Life in Japan goes on and we continue to do our best to assimilate. Unfortunately, most of the topics I'd like to write about -- food, nightlife, culture, etc. -- are best left to the end of my visit in a week. So instead I thought I'd write about some of the stranger things that happen to us on a daily basis -- a group of three, rather large-looking gaijin ("foreigners" in Japan) looking utterly confused 99% of the time.
Our days are generally spent running from tourist sight/cafe/restaurant/bar to same. As I've mentioned before this is a somewhat difficult given we can't read any of the signs and have no idea where we're heading. And we've come to notice that our confusion in this regard must create quite the scene for locals: Picture three guys standing outside a restaurant that clearly reads "sushi" (in Japanese), holding a map and looking puzzled, asking: "Is this the sushi place? I don't know. Maybe it's up the street a bit." And then walking off looking helpless.
Yesterday, however, we took a break from the daily tour of Japanese bakeries and signed up for a walking tour of Japan with an English-speaking local. For the most part we visited the standard sites, learning the differences between Buddhist temples and Shinto shines, etc.
I did, however, learn how to make a wish to the Shinto gods (which I now do at every shrine I pass . . . and there are 400 in Kyoto alone), identify a Japanese "tea house," and tell a real geisha from a fake one.
We also spend an inordinate amount of time standing under cherry-blossom trees taking pictures. We have yet, however, to engage in the well-practiced past time of drinking excess amounts of alcohol while doing the same -- which, quite frankly, seems kinda awesome but we're told it's poor form to perform the ritual on weekdays during business hours. That doesn't stop everyone, though. Last week we found ourselves a little lost while taking the subway. One nice guy pulled us aside and helped us find our way -- then spoke to us for fifteen minutes about Canada. When Dave mentioned that his English was very good, he replied: "I just left our lunch party in the park and I'm only talking to you because I'm drunk!"
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