Japanese Culture

I’ve been fortunate to travel to many different places and visit many cultures around the world. Truly, all have been kind and welcoming to foreigners. Thailand stood out to me as the most overwhelmingly kind, and they still do, but the Japanese have challenged my high ranking. The Japanese are incredible people, and they are one of the largest reasons people fall in love with this place. It is an incredibly quiet, peaceful place with organization, high expectations, and a community spirit. 

It is a crowded place, so there are often lines, but there is absolutely no pushing nor arguing over places in line. Everyone knows to walk on the left, whether on the sidewalk or the stairs. In escalators, the left side is for standing and the right is for walking. Sometimes these directions are posted, but often times it is just an understood rule. When waiting to board a subway, everyone waits just to the side of the door, and everyone is let off before anyone tries to get on board.

I have realized now that at home I am overstimulated by the volume of things. I worry about that adjustment when I get home. It is so quiet here. It’s a crowded place, but people speak softly, whether on trains, in restaurants, or even on crowded streets. One night, we watched a group of Japanese teenagers standing around in a circle. There was no adult with them; they were smiling, and yet from twenty yards away, I couldn’t hear a peep from them. In contrast, one night we heard a group of American teenagers from a great distance coming down the road. The difference was stark and embarrassing.

I knew I wouldn’t blend in here. My skin color, hair, and features don’t blend in in many Asian nations, and of course my accent sticks out like a sore thumb. However, what made me stand out more surprised me: the color of my clothing. The Japanese, while very fashion conscious and elegantly simple, rarely wear color. Looking around, it is rare to see anything outside of the black-and-white spectrum, in fact, Black is by far the dominant color. My elementary school teacher wardrobe of flowers and bright colors does not at all blend in, but I’m okay with that. 

Our food tour guide in Tokyo, Lloyd from Uzbekistan said, “After you’ve lived in Japan for a while, you can’t survive in the real world.” He wasn’t just referring to the delicious food and the incredible toilets, but he was particularly talking about the goodness of the people. He said that in other countries he knows people keep their backpacks close to their front and don’t have their phones or wallets visible at all. Here, he said he knew of a lot of people who had lost their phones on the subway and had gone to the Lost and Found department of the subway the next day, and they were always there. He heard the same thing about a wallet. In fact, many people when getting on the subway move their backpacks to the front, but it is only to ensure that they don’t bump into other people. 

In the same way, perhaps by law, but certainly by custom, when parking, cars are reversed into spaces. This makes it safer for everyone, particularly on the narrow streets and small parking lots. Just a courtesy to other drivers? Highly likely.

As rule followers, people in Japan, when crossing crosswalks, only cross when the light tells them they can. This is all of the time. Even when the crosswalk is simply crossing a road the size of a side sidewalk, and there are absolutely no cars around. The Japanese people patiently, and without complaint, wait. When cars are turning, if anyone is anywhere on the crosswalk, the pedestrian always gets the right of way without complaint or honking from the drivers.

Japanese have incredible pride in their country and it shows in how they care for their country. Have you seen the news about Japanese World Cup fans cleaning up the stadium after games and the players cleaning the locker rooms? It doesn’t surprise me at all. Dog owners walk with not only plastic bags to pick up large messes, but also a bottle of water to wash away the little ones. People keep the street in front of their homes clean. I don’t just mean ensuring there is no trash, but I mean sweeping up leaves so streets are spotless. A few years ago, there was a terrorist attempt in Japan where someone planted a bomb in a trash bin. Now, there are no public trash bins, and yet, shockingly, there is no trash. People carry it with them and then do their best to find the appropriate recycling bin or trash receptacle for it. (Tokyo did have some trash, but it also had lots of tourists, so I’m sure it was us and not the Japanese leaving these messes.)

Now, in some ways, these conservative, generous people do have some tendencies to judge when things are not as they should be. Everyone gets yearly physicals here, and if you are overweight (by a fairly tough scale I believe), there is not only some quiet public shaming that is involved, but also a tax. No wonder we never encountered any overweight Japanese people, despite the fact that if I stayed here long term, I may be one. Rob told me that he asked a Japanese co-worker how to say, “Bless You” after someone sneezes. She said they don’t say anything, but what they might say basically translates to, “Don’t do that in public.” When we were taking sushi lessons, our instructor taught us the Japanese phrase for “Good Job!” She told us there was not a Japanese equivalent for “not a good job,” just sort of a pity smile.

