The first day of the school trip, this was back on October 13th, started out very early. It was the beginning of my new schedule of early mornings, late nights, and crazy packed days, and I was not looking forward to that aspect of the trip. I was up at five in the morning because I had to meet my class at the train station at six to catch our train at seven. The inside of the train station was extremely hectic and noisy. Imagine putting about 240 students (plus teachers) in one area and make them wait an hour before our train came in. Thankfully, Japanese students are slightly more behaved than most high school students back in Canada so the teachers did not have an extremely hard time controlling all of us. Before I knew it, we were on the boarding pad (is that what it’s called?) and our train was pulling up. Now, I have only really rode on a train before once, and this was at like Disney World or something (I can’t exactly remember) so I was very excited and anxious. To add to my butterflies, our train was actually a Shinkansen (Bullet Train), which are the fastest and most luxurious trains in Japan. Riding in one was an experience of a life time. When the train starts moving, it’s really slow at first, like an airplane, but within a few seconds, the train is shooting out of the station at incredible speeds! And you continued to get this rushed feeling throughout the trip, unlike in airplanes where it feels like you aren’t moving. Shinkansens are also defiantly luxurious; the seats are huge and comply and the amount of leg room you get is unbelievable! That must be what first class fliers experience all the time. I was a bit disappointed when it was too cloudy to see Mt. Fuji as we pulled into the Tokyo area, but I did get to see glimpses of the Tokyo Tower!
I don’t think I have seen so many people in one small area at once in my whole entire life, when we arrived at the Shin Tokyo Train Station. (Shin stands for Shinkansen.) I literally just hung onto one of my friend’s jackets as we were somehow shepherded through the station to catch out next train. Our second Shinkansen was going to take us to Himeji, Hyōgo, Japan which was about a three hour ride. Not a lot of people were used to such a lengthily time to travel, but I was completely used to it from living in Alberta! I spent my time chatting with friends, sleeping, and reading my book and soon enough, we had arrived. Now, at the time, I did not know we were in Himeji because I could not read the student schedule nor did anyone tell me we were going to Himeji. So poor little, foreign me, followed the rest of my class out of the station and onto these giant tour buses having no clue of what was in store. I have to come to accept that this is just how an exchange student’s life is, always living by the seat of your pants, never knowing what excitement to expect. Haha! After the buses started to take off, I finally asked one of my friends where we were going, and low and behold, we were going to THE most famous castle in ALL of Japan, Himeji Jō. (Jō means Castle.)
Never in a million years had I ever thought that I would be able to see this famous castle with my own two eyes. It was so spectacular and it was one of the highlights of the trip for me. There was a slight downside however; the castle was currently being “refurbished” so the entire thing was covered in sky high metal bars and wires. Despite this, it was still such an amazing sight and our tour guide told us that they would be finished next spring so I am hoping to visit there again.
Speaking of our tour guide! Our group probably had the best tour guide ever and do you know why? He spoke fluent English! When I had gone to Komine Jō back in Shirakawa, I missed out on understanding all the history and stories about the place because I didn’t always understand our guide. But it was quite the opposite at Himeji Jō! Our guide would explain about part of the castle or an ancient legend about it as we stopped by, and afterwards, he would summarize what he said in English to me. I was so grateful for that and because of him, that’s probably one of the reasons why I enjoyed that part of the trip so much.
Our stay in Himeji wasn’t long, and after we visited the castle, we were back on the road headed towards Kobe, Hyōgo. (This was about an hour’s drive away.) And speaking of driving, driving in Japan is like nothing I have experienced. Seriously. In Canada, we’re used to driving through a town or city then hitting hours of nothing until we get to the next town or city. In Japan, there is practically no “country”. It’s just house after house after house after stores after stores…it never seemed to end! It’s very bizarre.
We first stopped at this kind of memorial and information center in Kobe that was all about the largest earthquake that had hit Japan, in that area, back in 1995. Me and earthquakes have not been getting along, I get all nervous when suddenly the ground under my feet that I trust to hold me up starts to move. So when we went into two different theatres to watch two different reenactments of the earthquake, I was pretty freaked out. It was so sad to see all of the destruction; I didn’t even know such a thing had ever happened! (If you didn’t know either, Google “The Great Hanshin Earthquake”.) Going there kind of put a slight damper on my day, but it was still interesting to hear about.
The last stop for our first day was at the famous Kobe Port, one of the most famous ports in Japan. And was it ever beautiful! The plan was to go on a dinner cruise, but before we did, we had some free to time to explore the port’s beautiful park. I had a lot of fun with my friends running around and taking pictures and just taking in every moment. It was so warm too! The sun had set a long time ago, but it was still felt like 20+ degrees! I love being so south and by the sea.
To finish of a great start to an amazing trip, the dinner cruise was simply spectacular. The dinner was buffet style and I ate so much! Haha. Afterwards, we all headed out to tour the boat and spent most of our time outside on the top level of the small ship. We all had to be in our uniforms during the school trip, so all of us girls were all quite frantic on top of the boat with our skirts on. We had a lot of good laughs though. After the dinner cruise, we headed back to our hotel for the night and then began my sleeping schedule of very late nights and extremely early mornings.
For now, this is all I’m going to post because I feel bad for not posting anything for a month now. My goal is to get everything up about the school trip by the end of this weekend. Thank you for being so patient everyone! じゃあまたね! (See you later!)
~Stephanie
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