Japan... The Middle

Alright... So we get off the plane and head for our hotel. We only plan on being in Tokyo for one night before we head to Kyoto for a few days. Don’t worry we will make it back to Tokyo before we leave. Our hotel rooms are tiny, and I mean tiny. How tiny are they, you ask. They are so small that Talbot cannot stretch his arms out to the side without hitting the walls. However, we ate our first meal in Japan and it was bought at a 7-11, class, class, class.

We wake up the next day and head for the train station. We had to take the subway to catch the high-speed rail, and this was a learning experience in and of itself. I have never seen anything like this before. We were on a packed subway car (and I mean packed) and there was not a single sound, it was eerie. We were surrounded by people, one on top of the other, but no one spoke or made a sound, no cell phones (you can’t talk on your cell phone on the subway in Japan), no “good mornings”, no friends talking… nothing! However, Talbot and I wondered if that was because we were in the car with them (everyone stares at us). We thought our car was deathly silent, but maybe there were ruckus parties going on in the other cars… probably not. Another thing that is cool is when they wait for their trains to arrive they all stand in single file lines to be filtered into the train. It looks really cool, you can look across the platform and see massive gaps between packed lines of people.

We jump the train to Kyoto and on our way we get a really good view of Mt. Fuji. We noticed that the mountain must not get taken for granted by the locals because even they were climbing all over each other to take pictures of it. The most striking thing about Japan, and I write this looking back at the whole trip, is that every single person attacks their job with a ferocity that I have never seen. I bring this up now, because I am reminded by the girl serving snacks on the high-speed train to Kyoto. When they enter the train car they take a deep bow, and then proceed (in their immaculately clean uniform to perform a mundane task to perfection, a task that someone in the states would look down on. There is none of that here! People respect anyone doing a job, and especially when you do the job with a professional attitude… they are the most disciplined people I have ever seen.

We pull into Kyoto and decide to walk around the station for a bit, there are a few things worth seeing by the station anyway. We continue to be stared at by 98% of the population (having lived in Asia for about 2 months now it does not bother me anymore, but at this time it still felt kind of weird). We go check out this huge Temple, they are everywhere around here, and we get to see some monks doing their thing. I know they are all over the place here, but I still find them very cool to look at and watch.

Deciding to grab a cab to go to our hotel turned out to be harder than we anticipated. Ok, I am not some huge ethnocentric guy that thinks everyone should know English, but come on, if you are a cab driver that picks up at the train station you should at least know the basics. Well, we went through 3 failed attempts at finding a guy that could get us to our hotel, one dude could barely speak Japanese, but the fourth one got us close enough. After being lost, again, we found our hotel about an hour after we got dropped off… this place was incredible. The location and the woman that ran our hotel were awesome. The hotel is located about a 5 min walk to the most popular temple in all of Japan, it gets 3x the number of visitors that any other temple in Japan gets.

Kyoto was a blast, and very informative. We saw a boy band perform on the street for petty change, they had choreographed dance moves and everything, I see great things for them. We saw a lot of temples, went to one of the worst bars/clubs I have ever seen and I destroyed my feet in my new shoes… that was especially awesome. On a side note, I would like to thank Walt Brewer for getting me sick right before we left. You have no idea how much fun it is to mime your symptoms to a Japanese pharmacist as he laughs at you and then hands you some medicine that you have no idea what the package says, but hey he gave me free halls lozenges because of my acting prowess.

Some random observations: Guys carry purses, Some of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen call Japan home, They spell Bass Pale ale… Buss ale, guys just walk up on the street and get in a girl’s way to try and pick them up (plus, it works, we saw two androgynous guys pull it off), They love cartoons and cartoon characters, did I say how hot the woman are… even if I did they deserve me repeating it.

Next time Tokyo.

Hope all is well…

Mark