But the people in Japan truly are some of the most polite and kind people I’ve ever met. (Most even have clear umbrellas to ensure they don’t run into other people.) One might think that a group of strict rule followers would appear uncomfortable, perhaps oppressed or bitter, but that is not these people. They are thankful for rules, they appreciate them, and they are happy to be in a society with other rule followers.

We noticed a lot of the older generation of Japan was very hunched over. Mind you, they were still walking around, not wheeling around, but with a strong forward hunch. After weeks here, we realized why. When people say goodbye or thank you, they bow. All that is needed is one quick partial bow, but if you watch people telling each other goodbye, it often looks like a conversation between lovers who don’t want to be the first to hang up the phone, so the bows continue.

The Japanese really do everything better. The food, the bathrooms, the technology, the organization, but mostly just their connectivity to the greater good of the society they’ve built.

(Even the cats are polite!)

Tokyo

After our quiet stay in the somewhat abandoned mountain towns, we arrived to Shinjuku Station after a three hour train ride into the tail end of a double typhoon. I have a great sense of direction, and I’ve managed to understand subway and metro tracks around the world, and I’m really adept at using Apple and Google Maps. Nothing, and I mean nothing, prepared me for Shinjuku Station.

It is the busiest station in the world, averaging about three million people per day and over a billion annually. By comparison, Atlanta airport has over one hundred million passengers annually. Let that sink in for a minute.​ That means that this train station has ten times the traffic of the Atlanta airport. It is massive and people are headed in all sorts of directions, all of them seemingly knowing exactly which way to go. Except for us, of course. Yes, all signs are also in English, and one would think that would make it easier, but simply finding our way above ground out of this expansive complex is harder than finding your way into the Ministry of Magic. The construction doesn’t make it easier, but to be fair, I think no matter what, we’d look like a fish swimming against the current eagerly trying to get a breath at the surface. We went in and out of this train station multiple times in our few days in Tokyo, but it never got easier! (While we were in Tokyo, we saw a meme about Shinjuku Station that said: “I made out of the world’s hardest escape room in only three days!”) For our arrival, it said our hotel was only a ten minute walk from the train station, but that didn’t account for the twenty minutes of trying to find your way out of the station.

That being said, our tiny hotel room at Hotel Rose Garden Shinjuku is in an easy location and has a great breakfast. Our room has all that we need, despite the fact the two of us cannot be moving around the room at the same time as there is no space for passing in any way! 

We did not have a long list of must-dos in Tokyo, but rather wanted to make the most of our time with a few highlights. On our first night, we did a food tour with Lloyd, a wonderful guide from Uzbekistan who has been in Tokyo for ten years. As an immigrant who also knew the local customs, he had some great insights. We enjoyed lots of tasty foods at local establishments where we stood out as the only foreigners. There was pickled ginger, dumplings, fried sweet potatoes, lots of kinds of noodles, a “fish” cake for dessert, sake, and even fried spam. I ate plenty and had a blast! A particular favorite was seeing “Memory Lane” where tiny sit-down restaurants the size of a food truck grilled a wide variety of food on skewers. 

Our sushi making class was also a highlight! Nigiri sushi is really what is more popular here. It consists of a small ball of rice, a tiny bit of wasabi, and a slice of some sort of raw fish on top. We made these with tuna, shrimp, salmon, and snapper. We also made sushi rolls that we are more accustomed called maki. We put rice, sesame seeds and tiny orange fish eggs on the outside of seaweed before rolling up crab, salmon and cucumber on the inside. I will be honest that I did not expect this sushi to be some of my favorite, only assuming that they did not use premium quality goods, but I found it comparable and quite delicious! 

Of course eating was a top priority and we did it well. We went to the Tsukiji Market and ate our way through lunch one day. We devoured tuna nigiri, wagyu beef sushi, and a cantaloupe that was more flavorful and tender than any I’ve tasted at home. I also tried the cooked eel as it is a favorite here. It was cooked in good seasoning and the texture was not bad, but it was still a bit too fishy for my tastes. 

