Honey, I'm home!

And let me tell you, I'm saving up to go back to Japan ASAP

Konichiwa, my friends!

This magical photo taken by my equally magical travel companion who not only booked everything but found the BEST hotels and things to do - even while on the trip. Just freaking perfection. Thank you, Emily. You are a treasure.

How can I pile all the experiences of ten days of bliss into one blog post? I can’t. Here’s a rundown of my itinerary (very very overview) and I welcome you to visit my author page on Facebook which has extensive photographs of each day - usually three posts per day. I don’t think FB makes it easy to scroll backward in the posts anymore, but if you go to photos, I think you can just scroll and scroll until you get cramps in your fingertips.

Overview summary? Japan is a country where discipline is valued and where common courtesy is instinctive. It is cleaner than you can possibly imagine (just look at the above photograph of a completely random street in a downtown area). It is safer than you can possibly imagine. It is more tranquil than you can possibly imagine, without ever feeling boring or stale or “too quiet” — unless you are the loud one. The level of deliberation and thoughtfulness is out-of-this-world, for example, check out these elevator buttons:

The vertical buttons on the left name all of the “art galleries” on each floor of the Art Hotel we stayed at in Tokyo. You could visit it like a museum but all the art is for sale and rotates monthly. I could go back over and over. (There were also normal buttons on the left of the elevator doors that go to all the floors. Why not have lots of elevator panels?)

OF COURSE you put a panel of buttons BOTH at the height of “typicals” AND at the height of the people in wheelchairs. OF COURSE YOU DO. Why would you inconvenience either set of people?

In general, I was constantly floored by the “of course” of small details of Japanese engineering.

There are little lights on the outsides of BOTH the walk and don’t walk signs that indicate how long it will be until the signal changes to the next one. No guesswork!

Anyway - the biggest noticeable difference was that people don’t chatter. There’s conversation, there’s business and courtesy, and there’s party-hard fun laughter after work, and the rest of the time there’s quiet. No one talks to themselves under their breath as they pour coffee, no one talks on a cellphone in public or while walking down the street, no one stands around smoking (there are special public rooms on the street for smokers and they are quite full); no one randomly tells a stranger near them their life story; no one strikes up a conversation on the street, and when they do, they often end up going well out of their way for them.

I went out alone the last night for dinner and a random young woman (she had been standing at a crossroads looking at her phone) took time out of her after-work evening (her friend was meeting her in a half hour so she did have time to kill) to walk me over to the seven-story Karaoke building and set me up with a private room. (Because, she replied when I begged her not to waste her time, the Karaoke people don’t speak English and I want to make sure you have a good time on your last night in Tokyo.) A random stranger! I had only asked her directions to the area and we struck up a conversation and then she walked me over to point out Ginza which she said would be better for me for dinner and then back to this neighborhood to set me up.

I’m pretty sure “Big Echo” is supposed to be translated “Reverb” - but that WHOLE building is Karaoke. And Darts. And other entertainment for fun. This photo was taken Saturday morning in the rain at 6am. 12 hours earlier it was clear and this area was packed with Salarymen and their girlfriends and more lights than you can possibly imagine.

In any event, to keep from writing a six thousand word essay, I’ll just say: Japan is well worth the 12 hour plane ride. It is another world. Extraordinary.

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WRITING NEWS:

I didn’t write a thing while I was away. I just absorbed.

However, here are friend-link to Medium posts about my 2 travel-fiasco moments if you want a deeper read. In this one I leave a bag on a bullet train. In this one a flight attendant dumps a tray of food on my head.

Both ended well!

Technically, there should be a part 3. We got on a bullet train to the airport accidentally an hour early…we only discovered this when the people who had reserved our seats asked us kindly to please move. Luckily there were other empty seats!

We were so worried we would get on the “not Narita express” that we got on the WRONG Narita Express!

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Random Final Thought:

The other eye-catching and completely different thing about Japan was that EVERYWHERE people dressed well. Business casual was a bare minimum. Work people were ALL wearing at least two piece suits and most were in three-piece suits. Women wore sweaters over blouses. “Artsy” women wore flowy layers. No one wore pajamas or sweat pants. Everything was clean and tidy and deliberate. Their shoes were high-end. There were ZERO plunging necklines, even at night, only shoulders were bared. During the day, long sleeves and long pants on men and long sleeves and high collars on women (though many had short skirts with boots, shorts were almost nonexistent, even among young girls).

Sights like this were common:

Again, I welcome you to check out my Facebook Author Page for more photos. And I thank you to “like” or “follow” these posts.

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