Day 1 Continued into Day 2!

This blog is technically a two day blog since you time travel on the way to Japan and skip what feels like an entire day!  The plane ride to Tokyo was fairly uneventful.  I will say that there is nothing like traveling with personal video on-demand.  I watched The Artist, Tower Heist, The Descendants, Glee, two episodes of Park and Recreation  and an episode of How I Met Your Mother, courtesy of American Airlines.  I also made some decent progress on my grandfather's life history cd's that my dad gave me as well as half of the second Hunger Games novel.  Whew!  Productive trip so far!


For someone who has barely left the United States (I've been told the Caribbean, Mexico and Canada do not count), stepping foot into Japan for the first time is eye-opening.  Where to begin.  Let's start with the airport.  Brandon was feeling a bit nauseous getting off the 13 hour flight so we jumped into the first bathroom we could find.  The men's room was equipped with two stalls.  One had a hole in the floor which I initially just assumed was a cleaning trough or something.  Turns out this is so Japanese men that prefer doing the asian squat to drop a deuce can do that.  The mental image in my head of a guy getting into that position and doing his business over a hole in the floor made me laugh out loud.  Check out this photo:

Care to asian squat and do your thing?

But for those of us that are physically unable to asian-squat for more than 2 seconds without tipping over, there was also a normal "western" style stall, however, it had a bidet in it!  That's not "western" style?!?  But bidets are pretty awesome.  If you haven't tried one before, it is quite invigorating.  One other thing I noticed right off the bat was how clean their bathrooms were.  Keep in mind, these are high traffic, public restrooms and they were really clean.  


We stepped out of the passport check and into the main terminal area and mom headed over to take care of what's called takkyu-bin which is essentially forwarding luggage you don't want to lug around directly to your hotel.  It won't be there right when you arrive but if you pack strategically, this can be a huge help making it around the public rail system when traveling on a long vacation.  I have no idea what they were talking about, but it was taking mom forever to do something as simple as give the guys bags and an address so the kids and I scoped out the first vending machine we saw.  They have these vending machines everywhere, not only in the airport, but in the city, too.

A standard Japanese drink vending machine

So the takkyu-bin is complete and we lug the rest of our luggage through the customs bag-check.  Now we head to the train ticket purchasing office to get our JR passes.  Japan has an incredible rail system.  Oh, before I get into the rail system, check out this picture of me with a baggage cart on the ESCALATOR!  In the US, this a non-no for liability reasons  In Japan they simply invented a luggage cart that sits in place on the stairs!!!! So awesome!

On an escalator with 150 pounds of luggage on wheels above my family.  This is normal in Japan.

I find that DC has one of the better local rail systems I've used.  Pretty clean and safe.  However, Japan's system trounces ours.  Instead of smelling like urine and hobo, their tunnels smell like fresh baked goods. That's because they are fresh baked goods everywhere!  I did not see one spec of trash in any of the three stations that I hit and what's ironic is, its almost impossible to even find a trash bin, too!  You are simply expected to pick up your trash and take it with you. It makes complete sense to me that everyone that shares the same space in life should want to take care of that shared space as the Japanese do.  I really connected with the Japanese people on this and appreciate the sense of community that is present in their public areas.


Oh, I forgot.  We had a minor scare.  After reminding the kids 10 times how important it is that they never, ever let their little travel bag out of their sight, Brandon left his in the bathroom.  This bag has their money, their passports, and anything else of value that a 10 and an 11 year old would travel with in it.  We will just have to keep both eyes peeled for them leaving stuff behind.


But back to the trains.  Mattie was really amp'd for the bullet trains.  After experiencing travel on their trains, it's upsetting to me that our great country can make hamburgers with foie gras on them but cannot figure out how to get a transcontinental electric train system going.  These trains were spotlessly clean, arrived on time down to the second and are the smoothest ride imaginable.  Their safety record is apparently zero fatalities since they started.  The Japanese are a perfectionist race and the trains are a shiny example.  I also thank them for my new land-speed record.  We were cruising over 150 mph at some points and it was intense when other trains would whiz by us going the opposite direction.  

Osaka Train Map

At this point, I'm getting hungry and am ready for some grub, however, it needs to wait until tomorrow. I'm exhausted.  Good night everyone!