We ate some great meals, but I only have one restaurant that I really want to recommend. The tricky part is that on Maps, TripAdvisor and Tabelog (the Japanese app for restaurants), it is called different things. Sushi-Yama in Shinjuku is on the sixth floor of a building just off a busy street that feels like Times Square. (Don’t be afraid of restaurants that aren’t on the main floor! We ate at many that were not on the ground floor, and seemed to be hidden gems!) With no windows, they created their own vibe with a central kitchen and a bar wrapped around it and tables along the wall. Our waiters were all kind, helpful, and attentive. As it was our last night in Japan we chose this place because of the sushi. There were options of platters with different types of sushi which probably would have been best, but knowing that it was our last night in Japan, we enjoyed the extensive a-la-carte menu where we could pick and choose our favorite things. So, naturally, it was more tuna and Wagyu sushi for me. There were options of different fat levels of tuna, and unsurprisingly, the fattier tuna melted on the tongue like butter. We also got some tempura vegetables, so, don’t worry, we’ve gotten those in, even if they were first deep-fried. Also, when ordering my sake (which I’ve come to love), I got to choose my own unique glass to use. What an adorable touch! I am certainly going to miss Japanese food! 

One activity we were both looking forward to was Mario Kart driving on the streets of Tokyo. It did sound a little odd, and perhaps a little dangerous, but it had rave reviews, so we decided to try it. It was a little drizzly when we showed up, and the host gave us the option to come back, but we opted to go, and I’m so glad we did! We picked out matching minion onesies, as you do when driving go-carts. Were they necessary? Absolutely not. Did it add to the fun and ridiculousness of it all? Of course. Jessica and I joined a couple from California and our Kiwi guide, Michael, in red go carts with lights and go pros filming for safety. We were given some basic instructions, then we each hit the accelerator and sped through the streets of Shibuya. Did it feel unreal and perhaps a little unsafe? Absolutely, but it was so much fun! At times we probably got up to thirty miles an hour, but these are busy city streets, so it did not allow for great speeds, which was fine with me! Michael was great making sure we weren’t left behind at traffic lights, and when we did have a red light, we’d pull up next to each other so he could take fun photos of us. We crossed Shibuya Crossing, a huge junction of streets, twice, at night, and it was an absolute thrill! Watching Tokyo lights zoom by while tourists waved and filmed us and locals didn’t bat an eye added to our own enjoyment. (If anyone sees people post videos from Sunday night in Tokyo of red Mario Karts with two minion drivers, please let me know! 😉) Also, should you be coming to Tokyo and wanting to do this bizarre, unique experience, make sure to get an International Driver’s License! 

Aside from eating and shopping, our two big goals in Tokyo were cats and Harry Potter. Yes, I know this isn’t London, but this city also loves the magical chosen one.

Japan loves cats almost as much as Jessica and I do, which has been tricky for our wallets and suitcases, but fun for us. The amount of living, breathing cats we have seen is in the single digits, but the amount of cats on things we’ve seen is probably in the millions. There were chopsticks, spoons, shirts, oven kits, sponges, cookies, pants, tea kettles, wall hangings, and figurines of every shape and size. 

We ventured to the Lucky Cat Temple just thirty minutes outside of the city which felt like a completely different world of quiet and calm. As the story goes, a lord in the 1600s had been beckoned into the temple by a cat. Because he went indoors, he was spared from a lightening storm. The cat has now become a symbol of good luck and fortune. We purchased our own small cat and added it to the collection there, as you are supposed to do when making your wish. Local shops were of course in full support of the cats and had plenty of adorable items! We also ventured to another part of town, Yanaka Ginza, which was said to be a cat loving area, and we certainly saw plenty of “furry” touches! The 3D cat billboard was close to our hotel, and it was also fascinating to see. I can really appreciate people who love cats. I know they are good people! 

As for Harry Potter, no, I’m not sure why Tokyo has become such a hub, but when there is something great in the world, why not embrace it? One train station close to “The Cursed Child” Theater was all decked out in red carpets with portraits, house colors and the movie theme played throughout. Just outside of this was a cafe and store all decked out in Hogwarts themes. 

We didn’t go to the Universal Studios in Osaka, but we did go to the Harry Potter Studios in Tokyo! At first, it felt a bit odd entering the studios that were so similar to those in London and yet were not at all used for filming. I loved the London Studio Tours both times that I went, and knowing that the sets had been used to make the magic happen made them all that more meaningful. However, Japan does do everything better. So there were sets here that we didn’t see in London like the Forbidden Forest, the Ministry of Magic, and inside Number 4 Privet Drive. Were these places actually used in filming? Not at all. Did that make them any less magical? Absolutely not. We loved it! 

You could easily spend all of your money on fun, extravagant adventures as well as keep sake treasures here in Tokyo, but we found several free things to do that were perfect. We wandered through Yoyogi Park and Meiji Jingu, both huge green spaces that rivaled Central Park and were a welcome reprieve from the busy streets of Tokyo. One evening we waited in a ten minute line to go up the Tokyo Metro Government Building. It’s the eighth tallest building in the city, and it has free observation floors at the top, even with a grand piano allowing people to serenade all the tourists. This same building offers a free lights show after sunset, so we joined the crowd lying on the turf looking up at the building. We watched a twenty minute variety lights show that is apparently done multiple times throughout the evening. It was as remarkable as this city is! 

