Passenger Terminal Immigration: Yokohama, Japan

So we arrived in Yokohama this morning, and man, I am not ready for another port yet.  Luckily I don’t have any real plans today and so I’m taking it easy until I get off the ship and then I’m still going to take it easy.  Tomorrow, I am traveling to Kobe with my friend, Gabriel, who is from California but lived in Kobe until he was 13.  I am going to stay with him at his family friends’ house until the ship gets to Kobe in a few days.  Then I have a FDP home-stay with university students for my public speaking class.  I am so exhausted; I have no idea how I plan on being a charming guest.  Since India, I feel like I haven’t had any time to stop and catch my breath of all this traveling.  In the past three weeks, we’ve done four different countries and had about 8 days of classes.  I’m dying.  I’m not complaining…this is just craziness.  I can’t wrap my head around all of this and more and more keeps coming.  So then, the natural inclination would be to think, “Well, we have a nine day stretch between Japan and Hawaii, that will be a good time to think it out.”  Yeah right.  Those nine days will be nine straight days of class with no break and the Global Studies final exam and my final speech and my portfolio will be due.  I am always the student who at the end of the semester just needs to shut down for about a day to slow my mind down enough to start to get to work on things, and that feeling of needing to shut down got into my head yesterday and since it was impeccably bad timing, I am feeling more frazzled than I ever have.  I hope that once I get off the ship, my mind will be in “Japan only” mode, and I’ll be happier.  Then when we get back on the ship I can just get to work.  I won’t be too good at that though because we’ll also be starting to say goodbye to everyone.  Holy moley.  I gotta get out of this funk. 

How about this immigration?  In Japan, foreigners (that’s us) have to go through a face-to-face inspection with an immigration officer, get fingerprints done, and a picture of your face taken.  None of this can be done on the ship.  We all have to get off the ship, go through a really long line to get this done, and no one is allowed to get back onto the ship until everyone has gotten through immigration.  So, I haven’t started to stand in the line yet.  I figured my time would be better spent relaxing in my room, and when the last few people are called to go through immigration, I’ll sneak out with them.  They called faculty, staff, and families first (if they wanted to get off the ship), then all the seas (they divide the floors by sea names – I’m in the Andaman Sea – we won Sea Olympics), and then they will call the rest of the faculty, staff, and families.  So, my sea was one of the first called but I didn’t go with them because I would have had to stay off the ship forever until everyone passed through immigration.  I’m just going to go out right before the second round of faculty and staff.  Also, a funny tidbit about immigration in China- they didn’t believe my passport picture was me because I’m not wearing glasses in my picture.  I was wearing glasses in real life because we were headed to a plane and I never wear my contacts while flying incase something happens.  She wasn’t going to let me through until I raised my eyebrows in a “are you serious” sort of face and took my glasses off.  It worked.  If that is all you have to do to get through Chinese immigration, I pretty sure anyone can get in with anyone else’s passport.

Me oh my, I don’t know what to do with myself.  I have no idea what I want to do in Japan.  I need to get myself to a temple and meditate out of the funk.  I also need to find fabric.  Interesting mix.  If you have any suggestions for Japan, leave a comment today and hopefully I’ll get it before I leave for Kobe tomorrow afternoon.

Be well everyone.