Spring 2015 - Day 24
I got to classroom three perfectly on time and was ready to go. I even judged all of the people that failed to bring their passport. Then, when we were ready to head off the ship I realized that I did not have my ship ID, I had locked it in my room. I needed my ship ID to get off the ship and I also needed it to get into my room, so I had to run to the pursers desk, get a temporary card, and then run to my room to get my key.
The good news was that I did this while everyone else went and got their passport, so I wasn't late.
We got off and met our tour guide. I have no idea what her name was but she was really, really, tiny and was wearing a bright pink hat.
The sun was shining but it felt colder than it did the past two days.
We walked to the little subway station right next to the port and took it to the main train station. We then caught a regular train to Osaka. It was about a half an hour train ride. I thought it was a miracle that we managed to all make it there together because there wasn't much organization and a lot of the kids in my class are a little all over the place. But we did make it and from the train station we had to take another little subway trip to another part of town.
From there we walked to Osaka castle.
Now, the castle was beautiful, and that was good because we were a photography class and liked taking pictures of things but it was freezing cold. I mean, so, so cold. As my professor put it eventually, "It's too cold to learn"
Our entire field lab was structured to be outside. We were not going inside of Osaka castle, just looking at the outside, and then we were going to an outside garden. IT WAS SO COLD.
We spent way too long at the castle, I have way too many pictures of it from way too many angles.
Also, our guide spoke really, really softly so we didn't learn all that much.
Well, I learned a lot because I was right at the front of the group so she would turn around and tell me something and just keep going. So Amber, my professor, and I learned way more than everyone else.
I learned which rock was the biggest rock in all the walls around the castle. I also learned which wall was the oldest wall in all of Osaka. And I learned that the shrine right across from Osaka castle is a shrine to the guy that lived in Osaka castle, or something like that.
It was an interesting day.
From the castle we walked forever.
Forever and ever and ever, through malls and streets and train stations. Apparently we were headed to lunch but had decided to walk for forever to get there. Every time we entered another building we all got excited thinking we had arrived and then were disappointed because we just walked right through it.
At one point she pointed across the way to the building we were headed to but then took us through another mall to get there. It was a lot of walking and we were cold.
Before entering one of the buildings it started to snow! It didn't snow for very long but it was so pretty and we got to see it snow in Japan.
We did get to go through this really cool under ground walk way. It went underneath a road they were constructing. I thought it was pretty cool. I probably thought it was cooler than it was because it was the last place we walked before actually arriving at our lunch place.
Lunch was interesting. It was a box filled with different squares of different things. There was beef, raw tuna, tofu, octopus, shrimp tempura, and salmon. We also got rice and miso soup.
I ate the beef, shrimp, and salmon. I tried the tuna, it was good but I couldn't handle that it was raw. I didn't even touch the octopus because it was raw, and I absolutely killed the rice and soup.
Amber and another girl decided to eat the octopus all in one swallow. They counted down and went for it but it was kind of a solid jelly substance and so Amber's didn't even move but the other girl ate it and made the worst face. Not a good idea. A few of the other boys took the challenge as well and also made the same horrible face.
It did not convince me to eat the octopus.
We were all grateful for lunch because it meant that we got to sit inside warmth for a while. We all thawed out and then just had to walk right back into the cold.
The good news was that we were just going to the building next door. We were going to a floating garden on top of the 18th tallest building in Osaka. I thought it was the tallest building but then I looked it up and it definitely isn't.
We thought that it was actually a garden but it ended up just being called a garden because it gave you a view of the entire city.
It was just a huge round walkway that went between two buildings. It was very, very high up, about 200 meters. The elevator counted up the meters as we went higher.
IT WAS SO COLD ON THE TOP OF THE BUILDING.
It felt like the normal amount of cold but then the wind blew and it was so, so cold. Screaming happened because of how cold it was.
Apparently at the restaurant it said that it was -2 degrees Celsius so we tried to figure out how cold it was on the top of the building. When we went underneath the little overhang where the elevator was it was heated and it felt wonderful. There was a thermometer there and it said that it was 13 degrees Celsius. That didn't make any sense if the temperature on the ground was -2. But then we realized it was reading the temperature for the little heated area. If the heated area was 13 degrees Celsius that meant that it was SO COLD ON THE ROOF.
We didn't spend all that long up there. Then we used the wifi.
Then we went to the mall next door where there was a chocolate exhibition advertised. Amber decided that a chocolate exhibition was way cooler than doing more class things so we went there.
It turned out that you didn't actually get to eat chocolate at the chocolate exhibition so we were just given free time in the mall. A bunch of us sat at this little cafe and got ice cream. Real ice cream. I got mint and it was delicious.
In the mall there was some robot demonstration that I couldn't really see because there as a huge crowd of people but as far as I could gather they danced.
That's all I know. Or I think I know, I don't even really know.
We went back to the ship after the mall. We were kind of over it and we were just all so cold.
Have I mentioned we were cold?
When we got to the terminal Amber said that she was going to get back on the ship and that if we stayed in the terminal to get wifi then she was not responsible for us any more.
Then we went down the escalator and saw the HUGE line to get back on the ship.
It was massive and it wrapped around many times and filled the entire floor of the building.
It was time to get a little selfish.
Field labs were allowed to cut the line if they hadn't fulfilled their full 8 hours. We had fulfilled ours but we technically had to do our surveys and talk about the project we needed to do.
The lady we flagged down said that we could cut the line but that we needed everyone in the class.
One of the guys ran up the down escalator, which was very impressive, and went to find the guys that had stayed to get wifi. As soon as we had everyone she led us through the crowd to the front of line. As we walked you could hear everyone whispering, "is that another field program?"
They were not very happy with us. It was 5:00 by that point and on ship time was 6:00pm. Some people were definitely going to be late.
We got on quickly and all met in classroom 3. We were given our surveys and Amber encouraged us to be honest about the program, it wasn't going to effect her and in all honesty, it sucked. It definitely would have been better to go to Hiroshima like we originally planned.
As soon as we were done we were free to go. I handed my passport into the desk and went back to my room and got more comfy. Jessi came and found me and we went up to dinner.
I was not very hungry at all and neither was she so we just sat at a back table and filled each other in on our day and all the gossip. By the time we were done dinner was over and I was hungry so we went to get noodles.
They only had shrimp noodles at the 6th deck snack bar so we went up to the 7th deck where it was freezing cold and I got beef noodles. They were a brand I had never had before and they smelled exactly like cat food. I mean exactly. I am pretty sure that was the kind of beef they used it cat food, it looked like it too.
If I didn't get much broth the noodles were edible so I ate it and survived. We sat with Brianne, one of the girls from our family. She is allergic to everything and so has her meals made special. She had just gotten her food and was left by everyone so we sat with her and watched the ceremonial drum performance on the pier as we sailed away.
Soon after that I went back to my room to start blogging.
I had a lot to blog about and I also needed to sleep. Tomorrow is an A day and we already had classes again. When I realized this I ended up spending the evening working on my photo essays for photojournalism.
I have two very strong concepts but don't have enough photos for each so Amber said that I could do two short ones. One of them is on Hiroshima and the other is on the rituals of Shinto Shrines. I really like the way they are coming out.
Only 2 days until China and there is so much to do!