Tokyo is a huge city, with wonders that abound. I’m honestly pleased that we didn’t come to Tokyo with a bucket list, but rather with the open mind to explore and try a few key things we wanted to. As the city is so expansive, even with subways, everywhere takes thirty to forty minutes. Sometimes we chose the longer route of walking, while others, we used the easy to use (aside from Shinjuku Station) subways and trains. Don’t come to the city in a rush, it does plenty of rushing for you. Come to enjoy and savor!

We fly on to another adventure today. I’m sad to leave Japan, although, not necessarily Tokyo. Our time here was perfect, but I’m not a big city girl. A quiet island sounds perfect for our next stop! 

The Alps

​Did you get confused reading the title of this blog? Don’t worry, I haven’t changed continents. Do you remember I told you I wanted to get off the beaten path? Well that, we did. The Japanese Alps are a collection of mountains in the western central part of Japan. There are multiple national parks here all clustered together. Jessica and I absolutely love being outside. We love the natural beauty of things, we love, hiking, and we love seeing animals in their natural habitats. So much of Japan that you hear about are the big cities. That’s not typically what we love, and so I knew that we needed to see other parts of Japan on our trip. I had considered going up to the northern island that is all national parks, but when I did some exploring, it didn’t seem like the perfect fit for our trip, so we ended up here. Now, our hotel, Ryokan Gizan is absolutely lovely. Our room is very Japanese style and is huge! The breakfast is lovely (including our own little flames to cook our own Hida beef), but what really sets it apart, are the private natural hot springs. Oddly enough, since these hot baths are private, we could wear our bathing suits in them. In the evenings, they even offer free sake and little tubs to help it float around while you are enjoying the onsen. 

However, the area that we are in is very strange. Most of the things in this little village are closed, and even some of the hotels are abandoned and overrun with weeds. On our first night, we went to four different restaurants before we finally found one that was open. However, if you Google this area, it’s very popular. I’m not sure we did it correctly, but I am so glad we came!

When we left Kanazawa to head to this area, I looked at Atlas Obscura, one of my favorite websites that guides me to interesting places. I saw that not too far off of our route there was an abandoned village of statues. It was truly just the thing that horror films are made about. In fact, local lore says the statues come alive at night. So, from what we can understand, a wealthy businessman in the area decided he wanted to create this giant park (we later learned we only saw half of it!) in the late 1980s. He wanted to create a peaceful place that families could visit. He had hundreds of statues built in China and shipped over. (The second half of the park are statues of his friends and family.) He passed away in 2012, and it has slowly fallen into disrepair since then. Weeds and vines grow heavily, while most statues remain in great condition. If you know someone in the horror film industry, I think this would make a great start to a storyline! 

While we hit the jackpot with our hotel in this ghost town, we did not, however get as lucky with weather. We came here to hike and see the gorgeous mountain peaks. But, Mother Nature decided seeing the mountains in the rain with looming clouds was better for us. Jessica and I love hiking and often find hikes that are seven to ten miles long, and sure, we’ve climbed some mountains, but our favorite hikes are ones with beauty, and some challenges, but nothing too hard with rock scrambles or anything, particularly in a place where weren’t packed and fully prepared for difficult hiking. However, the choices of trails here has been extreme. Most were labeled as hard, sometimes twenty miles long, and up steep mountain sides. Oh, and did I mention it was raining? And that the ropeway that gets you partway up to some of these trails was closed?

We weren’t going to let the weather stop us, it just adjusted our plans. We did find a hike that looked more like a stroll along the river’s edge for about five miles that looked lovely, so we chose that one. Just how do you get to the trailhead? Oh, you ride a FULL bus (keeping in mind it is the low season) thirty minutes. From there, we were at the heart of the Kamikochi, a beautiful valley in the heart of the Chubu-Sangaku National Park. Here there were several lodges and camp grounds, but the further we wandered, the fewer people we encountered, and Jess and I got to enjoy the outdoors like we enjoy doing.

