Japan Madness

We have been lazy and not been online much since we left Bangkok.

Coming to Japan was more than a culture shock than we thought it would be, and not only in terms of cost (which is still quite shocking after being in SE Asia and Nepal). A friend warned us that we should really learn some Japanese before coming here, and he was right. We arrived at the Tokyo rail station after coming from the airport to catch a train up to Kanazawa, and it was pretty mind blowing. Very busy, like Grand Central Station in NY, but to make it more confusing, nothing was in English. We felt pretty baffled as to what direction we should head in to find our connecting train. On top of that, we were hungry and wanted to eat. We found a take out sandwich/bakery place and had to guess as to what the packages said. When we brought stuff to the counter to pay, we were greeted with "Blah blah blah blah blah! (smile smile smile!) Blah blah, blah blah! Blah blah blah (smile smile smile!)". I have not felt to self conscious in a long time, and silly as well--what were they saying? What should we say back? We handed over a large bill and hoped for the best.

We stayed with JJ and Phil for a few days and it was great to see them and be in a house again! Hotels get pretty tiring after 3 months. We got schooled on a bunch of helpful things; vocabulary, phrases, food items, etc. It was a good crash course for our start in Japan.

We leave Kyoto tomorrow to head up north to Kinosaki, an expensive but fun sounding onsen (mineral hot spring) town. One night is about all we can afford, according to Paul`s research online. Then we head south for the beach to visit more onsen. We'll fill in the details of our Kanazawa and Kyoto adventures soon. Things are getting easier with the language challenges, but we still have no idea what we are doing half the time which makes it even more like a treasure hunt. The food has been amazing, to say the least, and it has been fun to see what we wind up with at every meal.

Off to the public baths, where we get to ride in an elevator naked (segregated by gender, of course) -- more reports on that to come as well!