Chris took all of us to a bar he hangs out with to chill for awhile. He doesn’t drink, but this bar is a pretty cool place and he got a couple of jobs out of the people he met there. It has a half pipe in it and is also sort of an art exhibit for tattoo artists. The current exhibit was of pictures of the kappa, a Japanese mythological monster. The kappa is kind of frog like. It has a pool on the top of its head filled with water, and if these pool is empty, it loses all of its power. When you encounter a kappa, you are supposed to bend down very low, so that the monster bows to you as well, and the water falls out of the pool. Kappas are not supposed to be violent creatures. They eat cattle mostly, though they will pick off small kids once in awhile. The drawings definitely stated otherwise, however. All of the kappa were either in a very violent or sexual setting. Interesting, though, to think about different culture’s myths and monsters.

We sat and had a couple of drinks, we were basically the only ones in there. We played Uno Stack Em, which is basically Jenga. Then the lights went dim and Happy Birthday came on, and they brought me a bowl of popcorn with candles in it and some chocolates. It was so sweet of them. I made a wish and blew them out, then we all scarfed. Next a guy did a magic trick for us, levitating a pen out of his palm. WOAH! City of magic. Everyone was really nice and we had a good time there. Adrienne told Chris about the tattoo she wanted to get, and he hooked it up with a local tattoo artist so she could get it done. They set up a time to meet the next morning. Chris was great and really helped us out.

We took off from the bar and headed out to explore the rest of Shibuya district, hoping to run into friends. We stopped into one more bar and had another drink. Every time we saw SAS kids we would latch onto them for a little, until we finally found a big group and ended up going into Club Vuenos with them, $10 including two drinks. Sweet. The place was empty pretty much except for us. In fact, the whole district seemed empty. The trains stop running at midnight, so everybody either goes home or passes out at local food places till they start running again. We are just not used to that.

There was another birthday boy in the group and him and I celebrated our coming of age. Hannah and I kept going up to the bartenders and saying “TANJOBI!” or something like that, which means Happy Birthday. I kept forgetting how to say it, though, so I kept asking people, and they would all lie to me. It was pretty funny, I’m not sure why they lied. City of lies. Anyways, the bartenders were pretty awesome and kept lining up little shots for Hannah, me, and themselves. They finally got sick of us asking though and turned us away. The club apparently got really packed with locals around 2 a.m. The night after about 1 is a little fuzzy for me, but I know I had a blast.

I woke up the next morning. Where am I? All four of us girls are in the same bed, Hannah Kendra and I lying next to each other, and Adrienne at our feet. We ended up staying the night in a love hotel, which you can rent by the hour, if you know what I mean. I had lost one of my tiger ears in the night’s festivities and was pretty sad. That was nothing, though, compared to what Hannah had lost… her entire purse. It had her passport, her camera, our locker key, and both of our train passes in it. S***.

We went back to the club and knocked, but no one was there. I was supposed to meet Win that morning to go with him to the Pokemon Store, but now we had more pressing things to deal with, so I met him and let him know I wasn’t going, then Kendra took off to go meet Mary, leaving us with Mary’s phone number. Hannah was mortified and visibly very upset, who wouldn’t be? I tried to let her know that this could happen to anyone, none of us were upset with her, and we were here to help her in any way we could. She just felt so bad.

We met up with Chris and he immediately took us to a police box. They filed a police report and everybody kept assuring us that it would probably show up, things don’t get stolen in Tokyo. They were wrong.

We were hungry so we stopped at a place to eat. Chris stopped at a pretty traditional place, which I wasn’t too happy about, but it turned out to be delicious. First, you put your money in a machine and press a button for which item you want. City of future. Then you sit down and they bring it to you. My meal was like a big noodle soup, but so much more than that. The broth is like the most delectable, amazing, brothy broth you’ve ever tasted, and the noodles are amazing, and there are two slices of yummy pork, a hard boiled egg, and spices to die for. It was so. So. Good. I knew something was really wrong with Hannah because she didn’t eat, and that never happens.

Chris called the club for us. They informed him no one would be there till 3 p.m. and to check on the bag then. Unfortunately, I had a baseball game in Yokohama to get to, and I needed to leave by 2:30. We weren’t sure what to do, so we just headed with Adrienne and Chris over to the tattoo shop to get Adrienne’s tat done. The tattoo artist turned on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for her and got to work. We watched for a few minutes, then we left Adrienne to be stabbed and Chris and Hannah and I headed out as we all had places we needed to be. Chris was meeting a friend, I needed to get to Yokohama, and we had decided that Hannah would meet up with Kendra and Mary so Mary could help her contact the embassy/find her purse. We got to the train station and had a worker there break into our locker for us, as we no longer had the key. That cost us $17. After we had our things again, I didn’t want to leave Hannah and I was scared Kendra wouldn’t be a huge help. I gave Hannah 400 yen and a big hug and said, “Kendra better stand up for you, Hannah.” Too bad I would find out later that she didn’t, and I never should have left Hannah alone.

I gave Chris a big hug goodbye at the train station and thanked him for being a lifesaver, then hopped on my train to Yokohama. It was about a 35 minute ride. I watched everyone sleeping around me, and couldn’t help but notice the girl sleeping on top of me. Seriously. It was hilarious, she was actually on me. The Japanese people can sleep standing up, sitting up, any way at all really.

I got to Yokohama and set about walking to the ship. I was still in my dress and tights from last night. I finally had normal shoes now that I had cracked open our locker, but I had gum on the bottom of my tights from walking all over Tokyo barefoot while carrying my heels in my hand. Like the walk of shame times ten. The five minute walk was more like fifteen, but Semester at Sea always miscalculates time to get in and out of ports. City of lies. It was also really hot out, I was tired, and it had been a long day. The port was really weird and long, but also cool, but it took me awhile to find my way in.

