Justine and Dylan’s Travel Blog

Yup, doesn’t take long, but I figured I’d mention a few “interesting” things we’ve seen so far (which reminds me, I should probably do the same for South America too… only issue it was such a “normal” place compare to Japan!):

• Vending machines at some restaurants: think a candy vending machine near the entrance of an otherwise normal restaurant, but instead of a bunch of chocolate bars, it has pictures of meals and you after you’ve paid and pressed a button, a ticket comes out which a waitress then takes once you’ve sat down. Not that hard in hindsight, but try working that one out in Japanese.
• Bowing of train conductors to the entire carriage when entering and exiting the carriage. I thought the Canadians were polite…
• You pay for bus rides at the end of the trip. Reason is that your fare is worked out down to the last yen based on the number of bus stops you’ve gone past (each additional stop incurring a higher cost). Fortunately a big board at the front of the bus will tell you the fare so far for ANY of the stops you could have started at so far. Our 2 hour trip to Sandan-kyo included 57 of these, but it still dilligently displayed all 57 separate possible fares! And once you know the exact amount, you have to pay the driver in cash as you leave, which is another story…
• Cosmetics being sold under a Manneke Pis name and logo. For those unfamiliar with this Belgian (that’s right) national symbol: Manneke Pis is a statue of a little boy pissing in a fountain. Great image that conjures up when trying to sell cosmetics. I’m guessing I’m not the target audience envisioned by that marketing strategy.
• Walking around in general (bewilderment) it becomes very easy to notice English signs in amongst a sea of Japanese characters. Especially for instance at a train station where this seemingly random room had been labelled the “Excellent Room”. Didn’t have time to check what was going on in there. Or this rather posh looking hotel in Hiroshima which had called itself the “Grand Intelligent Hotel”. Maybe something was lost in translation. Maybe the name was compensating for the marketing people behind it.
• I have now, in two days here in a hotel far from the most touristy areas of Japan, seen more NBA basketball on TV than I did in Canada or New York in two weeks. We only have 7 channels, all with the usual weird shows, etc, but one feels the need to show an hour of NBA every night! Giddy up! But I won’t mention the commentary…

I’m sure more will follow over the next few weeks…