Peace Boat (continued)

Before I continue with my glowing report from the previous post, I should probably mention a few potential challenges.

One downside was that sometimes there were events that sounded fun but which I didn't have the Japanese skills to really appreciate. The ship does have a group of great, super hard-working volunteer interpreters. However, they could not cover the vast number of events on the ship, so there were some events I felt I couldn't fully appreciate. Also, it is nice to sometimes get things 'first hand' rather than through an interpreter.

A second problem is seasickness. This really wasn't such a big issue as I feared. I have been quite badly seasick on small boats, so I had a mental image of spending the entire journey prostrate on the floor. However, it wasn't like that; although a lot of people got seasick once or twice on the voyage, it wasn't for very long, and the seasickness pills were effective. Small boats are worse! After seeing so many movies like 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and 'Forrest Gump' and others with dramatic, swelling waves and boats pitching madly, it was a relief to find that mostly, ships travel nice and smoothly!

A third potential problem is that journeys are quite long - at least 80 days, and often over 100 - so it can be a long time to be in the same environment, with the same people. Generally, there was so much going on, especially working as a teacher, that I didn't find it claustrophobic. Perhaps towards the very end, the last long stretch at sea, I started to look forward to getting back to dry land.

There was 'so much going on'? Let me explain more.

You should be aware that this is not a luxury cruise. As a result, the facilities are not super deluxe; also, they don't have a lot of professional performers, no casinos, etc. However, what they do have is, in my opinion, great, and makes for a real sense of community. It's a system whereby every passenger on the ship is a potential event organiser. Anyone on the ship can book a public space and hold their own events. This is *massive*; I mean some days there are over 60 individual events. There's a daily 'newspaper' with all the events for the day.


Events could include anything from hula dancing classes, photo workshops, playing the harmonica, watching a documentary about the environment, learning Spanish, meeting up for drinks with other people your age or from your hometown, making posters for peace, playing board games, a reggae night...

There are also many, many random, weird and fun events. If you ride the ship, you'll also have the chance to take on leadership roles and help organise things if you want to do that.

In addition to these events run by passengers, there are also bigger events organised by Peace Boat itself. These include lectures and events by guest educators onboard the ship, as well as larger parties and themed nights, festivals and much more.

Of course, as a passenger you can kind of control your own pace; some people get involved in loads of events and volunteering opportunities; others do very little and just lounge around reading. As a volunteer teacher or interpreter you will naturally get involved in a variety of random things just as part of your job.

Here are a few of my personal highlights from the trip.

Highlights

Watching the first full moon on the Indian Ocean... absolutely still and quiet, and then seeing flashes of orange in the distance, where a lightning storm was raging

Camping in the desert in Jordan, and getting up to watch the sunrise, with the desert stretching on forever and no-one else to be seen...

Participating in my first full-blown, Japanese-style undoukai (sports festival).

Having a 'fjords party' as we went through the Norwegian fjords. It was summer, so even at midnight they sky was not quite dark, and we stayed up to watch the sunrise.

Reaching Europe and strolling around Athens on my own, albeit running into random students and other teachers for random photo ops. Meeting random students and seeing them using their English in real situations was a nice experience for an English teacher. ^_^

Singing a duet in front of a big audience. Being an emcee. Giving a lecture. It was a nice chance to practice being up on a stage; something I hadn't been very used to.

The strange feeling of staying in a hotel that delivered me to my destinations. That is, being able to get up, have a shower, get dressed, grab my handbag, walk outside - and into a new country. It felt very surreal but very cool.

Walking on a smoking volcano in Guatemala, which had erupted only days earlier.

Having a big party with the other vols near the end of the journey - and then everyone rushing to the side to watch twenty or more dolphins jumping alongside the boat.

Peace Boat

Peace Boat is an NGO that does various peace activities, mostly using a ship that sails around the world. The ship's global voyages start and end in Yokohama, and visit various ports in several continents. On board and in ports they do activities to encourage passengers to learn more about global issues, meet local people, volunteer and assist development projects. That said, there are also plenty of people who just take the journey for the pleasure of a trip around the world.

I was lucky enough to go on Peace Boat myself and travelled around the world for more than three months. I have to say, it was a truly great experience. It's possible to ride Peace Boat for free as a volunteer English teacher or interpreter. I think this opportunity is not well-known.

One thing to consider if you'd like to go on as a teacher or interpreter is that it *is* a job; you will often be busy; it's not just a free holiday. People with an interest in global issues or volunteering experience will be well regarded, and it's good to be a proactive person, willing to participate and volunteer for various tasks. One nice thing about being a volunteer is that from the word go, you are in a team with other nice, like-minded people, and you'll (hopefully) form a close friendship and have some built-in travel buddies. ^_^

If you go as a regular passenger, I'd say the more Japanese you already have, the easier you would find it to be part of ship life. The environment is fairly Japanese, and most of the passengers are Japanese. However, many lectures and main events are interpreted into English, and there are always lots of Japanese people on board who are studying English at various stages and would be pleased to make friends with you.

