Aloha

We only spent one day in Honolulu, Hawaii, but I would have loved to stay for two or three. On arrival, Lisa, Andrea and I went to the Pearl Harbor memorial to spend the morning. The site was filled with tourists, and it was so strange to hear them speaking English. We couldn’t help but notice also how obvious and annoying American tourists are. That afternoon we went to Waikiki beach and met up with Alli and Sonja to play in the water and catch up on our tans, since both China and Japan were so cold we hadn’t been able to tan really since Vietnam. For the first time ever I tried sushi, and that was extremely monumental. Hawaii was beautiful and nice for a day off the ship, but I was ready to get going to San Diego. Next post will be from NY :)

Ohio

I really liked Japan, and might have loved it had it been one of the first ports instead of the last. People were very helpful even when they could not speak English, by physically showing us the correct train to get on rather than pointing out directions. That being said, however, communication was really a problem as a lot less people overall could speak English. The first day/night, Alli, Sonja, Lisa, Andrea and myself went to the Osaka Dome to watch the Orix Buffaloes play. The Japanese love baseball, and the only way I can describe is that the fans are more NFL than MLB. Surprisingly, there were a lot of white and Hispanic players on the “B’s” and the manager was a white guy. The game itself was a little slow, but we saw three bench clearing brawls. The most interesting thing about the stadium had to be the food, instead of hot dogs and chicken fingers, they sold octopus balls on a stick and delicious edamame. In Japan, teriyaki is very popular and all of the fast food places like McDonalds and KFC have teriyaki flavored meals. I had a teriyaki chicken roll-up wrap from KFC that was great; they really should bring that to the U.S. The second day I participated in a SAS organized home stay. We were scheduled to meet in the union at noon, and when I got there it was the most hectic thing I’ve ever seen. There were 60 families there, meeting 60 students they had never before seen. The families made large colorful signs with our names on it, sort of like at the airport. There were little kids running and screaming all over the place. I eventually located my family, which turned out to be an 18 year old girl named Hitomi and her mother Yuri. Her two brothers were at school for the day, but she skipped her university classes so she could come pick me up. Hitomi could speak fluent English, but her mother knew basically nothing. After we met, the organization they came from, called the Hippo Club, introduced themselves and put on a little skit and ice breaker games. The Hippo Club is a great organization, the women and their children (the fathers work) meet once or twice a week and learn languages, not just English, but Spanish, French and Russian also. The little children introduced themselves in all of the different languages. I showed my ‘family’ around the ship, and then we left with another family and student to go for lunch where they lived in Kyoto, about an hour drive. We had lunch at the Japanese version of a diner, and the two-year old adorable girl from the other family packed away a happy meal sized sushi lunch like nothing I’ve ever seen. She ate fish eggs like they were candy. My lunch was not good- it was just vegetables and udon, but they had put shredded dried fish all over it. Probably the nastiest thing I’ve ever tasted. After lunch, both families went to a golden-palace temple thing. I’m not sure what it was or why we were there, but it was nice to look at. Later that afternoon, the families dropped Hitomi, myself and the other girl named Ashley in downtown Kyoto so she could show us where she and her friends hung out. Once again I was surprised by how clean everything is in Japan, especially compared to the places we’ve been. That night, we all went back to the other family’s house for dinner. When we got there, it turned out they had invited the whole neighborhood to come and meet us. There were at least 10 children under the age of 11, and 5 or 6 women. One of Hitomi’s brothers, named Yu, was there, and at one point the boys’ teacher showed up so she could meet us also. They were all so polite, and each wanted to introduce themselves in English. The boys loved the fact that I loved baseball, and every two seconds would say “Malissa, you know Matsui? Malissa, you know Ichiro?” over and over. Dinner was very informal, the houses there are very small compared to American houses, so we all sat on the couches and floor. They served a Japanese pancake/pizza with shredded dried fish (I made myself eat half), some sushi, brown rice balls, and some weird dough things. I liked the brown rice balls and didn’t starve. Later that evening, the husband of the house came home. He waved hello to everyone and said hello to Ashley and me in perfect, non-accented English. The women explained that he had just gotten home from San Francisco. We said, “Oh, really, when did you get back, was it your first time? Did you enjoy it?” and he looked at us funny and said no, he literally had just gotten back. Him walking in the door was the first time he had seen his family in 4 days. It turned out that he is one of the founders of the new Nintendo gaming system called Wii, and regularly flies to San Francisco a couple of times a month for business. No big deal at all. Japanese businessmen are the hardest working of all business men. We had learned about it in global studies, but it was still surprising to see what long hours they work compared to Americans, who also work pretty hard. He showed us how to play games on Wii, which really is a great system, and all bonded really well. Around 10pm, I went back with Hitomi, Yuri and Yu to their house, where I met their father and other brother. The other boy was a typical too-cool-for-school 16 year old, and the father didn’t speak much English. I slept on a mattress on the floor in a spare room, which is just how the Japanese do things. The next morning, I had cereal and miso soup for breakfast and watched all three kids race around trying to get ready for school. It reminded me a lot of my house at home, and there was even a dog barking and running around too. That day, Hitomi and I were scheduled to go to her classes at her university, called Ryukoku. I sat in on English class, which interestingly enough was taught by an Irish guy. It seemed to go a lot like my Spanish classes were, where kids could repeat things and memorize things but never really understand what was going on. I introduced myself and spoke to them in English, and a few brave people asked questions. They all wanted my e-mail address, and I was not surprised that they all wrote me within a few days. Hopefully my correspondence will help them with their English, because lord knows they need it. Some of what they write isn’t even words. The next two days in Japan I spent in Kobe, where the ship was docked. Kobe is a great city, a little underrated I think because there aren’t any major attractions, but a lot of fun nevertheless. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to go to Hiroshima, but there just wasn’t time. Next time I’ll have to do both Tokyo and Hiroshima, and maybe Shanghai