Japan and my birthday!

4.16.08
4.13: So, since my SAS trip to Nara for the third day was cancelled, I decided to go with my roommate and Tea to Osaka for the day. I liked Osaka, but it wasn’t my favorite place in Japan. It was kind of like a biggish city. We did go to the museum of Oriental Ceramics, which was pretty cool and walked around tons of shopping areas. I got some cute new nose rings, but that was about it for my spending. We went to a cute little restaurant for dinner, after a long harried walk of trying to find some place that had both noodles and sushi. They wanted noodles, I wanted sushi, and we ended up at a place that didn’t really have either. It was fine though because I ended up with a pseudo-sushi dish that was avocado and tuna with cod roe mayonnaise in a big bowl of sticky rice, which was delicious. I had cherry blossom ice cream for dessert, which was very very very delicious. It was a pretty good day, but it was long and we all got a little frustrated with each other by the end of it. Everyone in Japan was so nice, however, and we were always able to find people who could help us figure out where we were going. A man helped us buy subway tickets, and we even ran into a group of American students studying abroad in Japan who helped us find a good shopping area.
The last day in Japan was my favorite. Even though SAS had cancelled my trip to Nara, I was determined to go there. Originally Tea and Christine were going to come with me, but both of them had decided that they were too exhausted and worn out to mess with traveling again. Well, I didn’t let that stop me. I went on my own. Christine let me borrow her railpass, so I didn’t have to pay for any of the train tickets, which was especially nice because the first guy who gave me directions told me the wrong thing and I ended up getting a bit lost. I ended up going on two extra trains to make up and transfer back to the correct train I was supposed to be on, but like I mentioned earlier—everyone was so nice and helpful that it wasn’t too bad. I made it out to Nara in an hour and a half. There are also information desks everywhere, so all I had to do was walk out of the train station to the desk to found out how to get everywhere. I went to Todai-ji (the temple where the largest Buddha statue in the world is located). I LOVED NARA! It was so beautiful and peaceful there, and there were deer everywhere! You could walk right up and pet them, literally. I did. A lot of people were feeding them too, but they came up to me and started chewing on my jacket so I figured that was food enough. I loved just walking around. It was especially calming after having been so sick. Having the day to myself was exactly what I needed. There were also tons and tons of cute souvenir-type shops with lots of fun Japanese trinkets and gifts. I bought a lot of stuff. I wanted to buy out every store I went to, but I restrained myself. For lunch I went to a nice place with a view of one of the many Nara temples. They didn’t have a menu in English, but the waitress was ridiculously nice. I explained I wanted sushi, so she pointed out a number of dishes. I ended up getting a huge box one that had tempura, sushi, sashimi, and some weird other vegetables (and I’m very proud of myself for at least trying all of it!). It was absolutely delicious, even though it was a bit on the expensive side. I figured I deserved it after not being able to eat too much of anything. After walking around for another few hours and getting some more shopping done, I decided to head back to Kobe in the late afternoon. I wanted to leave myself enough time to get back to the ship if I happened to get lost again. It worked out, however, that I ran into a few other SAS kids who were also heading back. I was able to tag along with them, on a much smoother journey, back to Kobe. When we got to Kobe, two of them also wanted to walk around for a bit longer so the three of us headed out. Their names were Anna and Max. Anna and I had been on a SAS trip together a long time ago, so we were relatively friendly. We had a lot of fun. We went to the local supermarket to stock up on snacks for the long haul between Japan and Hawaii. I got some delicious Japanese candy (like pocky and toppo…pocky are chocolate (or coconut or strawberry or various other flavors) covered wafer sticks and toppo are chocolate (or vanilla etc) filled pretzel sticks). Ahh, they’re so good. Next we stopped at this crepe place and I had my absolute favorite dessert of the trip so far…and that’s saying something, because I’ve made sure to try plenty of desserts in these countries. The warm crepe acted as an ice cream cone! Inside it had vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce, bananas, and whip cream. Oh my god. Really, it was so freaking amazing. Then we made one last stop at a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant for some dinner. It was pretty good sushi, and also just really cool how you just wait for the sushi you want to pass in front of you. I had some pretty good salmon ones, tuna ones, and some crab ones. It was really quite a good last meal to leave Japan. Afterwards, we walked the twenty minutes back to the harbor and boarded the ship. It made for the perfect last day in Japan. I would love to go back to Japan, though. I feel that there was so much more I would love to do and places to visit. My mom said that if I wanted I could probably go back as a graduation gift, and it would be pretty cool to go with my mom who knows the area and can speak a bit of the language. Japan is really the only country that I have to go back to. Most of the other countries were awesome; I loved Malaysia and China, but I would be ok if I never got around to getting back there. Japan, on the other hand, I would really like to go back to. It probably helps that I’ve grown up with my mom who’s obsessed with it, but I think I came to the decision on my own that it was my favorite country. I mean, I know I still have Costa Rica, but I don’t think that country will be in my top three. Japan, Malaysia and China are my top three favorites.
So as far as birthdays go, it’s been a pretty good day! I’ve gotten tons of emails and messages, so thanks guys! Also, Nicki and Tea put up a cute Happy B-day sign on my door (which I, of course, got a picture of) and as part of my care package, Debbie and Rachel sent me Disney Princess tiaras, napkins and plates, so I will make sure to whip those out at my birthday dinner tonight. I’m not sure what (if anything) Christine, Nicki and Tea ended up ordering for me (because you can order cake or cookies), but I’ll be happy with anything. I don’t have any other big plans for the day, and I do have rehearsal for the show tonight. We perform this Saturday evening, and I think the show should be pretty good…once it pulls together. It definitely has not pulled together yet, but it is only Wednesday. I won’t lose faith yet. I do get to do a pretty intense little dance number that I choreographed, so that should be fun. I just hope that the ship isn’t too rocky that night because that could add another dimension to the play if we’re all falling all over the place. The seas have been pretty rocky the past two days—as in we’ve whipped out the masking tape for the heavy drawers that keep swinging open and shut, but I like it. It makes the ship more fun. Last night at dinner the huge bucket of soup actually tipped over. Sucked for the crew to have to clean it up, but it was pretty entertaining, I’m not going to lie. That’s about it from here. I’ll probably add a little update later letting you all know how the birthday dinner went, but until then au revoir!