Japan - pt. 2

Mood: Undecided
Theme Music: "Big Empty"- Stone Temple Pilots

Now that I've started, its like a veritable fountain of words - all these things that I want to share about Japan!  I could write for days and days, but a good writer knows her audience (and their attention spans ha!) so for the sake of brevity, I will bullet-point:

• Everything is in Yen. And Yen are in ridiculous amounts. Like a bottle of water could be 130 Yen. My brain is already addled from trying to constantly convert from £ to $. I was then spending my time trying to convert from Y to $ then back to £ or the other away around. It really messed with me because I lost track of the value of things. It wasn't fair to compare to dollars, because I get paid in pounds. But it was easier for me to translate things into my head as dollars - as in "Is that T-shirt really worth 1,700 Yen - oops I mean $20?". I quickly figured out that 130 Yen = 1 GBP, which made doing quick calculations a bit easier.

• The Japanese subway system is - like most I've encountered - amazing. What was not so amazing was that everything was in... yes, Japanese. I was going from Akasaka to Ginza and I needed to buy a round-trip ticket. All the signs were in Japanese. The place names were in English, but nothing else. I finally found a ticket machine with a very small "English" button to push on the screen. So I was able to buy my ticket. Of course, I did not get real English... or even British English. Nope, I got that special brand of our language known as "Engrish". I don't remember the exact phrasing, but had I not been so weirded out and stressed out (the subway tunnel was packed, people running everywhere, a constant background stream of spoken Japanese, a growing line of inpatient Japanese people behind me at the machine...), I would have taken a photo to preserve it for posterity. If you want to get an idea of what it was sort of like, visit http://engrish.com/

• Japan is the place for my feet. Let me explain. I have very small, somewhat wide feet. These feet have, at various times, been referred to as "midget feet", "Flintstone feet" and "my 8 year old has bigger feet than you" (yeah Angela, I'm talking to YOU!). In the U.S., I wear a size 6. In Europe, this is a size 36. In the UK, for some reason I am now a 3.5 or 4. I don't remember what my size was in Japan - except that EVERY store I walked into had the most gorgeous shoes... in my size!!! And no one scoffed at my tiny feet. I was normal. It was fan-freaking-tastic. I can't wait to save up a bunch of money and then go back and go on a shoe extravaganza. Imelda Marcos has nothing on me when it comes to an unnatural love of footwear.

• Uniqlo. Check it out here - http://www.uniqlo.co.uk/. I think its in the U.S. - but only in the major coastal cities (LA, New York). Amazing store - there were 5 floors, and each one had its own "personality". What was really entertaining is that I heard better music inside this store than I have during my whole time living in England. They played some excellent hip-hop and it was all totally uncensored. I guess when 90% of the population doesn't understand the words anyway, it really doesn't matter... but it was amusing to see little Japanese schoolgirls shopping for clothes and singing along to things like "Bitch, please". LOL.
  I bought a dress of the most amazing material - like cotton/nylon/rayon... you can jump all over it and it doesn't wrinkle, but it holds it shape - and although it makes me look like I'm wearing a potato sack, I love it. I will never wear this dress in public, but I will rock it out hardcore at home. It's the perfect "I feel fat" dress. ;) Here's the link - not sure how long this link will work, though. http://www.uniqlo.co.uk/catalogue/women/dresses/421146-black-j-wide-strap-sleeveless-dress

• Rock, paper, scissors. This is a huge game in Japan. When you play, you say "Jan-ken-pon!" and then depending on who wins, there's a second part of the game. I have stolen this description (see below) from Wikipedia because they explain it better than I could. But it was tons of fun to play - we played it everywhere - on the fast train, on the subway, at lunch... my Japanese colleagues were much amused by my love of this game.

In some versions of the game, a second round of play is used. After one player has won the paper/scissors/stone game, another count of three is conducted with the phrase "acchi muite hoi!" (あっち向いてホイ！, "acchi muite hoi!"?) ("hey, look [turn] over there!"). On "hoi!", the player who won previously points in one of four directions (up, down, left, or right), and the player who lost previously tilts their head to look in one of those directions. If both directions are the same, the game is over, and the player pointing is declared the final winner; if the directions are not the same, the game reverts back to the original "jan ken pon" and the original winner's win is canceled.

• Fast trains. The train system in Japan is very well organized. Granted we had to go through a labyrinthine ticketing process that I don't think I would have fully understood if Taka hadn't been there to help us (actual sign on the platform below). We took the fast train from Tokyo to Osaka, and both myself and my work colleague (British) were amazed at how clean the trains were. There were actual cleaning ladies (in the cutest uniforms) who went on between runs to clean the trains. They were so fast that we took to each picking one and then betting on who would finish first. (Yeah, what can I say, I'm easily amused). The ticket collector was also extremely well dressed. In fact, that's something I noticed - service personnel (waiters, ticket collectors, taxi drivers, even people cleaning up the trash on the sidewalks) were all impeccably attired and seemed to take real pride in both their appearance and their work.

I'm sure there are other things that will occur to me as time goes on. I have tons of photos on my FB page... including my favorite which is one of a BIG BOY. And yes, we ate there! (It was *nothing* like a U.S. Big Boy!)

I definitely look forward to going back to Japan as soon as I can, hopefully for fun the next time.There are so many things that I want to see that I didn't get a chance to - like the Buddhist Temples, and the rice fields and just normal Japanese countryside life. And of course, shoe stores a-plenty ;)