When I was finally ship sweet ship, I had to immediately change to leave for the baseball game, which they told us to be there for at four even though the game started at 6:30. I figured they gave us extra time to get on buses and ride over there, but no. We walked twenty minutes to the park. ALL the field office did was get us the $22.00 tickets, and they charged us $53.00. That makes me so angry that they rip us off like that.

Braxton and I decided to spend the evening together and he coerced me into stopping int the nearest 7-11, our heaven, and buy cheap food. The food in these places is so good, and so cheap. We got our stuff and went out to the street, sat on a corner, and ate. It was great. Then he coerced me into buying these lemonade alcoholic drinks called “STRONG” that are 8% and pretty tall. He then promised me that we would go out tonight and buy me a birthday drink. Braxton is pretty much my favorite person. Hannah’s too.

After sitting out for a long time and eating and drinking and talking we finally headed into the game around 6. The ballpark was really cool and the crowd was crazy. One side was all home and one was away. All of the cheers are orchestrated by a little band with a drummer, trumpet, some other instruments, and a huuuuuge flag. Braxton and I really wanted to wave that flag. We went up and asked if we could, and they tapped their two pointer fingers to tell us no. That means no in Japanese, or if they REALLY mean no, they cross their arms in an aggressive fashion. So we asked if we could play the trumpet. No again. Braxton and I had a blast, cheering along in Japanese, even though we had no idea what we were saying, and we sat right in the Japanese group the whole time, far away from SASers.

I met so many people at this game. There were a bunch of 30-something military guys behind me and I talked with them for a long time. Then I went over to sit with Doug and some other people and this guy called out, “Hey, are you from Semester at Sea?” And I was like, “Yeah!” Then I went over and spent an hour with them. They were all twenty-four year old Navy guys. They had just gotten back from observing the North Korean satellite launch. NBD. They were really nice guys and I enjoyed asking them a bunch of questions about life in the Navy. They asked me just as many questions about SAS. I asked them if they knew any good places to go out around here, and they told me to gather my friends after the game and follow them to a bar. Perfect.

I gathered up Alicia and Nate and Doug, and tried to find Braxton but he was gone. Sad face, but pretty much I had been sitting with these guys for an hour and he thought I had left. Sorry B!

So the Yokohama BayStars were a pretty terrible team and they lost by at least 9-1. Bad. But it was still a great experience. I haven’t seen nearly enough sporting events in the countries I have been to and I regret it.

We took off with the guys to a bar. On the way there we passed by a Japanese guy in a suit, passed out on the street, vomit caked on his cheek. Disgusting. I’m telling you, they party hard in Japan. Hannah and I also saw these guy vomiting his lungs out at a subway station once. Oh and when I asked our interport lecturer if there was an open container law in Japan, he said, “Are you kidding? These people’s idea of a good time is sitting under a tree and getting drunk.” Haha.

Anyways, the bar was a chill place, the Navy guys bought all of our drinks. I spent the entire time talking to Doug, who I had the most interesting bar conversation with of my entire life. Doug asks questions like, what did you like to do as a kid, what are your grandparents like, what is your idea of heaven? He is an extremely intriguing guy and he is basically a human mindreader. We played darts and then we took off a little before midnight to catch the last train.

Ship sweet ship. I was lying in bed sleeping when Caroline stumbled in, drunk as a skunk, and that was pretty funny.

The next morning I woke up around nine and went to breakfast. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back into Tokyo and try to meet up with Chris again. I gave him a call but he didn’t answer, so I just decided to wander around Yokohama with Greg and Caroline. We had a nice, stress-free few hours together. We went over to the amusement park and rode the gigantic ferris wheel, talked and looked out over the beautiful coastal city. I took pictures with a giant Pikachu. We wet over to the big mall and ate food. I sat down for another traditional meal and had basically the same noodle dish from before. Just as delicious.

Next we took a little boat ride for four dollars around the bay. There were such sweet little babies on the ride and we made faces at them the whole time. We passed by our boat and took a bunch of pictures. After the ride Caroline and Greg headed to the ship and I went on a HUNT for a solid hour for postcards and stamps. I wandered through Chinatown, which wasn’t that cool because I have actually been to China. Japan does not cater to tourists. No post cards. No stamps. No nothing. I asked about a dozen people to help guide me to a place to buy post cards. I finally found one, like a mile and a half later, and once I had them it was time to head back to the ship.

We all carded onto the ship, THEN had to disembark for ANOTHER face to face inspection. City of crazy. It felt so good to be on the ship after that, sit for hours on end, sleep for hours on end, be clean, not be stressed.

Traveling shows you people’s true colors, and Hannah certainly saw some people’s true colors. When she met up with Mary and Kendra, she told them her predicament, then, being the overly nice person she is, said, “I know you guys are sightseeing and I don’t want to get in your way or anything…” Instead of saying, no of course not, you have NOTHING, we will help you in any way we can, they nodded, and left her. I am still angry about this, a week and a half later. Kendra didn’t even give Hannah her green sheet with all of the important phone numbers and port info on it. So Hannah embarked on an epic journey, all alone, and everything eventually was okay in the end. She got lucky, met a guy who actually worked at the embassy, he set her up, and she got an emergency passport the next morning. With no help from Kendra or her friend WHO LIVES IN JAPAN AND SPEAKS THE LANGUAGE. ARRRRGGHHHHH. So mad.

Anyways… the last nine day stretch on the ship was a blast, I’ll write a little more about it later. Right now I’m gonna play card games and just relax for awhile. Hawaii was amazing, so so good… and I have fifteen days left before I am home. Unbelievable.