Nov 14 KOBE JAPAN

Pulled into Kobe and had to be dressed and ready to go at 7:45 am for the quarantine process. They had to take all of our temperatures before we could get off. This process involved us walking by this heat sensor and then waiting for another hour before the second half of the process began. Around 10 am they called us to go through customs, which involved getting a picture taken and fingerprints scanned. Once everyone I was traveling with (Jewel, Jocie, Ali, Sara) got off the ship we headed out to Kyoto by train. Had to take the subway to the main train station and then from Kobe Station went to Kobe station. Then we had to figure out where our geisha place was. We asked everyone is Kyoto where it was and even tried calling the place. Took a bus some of the way and eventually decided to try and take a cab. The cab got us to the little allyway which we definitely wouldn’t have found by walking around. No wonder no one knew where it was. Found the geaisha place and found out that we couldn’t pay with credit card. So off we went searching for an ATM. We initially followed the girl from the geisha place’s directions but this took us to a dead end. Again we started asking people where an ATM was. Found some ATMs but they weren’t in English or wouldn’t take our card in general. We were about to give up when we ran into another American. He suggested finding a 711 or to go to the main downtown area about two blocks over and find a post office. We opted to go to the downtown area. Found a couple banks but they didn’t have ATMs and one bank actually gave us directions to this mall and that on the 7th floor was a post office that would have an ATM. Not in a million years did we ever think a post office would have an ATM but sure enough we found won. So about an hour later the few of us that went searching met back up with the two girls that waited with our stuff back at the geisha place. Finally we began the process of dressing up as geishas. We had to strip down to our underwear and wear these pink robe like things- so hott. Next they did our makeup which was just caked on and pinned up our hair. Next we got our fake hair pieces out on our head. It was so heavy and detailed. After that we picked out our robes and they dressed up in the all the layers. They put on about 10 lbs worth of stuff on us along with making you a box so they pull everything so tight. I could hardly breathe. It was ridiculous! When we were all complete we had a photo fashion show. We also got a professional photo done for us. The girl taking the photo placed us exactly so, it was so hard not to laugh and to stay still to take her seriously. Jewel and I had a little laughing fit but had to pull it together for the photo. We also had to smile without showing our teeth which was almost impossible because I couldn’t stop laughing. We took so many photos and then ran as fast as we could back up stairs to get everything off. This was a challenge because I could only make a lot of little steps. The makeup took forever to scrape off. Once we were decent again we prepared ourselves to get to our hostel. We had no idea where it was and the people at the hostel didn’t speak English so when we tried to call them for directions it was hopeless. We knew it was somewhere back near the train station so we made our way back there. Once we got to the station we started asking everyone in Japan if they knew where the hostel was. A nice couple from Ohio who was visiting their daughter who was living in Japan were able to visit us somewhat because they could speak a little Japanese. We got pointed in a direction and started walking and continued to just ask everyone we came across. No one speaks English and there is just a lot of pointing and gibber jabber. After about an hour of walking in circles we finally found it! Our room was just one big room with mattresses on the ground and big comforters. It was like a 3rd grade sleepover. We were all exhausted and had to get up early to go to Hiroshima so just got a couple of beers, watched movies and gossip girl and went to bed.