japanese politeness

this photo? just a poor parking lot guy who has to sit in 100 degree heat and 100 percent humidity to make sure people park their cars in the appropriate place.

well, they are very polite. there is lots of bowing. the ladies in the department store bow as you walk past the different departments. the men who take tickets on the train bow everytime they leave the train car to go to the next one. at restaurants, everyone bows. the three of us had to refrain from bowing on our return to LA. that and saying, "Arrigato" and "Hi!" (not the hello kind of hi).

the police, i promised a story about police. we went to an art opening in a little gallery that was situated in a residential area (but all of Tokyo seems mixed together). about six of us were on the outside patio talking in regular voices. about 25 more people were inside the room talking in regular voices. the police showed up - three of them all on bikes. they chatted in very very quiet voices with the gallery owner. after they rode off (silently) the gallery owner asked us to come inside, and then she also closed the outer wooden doors over the glass doors, so that the noise inside would be contained. seems that a neighbor complained about the "noise." oh, and the important part of this story? this was at 7:30 in the evening. Not midnight, not 2 a.m. No, the opening was to run from 6 to 8, and we couldn't go that last half-hour without causing a disturbance.

okay, so that is a little TOO polite for a society i'd want to live in.

but really, we had a great time. more to come.

kyoto

Well, let me say that everyone told me how beautiful Kyoto is, and when i first got there, i thought what the hell are these people talking about? Kyoto's beauty actually takes some time to see because at first it just looks like a crowded city. However, once i got to Tokyo i REALLY realized why Kyoto is beautiful. It has trees!

But more than that. We saw the golden temple which is gold-leafed, three stories and sits in a small lake which reflects it beautifully. We saw several other temples, all beautiful in their own ways. But my fave part of Kyoto was this long narrow - very narrow - street that runs along the riverside. there is a tumultuous mix of restaurants piled one on top of the other, with narrow doorways and dark wood and curtains and signs with no english at all, and even narrower alleys leading off to other restaurants and every so often a woman in geisha-wear appears. the "street" is crowded with people. and from what i understand, some (many) of the restaurants don't want english-speakers to come in. they just want japanese speakers and so that's why there is no english in their signage.

from this street we crossed a bridge and trudged through a prostitute section (not sleazy, rather high class actually, but definitely prostitutes). we left that bright and gaudy area and went down a hushed, dark street that paralleled a canal. on the opposite side of the canal were three-story buildings and they were lit up, so we could see in every room. it was wonderful, like a multi-level play. in each room were two to six people sitting and eating and being waited on by geishas (in some of them, anyway). like watching a movie - very lovely.

we were sad to leave kyoto after five days there, but tokyo awaited. and it scared us - the big city loomed like an impenetrable miasma of haphazard buildings and streets.

new license plate

disney?

i'll start in the middle - with our trip to disneysea adventures. not that there's much to tell. let me clarify: tokyo disneyLAND is just like anaheim's disneyland, so we didn't go there. we went to disneysea, which is an odd and startlingly beautiful conglomeration of "sea" countries. so there was an exuisite recreation of venice italy; a fanciful area of sinbad and all the minarets of the middle east; the sci-fi strangeness of jules verne's world, and the oddly familiar cape cod seacoast of the US at the turn of last century.

observations:

very few white people at disneysea (indeed, anywhere we went in japan); i kept seeing the same five white people over and over again.

we ARE indeed taller than most japanese people, as evidenced by the water show, in which the crowds pushed toward a railing so they could watch . . . and we just stood behind them and could see just fine.

disneysea was the only day we had a spot of rain and cool weather, so we were very lucky. also the crowd was small and the lines short.

all japanese people make the peace sign when getting their pictures taken. hence the white kids above, making peace signs. the blonde boy is my son Rylan, the goofball in the center is his friend, Matt, with whom we traveled (Matt, your shorts look like a skirt!) and Gabby, the girl on the left, is the daughter of a friend who joined us for the day at disneysea.

japanese version of mexican food in their 'el cantina' was mostly ground beef in tomato sauce.

japanese adults may be relatively quiet and polite in public, but their little children are just as noisy and fussy and screamy and run-around wild as any other child. i must state here that i really really enjoyed the quiet politeness of the japanese people and felt shocked and appalled when i got back to the states and there were loud, obnoxious people right away in the baggage claim area. culture shock. i prefer japan's sense of public behavior.

except for the night of the art opening when the police showed up .... that's another installment.

oh and, by the way

this video merges two of my favorite things: flight of the conchords and lord of the rings.

Japan, oh my!

okay it was a great trip but it's going to take me a while to process it all....it's very strange and new (to me) to be in a country where i cannot comprehend the language at all - signs or spoken language. however, it was wonderful and there's lots to tell, which i will tell in small bits with pix.

for now, this is a picture of a geisha in kyoto. if you go to the geisha district around 5 to 6 p.m., they are coming out of wherever they come from, and head to the geisha houses to entertain. and they are very nice to stop and let tourists take pictures of them.

my favorite store name: chocolate milk mama -- for a childrens clothing store.