Yokohama and Kamakura

Goodbye Japan, Look out America! Well sort of America…not the continental United States. Our next stop is actually Hawaii on Thanksgiving =) Soon (in two hours) I will be sailing on a new ocean, the Pacific!!!
I am very sad to leave Japan because it was a blast! Yokohama was a beautiful city and I would love to go back and be able to explore more. We only had a day and a half in Yokohama, so I definitely would like to get the chance to come back to Japan.

For the first day I explored the city by foot because a lot was within walking distance, at least for the places I wanted to go. I walked to a few parks and eventually made my way to this place called “Queens Tower,” where they had plenty of shops and restaurants.  Because I am a Starbucks freak, I had to go again, and this time they had Christmas Coffee Cups!!! Oh my gosh!! Christmas Time is coming!!!! After Starbucks I proceeded to head to the shops! I bought a few things for my friends, and found a Zara! The only other place that I have seen Zara was in Spain. For those of you that don’t know, Zara is  a clothing place with trendy and fashionable clothes. I tried a few things on, but only ended up buying a cute vest.
After leaving that shopping tower, I found myself at another shopping center right next door to the other! This place was crazy with shops and restaurants. The number of little bakery and pasty shops was insane! It also smelled delicious. I didn’t do as much shopping at this place, but had a lot of fun looking at the Japanese fashion.

Okay so lets fast-forward to the next day because it was the highlight of my couple of days. Today was my day dedicated to a Semester At Sea trip to Kamakura. Kamakura has a population of 300,000 and is called the small Kyoto that I visited earlier in Japan. It was a really cute town with lots of little shops and restaurants. Not to mention the city is known for the Shinto and Zen temples.
        I had signed up for this faculty directed trip because I need to write three papers on different temples that I have visited. Now, I have visited plenty of temples on my trips and travels throughout Semester At Sea, but I had not visited any Zen temples. Unfortunately I couldn’t have gone to any Zen temples in Africa, because there is no Zen Buddhism in Africa! My class called Zen Buddhism definitely called for me to visit an actual Buddhist temple.
        We first visited a Shinto temple and were able to experience monks chanting different sayings and phrases. My favorite part of visiting this temple was that you had to purify yourself before entering. It reminded me somewhat of holy water, but you would pour water on each hand and kind of rub your hands together. Then you would take more water and cup it in one hand and put it up to your lips, but not drink it. It was a lot of fun and cool that I was able to pretend that I was Japanese or practiced the Shinto faith for an hour or two.
        The next place was an actual Zen Temple. I really enjoyed this because in my class we learn so much about Zen and the ways of life for these Buddhist monks. This is what Semester At Sea is all about, learning about these countries cultures and histories, and then being able to go out and watch the people or visit places first hand. The group and I walked around the temple for a while and noticed how beautiful all of the nature was surrounding the temple. There was one point where I just sat down right in front of one of the buildings in the “temple complex” and reflected.
        I thought of how there is no place in the United States where I could go and even experience a part of what I was seeing. There were artists painting the different gates and buildings all around and photographers figuring out the different angles of the best picture to capture the fall foliage. I wish that when I visited the other temples throughout these last three months I could have just sat down and reflected on what I was seeing at that moment. It made me appreciate where I was and what I was looking at a lot more. I tired to do the same for other structures and places such as the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio, my safari in Kruger, the Taj in India, and the Great Wall in Beijing. Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes makes all the difference in the world.
        Hase Temple was our next visit and this place had huge statues of Buddha that were in different parts of the temple. I was not allowed to take any pictures of these Buddhas, but I am pretty sure I can snatch one from a person that illegally took one. It reminded me of my brother when we were at the Sistine Chapel in Italy. He took video footage of the ceiling, while causally walking around like he wasn’t doing anything. I thought it was pretty impressive. =) The Hase Temple had a great view of the city of Kamakura and a even more fantastic view of the Pacific. It was such a glorious day with the sun beaming down on the lovely blue water.
        The temperature in Japan was amazing! It was not forty degrees like it was in Beijing or ninety degrees like it was in India. It was probably upper 60’s to low 70’s. Perfect weather!
Our last visit was to a place to see “The Great Buddha.” This Buddha was ridiculously huge. It is something like 45-50 feet tall and is not even the biggest one in Asia. A few girls that I was with on my trip told me that they went to Hong Kong to see the real “Great Buddha.” We still are not sure even if that one is the biggest, but apparently the one they saw is three times the size of the one that I saw. I couldn’t even imagine. I secretly wanted to climb up and sit in the Buddha’s hand for a picture. But then again, I probably would have gotten kicked out!
        Today was a lot of fun! I also was able to hang out with a girl on Semester At Sea that lives in Arkansas, but goes to Baldwin Wallace in Cleveland! Baldwin Wallace is probably about 20-30 minutes away from John Carroll. We shared some fun stories about the bars in Cleveland and of course the snow that we are both most excited for. Haha. Yeah, I don’t know about that one! I have met a few people on the boat that are from the Cleveland area that I am definitely going to be visiting!

        Yeah! I have nine days until I arrive in Hawaii! Not as bad as my hike from Cape Town to India, but it should be fun. We also have two November 22 because we cross the international dateline. I think that for one of the 22 we don’t have class.  This is going to be real strange gaining hours now! Wahoo! Oh my gosh I just turned on my TV and it already says Yokohama to Honolulu! I love that my TV tracks where we are, how fast we are going, and the longitude and latitude! I am going to miss that at home. Where is the ship channel? Maybe I will go on the website and track the next voyage ☺
        I am sad that we are leaving Asia! I just had a whirlwind of countries in the last three weeks. My body is really exhausted, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I cannot wait to look back on everything that I have done and say, “I traveled the world to it’s fullest.” I hope that statement makes sense, but it is true. I did however have an emotional patch about three days ago. For some reason after I got off the phone with my parents I started crying. This trip is physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging and constantly changing your views of the world. It was most likely a mix of me talking to my parents and thinking about all the ways I have changed is surreal to me. What a gift I have in my hands and inspiration for my future.

I guess I should go catch up on more work. The only unfortunate thing about Semester At Sea, is that the class are really REALLY hard. It takes some getting used to the rigorous schedule that we have going.
Hope everyone is getting excited for Thanksgiving! Talk to you soon!

Love,

Kristen X0X0