Trav's Travels: I love Japan

11/16/15-11/17/15

Caught my evening Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo and arrived at sunrise into Japan. I had a 5-hour layover, which to me was enough time to get out of the airport and go hang out in Japan. Japan may be my very favorite place in the world if you’re looking at just the people and the culture, so I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to get out in it. For those of you who don’t know my history with Japan, I visited it back when I worked for Sapidyne. Sapidyne had a whole bunch of instruments in Japan and close ties to them, so I went for about 10 days of business to work on their instruments and then spent another 5 days exploring on my own (visiting Kyoto, the hotsprings monkeys of the Nagano mountains (where they held the Olympics), and climbing Mt. Fuji in the snow). The people we were working with treated us so nicely and took us to the most tasty sushi and fish places in the city. They had an intern Iwano-san who came to intern with us in Boise for a month or two and we became good friends, and he was so happy to take me around Tokyo.

The Japanese are just the sweetest and nicest, in a cute shy way, that I’ve come across. They take polite to a level unseen anywhere (outside of maybe fancy places in Thailand). They shyly will respond to anything with “guzymas” which is a super formal address and of course a genuine bow. So if I pass someone on the street or buy my favorite milk tea at a store, and I say ohyo guzymas (hello), they will instantly bow and say guzymas back. It’s just so cute how they bow all the time and do it so genuinely and with a smile. Even when you enter security, they bow to you first and then are just so polite to you. For some reason it just feels so good to be in a society that is so incredibly sweet and polite. I noticed that this not only rubs off on me but when I went back through security in Dallas after clearing customs on my flight to Tokyo, most of the people in the line were Japanese since we had come from Tokyo and the normal grumpy security folks of America were being so friendly and polite (or is that a Dallas thing?). I remember when president Obama visited Japan certain people got upset because he bowed to the Japanese prime minister, and they were saying the president of the USA should never bow to anyone. But anyone who has visited Japan would know how terribly rude and just culturally insensitive it would be to not bow when bowed to in Japan.

Tokyo was a bit too far for me to feel comfortable to go there with a 5 hour layover. They do have a new 36 minute fast bullet train service to Tokyo, but it’s quite expensive, so most the other trains are in the hour to hour and a half journey, which just wouldn’t make it worth it. So instead I decided to visit the little town of Narita, which is just a 10 minute train ride from the airport. Definitely a good choice!

Narita was only one stop away so that made it easy with the train. Japan has such good rail connections but also so many different companies, schedules, routes, etc that it gets pretty crazy especially since almost all of the names and directions are written in Japanese characters. But the good thing is that the Japanese are so helpful and friendly that if you show anyone your ticket they will lead you by hand to the correct train and make sure you get on it.

Narita is a cute little town with narrow streets and was just waking up when I got there (a bit after 7am). The cute little kids were headed off to school. Most wear full uniforms (shoes, socks, skirts/pants, shirts, jacket, and hat), but the youngest ones (maybe kindergarten age) just have matching hats and backpacks. They walk together orderly (Japan is a very orderly country) side by side. I was walking behind 3 little girls in uniform heading off to school when I witnessed the cutest little thing. At a crosswalk, a car stopped for them, and halfway into the street, they all, at the same time stuck their left hand straight out, then turned and bowed to the driver, who of course bowed back. I witnessed this many more times today. It wasn’t something I had seen in Tokyo, perhaps just because of the mass amounts of people there. But it was so cute and interesting to watch and of course I followed suit when in the crosswalks.

I walked through the town and then to a large temple complex that I explored. It was beautiful and very peaceful and quiet. It also had some nice grounds attached to it with ponds, gardens, and little hikes that I took. The leaves were starting to change, which added to the experience.

After exploring the temple and grounds for a while, I headed back to town to try and find a Ramen shop, which I was worried I might not find considering it was 9 in the morning. I stopped at a little convenience store and bought my favorite yummy cold milk tea that I used to have every morning while I was working in Tokyo. I also stopped in a cool store selling chopsticks and I bought my “niece” Tia a pair b/c they had Elsa from Frozen on them, and I knew she’d love them. A very nice couple was running the store and I tried to ask them as best I could with hand motions if there was a Ramen shop open at this time. They smiled, grabbed me by the hand and took me across the street and down the road to a Ramen shop that was open. Success! The Japanese Ramen shops are cheap and incredibly tasty. Now don’t confuse Japanese Ramen with the Top Ramen you are probably thinking about as you read this. Ramen shops serve a giant bowl full of real noodles with lots of other things heaped on top (depending on what you ordered), but usually with a couple hard-boiled eggs floating, different vegetables, mushrooms, and big strips of meat. So yummy and delicious!

After downing my Ramen, it was time to head back to the airport, so I walked to the train station and caught the next train back to the airport.

Then it was the long flight, crossing the international dateline from Tokyo to Dallas. Had a layover in Dallas and then had my flight to Jacksonville where I arrived at about 3pm. Elisha’s flight is scheduled to arrive at 11:30pm, which is in just a few minutes!! And amazingly it’s on time even with the blizzard in Denver. To kill the time I just laid down in the back of my outback and tried to sleep, but with a mixture of excitement for Elisha arriving and my circadian rhythm messed up from all the travel, I found it mostly fruitless.