JAPAN: Tourist Day 9

This is the penultimate day of the trip. I noticed there were 8 cycling days and 9 tourist days.  Not a good balance.  I think there should be more cycling days than tourist days.  Maybe it’s acceptable in a strange and distant land like Japan. But not ordinarily.

Last night we had the final two dinners planned: curry last night and then revisiting the “Lamb Chops and Wine Bar” on Friday.  But we discovered that  the curry shop did not serve alcohol so we went to the Lamb Chop place. It was even better this time and we had previously observed the gigantic potato salad side with bacon on top. Yum.  It looks like we’ll go there again tomorrow.  We’re getting friendly with the chef; maybe he’ll tell me the ingredients in his dynamite sauce on the chops.

We didn’t have specific plans for today.  Brenda naturally had lots she wanted to do.  But I’m tired and my feet have been hurting recently.  And things changed when we saw the rain.

Brenda had another of her good ideas: check out of the downtown hotel and get one near the airport.  The Narita airport is an hour’s non-stop train ride from downtown.  The hotel confirmed we could get a refund if we checked out early so the plan went into action.  We had some time to spare and spent it in Starbucks.  We had no difficulty exchanging train tickets, finding the correct train track and finding the  bus to our hotel at the airport.  Are we getting good or what?!

Tomorrow we have a 12 hour flight to Dallas, a 2.5 hour layover and a 2 hour flight to Denver. Not much interesting to write about there so maybe it’s time to close this blog.  I’ll give some of my  random impressions and then Brenda will give hers.  I’m sure they’ll be quite different.

• Many young people, and some older, wear t-shirts with some slogan or saying on it. (The old, sixth generation basket maker in yesterday’s blog had on a BIANCHI t-shirt!)  EVERY ONE OF THESE that I’ve seen are in English. Not one in Japanese!
• I don’t know what their unemployment is but most everyone seems to have a job, whether needed or not. Yesterday we walked by an intersection, not a very busy one, which had a traffic cop at each of the 4 corners. And our hotel in Tokyo seemed to have way too many staff. Every time you entered the lobby several girls would say “hi” and bow. Then one would push the elevator button for you.  BTW, these beautiful young girls all look alike. This morning I noticed they all have their hair styled the same way. Do they clone these?  Hum, make me one!
• Everyone is well dressed. Even the people who clean the bathrooms have uniforms.  A lot of people, including taxi drivers wear white gloves.  95% of the men walking downtown in the larger cities are wearing suites.
• Everyone is polite and helpful.  I’ve taken a shine to bowing; it seems so civilized.  Maybe I should try it in Fredericksburg!
• Although most of the Japanese don’t seem to speak English, we never had much of a difficulty communicating. I want food; they want money – pretty easy to communicate.
• They’re serious about not tipping.  We had this great guide in Tokyo the other day.  Brenda tried to tip him; he would have no part of it.
• This morning at breakfast I saw something I’d not seen in three weeks, a fat Japanese man.  How fat? I think his gut was larger than mine. So really fat.  The other thousands of people I’ve seen have flat tummies. Disgusting. Well actually I’m envious.  Maybe if I ate raw eggs, miso soup, fish, rice and pickled vegetables for breakfast – and if I ate it with chopsticks, I’d have a flat belly.  Fat chance that will happen.

Brenda’s thoughts, without looking at John’s

• Culturally Japan is so very different from the US and Europe.  Some things are good, such as no tipping, some are not understandable to me such as shoes for the tatami mat and different shoes for in the toilet/shower area, and some are endearing such as the constant bowing to show respect.
• The food can be really weird, especially the breakfast.  I am just not used to eating pickled things in the morning or soup or rice mixed with a near raw egg.  I grew to like the rice and egg but the pickled things were too much for me.
• The people were so friendly.  On many occasions when we were lost, strangers would step in and help.  I give a big thanks to them all.
• Japan is so clean.  This is curious since there are nearly no public trash bins around.  The Japanese take it home with them to dispose of.  Quite remarkable compared to the US.
• I really liked staying in the Ryokan lodging and the onsen baths.  Communal washing is not practiced much at home, but I really got comfortable using the onsens when available.  Think about it, when traveling we would only have 1 bathroom for the 2 of us,  With an onsen, I could wash and do my hair without being in John’s way, and vice versa.
• The Japanese in general are well dressed, generally suits for the men with starched shirts.  And no grunge for the young adults and also so visible tattoos.  The Japanese seem proud of their job and take pride in doing it.  The people in the service industry seem to bend over backwards to assist you, all without the expectation of a tip.

So that’s it.  Our next bike trip is in Italy in September.  We’ll be at the same hotel for 10 days so there might no be too much to write about.  But surely there will be some pictures.