing the night away and finally headed back to the ship.