Day 1 Japan- Kobe/Hiroshima-4/6/09

The night before at our Logistical Pre-port presentation we were warned that it was probably going to take a while to get off the ship in Japan and they were correct.  We arrived in Kobe, Japan at our usual 8 am and everyone had to go get their temperature taken.  It's pretty cool they just aim an infrared gun at you and it takes your temperature as you walk by.  They had something very similar in Beijing and it is to try and prevent SARS/Bird Flu from spreading.  After everyone got their temperature taken they called us by seas (our halls) to get off the ship.  There was a group of 8 of us all traveling together to Hiroshima so we figured we would just wait until all of our seas were called and just get off together.  Of course the Yellow Sea (mine) was last and it took like 3-4 hours.  We had to get off and go through customs which consisted of a face-to-face inspection of our passports, photograph and fingerprints.  After we were through all of the customs procedures we had to head to one of the train stations to exchange our rail passes but about 1/3 of the ship was there as well trying to do the same thing.  In the meantime we had some of us stand in line while we went across the street to get some McDonald's.  We quickly realized stuff was a lot more expensive in Japan and that they actually listen to the crosswalk signals at intersections.  There was literally no cars coming and they would stand there and wait until the crosswalk signal changed, very strange especially in comparison to the other Asian countries we had been to.  After a few hours we finally exchanged our rail passes and had to head to the "Shin-Kobe" train station.  Shinshanken or Shin for short is the name of the bullet trains.  We got on the bullet train which was really nice and very fast.  The view on the train was a lot different than I expected as you typically see countryside when you are riding on a train but Japan has no countryside as it is such a small island so everyplace resembles a city.  Even though Hiroshima was out of the way from Yokohama which is where we would eventually have to end up, we felt it was important to go there considering what our country did to that city in WWII.  We had also heard that it was really moving to see Hiroshima and then to go see Pearl Harbor back to back. 

After about 2 hours we arrived in Hiroshima and we had to take another light rail train to get to the Crowne Plaza Hotel  that Phil and I had booked.  We found some really good deal online and it was like $60 a night and it turns out the hotel was really nice.  The other people we were with didn't have a hotel yet so we had them come up to our room to use the internet to find another place to stay.  They ended up staying at the same hotel as us but their rate went up to like $150.  We also booked a hotel for the following 2 nights in Tokyo.  None of us had eaten all day so we went to get some dinner pretty early.  We asked the concierge for a cheap place and we tried to find it but we couldn't so we ended up at some other place where they didn’t speak English but they had a picture menu with some English on it.  It was much different than a Japanese food restaurant in the U.S. and I ended up getting fried chicken and etamomi just to be safe.  We also had to try some Japanese sake since we were in Japan so we got a bottle of that.  Trying to figure out who owed what was a mess as always since the receipt was in Japanese and we were still trying to figure out all the different coins.  Eventually figured it out and we were on our way to find a bar to go to next.  We were walking and found a bar called "American Bar" and had a Texas flag outside of it, surely that would be a good time.  We walked up the stairs excited that we finally found a place and we went to sit down but the manager/owner would not let us.  We didn't really understand what was going on but he wouldn't let us in his place even though their was empty tables and other customers.  We continued on our way and found a street with a huge "Kirin Beer" sign over it so we figured it must be a good bar street.  Everyplace seemed to be closed and we walked into a few places that we thought were open but when we opened the door there was all old men that looked like they were in a business meeting.  After we got off that street we finally found an Irish bar with completely overpriced drinks but we sat down for a drink anyways.  Next door to the bar there was a puppy store so we went in and looked at the dogs for a few minutes.  I thought dogs in the U.S. were expensive but the cheapest dog in there was starting at $1,000.  We headed back to the hotel a short while later so we could start the next day bright and early.