The path was mostly flat, wide and graveled. The lands were a lush green, often with ferns several feet tall and moss growing high on trees. Most people we encountered on the paths were, what we believe were retired Japanese hikers (granted it was a Thursday, and the kids are not on holiday here). We heard new bird calls and came across many turtle doves. There were warning signs for bears and the bell salesman hit it big here! In fact every fifty meters or so on the trail, there was a bear bell for us to ring, even though most hikers had them. Jessica and I just laughed every time we passed one. Not because we have no fear of bears, but because we learned an important lesson last year (albeit, it may just apply to grizzlies). We had worn our bear bells on hikes in Waterton, Banff, Jasper, and throughout Glacier. On our last night in Glacier, we went to a ranger program where the ranger told us, “Whatever you do, don’t wear bear bells. One of grizzly bear’s favorite food is a small dying animal. Ringing a bell sounds an awful lot like a whimpering animal. So, just know when your bell rings, you’re telling the bear, ‘Dinner time!’” 

That being said, while it was not crowded, there were enough people that we never felt unsafe, and aside from the birds, we saw nothing. Not a frog nor a deer nor a squirrel (which are apparently very rare here). UNTIL the last half mile of what ended up being about a ten mile hike. Then, we saw them: the Japanese monkeys! I am not calling them this because they are in Japan, but really that is what they are known as. They are the only native species in Japan, and they live more north than any other primate in the world (aside from us!). You’ve probably seen famous photos of them bathing in the natural hot springs. They’ve found ways to stay warm! We spotted one little guy just off the path, enjoying, munching his way through the bamboo. After a few minutes, we noticed lots of movement high up in the trees and realized there were probably six or eight all around us. We did not bother them at all, they seemed to be used to hikers. Oddly, the other hikers were not at all impressed with them either. I guess these guys are more common here, but to this Alabama girl, seeing a monkey in the wild is always thrilling. 

Our walk started out in drizzly clouds but finished in full-fledged rain. We were soaked, but thrilled to have gotten outside and enjoyed some of this area, no matter what. It also meant I got to enjoy Japanese hot chocolate for the first time! 

On our second day in the mountains, we woke up to pretty heavy rain and the possibility of thunderstorms later on. As this did not appear to be good hiking weather, we decided to drive to the nearest large town that we had yet to explore about an hour away, called Takayama. When we did a little bit of searching online ahead of time, we really couldn’t find very much to do, but we decided it would occupy some of our time and certainly be safer than trying to climb a rocky mountain peak, and a thunderstorm. What we discovered was more than we could have hoped for! The little town was beautiful with a large river, running through the middle of it and tiny, narrow streets of old wooden buildings that still held so much of their charm. There were great gift shops that were not nearly as crowded nor as expensive as some of the ones we had been in in previous places. We found some adorable unique things, and each walked away with a new bag, knowing that we will probably need it on our way home! 

We also discovered a long line of people at a small food stand. We decided this meant that we should obviously join it and see what all the fuss was about. I want to remind you that we have eaten A LOT here and have eaten some incredibly delicious food. But today, I believe I can safely say, I’ve found the most delicious food I’ve eaten in the entire trip: hida (heeda) beef sushi. The local beef is sliced thinly and cooked in a flame for the briefest of moments then put over a bed of rice. I started with a ginger and soy sauce one, but it didn’t take long until I went back to try the trio of different flavors: ginger and soy, wasabi and soy, and ponzu sauce (a sort of citrus jam). Honestly, this little adorable town is worth it, even if just for the beef, and even if it is a trek to get here. 

We also stumbled upon another crafting store and decided to take advantage of some time indoors on this rainy day. All over this part of Japan, we’ve seen odd little colorful dolls. These sarubobo dolls (which translates to happy monkey baby) were first created by women to give as gifts to their youngsters in hopes of bringing joy and good health. They purposely have no faces so that their expressions can sort of mirror how you are feeling. We chose our favorite colors, but each color does have particular wishes attached to it. 

Before boarding the train into Tokyo, we made a quick stop at one of Japan’s most well known and best preserved castles: Matsumoto Castle. As girls who have spent a lot of time in the UK, it is hard for castles to impress us, so we didn’t bother to go inside the castle from the 1500s, but instead enjoyed a stroll around the impressive moat!

We left the car behind, and while I didn’t really mind driving here, I must admit that I’m eager to hand the driving over! Our next few days in Tokyo will mostly rely on public transportation and then Jessica will take over driving in the countries that drive on the right side of the road. We know that we’re a bit spoiled by renting cars, but it does offer us that freedom and independence that we are so accustomed to! But don’t get me wrong, I LOVE trains and subways!

While our time in the Alps was not exactly as we had hoped and imagined, we made the most of it and had a fabulous time!