E-mail Kathryn sent Sunday, September 16, 2001, from Japan

hello everyone

i cant use capitals cause if i do youll end up getting strange japanese characters thrown in there that, although they may spice up the email a bit, really just make me mad. so, here comes a very grammatically incorrect and exclamationly sparse email. ben, i apologize in advance for the lack of exclamation points, i was really gonna give em to you full force this time. ive been in japan now for 5 days and we head back to sea this evening at 6 pm. it has been an incredible 5 days, so ill try my best to recap them as briefly as possible. the first day a group of friends and i bolted off the ship and headed straight for downtown kobe to get our first taste of some real japanese cuisine, and check out some of the attractions. i have a friend that is from tokyo, who was perfect to have around so we could ease into the whole `not knowing a schoche of japanese` thing. after a bit though, she forced us to stop talking to her so we would have to do things for ourselves, and it was great fun. we became masters of the train system and knowing which buttons to push for what ticket even though there was no english explanation for any of it. it consisted of a lot of looking over other peoples shoulders as they got their tickets, while making sure we didn`t make them think we were stalking them or trying to take their pocketbooks. so, that technique was pretty effective. after our first lunch at a japanese chain called big kid, nice huh? who, may i add, has orange as their main color\11111 shoot, i tried to do the exclamation point, old habits die hard. anywho, lunch was delicious, i had some sort of unidentifiable noodle dish which was quite tasty. and i love using chop sticks so all the meals ive had have been totally enjoyable, even if the taste was a little off.

the first night i headed into kyoto with a group to see a performance at gion corner, the geisha district. it was a good show, but not quite what i was expecting and a little tourist trappy. after the show, my roomate, lihi, and i and 2 other friends went to the kyoto train station, which is an incredibly beautiful and ginormous building. we found a great little restaurant there and ate up at the bar. i wasnt extremely hungry so i split a dish with a friend.

day 2: my friend lori and i decided that we wanted to hike up rokko mountain which is right on the outskirts of kobe, so we went to the information center in the port terminal and asked how to find the trails. well, the little man behind the counter didn:t take us too seriously, and insisted on only showing us the cable car way to get up the mountain. so we took off, and, unable to find the hiking trails on our own, resulted to taking the cable car up the mountain, which turned out to be very beautiful, so we left our ill feelings for the little chuckling japanese man behind. after walking around rokko, and having a very sketchy meal in a rotating restaurant that creaked like a maniac, we got on a suspended car type of thing and went floating across the mountain to the town of arima. in arima, lori and i got adventurous and went to a traditional japanese bath house. quite the experience. we found ourselves among 30 or so very confident older japanese women, so we dropped our insecurities, and our clothes and had a very relaxing afternoon in the hot springs there. ?@

the next day i had planned to go to nara with my friend jeff. well, i was waiting for him on the ship, cause he was returning from an overnight homestay, and when he showed up, he had the best surprise ever with him. the girls whom he had stayed with wanted to share the day with us and show us around nara and kobe and wherever. there names were yuko and akiko. we went to nara, played with the over friendly dear who we had to battle with over a piece of paper. one deer eventually won, and got the supreme pleasure of gobbling up our map of nara. but not to fear, there were plenty more where those came from. we also saw the largest buddha in japan at todaiji temple. it was amazing. there was a hole that was in a large post next to the buddha, that was as big as his nose, and if you could fit through, it is said that you have eternal good luck. so of course jeff and i could use a little of that, so we dropped our bags with yuko and akiko and shimmied on through that little hole. jeffs shoulders were a bit large and in charge, so we pulled him out of that hole, but he was still successful. and, after battling a little bit with the stickiness of the varnish on the inside of the hole, i made it through as well with many cheers from the crowd, we felt quite important. so val, i was very excited to see that after what id heard from you, so you should be quite proud of me.

that night, yuko and akiko discovered that id never tried sushi, so they rushed us off to the cutest sushi bar ever. we sat at a bar and in front of us was this conveyer belt thing that went around with the different plates of sushi on it. you just grabbed whatever you wanted when it came around in front of you. jeff kept grabbing plate after plate of stuff for me that he said i had to try, so i ended up having salmon eggs, raw salmon, octopus, shrimp and an unidentifiable set of eggs. i had 11 pieces of sushi and a bowl of missile soup. you couldve rolled me right out of there. that number was belittled though by jeffs 22 pieces. he was crowned king of our dinner party. that was a perfect end to a day of fun with our new japanese friends. they are also coming back to the ship today to see us off. im very grateful that i had the opportunity to spend time with women who could tell us everything we wanted to know about japanese culture and sights. it was great.

yesterday i went to hiroshima. this emails getting long, so ill be brief, but it was definetly a day to remember. the entire city has devoted itself to the pursuit of peace and the destruction of nuclear weapons. it was inspirational to see how well hiroshima has recovered from the total devastation it experienced in 1945. i spent much of the day on my own just looking through the park and the peace museum. where better to be right now than right in the hear to of the `mecca of world peace` as they called themselves.