I think this would be a great environment to study Japanese. You can take a Japanese course on this ship (as well as English or Spanish). I believe they're currently trying to encourage more international participants, and I think it would be great to see more internationalisation of the ship.

It's also possible to ride Peace Boat for part of the voyage.

More thoughts in my next post.

If you're interested in learning more, check out Peace Boat's English site.

Place names in kanji

If you don't have Japanese characters enabled on your computer, this will look like a whole lot of nothing.

Here are the Japanese names for some places in and around Yokohama. Here they're listed in romaji, hiragana and kanji.

Yokohama　よこはま　横浜
Kanagawa　かながわ　神奈川
Tokyo (actually 'Toukyou')　とうきょう 東京
Kawasaki　かわさき　川崎

sen (='train line')　せん　線
chikatetsu (='subway')　ちかてつ　地下鉄
shinkansen (=bullet train)　しんかんせん　新幹線
Keihin-Touhoku けいひんとうほく　京浜東北
Minato Mirai みなとみらい　港未来 (Minato Mirai is often written in hiragana)
Chuukagai ちゅうかがい　中華街
Motomachi　もとまち　元町
Sakuragichou　さくらぎちょう　桜木町
Ishikawachou　いしかわちょう　石川町
Kannai　かんない　館内
Yamate　やまて　山手
Negishi　ねぎし　根岸
Oosanbashi おおさんばし　大さん橋
Akarenga souko (Red Brick Warehouse)　あかれんがそうこ　赤レンガ倉庫 ('renga' usually written in katakana)
Sankeien　さんけいえん 三渓園
Shin-Yokohama　しんよこはま　新横浜

You can get around in Yokohama pretty easily without needing to know these words in Japanese, since many signs are written in both Japanese and romaji.

Notes: When written in romaji, the 'long' 'o' sounds tend to be shortened. So Toukyou is written 'Tokyo', Sakuragichou is usually written Sakuragicho, or Oosanbashi as Osanbashi.

A few interesting points, if you don't know much about kanji...

the 町 ('cho') in Sakuragicho and Ishikawacho means 'town'. This character can also be written 'machi', as in 元町 (Motomachi).

the 桜 ('sakura') in Sakuragicho means 'cherry blossoms' and the 木 ('gi') means tree

the character 川 ('kawa', sometimes 'gawa' when it appears in the middle/end of a word) means 'river'. You can see this character in 川崎 (Kawasaki), 神奈川 (Kanagawa) and 石川町 (Ishikawachou)

the character 新 ('shin') means 'new'

the 'tou' 東 in 'Toukyou' means 'east', and the 'kyou'　京 means 'capital'. You can see this 'kyou' in the city Kyoto (which used to be the capital) - 京都. You can see the 'tou' in the word 'touhoku', a region in Japan ('touhoku' means 'east north').

'Yamate', 山手, funnily enough, actually has the same kanji as the busy Yamanote train line in Tokyo.

***

Incidentally, I am soon to move to Nagoya (名古屋 ^_^) for a short while. I might take the opportunity to write a little about that city as I discover more of it, as there doesn't seem to be a lot of info online about the city.

City Spotlight: Ikuta Park area (Kawasaki)

I know Kawasaki city well, and although I love it, I can tell you it's not exactly renowned for its beauty and nature. That said, if you get away from the city centre, you can find some pretty spots. One of the most natural areas in Kawasaki is Tama ward, and one of Kawasaki's best attractions is Ikuta Park.

The park is lush and green, covering a large area, with seasonal flowers and various attractions. You could do a lot of walking if you wanted to. In the park you can visit Nihon Minka-en and the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, among other things.

Nihon Minka-en, aka the 'Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum' is a collection of historic houses from various parts of Japan, brought to Kawasaki and carefully re-erected and preserved so that visitors can see the traditional architecture. Even if you're not interested in history, this park is quite pretty and atmospheric in its own right. When we went, they had volunteer staff in the houses, caring for the fires and chatting to visitors. It does have some signs and information in English - obviously not as much as in Japanese.

Taro Okamoto was a famous artist who did a lot of abstract pieces. His hometown was Kawasaki. At this museum you can see a lot of his works, both paintings and sculptures. I'm not a big art fan and I don't know much about it, but I enjoyed looking through this gallery and pondering the meaning of the various pieces. The museum is easy to spot, with the distinctive white sculpture behind the entrance.



There are other attractions in Ikuta Park, like a planetarium and science museum for youth, but having never been to these, I can't comment. If you want more info about opening hours etc, check out this page, which is part of the City of Kawasaki website - a good place to find info about Kawasaki and get tourist info.

The closest station is Mukogaoka-yuen station (Odakyu line, a 15-minute walk); the closest JR station is Noborito on the Nambu line (a 20 minute walk from the station, it takes about half an hour to get to Noborito from Kawasaki station).

(It strikes me that considering this blog is called 'Yokohama Vibe', I tend to post more about Kawasaki than Yokohama. My logic is that Kawasaki is so much less famous, and there's less info on the web about it, so this may be of more interest. Plus, since I lived near the 'border' of Kawasaki and Yokohama, I always spent a lot of time in both cities.)