Walking and Busing Japan

Kelly and I spent most of our third day in Japan exploring the area of Shinagawa where our hostel was located.  We were trying to save the last of our Yen for eating and to get some snacks for our overnight bus ride to Kobe later that evening. 

We picked up a walking map of the area from our hostel and took to the backstreets to get some culture of everyday life in Japan.  We saw a bunch of beautiful shinto shrines and a lot of historical spots, including a park where they buried a 59 foot whale's bones that washed ashore around 1800s.  It was a fun and cheap day that left our dogs barking by the time we were ready to head back to Yokohama to catch our overnight bus. 

Speaking of dogs, we had a great interaction with a couple of Japanese woman who were walking a pack of poodles.  She let us pet them and they climbed all over us.  It really made me happy because we both miss our dog, Libby, so much.  It was probably the last time we can safely interact with dogs on the street too.

The bus ride to Kobe wasn’t too bad.  We left around 11:30PM and got in at about 8 AM.  The bus windows were covered with curtains and they had these beekeeper looking head covers that blocked out most of the light.  I put my Ipod on to block the snorers which worked well but gave me some weird dreams.  Kelly didn’t do so well and was really exhausted when we arrived back to the ship.

Our two days in Kobe were pretty chill.  Since we had spent five days there back in 2006 we didn’t feel pressured to do everything.  At the last minute on Wednesday I got the opportunity to lead a field trip of about 12 people to Kyoto to a Samurai sword fighting lesson.   It was a fun trip and our tour guide was incredible.  She gave me all kinds of interesting information like how in Tokyo people stood on the right side of the escalators but in Kobe they stood on the left.  It turns out that Japan is split down the middle geographically on how which side is the proper side to stand on.

When we left Kobe on Thursday night they had a marching band on the port terminal to play us off.  They waved giant hands on sticks and we bid them a big sayonara.  It was a great country.