Japan was calm. Calm and polite. The hard part was remembering not to eat and walk at the same time because it's rude. I hope that didn't include ice cream because I really didn't want to stand outside the 7-11 and eat my ice cream unshielded in the cold. It's not really that cold, it was like 55ºF. All the girls where in big furry coats, big furry winter boots and tiny mini skirts. Fashion over saneness I guess.

The first day just consisted of walking around Kobe and looking for sushi. If I had one solid plan in Japan it was to eat as much sushi as I could handle! And I did:



Kobe had lots of shops, including a few sock stores. First time I'd ever seen a store just for socks. It also had a lot of the American stuff, McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, etc. The streets are full of vending machines. These aren't the kind you're used to, these are giant machines that can be filled with more than just drinks. I've heard it rumored that they can even contain socks. (What's with the Japanese and socks anyway?)




I did a home visit one day as well. The woman who picked us up was petite and thin. She took us to her home and fed us and fed us and fed us. It's a good thing the visit was only four hours. Her husband tended to some plum trees at a monestary or temple. So she had lots of plums to make us food with. I had a ton of plum juice and plum cake. Not to mention green tea and black tea and candies. All very delicious. After all the tea I had to excuse myself to use her bathroom and there I experienced the most fascinating thing. Her toilet seat was heated. I was so jealous. What I would give to have a heated toilet seat in the middle of winter in New England.

I also went to Kyoto. We happened to be there the one day out of the month that they have the big street market. I can't remember the name of it but it happens on the grounds of a Buddhist Temple. There were great things there, unfortunately everything was really expensive. I changed $100 into yen and that's all I had for spending for the whole 4 days in Japan. But being the skilled shopper I am, I managed to find the "drift store stand" and bought two used kimonos for about $8. I also found a few other good things and some good snacks. I love red bean anything! Red beans are sweet and so the Japanese make lots of snacks with them. Like fried dough stuffed with red bean paste and red bean ice-cream. I love the stuff.

Getting around was a mission. Nothing is in English and not that many people really spoke enough to communicate a complete thought. The best we could do sometimes was say the name of the city we needed to get too and have them point. I asked an elderly couple how to get to Juso, and by that I mean I just repeated the word "Juso" two or three times until they understood me. The man pointed up a flight of stairs and waved his hand a bit, I'm guessing he was trying to tell me to go upstairs and make a few turns. I thought I wouldn't make it and then the woman started arguing with him, looked at us, pointed to the train that just pulled in and said "JUSO, JUSO!".

They continued to argue, each urging me to go in different directions. I went with the woman's suggestion since I figured the train is here and I wasn't going to understand where the man wanted me to go anyway. So I thanked them and ran off. The woman was right.

The people are soooo polite, they line up to get into the train. Not like the States where you have to fight to get in or out. They also don't talk on the train, and if they do they whisper. It's amazing! AND… the trains are on time. I asked a man when the train would come, he took out his schedule and pointed to a set of numbers: a time schedule with seconds. No way a train could be on time to the second! Well it was, give or take 3 seconds. Unbelievable. I hear Swiss trains are just as timely.